The Smell of Molten Projects in the Morning

Ed Nisley's Blog: Shop notes, electronics, firmware, machinery, 3D printing, laser cuttery, and curiosities. Contents: 100% human thinking, 0% AI slop.

The New Hotness

  • Among the Forgotten

    Spotted in a museum:

    Kiosk - Floppy Disk Seek Failure
    Kiosk – Floppy Disk Seek Failure

    It’s been quite a while since BIOS boot sequences started with the floppy drive. Combined with a CMOS backup battery failure, I’d say this poor PC has been chugging along for two decades.

    On another floor:

    Kiosk - Windows Updates
    Kiosk – Windows Updates

    Isolating a Windows kiosk from the Interwebs is an excellent design principle, but Windows Update really wants to phone home. The kiosk’s presentation ran Adobe Flash 10, so it’s been confined for maybe a decade.

    Looks like it’s time for another fundraising drive to replace the PCs with Raspberry Pi controllers. The real expense, of course, goes into rebuilding the presentations using whatever tech stack is trendy these days.