In this post, I build a HardMPU board and use it to add midi capability to my Xi 8088 home built PC Background Midi stands for “music instrument digital interface”, and is a relatively simple protocol for controlling musical instruments. A midi controller can be a computer, or a keyboard, a sequencer, or any other …
In this video, I construct an Xi 8088 PC, based on the design by Sergey Kiselev: Overview This was a long, involved project. I started out by ordering a set of boards from Todd over at the retrobrew forums: These boards included: 8-slot backplane with BIOS POST code display Xi 8088 CPU board (CPU, RAM, …
I was so impressed with the Zeta 2 design when I built my floppy controller for the RC2014 that I decided to go ahead and build a Zeta V2 as well! As you’re probably aware if you’ve read my previous blog posts, one of my recent hobbies has been retrocomputing, building computers based on the …
This post covers some installation tips about setting up automation products that use the popular Insteon technology marketed by a company called Smarthome. One of the reason for this tutorial is that I plan on creating some Insteon-related software products, and it makes sense to document a typical Insteon home installation that can be used …
This is a review of the the TED-5000 from TheEnergyDetective.com. This is kind of a unique contraption, so lets start by saying what it is and why you might want it. There’s some psychological evidence that merely being aware of your energy usage will cause the average person to become more conservative. Take for example …
How to Turbo a Volkswagen engine for under $100 I started this project one day with the goal of turbocharging my stock 1600cc VW engine on the Manx. The goal was to do it all for about a hundred bucks, including of course lots of parts already on-hand. Of course, goals are made to be …