Round Tower Observatory

In the very center of Copenhagen is the Round Tower - one of the world’s oldest working observatories. 

During our recent trip to Denmark, we climbed the spiral ramp and stairs 38.4 m to the platform and viewed the city. Built between 1637 and 1642, the Round Tower has been used for astronomy until the present day. 

 

Point Zero. The hollow core of the tower was originally used for viewing stars.

 

The sun is usually the object viewed when the observatory is open to the public during the day, but cloud cover made even seeing the sun not possible, so the telescope was pointed at a clock tower.

The Library Hall halfway up the tower had an exhibit of Danish architecture.

Happy birthday WWW

To celebrate the WWW turning 20 years old on Tuesday 30 April, CERN republished the first website. See it at http://info.cern.ch/hypertext/WWW/TheProject.html and learn more about the restoration project at http://info.cern.ch/

Old computer insides

Guy Kawasaki posted these cool pictures of the insides of vintage computers on his blog:

Core Memory--Computers Are Sensual

These are photos from Core Memory: A Visual Survey of Vintage Computers by John Alderman with photographs by Mark Richards. There’s a sensual beauty to computers that I never appreciated until I saw these pictures, and I can’t think of a better Christmas gift for a hardware geek.

See the rest at http://blog.guykawasaki.com/2007/10/core-memory--co.html

Gadgets in the Eighties

When I was about 11 or 12 I bought myself a solar powered radio hat. I might have a look at home to see if I can find it and take some photos for you all to see.

I got my first computer 23 years ago

Sega SC3000.

Easter weekend 1984.

It cost about NZ $300 and plugged into the TV, had a tape drive for saving and loading programs and I programmed games and stuff on it in BASIC (or machine code) - usually typing them in from magazines. I started programming a monopoly game (another Easter weekend tradition), but there were not enough pixels on the screen to show the board. The rubber keys were a pain.


Specifications:
CPU: Z80 maximum address range of 65535 bytes
First 32K occupied by the Basic ROM or Games ROM
Video Chip: Texas Instruments TMM9929A (4 Color Modes, 32 Sprites, 16K RAM)
Sound Chip: SN76487AN(3 sound channels & a noise generator)
System Ram: 2Kbyte 8212

I built my own gadget for it - I soldered together a keypad joystick.

Humble beginnings

I can't remember the first gadget I got. I guess it all depends on how you define gadget.

I got a toy crane when I was four years old (1974). Very low tech, lots of metal and plastic and string, but it had a working scoop that could pick up things.

I got an analogue watch when I was nine. My latest watch still showed analogue time but it had a pager built in. I use my mobile or the clock on the PC now for telling time.

I got an AM transistor radio when I was about 11 or 12. I think this was the first thing I owned that had any electronics in it. Dad had a pocket calculator and a mechanical adding machine - it could print in two colours.

Intro

The Murray brothers have always been gadget men (well gadget boys until they grew up - OK some of us are still boys at heart). This blog is will share their gadget stories and discoveries. We're all busy fiddling with gadgetry and technology in our day jobs so don't expect posts too regularly (especially since I haven't told the other bros about this blog yet).

Explore. Enjoy. Share.

Let us know about your favorite gadgets.