A slow journal of embedded systems, hardware, and low-level craft.
Long-form writing about microcontrollers, assembly language, driver development, and the strange specific corners of hardware that most publications no longer cover.
Issue 01 · April 2026
Welcome back. We are restarting a quiet publication that used to live at this address, and we think you will find the new work familiar in spirit.
The site you are reading was, for most of two decades, the home of a small and widely used piece of Windows software. The software is gone. The URL stays. We think there is still an audience for the kind of careful technical writing the old site tried to produce, and we think that audience has been badly served by the last few years of hardware publishing.
We are going to publish slowly. We are going to publish long. We are going to publish when it is finished. If that sounds like what you were hoping existed, pour some coffee. There is a primer below.
Three places to start reading.
If you are new to the journal, these three pieces give you the shape of the thing.
Why we still write about the parallel port.
It is not the hardware that is interesting. It is the specific thinking a direct I/O port still demands of the person using it.
The weight of a single instruction.
Assembly language has not gotten easier. The questions it lets you ask about a program have not gotten less useful.
Notes from a year of firmware postmortems.
Twelve bugs. Six fixed in software. Two fixed in hardware. The rest were fixed, quietly, in the documentation.
The datasheet said the pin could sink 25 mA. The application note, published by the same company six years later, said the pin could sink 25 mA only if. The bug was in the gap between the two documents.
What a datasheet will not tell you about the MCP23017
Read the full piece8051·Z80·68HC11·PIC16F84·AVR ATmega·STM32F4·RP2040·ESP32·MSP430·Parallax Propeller·Raspberry Pi·Arduino Due·BeagleBone·MAX7219·MCP23017·DS1307·Parallel Port·USB-to-Serial·JTAG·SWD·I²C·SPI·CAN·UART·RS-232·RS-485
From the workbench, in passing.
On noise, and the difficulty of finding where it is actually coming from.
A one-afternoon investigation that turned into a two-week chase through the analog front end of a temperature logger. Notes before the formal writeup lands.
The PIC programmer that keeps refusing to die, and what that actually means.
A decade-old programmer, still in daily use, still reliable. The lesson is not nostalgia. The lesson is what made the thing well-engineered in the first place.
What we actually mean when we say “production firmware.”
A short terminology note. The difference between firmware that works and firmware that ships matters more than most engineers quietly acknowledge.
From the journal.
Recent writing. Unscheduled. Arrives when it is finished.
- 10 Best Trolling Motors for Fishing Kayaks (August 2026) Top Reviews
Paddling across a sprawling lake to reach your favorite fishing hole gets old fast. Your arms burn, your energy drops, and by the time you … Read more - 10 Best Infrared Saunas for Two People (August 2026) Trusted Reviews
Sharing a sauna session with your partner is one of those simple routines that can transform your evening. My wife and I started using a … Read more - 10 Best Sliding Miter Saws for Crown Molding (August 2026) Honest Reviews
Crown molding transforms an ordinary room into something special, but getting those compound angles right demands a saw that can handle the job. I have … Read more - 10 Best 60 Gallon Air Compressors for Home Garages (August 2026) Expert Reviews
When I started outfitting my home garage for serious automotive work, I quickly realized that a small pancake compressor was not going to cut it. … Read more - 12 Best Multi Zone Mini Split Systems for Whole Homes (August 2026) Top Reviews
When I started researching multi zone mini split systems for my own whole home renovation, I was overwhelmed by the options, the BTU ratings, and … Read more - 10 Best Golf Simulators for Small Rooms (August 2026) Expert Picks
Finding the right golf simulators for small rooms can feel like an impossible puzzle. You want to practice your swing year-round, but your spare bedroom, … Read more - 8 Best Log Splitters for Hardwood (August 2026) Tested and Reviewed
Splitting hardwood like oak, maple, and hickory by hand will wear you down fast. I have spent entire weekends swinging a maul at seasoned oak … Read more - 12 Best Battery Chainsaws for Firewood (August 2026) Expert Reviews
Cutting firewood used to mean mixing gas, breathing fumes, and wrestling with pull cords on cold mornings. I remember the days of flooded carburetors and … Read more - 12 Best Automotive Paint Sprayers for Auto Body Work (August 2026) Honest Reviews
Finding the right paint gun can make or break your auto body project. I have spent years testing different spray guns on everything from quick … Read more - 10 Best Automotive Diagnostic Scanners for DIY Mechanics (August 2026) Top Reviews
That dreaded check engine light pops on, and your mind immediately jumps to the worst-case scenario. I have been there plenty of times, standing in … Read more - 8 Best Mechanic Creepers for Garage Work (August 2026) Honest Reviews
I spent the better part of three months rolling under cars on my back trying to find the best mechanic creepers for garage work. If … Read more - 8 Best Car Ramps for Oil Changes (August 2026) Trusted Reviews
Changing your own oil saves money and gives you control over what goes into your engine. But getting under your car safely is the real … Read more - 10 Best Spool Guns for Aluminum Welding (August 2026) Expert Reviews
Aluminum welding is one of those skills that separates casual weekend welders from serious fabricators. The problem is that aluminum filler wire is incredibly soft, … Read more - 12 Best Plasma Cutters for Metal Fabrication (August 2026) Top Reviews
Finding the best plasma cutters for metal fabrication used to mean choosing between overpriced industrial machines and cheap units that could barely slice sheet metal. … Read more - 10 Best Multiprocess Welders for Fabrication (August 2026) Expert Reviews
Fabrication shops live and die by efficiency. When you are switching between MIG for thick plate, TIG for precision stainless work, and stick for outdoor … Read more
The catalog.
Four subjects. Every piece on the site lives under one of them.
This domain was first registered in January 2003 as the home of inpout32.dll, a Windows DLL and kernel-mode driver that gave user-level programs direct access to hardware ports on the NT line of Windows. It was written at the moment Microsoft started locking down ring-zero access, and hobbyists still needed a way to talk to the parallel port.
The software was hosted here for the better part of two decades. It was forked many times, academic papers cited it, university coursework linked to it, and every hobbyist project that needed to toggle a pin from user space eventually found its way to the original download page. It quietly became the de facto standard for hardware port access on Windows in an era that no longer exists.
The original site eventually lapsed. The domain became available.
We took the name because the work that happened here mattered, and because the URL had been pointing at a particular kind of technical writing for more than twenty years. Plain, accurate, and useful to the person on the other end of the screen. We intend to keep it pointing in the same direction.
About this journal
Written by a small group who read datasheets for fun and think the best technical writing has been getting rarer, not better. New dispatches arrive when they are finished. The archive grows as it grows.