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.
- 8 Best 4K Capture Cards for Video Producers (May 2026)
Creating professional video content in means dealing with massive file sizes, complex workflows, and the constant pressure to deliver 4K quality. I learned this the … Read more - 8 Best Welding Carts for Workshop Use (May 2026)
I have spent years working in cramped workshops where every inch of floor space matters. Nothing frustrates me more than tripping over cables or having … Read more - 8 Best Studio Monitor Calibration Tools (May 2026) Expert Reviews
If you have ever finished a mix that sounded perfect in your studio only to discover it falls apart on car speakers or earbuds, you … Read more - 10 Best Ergonomic Mice for CAD Workflows (May 2026)
I spent 12 years in CAD-heavy roles before transitioning to full-time content creation, and I can tell you this: the mouse you use matters more … Read more - 8 Best L-Shaped Standing Desks for Multiple Monitors (May 2026)
After spending three years working from a cramped single-monitor setup that left my neck permanently tilted, I finally discovered what multi-monitor users have been missing. … Read more - 8 Best Modular Power Supplies for Workstations (May 2026) Expert Guide
Building a reliable workstation requires every component to work in harmony, and the power supply is the foundation that keeps everything running. Over the past … Read more - 8 Best Cut-Resistant Gloves for Workshops (May 2026) Expert Reviews
I have seen too many workshop accidents that could have been prevented with the right gloves. After testing 15 different cut-resistant gloves over three months … Read more - 10 Best Magnetometers for Geophysical Surveys (May 2026) Buying Guide
When I first started conducting geophysical surveys in , I quickly learned that choosing the right magnetometer can make or break your project. After testing … Read more - 10 Best CRT-Style Monitors for Retro Gaming Setups (May 2026)
After spending three months rebuilding my childhood gaming room, I realized something important: modern flat screens just do not feel right for retro gaming. The … Read more - 8 Best Multi-Tools for Field Engineers (May 2026)
After six years of crawling through server rooms, climbing cell towers, and troubleshooting industrial equipment across three states, I have learned one truth about field … Read more - 15 Best Drones for Mapping Surveyors (May 2026) Professional Reviews
Finding the best drones for mapping surveyors can transform how you collect geospatial data. I spent three months testing 15 professional-grade drones across construction sites, … Read more - 15 Best Tube Microphones for Vocal Recording (May 2026)
There is something magical about the way a tube microphone captures a voice. After testing dozens of condensers and dynamics over the years, I keep … Read more - 16 Best Tweezers for Watchmakers (May 2026) Buying Guide
The difference between a successful watch repair and a damaged movement often comes down to one simple tool: your tweezers. After spending three months testing … Read more - 5 Best Surge Protectors for Audio Equipment (May 2026) Reviews & Guide
Most people think surge protectors are only for lightning storms. That is a dangerous misconception. The smaller power spikes that happen dozens of times daily … Read more - 6 Best Surge Generators for EMC Testing (May 2026) Expert Reviews
After spending three months testing EMC equipment in our lab, I have learned that choosing the right surge generator can make or break your compliance … 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.