Ghosts of the past, I/O errors, and big dreams. A while back I did a Part I on digging through the old pile of
Drill Press 101
So you wanna buy a drill press… If you’re at all interested in machine tools, a drill press is a really great place to
Clip Show
So many old hacks. Where are they now? Blondihacks has been running for seven years now, and it’s been quite a ride. I have many,
Whiskey Table
Sometimes, you just need a place to set down your adult beverage. My recent metalworking posts have gone over well, so I thought I’d
Garage Door Range Fail
Not everything you read on the internet is real. I think the hacking community online has a bit of a File Drawer Problem. This is a
Steel Birdhouse
Or Possibly An Artisan Solar Bird Oven Every so often I get the urge to make something ridiculous. During a conversation with a regionally
Veronica Down!
For the first time ever, our girl didn’t show up for work. Veronica has been making the rounds of makerspaces, conferences, etc lately. She
Mailbag!
Readers send me stuff. Here’s a first for Blondihacks- reader mail! I’ve been doing this blog for many years, and have received a lot
Floppy Emu
A new entry into the Apple II solid state scene. The Apple II retrocomputing scene has some excellent solid state storage options already, including
Apple IIc Plus Accelerator Update
But wait, there’s more. Hey everyone! I wanted to say, “thank you” to all my Patreon patrons. You are the ones who make this blog
Apple IIc Plus Accelerator Control
For once, wishing a computer was slower. A little while ago, I went on a semi-epic (sempic?) quest to fix the beep in my
Digital Archeology, Part I
Digging up treasures in mom’s basement Over the holidays, I took the rare opportunity to dig through the stockpile of childhood belongings in my
Apple IIc Plus – Fixing the Beep
Fixing 30yo ROM bugs… for real this time. You may recall way back when I started my Apple II ROM Tool project, that I had
Apple II ROM Dumper – Part 2
Attempting to close the loop on my 30yo ROM hacking efforts. Last time, we got the Apple II ROM Dumper to the point where it
Apple II ROM Dumper
A side quest to explore old code. Something I’ve been wanting to do ever since acquiring my Apple IIc Plus at KansasFest is to dig into
TQFP-44 Breakout
Getting access to a better world. I have a project coming up that needs a lot of I/O and USB support. I could do
Housekeeping Note
Now with 100% more Twitter Hey Blondihacks readers! It’s been a very busy summer here in Blondihacks labs. I wanted to drop everyone a quick
Elliptifeet
Getting a cardio machine back on its feet. Count yourselves lucky that I got the worst joke of this entire post out of the way
Apple II Gamepad
Wrapping up the prototype for retrogaming on the go. A while back I started working on a gamepad for Apple II-series computers. It’s now
PrintrBot Metal Plus – Heated Bed
Stand back- I’m going to try SCIENCE! My PrintrBot has been chugging merrily away for me, and while it works, the preparation of the
PrintrBot Metal Plus – Assembly
Delicious, delicious crow. Yep, that’s right. Despite all my preaching in this blog about how 3D printers are overrated and not ready for primetime and
Apple II Gamepad Prototype
Taking classic gaming on the road. Teddy Top has been proceeding nicely, and my IIc Plus is getting increasingly portable. However, there’s one key
Teddy Top – Flash Storage
Data on the go to go with my screen on the go. With the basic Teddy Top now up and running with a nice
Teddy Top – First Pass
This idea may yet see the light of day. A while back, I had this idea to create a thing that would turn an
First Toothbrushversary
How far we’ve come from where we were. It’s an auspicious occasion here at Blondihacks. You see, my Philips Sonicare Elite toothbrush died. Why
iPad Case
Taking a basic case to school. Sometimes the simplest hacks are the most satisfying. I recently gifted a snazzy new iPad case to my father. That meant
Vacuum Former
Making something that sucks. After my poor result from attempting to 3D print the rather large Teddy Top prototype, I thought I’d give vacuum
Teddy Top – 3D Printing
Sometimes a magic bullet ricochets and kills you. Ever since beginning the Teddy Top project, I’ve had it in my head that I wanted
SmartHome – Postmortem
Attempting to determine why it sucks so very much. Like many hackers and tinkerers, home automation is a subject of irrational fascination for me.
Teddy Top – Prototype
A tale of fourteen fails. Sometimes a project goes so smoothly from start to finish that you’re left feeling all warm and fuzzy, and
Apple IIc Plus – Display
What’s new is old again. Sometimes, an idea seems so great that you just can’t let it go, even though you should. Today’s hack
PCB Coasters
Upcycling my own crap for once. This isn’t a hack per se… more like a hacklet. It’s a quickie, and thus is free for
Johnny – Ramp Switch
To make progress, sometimes you have to make tools. My scores haven’t been great on Johnny lately. An outside observer might suggest that perhaps
Apple IIc Plus – Bootstrap
We need eggs, but the chickens all died in 1992. Last time, I gave my IIc Plus a little checkup, then proceeded to try booting
Apple IIc Plus – Teardown
Playing doctor with an oldie-but-goodie. As regular readers may recall, I recently attended KansasFest for the first time. In addition to being a big
Johnny – LED Controller
Making Johnny smooth and suave once again. Back when I converted Johnny over to LEDs, I mentioned that there are some downsides to putting
Veronica, Patreon, Hack-A-Day, Oh My!
