Obsolete Nerd
@obsolete.bsky.social
Making, hacking, breaking, and (sometimes) fixing. Replaced by newer, better, faster nerds.
This sticker is the bomb.
December 3, 2025 at 4:31 AM
This sticker is the bomb.
Finally finished my micropython-powered pedestrian crossing lights. Currently has "timer mode" for kids to use as a trampoline timer and "manual mode" for me to toggle red/green as a workshop safety indicator when I'm welding/grinding and it's not safe to come in.
obsoletenerd.com/making-old-p...
obsoletenerd.com/making-old-p...
November 13, 2025 at 5:01 AM
Finally finished my micropython-powered pedestrian crossing lights. Currently has "timer mode" for kids to use as a trampoline timer and "manual mode" for me to toggle red/green as a workshop safety indicator when I'm welding/grinding and it's not safe to come in.
obsoletenerd.com/making-old-p...
obsoletenerd.com/making-old-p...
People keep competing for smaller and smaller mechanical keyboards. Here is my contribution... a Raspberry Pi Pico powered binary-chording 8-key keyboard where you play piano-style chords of binary values representing the ASCII table. This message may have taken an hour to type, but it works!
November 2, 2025 at 7:15 AM
People keep competing for smaller and smaller mechanical keyboards. Here is my contribution... a Raspberry Pi Pico powered binary-chording 8-key keyboard where you play piano-style chords of binary values representing the ASCII table. This message may have taken an hour to type, but it works!
Hydroponic strawberries are flowering and have their first berries forming. Still manually controlling nutrient percentages but next step is to add automation there.
October 22, 2025 at 11:40 AM
Hydroponic strawberries are flowering and have their first berries forming. Still manually controlling nutrient percentages but next step is to add automation there.
The plug was "rattling" inside, so I pulled it apart and all these pieces fell out. Internally the plastic pieces that hold the 240V prongs in place had all snapped off, leaving the prongs "floating around" with nothing else fixing them in place. These were barely used, just sitting running lamps.
September 22, 2025 at 2:32 AM
The plug was "rattling" inside, so I pulled it apart and all these pieces fell out. Internally the plastic pieces that hold the 240V prongs in place had all snapped off, leaving the prongs "floating around" with nothing else fixing them in place. These were barely used, just sitting running lamps.
I've now had 3 of these Mirabella Genio "smart plugs" fail in a very dangerous and scary way, over the last year or 2. Both have been in use in our home for a few years now, neither have been "abused" just used to schedule fish tank timers/lamps/etc.
Details in thread.
Details in thread.
September 22, 2025 at 2:26 AM
I've now had 3 of these Mirabella Genio "smart plugs" fail in a very dangerous and scary way, over the last year or 2. Both have been in use in our home for a few years now, neither have been "abused" just used to schedule fish tank timers/lamps/etc.
Details in thread.
Details in thread.
Spent the last few weekends fabricating this steel bracket that connects to the factory CRT points in the Sega OutRun cabinet to mount modern monitors. The 3D printed VESA adapter lets you put any modern monitor in, and keeping the area behind empty of stands leaves plenty of space for the PC.
August 11, 2025 at 3:56 AM
Spent the last few weekends fabricating this steel bracket that connects to the factory CRT points in the Sega OutRun cabinet to mount modern monitors. The 3D printed VESA adapter lets you put any modern monitor in, and keeping the area behind empty of stands leaves plenty of space for the PC.
Tiny (<35mm to each side!) binary clock desk toy, using an ESP32-S3 and a GlowBit 4x4 RGB matrix. It checks the time using NTP then displays it in HH:MM columns, with the rows being binary values of 1/2/4/8 top to bottom.
July 19, 2025 at 1:53 PM
Tiny (<35mm to each side!) binary clock desk toy, using an ESP32-S3 and a GlowBit 4x4 RGB matrix. It checks the time using NTP then displays it in HH:MM columns, with the rows being binary values of 1/2/4/8 top to bottom.
Made a little grip-training thing that clips onto my home gym and lets me do climbing/grip training. Scrap metal plate with a welded loop on top, then designed mirrored holds in Blender and 3d printed them. It can be used in a few different ways to focus different muscles and grip types.
July 3, 2025 at 2:45 AM
Made a little grip-training thing that clips onto my home gym and lets me do climbing/grip training. Scrap metal plate with a welded loop on top, then designed mirrored holds in Blender and 3d printed them. It can be used in a few different ways to focus different muscles and grip types.
Harddrive inside is a Seagate ST-238R with a whopping 32Mb of storage space.
May 27, 2025 at 4:51 AM
Harddrive inside is a Seagate ST-238R with a whopping 32Mb of storage space.
The sticker on the bottom of the keyboard. It says it was made in Taiwan, and all the chips inside say Made in Malaysia. No mention anywhere of this brand ever selling desktop PCs though, just keyboards and some laptops.
May 27, 2025 at 4:49 AM
The sticker on the bottom of the keyboard. It says it was made in Taiwan, and all the chips inside say Made in Malaysia. No mention anywhere of this brand ever selling desktop PCs though, just keyboards and some laptops.
I found this old 8088-based PC at an e-waste place and can't find *any* information of its existence online.
The only branding anywhere on the whole thing is on the keyboard, saying "Nan Tan Computer Co" and "NTC CO" but no reference of them building PCs, just keyboards.
#retropc #retrocomputing
The only branding anywhere on the whole thing is on the keyboard, saying "Nan Tan Computer Co" and "NTC CO" but no reference of them building PCs, just keyboards.
#retropc #retrocomputing
May 27, 2025 at 4:47 AM
I found this old 8088-based PC at an e-waste place and can't find *any* information of its existence online.
