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Michal Necasek for the OS/2 Museum that there is remarkably little detailed original information from the early days if the IBM PC (the original 5150).

A major problem hindering research is that there are no mentions of the IBM PC 5150 in the IBM announcements archive prior to 1983. The announcement letters are usually a very reliable source of information as to what IBM released when, but for about the first year and a half of the IBM PC’s life, there’s just nothing.

Sure, there’s a list of IBM PC models on Wikipedia… but the table doesn’t even always match the provided references, and the references are woefully incomplete anyway because, again, there’s apparently no official data from the 1981-1982 period.

Check out Michal’s research on the model numbers in the post here.

CCTV Video News Agency shared this video on Youtube. The dazzling display involving over 10,000 drones was staged at Shenzhen Bay Park on 09/26!

Shenzhen City in south China celebrated the upcoming Chinese National Day, which falls on Oct 1, with a mesmerizing drone-performing light show, featuring a majestic tapestry made by over 10,000 drones against the dazzling skyline.
https://www.cctvplus.com/news/2024092

https://cdn-blog.adafruit.com/uploads/2024/09/x.mp4

Aoyama_PROD@STEAM Tokyo on X (@AoyamaProd) writes:

Super easy CircuitPython installation to (a) ESP32-S3 board! Playing gif-anim on LILYGO T-Display S3 Pro.

#circuitpython #adafruit #STEAMTokyo

Check it out here.

Adafruit is celebrating during the month of October (starting tomorrow!) as ShackToberFest.

What is ShackToberFest? It’s our celebration of all things classic Radio Shack and Tandy!

We’ll be doing blog posts and perhaps demonstrations on Show and Tell on the merchandise and publications from Radio Shack and Tandy – parts, gear, Realistic, Tandy computers, Tandy Leather even. Anything associated with Radio Shack & Tandy is fair game.

We have our swag and our memories, let’s celebrate together! Post your thoughts and pictures using #ShackToberFest in social media.

We look forward to seeing your memories, memorabilia and gear!

Brown snakes are some of the most common and diverse reptiles in the world. They come in a variety of sizes and levels of venomous potency, making them a group of wild snakes that’s both interesting and important to study.

During the Jewish holiday of Rosh Hashanah, it's common to hear people wish each other "Shana Tova!" What does this phrase mean?

OK, this week, we did get a couple of designs worked on. First up, last week we chatted about bq25185, this week we designed two boards – an everyday lipo charger and a variant of that 3.3V buck output design from last week. Then, we finally got our corrected HSTX to DVI converter boards for our RP2350 Feather and tested them successfully, so PCBs have been booked.

Then, poking around some old PCBs, we noticed that we had an LPS28 we featured on EYE ON NPI breakout we never finished because the chip price was 300% inflated.

Finally, we have a project where we need to communicate with two UART devices at once; looking for dual-UART USB chips, we found the CP2105 at a good price!

And on The Great Search: looking at Ultra-thin RG-174 Coax.

Video below:

The New Testament is full of tense exchanges between Jesus and the Pharisees, who often tried to trip him up in legalistic debates. But who were the Pharisees really and what did they believe?

Bull snakes (Pituophis catenifer sayi), sometimes generalized as gopher snakes, are among the largest and most powerful nonvenomous snakes in North America. The heavy-bodied bull snake is often mistaken for a rattlesnake due to its size and defensive behaviors, but it's completely harmless to humans.

Anyone who’s ever been on a video chat knows the feeling of needing to quickly go dark and sometimes that can be a rattling experience. WOOF! This PyRuler Video Conference Panic Buttons project was inspired by Simon Prickett’s Zoom Panic Button, which allows a user to both mute and cut video at the push of an arcade switch embedded in a Starbucks cup. Read more!

This week, we received a request for how to find ultra-thin RG-174 cable, such as the one we used to stock.

“Hi, I’m looking for the thinnest possible coax wire and found that you used to have this listed at 1.2mm diameter. All the other RG-174 cable I’ve found online is 2.8mm diameter. Just curious where you found it and if you would ever stock it again. Or any other info that would help me search for this 1.2mm version.”

Note that this isn’t stranded or solid core wire; it’s a 2-conductor coax, as thin as 16 AWG wire. We no longer carry this cabling, but DigiKey does! Let’s take a look at how to find RF coax wiring at any length and width.

See the video below and the chosen parts on DigiKey here.

The Adafruit Feather ecosystem is so rich with hardware diversity, we wanted to share them, one each day. Today is the Adafruit NeoPXL8 FeatherWing for Feather M4 – 8 x DMA NeoPixels!

Since we first started carrying NeoPixels back in 2012, the chainable RGB LEDs have taken over the world. And a big part of that success is due to the simplicity of their wiring – just one data wire, no matter how many pixels you’ve got. So no surprise they’re everywhere, blinking away in art exhibits, maker faire demos, DJ booths, decorations, and costumes.

But, at some point, every NeoPixel’er bumps into the constraints of that single-data-wire: the timing is very picky and often time your code has to stop completely so that it can burst out the data without any interruptions. This requirement makes it tough to create fast-update lighting effects, and limits the number of pixels you can drive before other hardware peripherals get attention.

Resident pixel-pro Paint Your Dragon (who coined the name NeoPixel dont-cha-know!) took on this challenge and has succeeded gloriously. By carefully examining the ATSAMD51 datasheet he noticed you could use the Timer 0 in ‘waveform’ mode, and create 8 unique waveforms over DMA that would handle all the pixel-pushing for you.