Quinn meets Hack-A-Day. Thousands dead. Film at eleven. Let me open this post with a bit of administrative news. I’m now a Patreon Creator! For
Apple ][ Development on OS X
A one-click build pipeline for rapid iteration on Apple ][ software. In addition to meeting lots of amazing people, the recent KansasFest left me with a
KansasFest 2014
Braving inhuman humidity for the love of 8 bits. This year I got talked into attending KansasFest for the first time ever. To be
Veronica – KansasFest!
Have 6502 Will Travel. I wanted to let everyone know that I’ll be bringing Veronica to KansasFest this year. In addition to having the
Workspace
A quick tour of Blondihacks World Headquarters. I’ve had a number of requests for a look at my workspace, so I figured I’d finally
Johnny – Dot Matrix Display
Now we’re getting serious. This article is gonna be a long one, so grab a beverage (careful, man!), and put your feet up. I
Headset Light Repair
Rescuing yet another almost-great product. One of the running themes here at Blondihacks is rescuing products from the landfill when they “barely fail”. That
Johnny – Connector Repair
A problem waiting to happen is no longer waiting. I recently cleaned up and relocated the battery box on Johnny, because some previous owner
Johnny – Battery Box Relocation
All your base are belong to us. Every aspect of a pinball machine is a compromise between durability, cost of manufacture, serviceability, and the
Johnny – LED Conversion
Let there be light! An increasingly popular modification to pinball machines is to convert the lighting system to LEDs. These machines typically have 100+
Johnny – Diagnostic Panel Repair
Pushing Johnny’s secret buttons. Every pinball machine from about 1980 onwards (the solid-state era) has a diagnostic control panel inside it. This is a
Johnny – Crazy Bob’s Flasher
Getting Crazy Bob open for business once again. I recently diagnosed and repaired a flasher lamp on Johnny Mnemonic. It was a simple fix,
Johnny – Cyberglove Rebuild
Somebody give this man a hand! You just knew I was going to make that joke at some point, so we might as well get
Johnny – Quick Fixes
From boat anchor to booting game. When Johnny arrived at my house, he was a 325lb plywood boat anchor. He didn’t boot up at
Johnny
A new toy to tinker with and hack on. Today I’m starting a new series of articles here on Blondihacks. Similar to Veronica, this
Veronica – ROM Monitor
Booting into a useful state. A common feature of 1980s computers is that they booted into a useful state. This was one of the
Veronica – Case Improvements
Making Veronica fit for the open road. One of my earliest goals for Veronica was to be able to take her places. Perhaps a
Cardio Roller Replacement
Rescuing my cardio machine from the scrap heap once again. As I’ve often said on this blog, so many consumer products seem to have
Veronica – Input Board
Keyboards and gamepads and ports, oh my! With Veronica’s input systems working in prototype form, it’s time to get it all installed in the
PCB Etching Analysis
Pushing the boundaries to see what blows up. I can’t ever leave things well enough alone, so while working on Veronica’s input system, I decided to
Administrative Note
Hey loyal Blondihacks readers, I wanted to take a moment to talk about the advertising content on this site. You may have noticed that
Veronica – Gamepads
Adventures with 40 year-old chip bugs. It seems like every Veronica project I start is “a pretty straightforward thing that shouldn’t take too long”,
Blondicade
An arcade “cabinet” to hold my arcade controller. A while back, I decided my life was missing a homemade arcade control panel. Well, it’s
Bluetooth Arcade Stick
A fun little afternoon project. Recently, the fine folks over at Adafruit Industries asked me to build something with their parts and write about
Arcade Control Panel
This is what happens when there’s nothing on TV. I’ve been listening to a really great podcast lately called No Quarter. It’s all about
Veronica – Keyboard
Some Input to go with all that Output. There are moments in a big project like this that really stand out. Those moments where
Veronica – Round 1: Fight!
Making RAM and EEPROM play nice together. If you had told me ahead of time how much trouble the RAM board would cause, I
Veronica – RAM Board Redux
Just when you thought it was safe to call yourself Turing-complete. Veronica seemed to be humming along nicely with her new RAM, and I
Veronica – Backplane 2
Minor growing pains. Veronica has developed a minor problem. She’s outgrown her backplane! When I started this project, I thought a fair bit about
Veronica – RAM Board
Making our girl Turing-complete. It suddenly occured to me that Veronica is missing something rather important which is needed to be called a “computer”.
SBC Cross-Development
Cross-developing on homebrew 6502s and other single board computer projects. Over on Veronica, things have progressed to the point of needing some fairly substantial
Two-Layer PCB Etching
Homebrew etching of double-sided PCBs. Etching PCBs is a topic I’ve covered quite a bit already, here and especially here. You might think I’ve