The only branding anywhere on the whole thing is on the keyboard, saying "Nan Tan Computer Co" and "NTC CO" but no reference of them building PCs, just keyboards.
#retropc #retrocomputing
The only branding anywhere on the whole thing is on the keyboard, saying "Nan Tan Computer Co" and "NTC CO" but no reference of them building PCs, just keyboards.
#retropc #retrocomputing
Now in a tiny little 3D printed case.
May 8, 2025 at 2:00 AM
Now in a tiny little 3D printed case.
The world's smallest Canon DSLR remote shutter?
Was mostly just curious how the pins work on the proprietary connector, with the ultimate plan of making an ESP32 remote-shutter for input-based triggering.
Was mostly just curious how the pins work on the proprietary connector, with the ultimate plan of making an ESP32 remote-shutter for input-based triggering.
May 7, 2025 at 4:29 AM
The world's smallest Canon DSLR remote shutter?
Was mostly just curious how the pins work on the proprietary connector, with the ultimate plan of making an ESP32 remote-shutter for input-based triggering.
Was mostly just curious how the pins work on the proprietary connector, with the ultimate plan of making an ESP32 remote-shutter for input-based triggering.
Why buy stickers when you can make stickers. Threw this together today at @ballarathackerspace.org.au using Inkscape and a vinyl plotter.
January 24, 2025 at 8:47 AM
Why buy stickers when you can make stickers. Threw this together today at @ballarathackerspace.org.au using Inkscape and a vinyl plotter.
Nothing but the highest quality equipment in my workshop. Paint booth made from a camping gazebo, a spotlight zip-tied to the ceiling of it, and a heat gun hanging from some scrap wire. Worked great though!
December 29, 2024 at 10:38 AM
Nothing but the highest quality equipment in my workshop. Paint booth made from a camping gazebo, a spotlight zip-tied to the ceiling of it, and a heat gun hanging from some scrap wire. Worked great though!
Went out to support our school at the Energy Breakthrough race where kids race pedal-powered tadpole/reverse trikes. It's such a cool event and I loved seeing all the home-made trikes built by the kids. (The forged-carbon factory-built private school ones were a bit cringe though).
November 28, 2024 at 3:45 AM
Went out to support our school at the Energy Breakthrough race where kids race pedal-powered tadpole/reverse trikes. It's such a cool event and I loved seeing all the home-made trikes built by the kids. (The forged-carbon factory-built private school ones were a bit cringe though).
Progress on the Pico-8 arcade cabinet. Everything “works” and now it’s just about tidying up the documentation and the software installation process to make it more user friendly, and adding all the vinyl decals.
#pico8 #ballarat #hackerspace #ballarathackerspace
#pico8 #ballarat #hackerspace #ballarathackerspace
October 25, 2024 at 3:14 AM
Progress on the Pico-8 arcade cabinet. Everything “works” and now it’s just about tidying up the documentation and the software installation process to make it more user friendly, and adding all the vinyl decals.
#pico8 #ballarat #hackerspace #ballarathackerspace
#pico8 #ballarat #hackerspace #ballarathackerspace
Crimposaurus goes chomp.
October 9, 2024 at 9:14 PM
Crimposaurus goes chomp.
PICO-8 arcade cabinet we've been working on at Ballarat Hackerspace. Far from a "Raspberry pi emulator and computer monitor" setup, this has a 1:1 native LED display suited to the PICO-8 resolution, custom graphics daemon to run PICO-8 natively and feed the LEDs, and a very slick laser cut cabinet.
September 22, 2024 at 1:38 PM
PICO-8 arcade cabinet we've been working on at Ballarat Hackerspace. Far from a "Raspberry pi emulator and computer monitor" setup, this has a 1:1 native LED display suited to the PICO-8 resolution, custom graphics daemon to run PICO-8 natively and feed the LEDs, and a very slick laser cut cabinet.
How about a keyboard... with a built in keyboard. Yo dawg.
March 30, 2024 at 1:18 PM
How about a keyboard... with a built in keyboard. Yo dawg.
Midnight retro vibes.
Apple G3 iMac, Gateway 2000 Pentium III 500, and some random IBM PC clone from Malaysia?
#retrocomputing #Macintosh #gateway2000 #imacg3 #retro
Apple G3 iMac, Gateway 2000 Pentium III 500, and some random IBM PC clone from Malaysia?
#retrocomputing #Macintosh #gateway2000 #imacg3 #retro
March 30, 2024 at 1:17 PM
Midnight retro vibes.
Apple G3 iMac, Gateway 2000 Pentium III 500, and some random IBM PC clone from Malaysia?
#retrocomputing #Macintosh #gateway2000 #imacg3 #retro
Apple G3 iMac, Gateway 2000 Pentium III 500, and some random IBM PC clone from Malaysia?
#retrocomputing #Macintosh #gateway2000 #imacg3 #retro
First tomatoes from my potted tomato plants that get watered by an ESP32 reading weather data. Nom.
March 26, 2024 at 11:10 AM
First tomatoes from my potted tomato plants that get watered by an ESP32 reading weather data. Nom.
BirdNet (birdnet.cornell.edu) project running permanently in my yard on a Raspberry Pi, via the BirdNet-Pi project (github.com/mcguirepr89/...). So easy to set up. The kids and I have absolutely loved checking for new detections/species.
March 19, 2024 at 12:30 AM
BirdNet (birdnet.cornell.edu) project running permanently in my yard on a Raspberry Pi, via the BirdNet-Pi project (github.com/mcguirepr89/...). So easy to set up. The kids and I have absolutely loved checking for new detections/species.