[zafka]

This is very cool. The kind of thing I expected to find on Hacker News. DO you still get much chance to play around now days? I wish I had done a little more playing 20 years ago, but I am trying to make up now. Nitinol,Rare earth magnets, Bismuth.....There are just so many toys available, and so little time..

[ernok]

I think nowadays you have even more possibilities to play around then 20 years ago. You can use a Raspberry Pi for example and do some even more impressing things with just a few lines code of your own - building on a lot of open source software!

I have about four RasPis lying around doing doing things which where very much unaccessible for a hobbyist then. Just look at my current blog at http://µc.net to see a few (it's in german alas, maybe google translate can help here too..).

[zafka]

Ha, 94-99 I worked at Siemens in Boca. RIght near the end I stared listening to German on tapes, but alas... I am still mon-lingual. I have two beagle bone blacks, and a multitude of Microchip PIC boards. My current job we designed in a dspic33fj256710. OF course I have a bunch of the prototype boards waiting for the right project... I will be off to checkout your site now..