TechnologyIQ

Historical Technology Books - 43 in a series - Library of amateur photography by American School of Art and Photography (1915)         PREFACE BACK in the 70's of the last century— not so manyyears ago, after all — photography was in its infancy and but little practiced by the general public. The few professionals who made it their regular business prepared most of their own materials, plates, papers, etc., and the results were frequently very uncertain, as they depended largely upon local conditions, and on the skill and knowledge of the operator. Photography as applied today to the arts and sciences was unheard of. Now, there is hardly a science, industry, or enterprise of any account undertaken that photography, in some form or other, does not enter into. It is invaluable as an aid to research, study, and to the diffusion of knowledge. It has extended its influence far beyond the limits of a popular science, into a world-embracing industry. It is an Art; it is a part o...

This is a special clock I made. It's called "The City Clock". It is a binary clock hidden inside a typical Parisian building. My idea was to create an object that does not look like a clock until you know how to read it. It is also a metaphor of time passing by as people live their lives in their apartments :) Read The Binary Clock - the City Clock : 22 Steps (with Pictures) via Instructables An interesting link found among my daily reading

I got to lay hands on an original WWII Enigma machine years ago at the National Cryptologic Museum near Washington, DC. Seeing a simulator like this brings back some interesting memories and gives more people the opportunity to see how this historic piece of technology functioned.. — Douglas   This hacker has been wanting to design an Enigma machine simulator for a while, but didn’t take the leap until they realized there was a compact Arduino with a surplus of I/O. The logs go through all sort of variations on the machine. Everything from a plug board variation similar to the original to a 16 segment LED tester are covered. In one of the posts you can even see it decode a real U-Boat message. Read An Arduino And An Enigma All Rolled Into One via Hackaday An interesting link found among my daily reading

Technology isn't just computers, networks and phones. Technology has always been part of the human experience. All of our ancestors have looked for ways to help them survive and do less work for more gain.  Archive.org has a host of old technology books (from mid-19th to mid-20th Century) available in many formats and on a host of topics. Many of the technologies discussed within these books are being put to use again these days in the back to the land" and homesteading movements. You might even find something that could address one of your own garden or farm issues but has been lost to time and history. Enjoy! --Douglas Historical Technology Books - 42 in a series - How to use Corona: The Personal Writing Machine   The invention of a reliable (and in this case, portable) typewriter was an amazing advance for human productivity — probably nearly as great a leap as the invention of the computer. Sure, computers allow us to do much more automated work, but typewriters removed...

An amazing piece of machinery that pre-saged the coming digitization and computerization of the world. Concepts developed here were well established in the minds of those — like Babbage — who sought to make computing engines and “computerize” the world! - Douglas     Charles Babbage is widely recognized as a pioneer of the programable computer due to his ingenious designs for steam-driven calculating machines in the 19th century. But Babbage drew inspiration from a number of earlier inventions, including a device invented in 1804 by French weaver and merchant Joseph Marie Jacquard. The device attached to a weaving loom and used printed punch cards to "program" intricate patterns in the woven fabric. One of these devices, circa 1850, just sold for $43,750 at Sotheby's annual History of Science and Technology auction. "Technically, the term 'Jacquard loom' is a misnomer," said Cassandra Hatton, a senior specialist with Sotheby's. "There...

All the cool projects now can connect to a computer or phone for control, right? But it is a pain to create an app to run on different platforms to talk to your project. [Kevin Darrah] says no and shows how you can use Google Chrome to do the dirty work. He takes a garden-variety Arduino and a cheap Bluetooth interface board and then controls it from Chrome. You can see the video below. The HM-10 board is cheap and could connect to nearly anything. The control application uses Processing, which is the software the Arduino system derives from. So how do you get to Chrome from Processing? Easy. The p5.js library allows Processing to work from within Chrome. There’s also a Bluetooth BLE library for P5. Read Bluetooth Control With Chrome | Hackaday via Hackaday An interesting link found among my daily reading

Technology isn't just computers, networks and phones. Technology has always been part of the human experience. All of our ancestors have looked for ways to help them survive and do less work for more gain.  Archive.org has a host of old technology books (from mid-19th to mid-20th Century) available in many formats and on a host of topics. Many of the technologies discussed within these books are being put to use again these days in the back to the land" and homesteading movements. You might even find something that could address one of your own garden or farm issues but has been lost to time and history. Enjoy! --Douglas Historical Technology Books - 41 in a series - Balloons, Airships, and Flying Machines by Gertrude Bacon - Practical Science Series   CHAPTER I THE ORIGIN OF BALLOONING One November night in the year 1782, so the story runs, two brothers sat over their winter fire in the little French town of Annonay, watching the grey smoke-wreaths from the hearth cur...

An excellent article on all those beeps you heard during Apollo mission and what it all means. Best explanation I have seen and it all has to do with signaling and switching. — Douglas   The American space program, I think we’d all agree, has its own very particular set of audiovisual signatures that immediately evoke all kinds of images and feelings. There’s a certain NASA look to the objects of space travel—that gold foil stuff, lightweight aluminum frameworks, white panels with American flags on them—that is immediately recognizable. The same goes for the sounds of NASA, a certain type of distorted audio, and, perhaps most evocatively, those beeps you always hear in transmissions between astronauts and ground control. But what the hell are those beeps, anyway? What do they actually do? Relax. I’m going to tell you. Read There's An Actual Name And Reason For Those Beeps You Hear In Recordings Of Astronauts In Space via Gizmodo An interesting link found among my daily rea...