Thus were born the NeoPXL8 Arduino library and NeoPXL8 FeatherWing! The library runs on our Feather M4 and handles all the NeoPixeling for you, up to 8 strands of concurrent DMA output each one can be 1750 RGB pixels long for a total of 8 x 1750 = 14000 pixels. That leaves you some RAM for your code to run in as well. Even though you could connect that many pixels, what we think this ‘Wing does best is take advantage of DMA + the SAMD51’s blazingly-fast 120MHz processor to manage animations for hundreds of pixels with ease

If you have a SAMD21 Feather, check out the sister product – NeoPXL8 FeatherWing for M0 boards.

To make connection easy, this FeatherWing does the level-shifting and pin arrangements for you. All 8 strands have a level shifter that converts the 3.3V logic level to 5V logic, there’s a little switch-cap converter that generates the clean 5V power supply for you. Then a 100 ohm resistor in line after the buffer reduces ringing on long wiring runs.

You get two options for connecting NeoPixels:

• 2 x 8 Header with ground and 5V-logic signal, in pairs
• 2 x RJ-45 ‘Ethernet’ Jacks, with ground and 5V-logic signal per twisted pair. This matches the same wiring as the OctWS2811

USE

The Adafruit NeoPXL8 FeatherWing and Library Guide provides details and use examples.

Projects

Would you like to see this FeatherWing in action? Check out the projects below:

• OOZE MASTER 3000: NeoPixel Simulated Liquid Physics
• Holiday Icicle Lights with Flair

Video:

Dive into the world of iconic trios, from pop culture to history. Discover the lasting impact and unique dynamics of these legendary groups of three.

The Nine of Cups tarot card symbolizes wish fulfillment, emotional satisfaction, and abundance. Discover its deep meaning in love, career, and personal growth.

3 of Pentacles tarot card symbolizes teamwork, collaboration, and mastery. Learn how this card represents building success through cooperation and shared goals.

Who doesn’t want a Star Wars cabinet game? We could spend all day playing, and our housemates could just stand behind us saying “Stay on target! Stay on target!” But as time goes on, working versions of these cabinets are harder and harder to find. So make James Milroy just made one, with a little help from a Raspberry Pi. Here’s more from the Raspberry Pi Blog:

“My project was to build a replica, or as close as I could reasonably manage, of the Atari Star Wars arcade cabinet,” James Milroy tells [MagPi]. “I really wanted to build a cockpit as that’s what I played on in the eighties, but sadly I didn’t have the room to house it, so the compromise was to build a stand-up cabinet instead…. Initially, I had toyed with sourcing an original cabinet and restoring it, but soon gave up on that idea after finding it nigh on impossible to source a cabinet here in the UK,” James explains. “Almost all cabinets for sale were located in the USA, so they were out of the question due to the high cost of shipping. Atari only made just over 12,500 cabinets worldwide, so their rarity meant that they commanded top dollar, effectively putting them out of my price range. It was at this point that I decided that if it was going to happen, then I would have to make it myself.”

See project!

Each Friday is PiDay here at Adafruit! Be sure to check out our posts, tutorials and new Raspberry Pi related products. Adafruit has the largest and best selection of Raspberry Pi accessories and all the code & tutorials to get you up and running in no time!

Star Trek: The Next Generation, Season 1, Episode 25 (May 1988), “Conspiracy”, was one of my favorites. It featured a mind-controlling alien parasite referred to as the “Nubbin bug”, or at least by The Greatest Generation Star Trek podcast.

Back in 1998, there was not a lot of computer CGI, so it was a stop-motion prop. Years later, the co-hosts of The Greatest Generation, a fun Star Trek podcast, stumbled upon the original silicone molds used to create the Nubbin bug while a listener found in a warehouse clearance sale in Van Nuys, California.

The podcasters acquired the mold. Shortly after, a listener from Atlanta who works at a prop studio offered to help preserve the prop since the original rubber material would decay over time. This led to the creation of archival-quality plaster casts to preserve the iconic alien for generations to come.

And they did some more, using 3D scanners – the Nubbin bug was recreated as a 3D model, allowing for exact replicas to be printed. Over 100 of these replicas were made, each one hand-painted and assembled to match the original as closely as possible. Their handmade / 3D-printed versions look almost identical to the bugs that appeared in the episode.

They also designed a Playschool-style retail packaging box to package the bugs. Fans of the podcast can purchase the limited-edition replicas. I don’t know if they will post the 3D files, but I’ll email and ask.

This is a really cool project from one of the weirdest/best episodes, and I am thrilled that someone was able to preserve this piece of Sci-Fi history in such a cool way – the entire story is on this TikTok video.

No word where this cutie is though.

My thanks to Method Financial for sponsoring last week at Daring Fireball. Method Financial’s authentication technology allows instant access to a consumer’s full liability portfolio using just personal information and consent, eliminating the need for usernames and passwords.

With just a few lines of code, Method’s APIs enable real-time, read-write, and frictionless access to all consumer liability data with integrated payment rails. Method leverages integrations with over 15,000 financial institutions to stream up-to-date, high-fidelity data from users’ accounts and to facilitate payment to them.

Method has helped 3 million consumers connect over 24 million liability accounts at companies like Aven, SoFi, Figure, and Happy Money, saving borrowers millions in interest and providing access to billions of dollars in personalized loans.

 ★ 

In order to fly the ER-2 aircraft for NASA’s Plankton, Aerosol, Cloud, ocean Ecosystem Postlaunch Airborne eXperiment (PACE-PAX), the pilot must put on an interesting specialized suit.

NASA’s ER-2 aircraft flies high in the sky — approximately 70,000 feet in altitude, where the pilot can see the curvature of Earth. At that high an altitude, pilots must be equipped with a uniform closer to that of an astronaut rather than a flight suit. In fact, while flying the ER-2, the pilot sports a pressurized suit that is essentially a spacesuit.

Read more.