Repurposing an old Psion MC400 laptop keyboard with Teensyduino & USB
Re-purposing an old Psion MC400 laptop mechanical keyboard from 1989 to work with USB via a Teensy LC (Arduino compatible) microcontroller
Grafana, Influxdb & DS18B20 based home temperature monitoring with Raspberry Pi
Update on the Raspberry Pi/Grafana/Influxdb/DS18B20 temperature monitoring network I put together 2 years ago…
One of The Many Promises of 5G – Accurate Time Transfer
One of the many promises of 5G is accurate time-transfer. I spent a couple of days travelling around the North West of England testing exactly how accurate available time transfer was from commercially deployed 5G installations.
10 years of Raspberry Pi
So the Raspberry Pi has been around for 10 years… everyone’s favourite credit-card-sized computer does just about everything
The Psion MC400 EROS – Tandy TRS-80 model 200 replacement?
A look at what state-of-the-art mobile text processing for journalists was like in the mid 1990s – the Psion MC400 EROS system.
A SIP trip down memory lane… back to Asterisk PBX & VOIP
A long time ago I built a VOIP PBX. I’ve been wanting to build & use another for a long time and finally got round to it with a £10 Cisco phone and £14 USB dongle…
Borked Signage
In honour of the regular El Reg feature which looks like it’s coming to an end… here’s my tiny collection of borked signage:
Emulating the Psion MC400
I read an online post about creating an “MC400 emulator”. That got me thinking about the ROM, and the 28F010 flash chips that realise it…
A Tale of Two Sources: NASA vs. Braben & Bell
Comparing comments (or the lack of them!) in software from 1969 & 1984. NASA’s Apollo Guidance Computer versus Elite for the BBC Model B 🙂
Breaking the Sound Barrier with Maxell Cassette Tapes
As a teenager in the 1980s I was obsessed with Maxell tapes, and the brand Maxell in general. Here’s my homage to Maxell Holdings, Ltd.
Using a 30 year old laptop in 2021: The Psion MC400…
A summary of all the things that are right with my 1991 Psion MC400 laptop, “online” via an attached Raspberry Pi 3B+ and wifi…
My Linux life: a restrospective
As of July 2021 Linux has been around for 30 years. For almost all of that time I’ve been installing Linux on just about anything I possibly can….
Psion MC400 – retro computing via RS232 to Raspberry Pi – handshaking fixed…
Getting the 1990s era Psion MC400 laptop online via an attached Raspberry Pi and some custom shortened Psion serial-USB cables… Tweets, Emails, BBC News & screenshots! All in glorious monochrome and at 19200 baud 🙂
Finding beauty in unexpected places
Some patterns…. the beauty in repetitive patterns, in nature and in art.
40 years later: reflections on 1981 – pop music’s greatest year?
Was 1981 pop music’s greatest ever year? There’s no doubt for me – it absolutely was! Débuts from several of the decade’s biggest names, Eurovision Winners and a novelty No.1, 1981 had it all.
RS232 flow-control & handshaking – Psion MC400 retro communications
Connecting my retro-laptop to the internet via 2 x RS232 serial connections to a Raspberry Pi… and defeated (for now) by lack of hardware flow-control signals 😦
5G on the moon?
NASA has ambitions to build a comms infrastructure on the moon using 4G LTE technology…
dot-com failures, skim.com & obsessive bag collecting
About my Love of bags – this one a dot-com era superstar from 2000/2001. Internet enabled fashion? Oh yes! SKIM.COM a y2k style bubble ready to burst 🙂
“My Life in Laptops” – am I Doug Rocket?
My homage to Doug Rocket’s art installation at Place “MY LAPTOPS 1991-2005”. It’s well Mexico.
Magellan GPS 315 vs. The Future – part 2
Some older GPS receivers can’t compute dates properly thanks to the original GPS system employing an epoch with 10-bit week number… a new epoch starts every 1024 weeks!
Record Store Day 2021 – crooked queuing
Why vinyl is more than the sum of its parts. “Record Store Day” 2021 and queuing for 2 hours to buy a black plastic disc. Independent record shops and teenage memories…
Retro & Online – Connecting Psion’s MC400 & Series 3a machines to “the internet”
Connecting 30-year old computers to the internet in 2021… for the LOLs. Revisiting RS232, null-modems and the like, all at 19200 baud.
Magellan GPS 315 vs. The Future – part 1
Comparing a handheld 1990s dedicated GPS receiver with the GNSS chip in a 2019 smartphone
Psion Series 3a vs. Technics RS-B665
Controlling my 1990s Technics tape deck from a 1990s PDA – Psion Series 3a remote control via NodeMCU
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About Room 7609
Hi, and welcome to Zed Starr’s compendium of techno-bizzle. Sometimes a bit retro, or getting retro stuff to do things in “modern life”; featuring Raspberry Pi, Linux, GNSS, analogue audio/Hi-Fi, Psion computers and with an overall electronics flavour. And no, I’m not sure exactly what “techno-bizzle” is either… Enjoy!
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Room 7609 