RISC CPU Lives in Excel
Last time we checked in on [Inkbox], he had made a 16-bit CPU in Excel. Impressive, but not really practical. Presumably, his latest project isn’t any more practical, but we …read more Continue reading RISC CPU Lives in Excel
Author Archives: Al Williams
$40 Ham Antenna Works Six Bands
[My Ham Radio Journey] wanted to see if a “common person” (in his words) could build an effective vertical ham radio antenna. If you look at the video below, the …read more Continue reading $40 Ham Antenna Works Six Bands
Forget Pixel Art: Try Subpixels
[Japhy Riddle] was tired of creating pixel art. He went to subpixel art. The idea is that since each color pixel is composed of three subpixels, your display is actually …read more Continue reading Forget Pixel Art: Try Subpixels
A Teletype by Any Other Name: The Early E-mail and Wordprocessor
Some brand names become the de facto name for the generic product. Xerox, for example. Or Velcro. Teletype was a trademark, but it has come to mean just about any …read more Continue reading A Teletype by Any Other Name: The Early E-mail and Wordprocessor
Intuition about Maxwell’s Equations
You don’t have to know how a car engine works to drive a car — but you can bet all the drivers in the Indy 500 have a better than …read more Continue reading Intuition about Maxwell’s Equations
Teaching Computers to Read — Sort Of
If you ask someone who grew up in the late 1970s or early 1980s what taught them a lot about programming, they’d probably tell you that typing in programs from …read more Continue reading Teaching Computers to Read — Sort Of
Retrotechtacular: Color TV
We have often wondered if people dreamed in black and white before the advent of photography. While color pictures eventually became the norm, black and white TV was common for …read more Continue reading Retrotechtacular: Color TV
Z80 Testing the 80s Way
According to [MTSI], if you used a Z80 chip back in the 1980s, it almost certainly passed through the sole Fairchild Sentry 610 system that gave it the seal of …read more Continue reading Z80 Testing the 80s Way
Retrogadgets: Oscilloscope Cameras
Today, if you want to get a picture from your oscilloscope — maybe to send to a collaborator or to stick in a document or blog post — it is …read more Continue reading Retrogadgets: Oscilloscope Cameras
Cheap Sensor Changes Personality
If you want to add humidity and temperature sensors to your home automation sensor, you can — like [Maker’s Fun Duck] did — buy some generic ones for about a …read more Continue reading Cheap Sensor Changes Personality