• Category Archives Computers
  • Imagine a life with no computers……ahhhh……bliss…..

  • Oscilloscope Clock

    Its one of those ‘silly’ little things that I have been wanting to build since I was about a teenager.
    We dabbled with mirrors attached to speakers and bounced lasers off them to make X-Y patterns that moved to the music.
    Then we then moved to the USA and finally got a better x-y scanner laser light show. And while you could download animations to it, it did not include a clock.
    Yes. A clock. I have seen these oscilloscope clocks for years, but never had the time to scratch build the electronics to drive the display. Not that I looked that hard, but they were never offered as a kit. Mostly the micro controller programming is the catch for me. But anyway. Fast forward many years.
    I was reading Hackaday and they talked about a cro clock from a bit of code running in a web browser.
    It plays the required audio out the computer speakers.
    I fired it up on the work computer and sure enough, a low drone with a solid one second tick.
    My mind jumped then to using Dan and Garys Pi to open the web browser and play the tone out the Pi audio port. The only cro I have these days is the little Kickstarter one I bought a few years back.
    Putting the two together on my desk….

    Goofy, but so much cute.
    Happy geek.
    We will keep an eye out for a cheap oldish cro at a year sale or on craigslist or something. Make a nice desk clock with the Pi sitting above it…..


  • Hackaday coin cell challange

    Hackaday is one of my daily websites. Always entertaining and educational.
    Now and then they have some challenges with cash prizes. They have just wrapped up one such challenge…. Build something that uses a coin cell battery.

    Coin Cell Hacks That Won the Coin Cell Challenge

    Out of all of them, I like the light level Geolocator. Very clever software.
    It uses the amount of light and dark in a 24 hour cycle and figures out where in the world it is.

    Anyway, if you are into electronics and squeaking out as much power as you can from a coin cell, well worth taking a look.


  • Cure for tinnitus?

    Great to see new research being done on this problem….. it’s a problem I have been suffering with for many many many years.
    Looks like it still could be a year or so away, but hey, it’s the first real solid gain I have seen on the subject for some time.

    Science has a solution for that constant ringing in your ear.

    Their creation treats tinnitus by using precisely timed sounds and weak electrical pulses designed to persuade damaged nerves in the region of the brainstem called dorsal cochlear nucleus into working correctly again.

    The sound only very slight changes when I clench my jaw, so it may not be all that effective on my tinnitus, but I will take whatever I can.