now streaming: more reverse engineering! www.twitch.tv/tubetimeus

the AI designed the part; now let the AI machine it. yes, give it control over the X, the Y, and the Z. let's fucking go

Thoroughly enjoyed this book by @windell-oskay.bsky.social and @tubetime.bsky.social (with @righto.com). Cool to see the insides of so many electronics, especially some of the older stuff (Dubiler cap!). And the section on how they did it was also cool. Would love to illustrate some of these! 😉

can't wait to see Cat 5e.

Also, electronic television will be 100 years old in 2027 (the combination of electronic camera and display, though it would take another decade or so for it to be practical). The CRT itself actually dates back to the 19th century.

100 watt resistors normally don't look like this, but it's perfectly natural

My digital logic simulation of the IBM CGA now has color! And a release! github.com/dbalsom/cga_... #retrocomputing

This is so friggen cool, I want it

I propose a solution to our ongoing RAM shortage:

looking for a new writing desk and stumbled across this rare 1980s MacTable just called “drafting table” for $75

This Day in Labor History: December 2, 1984. A gas leak in a Union Carbide chemical plant in Bhopal, India killed somewhere between 3787 and 16,000 people. Let's talk about probably the worst industrial disaster in history and how U.S. companies can murder with impunity, then and now!

Since @averyredbox.bsky.social currently has the other Visitel unit back in the MidWest that I bought during the show and I have mine out tonight we tried testing a picture call over VoIP and it worked!

unbelievable, scrubbing with a magic eraser and then it works again

Stocking stuffer ideas for your retro collector: -Amtech flux -Solder braid -Sharp tweezers -Flush cutter -Machined dip sockets 8 up to 40pin -Ceramic capacitor assortment up to 10uF -Eye loupes -Magic erasers -kynar wire -DeoxIT with needle dispenser -Polypropylene safety cap assortment up to 1uf

take hold of the latest internets

back when apple wasn't good at kerning

so apparently the electrical system fault on the Dali that caused it to crash into the Francis Scott Key bridge was caused by a feral ferrule.

My trailblazing game industry bad-ass friend Rebecca Heineman has passed away. Fuck cancer. Friends, let’s not forget her: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rebecca...

did you know that you can find free Cortex M0 development boards at the side of the road? folks call them disposable vapes but they're hackable, and i've reverse engineered a bunch of them! see github.com/schlae/VapeRE/

pick one of each: dot inside or dot outside? face, arrow, or circle-T?

T H I S I S R E A L T O U C H

Here's a handy guide to some electronic components.

things are getting pretty complicated

My coffee table book, Open Circuits, with beautiful cross-section photos of electronics, is 25% off through the 12th. Use the super-secret discount code "SHOWOFF". What, you already have the book? BAM--you just thought of a friend who would enjoy a copy. nostarch.com/open-circuits

some of you may not know that i'm also on Mastodon: mastodon.social/@tubetime

well this was a challenge to model!

TIL: My Automatic Document Feeder has no problems bulk scanning punched cards. This possibly makes the need for a second card reader solely for digitizing decks not necessary.

today's hike. went up a mountain, saw an antenna.

i fixed a computer this week. this is the 1960s IBM 1401 at the Computer History Museum in California.

Happy birthday to the MOS 6502! It was 50 years ago today that people were able to buy their first samples of the chip from a jar in a hotel room at WESCON. Here's my oldest 6502 from the 52nd week of 1975. Still works perfectly!

be sure to check out this Humble Bundle which includes my book, Open Circuits, along with other great titles! (Game Console is one of my faves.)

caption this

Celebrated Navajo (Diné) artist Marilou Schultz recently completed a striking weaving. Although this rug may appear abstract, it is a representation of the wiring inside an integrated circuit. It shows the 555 timer, said at one point to be the world's most popular IC. Let's take a closer look...

Me being told by the developer that no, they will not accept my 60's blueprints, $75000 for an 8000 square foot plot is barely a tenth the value of the land and to leave the site immediately because I'm trespassing. (2025)

so Microsoft open-sourced their 6502 BASIC interpreter. i'm reading through the code looking for interesting things, and i've already found a few! 🧵 github.com/microsoft/BA...

This is pretty cool. The source code for Microsoft BASIC for 6502 (Apple II, Commodore PET, etc) from 1978, released under the MIT license. opensource.microsoft.com/blog/2025/09...

ever wonder what happens to batteries after they die?

i reverse-engineered the Raspberry Pi Compute Module 5! check it out at github.com/schlae/cm5-r...

going to stream some reverse engineering work in a few minutes! check out www.twitch.tv/tubetimeus

Weavings by Marilou Schulz (Diné) on view in “Once within a Time” at SITE Santa Fe.

How did Intel's 386 processor connect to the outside world? Tiny wires connect to the bond pads around the edges. Special input/output circuits—visible in zoomed-in blocks—send and receive signals while protecting the chip from dangers that could destroy it. Let's take a look... 1/N

retrocomputing...in 1976!?

this DIP chip has a tiny window in it so you can see the quartz crystal inside. (it's a PXO-600 programmable crystal oscillator chip)

today i learned that you can use a VNA to measure ferrite beads. so i made this little 3d-printed jig for the tiny surface mount ones!

from yesterday's hike. anyone got a bicycle pump?

Intel's 386 processor was popular in late 1980s microcomputers. From the outside, the 386 chip is a boring ceramic square. But I obtained a 3-dimensional CT X-ray scan from Lumafield, revealing six layers of complex wiring hidden inside the ceramic package. Let's take a closer look... 1/N

This explains a lot about some of the model railroaders I know.

i'm proud to have been involved in the creation of this new book from @nostarchpress.bsky.social, Designing Electronics That Work! it's full of useful material for anyone who wants to build anything electronic and bring it to mass production. nostarch.com/designingele...

i've added support for more RAM chips to the Pico DRAM Tester! 4027 (4K x 1) 4108 (8K x 1 that are 4116s with only half test good: MK4108, TMS4108, etc) 4132 (32K x 1 that are 4164s with only half tested good: TMS4532, M3732) there are also bug fixes. github.com/schlae/pico-...