Not a lot of people know this, but the Allen wrench was invented because the inventor wanted to come up with a better set screw for his machines, and the Allen wrench came out out of that.

Remember the BttF cartoon?

Just hit 2500 subs on YouTube. Awesome. www.youtube.com/playlist?lis...

When the client says, "Can we make it smaller?"

I recently had the opportunity to interview the grandsons of Carl Weller, the inventor of the soldering gun. They were kind enough to share never-before-published family photos and parts of the story that nobody has written about before. www.digikey.com/en/emedia/em...

Protip: If your hot plate heats unevenly, get a metal plate to put on your hot plate for rework and preheating. Have the hot plate heat your metal plate and use that plate to heat your boards. Yea it takes longer but it’s so much easier and cleaner.

HoodMart specializes in Commercial kitchen vent hoods. www.hoodmart.com

Check out my prototyping kit.

You may be old, but are you this old?

If a pair of pliers could wear pants…

I²C Level Shifting Explained (5V to 3.3V the Right Way) - TCA9517 youtube.com/shorts/TlQLe...

Seems to happen more the older you get.

Running three pick and place machines!

LinkedIn is different.

Early benchtop test equipment was very strange compared to today's Fluke meters.

Philo Farnsworth was 21 years old when he first transmitted an image over the radio waves. What's your excuse?

Decide your goals.

If your oscilloscope isn’t worth more than your car, how is anybody supposed to take you seriously?

When Napoleon Bonaparte met Alessandro Volta.

Volta's work on the battery (the artificial organ) was published 225 year ago.

An example of an early-1800s friction machine charging a Leyden jar.

Amazon sells 25 pound packs of Airheads BTW. This is approximately 828 Airhead Minis. Shipping a handful with every pack of badges I ship for Defcon this year.

How to Make a Leyden Jar a Home

Before you apply for your next job, look into what it takes to start your own LLC.

Amazon is getting oddly specific. Is this the future they told me about?

Alessandro Volta meets Napoleon Bonaparte (1801)

If I made a set of 'Do It Yourself Voltaic Pile' kits that blink an LED, and I sold it for something like $99 plus shipping, would you be interested? High-quality hardware. I wouldn't cheap out on the parts that matter.

dang

Ummm....

In a memorial in Bologna, Italy, is a life-size statue of Doctor Luigi Galvani, inventor of the first piece of benchtop test equipment.

The E in the standard Ohm's Law triangle stands for Voltage or Electromotive Force, but, without looking it up, who knows what the I stands for? No cheating.

CYBER CITY FUN FACT: Historians often agree that the first real piece of benchtop test equipment was invented by Luigi Galvani and consisted of a set of frog legs. This means that every piece of test equipment is a canonical descendant of frog legs. Its true. You can look it up.

Pro-Tip: If you cannot avoid rolling your eyes in a video call, then you should probably turn your camera off. People can see the contempt on your face in High Definition.

In 1802, a traveling doctor wrote a detailed book on using electricity, or as he calls it, ‘ethereal fire,’ to treat and cure a range of ailments, like madness, asthma, and dysentery. Read about it in the Retro Electro article “Electricity or Ethereal Fire Considered” www.digikey.com/en/emedia/em...

The nation's first alternating current power system went into operation on March 20, 1886, when William Stanley, a Westinghouse engineer, closed a switch that lighted up the main street of Barrington, Mass.

Here’s one of my first boards. I made it to load Nick Gammon’s boot loader onto DIP-packaged ATMEGA328Ps. We probably pushed well over 1000 microcontrollers through these. Works great.

This is THE galvanometer that was used to receive the Queen's Message to President Buchanan on the first trans-Atlantic cable.

I got to hangout with the very first telephone transmitter at the Alexander Graham Bell Museum.

The first transatlantic cable was a beast.

“They don’t make them like they used to.” How they used to make them:

Fire Alert: Got new business cards made with 0.8mm FR4 with an ENIG gold finish and white silkscreen on red solder mask. Hott. 🥵

I have been writing long-form history articles for Digikey's industry magazine. They have just published my 27th article. My website has a complete catalog of the stories. Each and every article will have a story that you have never heard before, I promise. cybercitycircuits.com/2025/12/31/r...

If you're into TV remotes, I have a YouTube channel where I review decades' worth of remote controls. Some neat finds in here. Check it out!!! www.youtube.com/playlist?lis...

Creative Audio Card Controller

Protect your ADC on Your Microcontroller with a Voltage Follower Op Amp Buffer

Painting of when Volta met with Napoleon Bonaparte in 1801.

Before and After Cleaning