Collaborate Disseminate
A central processing unit, or CPU, is the heart of any computer system. But it’s definitely not the only part: you also need RAM, ROM and at least some peripherals …read more Continue reading Minimalist 6502 System Uses a CPU and not Much Else
Say what you will about office life: there were definitely some productivity perks, but the coffee is much better at home. Like many of us, [Pierre] has been working from …read more Continue reading You Won’t Believe How Much Tech is Hiding in this Desk
It’s interesting to imagine what computers may have looked like throughout different time periods that precede their portability or even their existence altogether. In the 1950s and ’60s, computers still …read more Continue reading Someone Get This Minimalist Wooden PC a Martini
Mike and I were talking about two very similar clock projects we’d both built recently: they both use ESP8266 modules to get the time over WiFi and NTP, and they both failed. Mike’s failed because he was visiting relatives in a different timezone with different WiFi credentials, and mine failed …read more
We recently heard it said of a hacker who pulled off a particularly nice VGA hack on an 8-bit microcontroller: “He knows all the bits, personally.” High praise, indeed. If you want to get on a first-name basis with a ton of transistors, then have a look at [Heinz D]’s …read more
An editorial about smartphone obsession is well-intended, but it gets the history of Steve Jobs and the iPhone all wrong.
The post Actually, Steve Jobs Did Want Us to Use Our iPhones Like This (Premium) appeared first on Thurrott.com.
Continue reading Actually, Steve Jobs Did Want Us to Use Our iPhones Like This (Premium)
The tidying expert’s new Netflix show has drawn breathless attention. Continue reading The Psychology of Our Love for Marie Kondo and ‘Organization Porn’
If your eyes are 20/20, you probably do not spend much time thinking about prescription eyeglasses. It is easy to overlook that sort of thing, and we will not blame you. When we found this creation, it was over two years old, but we had not seen anything quite like it. The essence of the Bear Paw Assistive Eating Aid is a swiveling magnet atop a suction cup base. Simple right? You may already be thinking about how you could build or model that up in a weekend, and it would not be a big deal. The question is, could …read more
Continue reading Overlooked Minimalism in Assistive Technology
The ATtiny85 microcontroller doesn’t have all that much of anything: 8 KB of flash, an 8-bit architecture, and only eight pins (three of which are taken up with power and reset duties). And that’s exactly what makes it a great fit for tiny little projects.
[Mimile]’s Tea Timer has a switch, a button, eight LEDs, and a buzzer. Flip the switch to “set” and button presses run through the desired steeping times. Flip it to “run” and you’re timing. The LEDs blink and the buzzer plays “Tea for Two” in squawky square waves. Wonderful!
But wait, how to control all …read more
How much game can you get out of a chip with only 1 kB of flash memory and (five or) six free GPIOs? Well, you can get it to play the classic memory game, Simon. [Vojtak] is submitting this project for the 1 kB Challenge, but it looks like it’s already been used to teach simple microcontrollering to teenagers as well, so the code is actually straightforward to read, but full of nice features.
Neat tricks include sharing button-press sensing and LED driving on the same pin, which was necessary to make everything work on such a small chip. A …read more
