A motley collection of ideas
Sometimes I find myself wondering which of my portable digital voltmeters I can actually trust. The old 4½-digit M4650? The Fulke? Or the younger METEX? (Okay, I have one from Lidl too, but that’s not even a question.) Generally, they all show pretty similar values, and I rarely need better than 1–2% accuracy—but it still … Read more
I found a handful of pocket calculators in a drawer. I haven’t used them in ages—Excel, MathCad, the software called Derive, and smartphones have taken their place—but I thoroughly enjoyed rediscovering their science! Once upon a time, they were important and expensive tools, and even today, machines with similar capabilities aren’t cheap. Yet they seem … Read more