27 Feb 2010

Designing a radio with a single type of transistor

What do you do once you are already a skilled radio designer and restorer? Well, if you are Greg Charvot, you decide to build a shortwave radio using a single type of transistor as an active element. Normally, one would use number of different transistors, each designed to handle different amounts of power and amplifying bandwidth. Limiting yourself to a single type may seem like a mental exercise today (pun intended), but was apparently much more common back when transistors weren't easy to come by, so Greg isn't completely off his rocker. Also, by only using one kind of part, it should make repairs much easier.

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26 Feb 2010

The Terminalscope is a full, bidirectional serial terminal

The Terminalscope is a full, bidirectional serial terminal that uses a PS/2 keyboard for input and displays 54x24-character output on an oscilloscope or XY display. It can be connected to a PC via USB-to-TTL adapter or directly to another microcontroller.

Features include:

  • 7-bit ASCII character set plus box-drawing characters
  • Flicker-free 60Hz picture
  • Most ANSI/VT100 escape sequences interpreted
  • Reverse video attribute supported
  • All your favorite ncurses terminal programs (vi, nano, top, links, mc, irssi, etc.) display fine
  • Graphical configuration menu
  • Selectable baud rate (2400-38400), data bits, parity, and stop bits
  • Two configuration profiles (stored in EEPROM) quickly selectable with an external switch



18 Feb 2010

3 Feb 2010

No Parking

No Parking

This sign is brilliant. I love the last line "No Pah King hee U hi ka. Tenksa lot". I also love that the message is different for each language.