12+ hour, 15+ min ago  (437+ words) Now that early PCs have moved firmly from the realm of e-waste into being collector's items, it's worth putting in some effort to restore them if you find one. [Epictronics] has an early IBM 5150, the......

2+ day, 22+ hour ago  (507+ words) Although Windows 95 stole the show, Windows 3.0 was arguably the first version of Windows that more or less nailed the basic Windows UI concept, with the major 3.1 update being quite recognizable to a......

3+ week, 6+ day ago  (332+ words) The computer of choice is a very common Dell Dimension 2100, featuring a zippy 1.1 GHz Intel Celeron, 256 MB" of DDR1, and a spacious 38 GB HDD. Graphics are provided by the iGPU in the Intel i810 chipset, all in a compact, 6.9 kg light package....

1+ mon, 2+ week ago  (404+ words) [GreatScott] has recently been tinkering in the world of radio frequency emissions, going so far as to put their own designs in a proper test chamber to determine whether they meet contemporary standards for noise output. This led them to…...

1+ mon, 2+ week ago  (430+ words) The lovely thing about the x86 architecture is its decades of backwards compatibility, which makes it possible to run 1990s operating systems on modern-day hardware, with relatively few obstacles in the way. Recently[Yeo Kheng Meng] did just that with Windows 98 SE…...

3+ mon, 3+ day ago  (487+ words) Despite faster CPUs, RAM and storage, today's Windows experience doesn't feel noticeably different from back in the 2000s when XP and later Windows 7 ruled the roost. To quantify this feeling,[TrigrZolt] decided to run a series of benchmarks on a range…...

3+ mon, 4+ day ago  (243+ words) If you've seen a big air-variable capacitor, you may have noticed that some of the plates may have slots cut into them. Why? [Mr Carlson] has the answer in the "read more If you've seen a big air-variable capacitor, you…...

4+ mon, 1+ day ago  (303+ words) One of the major difficulties in studying electricity, especially when compared to many other physical phenomena, is that it cannot be observed directly by human senses. We can manipulate it "read more One of the major difficulties in studying electricity,…...

4+ mon, 2+ week ago  (227+ words) [A microscope objective is sitting on a spool of solder in a metal tin, in front of a circuit board which has wires running away from it.]Among the many science toys that have fallen out of fashion since we…...

4+ mon, 2+ week ago  (243+ words) It isn't unusual to expect a precisely regulated voltage in an electronic project, but what about times when you need a precise current? Over on EDN, prolific [Stephen Woodward] explains "read more It isn't unusual to expect a precisely regulated…...