Ask anyone to name a first-generation home computer from the 1970s, and they’ll probably mention the likes of the Altair 8800 and IMSAI 8080. But those iconic machines weren’t the only options available to hobbyists back in the day: Heathkit, ...

Tape robots are typically used in places that store vast amounts of data – think film studios and government archives. If you’ve seen the 1995 cult movie Hackers, you might remember a scene where the main character hacks into a ...

A continuity tester, as found on most multimeters today, is a great tool for finding broken connections and short circuits. But once you’ve found a short, it’s up to you to figure out which part of the circuit it’s in ...

Noise is all around us, and while acoustic noise is easy to spot using our ears, electronic noise is far harder to quantify even with the right instruments. A spectrum analyzer is the most convenient tool for noise measurements, but ...

[Jeff Lau]’s Mitsubishi 3000GT comes with all the essential features you’d expect in a fancy sports car from 1993: pop-up headlights, movable spoilers, and a fully-functional telephone handset in the center console. The phone was fully functional until North America’s ...