How feasible is it to make a crt from parts? I find crt's fascinating learn best by doing- I at least want to demonstrate horizontal and vertical sweeps. But I've never seen a DIY CRT kit before.
> How feasible is it to make a crt from parts? [...] I've never seen a DIY CRT kit before.
The closest thing that springs to mind: A friend of mine once drilled a hole into an empty Vodka bottle, stuck two wires in it (one at each end), a hose adapter for a vacuum pump, "sealed" the whole thing with a hot glue gun and hooked it up to several scavenged microwave oven transformers in series. Yes, the output was rectified and capacitors were also involved.
I suppose rearranging the electrodes (using a piece of sheet metal with a hole in it; both fed through the neck of the bottle) and wrapping the sides of the bottle with 4 strips of aluminium foil could get you a beam and some crude deflection control. Not sure tough what you would coat the end of the bottle with, but I guess vacuum coating would be applicable.
If that sounds absolutely insane to you, I'd wholeheartedly agree.
At least to my ears, trying to build a CRT from first principles, combined with learning-by-doing and learning-EE-from-youtube-tutorials, sounds like a fast path to end up either dead or in a permanent care facility. Not exactly something I'd hand out in beginner-friendly kit form.
From the site: "The cathode ray tubes that I am describing here are crude and they are relatively easy to make at home. They are in fact, much easier to build than most technically minded people would ever imagine."
In some ways it's never been easier to get all the equipment you will need. But if you're wanting to make ones even half as good as the ones on this page, you'd probably want to become a skilled glassblower and outfit a lab that looks something like this:
The parts for making neon signs are not as uncommon and it would be kind of an introductory approach to building the skill necessary for more complex electron tubes.
> Could someone explain what's SAS and what's the difference between SAS and HDD?
This is like asking what's the difference between JavaScript and React. ish (some hand waving on the analogy)
The question you've asked can't really be answered? Idk what you're asking exactly.
SAS is comparable to SATA. Both can be used for HDDs. For individuals it doesn't really matter. For building huge-ass disk arrays, you might want to use SAS.
Its development is really interesting, in that it was more a proof of a scientific paper to start with. Anyway one of their tweets from September 2024 indicates they're working on a sequel, despite their publisher (Annapurna, owned by Megan Ellison, daughter of Larry Ellison) having had some issues around then.
The caption is what really sells it for me. It is the classical farside experience.
Looks at comic, (shrugs) it's weird but not funny in any way. Reads caption
"Art assignment: Paint a house on a hillside overlooking a bay or valley. Stay loose; play with color. Try to capture a mood. Think of something to add."
Literal spit take and laugh. Yep he still has the touch.
Hmmm - my interpretation is that this is an example of a "prompt" for a generative AI "artist", and the result was something that "craps" over the original intention of the "house on a hillside"... (so, a bit of a commentary on generative art from someone who was professional cartoonist)
I think you are applying the wrong decade(s) of thought.
This is a man who had to clean his pen to use it - it is very likely he is using artists "prompts" to practice his digital art (as he mentions its very new to him), which is something that was normal before the current era.
The caption reads like an AI prompt. The last instruction, "think of something to add" resulted in the AI adding a pterodactyl on the house, dropping bird poop on it. Probably not what the prompter meant, but technically correct.
This exact chain of interactions is what I come to HN for.
When Meat Loaf died, I commented "His name was Robert Paulsen" (you know, because in death membersbof project mayhem do have names, his name was Robert Paulsen". Someone commented something to the effect of no it wasn't, meat loaf wasn't his real name it was Marvin Aday, and then someone else commented to their comment "It's literally a fucking line from the movie".
I dont know why these layers of weirdness delight me so, but they do.
This is sort of the inverse “Don’t say HN is becoming Reddit”
Reddit has been declining for a long time and even more so the way the algorithm works with the Front Page. Politics and activism there is super amplified
Well actually pterosaurs were way different from birds, and don't even count as dinosaurs. Though they had a downy covering similar to feathers. But they're not bird ancestors.
I recommended FUTO keyboard in sibling comment. FlorisBoard is a nice FOSS option, but some features are still WIP. Personally, I've switched fully to ThumbKey, but that's got quite a learning curve.
I woul love to hear more about this. I am in need of a 3rd place, but unfortunately the only meetups around are sports or churches here. What did the members in your group do after you shut down? Were you open to members offering donations to keep your 3rd place going?
reply