Electronics Now articles from June 1995

Electronics Now archives from June 1995

PC cards. (personal computer cards)
June 1, 1995... The PC Card standard is changing the shape of mobile computing. Personal-Computer (PC) Designers are constantly striving for two things: compatibility and expandability. The PC industry could not have evolved as far and as fast as it has if it...

Universal clock. (includes related articles)
June 1, 1995... Build the Universal Clock - three unique timepieces in one! Astronomers - both professional and amateur - are just a little bit different from regular folks. For instance, they think nothing of traveling thousands of miles to view a five-minute...

Handy hobby power supply.
June 1, 1995... Build this power supply that provides both fixed and variable DC outputs. All electronic circuits require a power supply. The question facing any circuit designer, professional or hobbyist, is how to supply that power in the most economical...

Dual-trace converter. (converter for single-trace oscilloscope)
June 1, 1995... Turn your single-trace oscilloscope into a dual-channel instrument for next to nothing in price. A single-trace oscilloscope can be a useful piece of test gear, and very inexpensive as well. However, there are many advantages to having an...

The call counter. (telephone call counting machine)
June 1, 1995... Record the number of calls received on your phone with this inexpensive and simple circuit. Many answering machines not only tell you that you have messages waiting, but also let you know how many. What they don't tell you, however, is the...

Carrier-current remote control. (remote control for electrical circuits)
June 1, 1995... Control up to nine devices remotely with this versatile carrier-current circuit. This wireless remote control system allows you to control up to nine electrical circuits (such as lights and appliances) with an RF carrier signal that is...

Budget capacitance meter.
June 1, 1995... Build a direct-reading capacitance meter Most electronics experimenters accumulate, among other things, a large number of capacitors whose values are unknown. The color-coded markings might be worn off, or maybe the true color of the dots or...

Power control circuits.
June 1, 1995... Learn to apply power semiconductors in practical power control circuits and control appliances, motors, and relays. Solid-state electronic control circuits stand between you and the AC power line in appliances from washing machines to air...

The ProCar security system. (automobile alarm system)
June 1, 1995... This is the fourth part of a series of articles about building ProCar, an automobile alarm, anti-theft, and anti-carjacking system. The third part of this article (Electronics Now, May 1995, page 71) explained the formation of the wiring...

Acoustic cancellations, chip adapter resources, PIC microprocessor fundamentals, fast and easy SM removal, and essential hacker nutrients.(Hardware Hacker)
June 1, 1995... Several helpline callers have asked me about acoustic cancellation. These are schemes to null out existing noises by generating new ones precisely 180 [degrees] out of phase. Well, the bottom line is: It doesn't work except in very special and...

Taming the deafening decibels: the potential for ear damage at school dances.(Audio Update)
June 1, 1995... In my July 1994 column, I wrote about my adventures in trying to get the volume levels turned down at our town's middle-school student disco dances. It all started when my son called to ask to be rescued from his first dance because he found the...

Here's the keyboard section of the all-electronic audio router.(Drawing Board)
June 1, 1995... If you've been reading my articles for any length of time, you should realize that every one of my designs goes through exactly the same sequence of stages. I put a lot of thought into the diagrams I drew last time, and a lot of bench time goes...

Windows and Warp, Delphi and the P6. (computer operating systems and programming tools)(Computer Connections)
June 1, 1995... When it comes to new operating systems, there is usually good news and bad news. Microsoft's Windows 95 and IBM's OS/2 Warp Version 3.0 maintain the tradition. Both are 32-bit protected-mode, preemptive multitasking operating systems. And both...