vintage tech

Core Memory: Why We Used 60-Year-Old Tech in an Arduino Shield

Core Memory: Why We Used 60-Year-Old Tech in an Arduino Shield

Ben North

By Ben North

Ben North

Ben has a background in maths and engineering, with a doctorate in computer vision. He worked for many years in finance. He is now working on Pytch (pytch.org), a system to help young students move from programming in Scratch to programming in Python. He lives in Dublin, Ireland.

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Oliver Nash

By Oliver Nash

Oliver Nash

Oliver is a mathematician by training, with a doctorate in geometry. He spent ten years working in finance, and a few years at a tech startup. These days he’s involved in formalising mathematics with the Mathlib project. He lives in Dublin, Ireland.

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About ten years ago, we designed and made an Arduino shield implementing “core memory,” a technology that was sixty years old even then. Our shield stored 32 individual 1s or 0s using magnetic fields going either clockwise or anticlockwise around 32 tiny doughnuts of magnetisable ‘ferrite’ material. This kind of memory, invented in the 1950s, […]

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Restoring a Late-90s Packard Bell Multimedia PC

Restoring a Late-90s Packard Bell Multimedia PC

By Gareth Branwyn

Gareth Branwyn

Gareth Branwyn is a freelance writer and the former Editorial Director of Maker Media. He is the author or editor of over a dozen books on technology, DIY, and geek culture. He is currently a contributor to Boing Boing, Wink Books, and Wink Fun. His free weekly-ish maker tips newsletter can be found at garstipsandtools.com.

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Look over the shoulder of an antique computer collector as he’s restoring a homely PC from the last century.

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Retro Enclosures for Modern Digital Assistants

Retro Enclosures for Modern Digital Assistants

By Gareth Branwyn

Gareth Branwyn

Gareth Branwyn is a freelance writer and the former Editorial Director of Maker Media. He is the author or editor of over a dozen books on technology, DIY, and geek culture. He is currently a contributor to Boing Boing, Wink Books, and Wink Fun. His free weekly-ish maker tips newsletter can be found at garstipsandtools.com.

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Some fun projects to re-case digital assistants in cool, retro hardware.

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16 Cool Old Medical Devices (Donated to my Hackerspace)

By John Baichtal

John Baichtal

My interests include writing, electronics, RPGs, scifi, hackers & hackerspaces, 3D printing, building sets & toys. @johnbaichtal nerdage.net

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Some kind soul donated a bunch of old medical devices to my hackerspace, the Hack Factory — equipment so ancient that there was no way it would ever again be used in a medical setting… And what better place to donate a bunch of sweet junk than a hackerspace?

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