azog | August 1, 2010
Vince Briel, who brought us both the Replica-1 and the MicroKIM-1 (which I own), recently announced the Altair 8800 micro. During the pre-order stage, I was able to snag #14, which arrived a couple of days ago. This is my build, and since it is kind of an intricate build, this post is a bit [...]
azog | June 28, 2010
In one of my recent posts, I talked about Joe Murray launching a web cartoon channel. His original funding goal was met, and exceeded. As a mild incentive, Joe was offering various “rewards” to people who pledged their support. I selected “no reward”, but Joe sent me a thank you card: To me, this is [...]
azog | June 24, 2010
I purchased two of these off eBay, for what I considered is a “reasonable” price. As-is, untested: Basically five nixie displays and five 7447 in a nice carrier. It just took a little while to beep out the pins, and then I drew this up: Relatively simple: a Mega32 with a DS32KHZ TCXO. The HV [...]
azog | April 22, 2010
So this is something different. IRL, I’m a big fan of animation. Cartoons, actually. I’d rather watch a good cartoon then watch CSPAN. And actually, my TV is more often tuned to Boomerang than anything else. I don’t watch Cartoon Network much anymore, they had their salad days with things like Camp Lazlo, Billy and [...]
azog | April 16, 2010
I suppose this isn’t very original, but I know I haven’t done it before. And if it is original, well, I’d be surprised, cause it just seems so “natural”: This is an analog clock face using a silicon wafer. I was randomly browsing ebay when I suddenly stumbled on several wafer listings. On a whim [...]
azog | March 24, 2010
This isn’t exactly a “project”: But damn if that isn’t sexy. I found this while browsing a “new” website, Your Nixie Clock Headquarters. I saw reference to a VFD Round Clock, which ultimately led me to Kosbo.com. As soon as I saw it, I just had to buy one. It was a bit on the [...]
azog | March 12, 2010
Well, I haven’t really done anything lately, tho I am dejectedly working on a few projects. On of them being (another?) Nixie clock. This will use one of those “Nixie 180 power supplies”: I don’t know who the original source for these are, but if you search for “nix180″, you’ll find several. They’re all relatively [...]
azog | September 16, 2009
Someone gave me some sort of DEC Alpha workstation: A single 3.5″ floppy with room for a small something-or-other. And from the back: Lots of ports: 10baseT, 10base2, AUI, serial, parallel, PS/2 keyboard and mouse, a 50-pin SCSI, and what looks like two PCMCIA slots. The guts aren’t that glamorous. There’s no obvious model number [...]
azog | September 11, 2009
Another “find”, but this time, a guy at work, his mother was gonna put this in a dumpster. His wife wouldn’t let him have it, and when I heard about it, I offered to take it. I have no such barrier to my collecting habit :P And even if I just give it away to [...]
azog | August 10, 2009
It took a little bit of finagling. Some basic cleanup, and probably most important, a new needle. Found some good resources online. One had a “service manual” for a slightly different Sonora phonograph, but the same basic principles applied. At the very least, it taught me how to change the needle. One interesting thing to [...]