First run of the Tesla Coil
Okay, this one is really cool. Sometime during the summer, I was bored and got this crazy idea to build a Tesla Coil.
My Uncle Tony was the guy who got me interested in electronics at a young age. He gave me my first electronics kit back when I was in second grade. I remember him telling me about Tesla one time when he came over for dinner on the weekend. He told me about how Tesla was the real genius behind the electric motor and the radio, but how, despite this, he never really got the credit or recognition he deserved, even though his AC system won out against Edison's DC system, and is what we use to get power to out homes today!
And then recently, I saw the movie The Prestige, which sort of "sparked" my interest in Tesla again. In it, a fictional form of the Tesla coil is the central plot device. But there were several other scenes that were kind of intriguing. In one particular one, Tesla lights up a lightbulb by just holding it. And in another, a field full of lightbulbs are lit wirelessly from miles away. So after watching the movie, I went to see if this had any truth to it. It turns out that this part was quite true! Those two scenes were based directly on actual inventions.
Upon further investigation, I came across the Tesla Coil design and decided to try and build a replica of Dr. Nikola Tesla's "Apparatus for Transmitting Electrical Energy" (Patent #1,119,732).
How to make an oscilloscope out of an old monitor
So I'm sitting in my room, looking at the random stacks of computer hardware I have in my loft: a couple of NeXTstations, a few Apple IIs, half a dozen Macs from the 90s...and as I'm looking I come upon this old IBM monitor that I saved from destruction several years ago. Somehow, I decided that I'd try and turn it into an oscilloscope.
Here's the monitor, an IBM PCJr color monitor from 1985:
GameBoy Color inside a TI-83 series calculator
So I was thinking one day, wouldn't it be cool to put the innards of a GameBoy Color inside the case from a broken TI-83 series calculator? The TI-8X series is the calculator of choice for high school classes and standardized tests. There's plenty of space inside and I could even map the keys to the original TI-83 keyboard. Perfect. Now, in theory, I could play Pokemon or Super Mario Land in math class. But with AP Calculus this is probably unwise...
And the back....
Now lets see if this thing still boots in this condition...
Which it, naturally does. But I just had to be sure.
