During my recent trip to Japan, I got a quick look at the endless passages of electronic component vendors in Akihabara. Unfortunately, my traveling companions weren’t nearly nerdy enough to spend hours there with me.

I am working on a project, FairytaleFashion.org which uses science and technology to create make-believe fashion in real life. These might be clothes that have blooming flowers, living clothes that breathe, change color, transform. Each Monday, FairytaleFashion.org has a new…

Success! I’ve managed to print to the thermal printer by sending commands over my homemade connector cable in HyperTerminal. There were a few breakthroughs which helped me get to this point. On the off chance they might answer, I asked…

 As part of my knucklebuster hacking project, I’ve been working with a portable thermal receipt printer. I picked up a Citizen PD-22 on eBay at a very attractive price, but later realized why it was so attractive: the printer uses…

Just before he silently stole away on a secretive mission to distant lands, Ranjit left a hoard of lovely obsolete electronics at the lab.  Among the treasures were a couple of old counting units with 7-segment incandescent displays, sometimes called…

So way back in the 2.4 Linux kernel days I operated a shell server. It was kind of like a “proto honeypot”. We set it up to portray a bunch of fake information about itself. We then released it into…

I don’t know what to say. I’m getting all choked up. It’s just… I’m overwhelmed by the sheer magnificence of this huge list of wonderful classes we have here. I think I’m going to cry. I’ll do my best: Introduction…