saundby

I'd bet on #2 myself. The imagery likely reveals something about sensor systems that is still secret.

I've got BIG plans for my Equifax payout. I'm making a list of all the things you can still buy for $0.27 these days.

Check out QB64: https://www.portal.qb64.org

Yes.

XBASIC, QB64, and various BASICs specific to old computers I still use, like MBASIC on my Osborne 1.

I didn't hit a paywall, myself. I don't have any accounts that would give me access, either. Though Medium will usually block after some number of articles in a month.

Closer to $1100 per kg for Falcon Heavy.

Join us at the Vintage Computer Forum. Technical assistance on tap for keeping older computers operational. Troubleshooting assistance, parts supplier recommendations, etc.

http://www.vcfed.org/forum/forum.php

Your problem sounds like a classic example of a capacitor failure, either a bypass capacitor or a filter cap in the power supply is most likely.

So the "pre-CRT Oscilloscope" is an oscillograph.

When I came in the door in instrumentation work, they'd moved to self-developing photo paper, so we got to use the former darkrooms as additional storage space. CRTs came into use on oscillographs, with the physical galvonometers being replaced by a CRT about half a centimeter tall and 200mm wide displaying dots that were recorded on the photographic paper. They were better at high frequencies, since they didn't have to deal with the physical mass of the galvonometer's rotor (the shaft, coil, and a very small mirror), but since there were a few beams in the CRT multiplexed between signal channels there were compromises in what you could record on one record with a CRT oscillograph, too. Typical galvo o-graphs recorded up to 48 channels on 30cm wide paper, CRTs up to 16 or 32 channels on 20cm paper.

Galvos took a lot of time to set up and calibrate. Adjustments to each one's amplifier, travel range and optical focus, then testing & calibration on each day of use.

Good question. It's a different operator, +. (plus dot).

Some excellent points made about control and productivity whether you're an emacs user or not.

When I use NewSpeak on Facebook to make a point, they consistently flag it as 'spam'.

This is a multifaceted question--there's a whole toolchain behind any choice of hobby CNC beside the machine itself.

I have a Microcarve A4 that I outfitted with some over-specced stepper motors from Keling, with a Gecko G4 controller, all driven by LinuxCNC. I'm happy with my setup, which I put together in 2011. Now, I'd consider getting a Tormach, which is good for prototype level work (we have a Makerspace in the area with one.)

Consider where you'll get your designs--if you want to do your own, you'll want software ranging from OpenSCAD to ZBrush. If you need to clean up or do minor mods there's software ranging from simple FOS software to the full design packages.

Most packaged machines now expect some specific driver software like Mach3 or LinuxCNC. You should probably plan to use what the machine's community uses the most first.

Doing a more roll-your-own machine like mine is certainly possible, but be careful about choosing what specifications are most important to you. Size and accuracy are usually inversely related.

Poke around cnczone, that helped me a lot. Good luck! http://saundby.com/cnc

I can't help but wish we'd seen where the rapping Alexander Hamilton's thoughts were going.

But of course I'd think that, having been a wobbler on the Firewood Test. ;)

This is a fun period piece from the 70s.

I'll have a buckling spring keyboard for that hologram computer, myself.

Not with present processes and materials. And thermal effects on any materials would mean you're going to need a development program with a very limited user base at the end. Still, it'd be a fun program to work on if you can get someone to fund it.

Except for the 'wear' part, or use while wearing, or software and applications. But--small battery-powered computer usable in class with slightly more hacker aplomb than a cellphone with BT keyboard: Check.

It'll be interesting to see if anything more comes of this--the easy part is done. Personally, I would have at least opted for a one-hand chordic keyboard and a display you can use while walking.

Good article.

Yggdrasil and SLS are worth a spin, too. They represent the first packaged versions of Linux many users got running with. After Yggdrasil went away, it was a while before we got another live distro that could be tested before installation.

I got the Unicomp with the trackstick mouse for quick mouse actions, then I reach over for the real mouse for longer uses of it, but I'm with you on wishing for a tenkeyless. Toshiba and Lenovo sold me on the mouse stick in the 90s, so it still feels natural for some things & my hand doesn't have to travel far, but nothing beats a real mouse.

This article relies on apocryphal data at best, and seems largely to have been formed by the author's vague impressions.

It's a waste of time to read, and not worth refuting in detail.

"With this release we return to GNU. For just a little while we dreamt we were tigers. But we are back in the herd, back to a healthy diet of fresh green free grass."

With free grass they'll have no shortage of devs but it might impact their release schedule. ;)

I started with a chicken-wire corner reflector and a shortwave receiver back in the 70s. Great fun, especially when clouds block photons from my other telescopes.

I can't help but wonder if this data would inform lunar ISRU prospecting. As the Moon itself is short in heavy metals, protoplanetary bodies large enough to differentiate may have left troves of heavy elements wherever their cores ended up after impact.

This is a fun experiment, with well documented steps followed by the author. It'd certainly be a good example for getting started with hacking the ESP8266 even if someone isn't interested in implementing a LISP on such a constrained platform.

This is nice, but I still want a "Shibboleet" switch where a single action sets lots of settings to what a developer is likely to want. Then I can focus on a few deltas, rather than a whole raft of individual settings and configuration changes made, usually, over the course of a week or two. https://xkcd.com/806/

Why? Because you can, clearly. :D

It's also worth looking at what's being used from a framework, writing a spec for that, then considering replacing it with your own code to do what's specifically needed.

Movie stars beat Snoopy and Spock by about 50 years. Who knew?

There are so many lessons here--hiring, clear communications, having a network to draw on, not getting personally overstretched, not giving someone else a chance to take the keys to the kingdom.

And how things out of the blue--personal vendettas of outsiders, for example, turning into major distractions and money sinks.

Not to mention how they get taken to the cleaners by suppliers who can see the public side of the project's finances and make rapacious demands on the cost of that BoM after the fundraising closes. Projects would be well advised to have hidden backers as well, to prevent all the money from being in sight, even if they get multiple cost quotes before the Kickstarter.