printf("Hello world");

This being my inaugural blog post, I'll take a second to lay out what I'm hoping to accomplish with this blog. I've always enjoyed tinkering with electronics and have found the internet to be an invaluable resource when my desk is covered in scavenged parts that don't seem to want to assemble themselves into a cohesive structure. Since this situation is ubiquitous throughout DIY-land I thought I'd contribute what I can to the collective body of knowledge. So hopefully when you, my reader, encounter this blog in a moment of crisis, I'll be able to save you some grief the way countless anonymous tinkerers have helped me with their blogs.

That said, my interest over the past couple of years has settled on computers. My formal education is in physics and (more specifically) astrophysics so most of what I post will be stuff I've picked up on the fly either on my own, working in labs or talking with people who actually know what they're doing. The bulk of these posts (I'm predicting, although my attention tends to wander) will be on vintage computers. I've acquired over the past few months an Apple ][e, an IBM 5150 and most recently an Atari 800, in various states of functionality. These machines are fascinating because despite being computers in every sense of the word, they are still simple enough for someone with no formal training to deconstruct and understand. If you're still reading this, you're clearly keen on getting your hands dirty so rather than waxing philosophical I'll shut up and start preparing material for this blog.

Happy soldering!