2024-03-15 Ferranti Argus “Hearing Aid” Computer
In the “Original Series” chapter this very interesting Wikipedia article talks about the “hearing aid computer” that used the OC-71 germanium transistors which were used in hearing aids and could go only up to 25kHz clock rate. That was quite slow – tube computers could clock at 500kHz. Later models used faster transistors and could
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2023-12-07 Laser Weed Killer, Scarecrow, Bug Killer
These autonomous laser devices can be working in the fields around the clock. They could severely reduce the need for herbicides (weed killer chemicals), and insecticides which are also harmful to good insects and other animals and pollute the environment. It’s highly unlikely that a weed will become resistant to a Laser! They can be
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2023-11-14 Amsec, Gary Lorenz, John Darjany – history of campus card
I finally found a bit of history about Gary Lorenz. He and I were high school friends. In 1972 he and John Darjany founded a company, Amsec, to make a “campus card system” for California Polytechnic University, Pomona. In 1974, Amsec was purchased by R.D. Products. A brief history of the campus card industry This
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2023-11-10 Joint Electronics Type Designation System
Here is a wealth of information about much of the electronics that is used by government entities especially the military. You can find out what the system is for data processing hardware. This used to be called JAN – Joint Army Navy. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joint_Electronics_Type_Designation_System
2023-10-03 Perseverance Mars Rover Hi Res Image
Mars 2020 Rover AKA Perseverance in High Resolution and detailed. Full Resolution link ( No Facebook Compress ) below https://d2pn8kiwq2w21t.cloudfront.net/original_images/jpegPIA23312.jpg Excellent closeup image. It looks like 10 or mor kg of Kapton tape wrapped around the cables. But the worker is putting in red and blue cables that are not covered in Kapton. So it
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2023-09-27 Hard Disk Drives – A Hundred Plus Disassembled
Pozi-drive – Is that what they call them? Maybe this will bring back memories. I was waiting in the checkout line at the computer store and saw a kit of, I don’t know, maybe a hundred different screwdriver bits and a cheap handle. None of them come with documentation, but the tips are there for
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2023-09-23 Tesla Dojo Explained, BMW Partners With AWS
This article starts out briefly explaining Tesla’s Project Dojo. Lots of skepticism, I see here. I think some of these skeptics should just hold their tongues and wait and see what happens. It may take longer than what they think it’s going to take, but eventually they will get to level four, maybe level five
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2023-09-23 Mainframe Tape Drives
During my mainframe computer days, someone made a foot or so long rod with a metal base. We would grab a handful of write rings and have a write ring tossing contest. During the daytime the day shift would run dozens of batch jobs on the computer, and they would queue up in the printer
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