Digital Roundup, December 2024

Another month has come to a close, and with it the whole of 2024. As a result, it’s once again time to take stock of everything I’ve had published digitally this month – a little less than usual, thanks to an early finish for the holidays, but still a hefty crop of articles and reviews.

My personal highlight this month has to be a painstaking project by Kevin Noki which brings the Apple FlatMac, a non-functional design study prototyped by Harmut Esslinger but never launched, to life – complete with custom keyboard and integrated single-board computer more than capable of emulating the Apple Mac machines of the era and beyond. It’s an absolutely incredible piece of work, and a “what-if” for how it could have inspired Apple’s work in portable computing years before the launch of the iPad.

The big launch of the month, meanwhile, was the Raspberry Pi 500 – a Raspberry Pi 5-based single-board computer in a keyboard, mimicking the form factor of popular 1980s and 1990s microcomputers like the Commodore 64 and Amiga, Sinclair ZX Spectrum, Atari ST, and BBC Micro. As always, my coverage includes bespoke benchmarking for performance, power draw, and thermal load and in-house photography – including a full teardown. Nvidia launched a “new” Jetson Orin Nano system-on-module – frequently misreported elsewhere as a new entry in the family, but actually a simple firmware update to existing hardware which unlocks a new higher-power operating mode.

A full list of my last articles for 2024 is available below. and with that it’s on to 2025!

Digital Roundup – July 2024

July has rolled to a close, so it’s time to take stock of everything I’ve had published in digital outlets over the past calendar month – and, as always, it’s quite the list.

Highlights this month include a look at a calculator aimed at the microcontroller developer, booting Linux from a Google Drive filesystem, ensmartening a cheap off-the-shelf robot mower, a pocket-size DECStation emulator powered by the popular Raspberry Pi RP2040 microcontroller, the impressive Zeal 8-Bit Computer, a 3D-printed “Faux TRS-80,” and a magnetic exoskeleton for your hand – capable, its creators claim, of boosting your performance in games.

Not all news covered was good, though: Shapeways, a pioneer in 3D printing as a service and just-in-time manufacturing marketplaces, announced its bankruptcy this month.

Links for all my articles for July are available below, and there’s plenty more to come this August!