If you’ve ever been to Washington DC, you know the Smithsonian isn’t just a building, instead it’s a collection of 19 museums, 21 libraries, 9 research centers, and a zoo. Even though there are hundreds of affiliated museums, there is a way to bring at least some of the museum to you. The Smithsonian has a 3D digitization portal that currently features 124 models of items from the collection. Almost 100 of them have models you can download and print — or have someone print for you. Printing yourself is probably the most cost-effective option if you already have a printer. According to the Smithsonian, if you want a 1/20th scale model of a T. Rex cranium, Shapeways will do it for about $21. If you want a 9-inch version of Neil Armstrong’s spacesuit, that would go for $130 or so. Some of the models are pretty intricate. The Apollo 11 hatch door, for example, has quite a few details. The models range from space, to the Bodhisattva Avalokiteshvara, to a model of the remnants of a supe...

Detailed case study of using 360 cameras for monitoring wildlife. — Douglas   H/T to HackADay   Panatraps are an open-source collection of design files and code for turning commercially available 360 “VR” cameras into panoramic camera traps for studying wildlife in natural environments. These are created in Gamboa, Panama, at Digital Naturalism Laboratories by Andrew Quitmeyer and Danielle Hoogendijk. Work on this project has been supported by: The Digital Naturalism Conference (www.dinacon.org) Conservation X Labs ( https://conservationx.com/project/key/360cameratraps ) The project files are all open-source and available on these project pages and the project’s github repo: https://github.com/Digital-Naturalism-Laboratories/Panatrap Read Panatrap – Open Source 360 Camera Traps – Digital Naturalism Laboratories An interesting link found among my daily reading

Technology isn't just computers, networks and phones. Technology has always been part of the human experience. All of our ancestors have looked for ways to help them survive and do less work for more gain.  Archive.org has a host of old technology books (from mid-19th to mid-20th Century) available in many formats and on a host of topics. Many of the technologies discussed within these books are being put to use again these days in the back to the land" and homesteading movements. You might even find something that could address one of your own garden or farm issues but has been lost to time and history. Enjoy! --Douglas Historical Technology Books - 40 in a series - TRS-80 Manual: Model 100 Basic Language Lab (1983)   At my first job in Los Angeles in 1986, I was the support person for an online service dedicated to the music industry. Lots of members used these Model 100s, along with acoustic couplers, to get online to check their email, the Billboard Charts an, eventuall...

This might be an interesting learning project for young ones who are just getting started. Sort of like an extension of Lego thinking. The space required to build things is a bit large, especially compared to a breadboard, but might be more understandable to someone who is new to electronics. Building the tiles adds another, hands-on, level to the learning that is a great combination with the electronics concept learned, too. This is a good, High-Tech/High-Touch project.— Douglas   Let’s face it, breadboarding can be frustrating, even for advanced electronics wizards. If you have an older board, you could be dealing with loose tie points left from large component legs, and power rails of questionable continuity. Conversely, it can be hard to jam just-made jumper wires into new boards without crumpling the copper. And no matter what the condition of the board is, once you’ve plugged in more than a few components, the circuit becomes hard to follow, much less troubleshoot when things...

I have just such a use case I want to work up here in the home office. A great place to get started. — Douglas   You can now securely connect Alexa to your Arduino IoT Cloud projects with no additional coding required. You could use Alexa to turn on the lights in the living room, check the temperature in the bedroom, start the coffee machine, check on your plants, find out if your dog is sleeping in the doghouse… the only limit is your imagination! Below are some of the features that will be available: Changing the color and the luminosity of lights Retrieving temperature and detect motion activity from sensors Using voice commands to trigger switches and smart plugs Read How to use Arduino Alexa skill via Open Electronics * A portion of each sale from Amazon.com directly supports our blogs ** Many of these books may be available from your local library. Check it out! An interesting link found among my daily reading

Learn  a few things about your Amazon Echo device. — Douglas   * A portion of each sale from Amazon.com directly supports our blogs ** Many of these books may be available from your local library. Check it out! An interesting link found among my daily reading

Technology isn't just computers, networks and phones. Technology has always been part of the human experience. All of our ancestors have looked for ways to help them survive and do less work for more gain.  Archive.org has a host of old technology books (from mid-19th to mid-20th Century) available in many formats and on a host of topics. Many of the technologies discussed within these books are being put to use again these days in the back to the land" and homesteading movements. You might even find something that could address one of your own garden or farm issues but has been lost to time and history. Enjoy! --Douglas Historical Technology Books - 39 in a series - Apple II BASIC Programming Manual by Jef Raskin   Available in PDF, Text, JPG formats, and more   AN APPLE TODAY keeps the doldrums away. This manual will show you how to plug in your APPLE II (easy) and be a guide as you learn to program it (also easy). If you are an Old Hand at programming, you wi...

Nothing like a little old-school computing to get the geek blood flowing. This system is before my time in technology, but it is amazing to see it running again. Sort go like an old hot rod that is back out on the streets. — Douglas   With the 50th birthday of the UNIX operating system being in the news of late, there has been a bit of a spotlight shone upon its earliest origins. At the Living Computers museum in Seattle though they’ve gone well beyond a bit of historical inquiry though, because they’ve had UNIX (or should we in this context say unix instead?) version 0 running on a DEC PDP-7 minicomputer. This primordial version on the original hardware is all the more remarkable because unlike its younger siblings very few PDP-7s have survived. The machine running UNIX version 0 belongs to [Fred Yearian], a former Boeing engineer who bought his machine from the company’s surplus channel at the end of the 1970s. He restored it to working order and it sat in his basement for dec...