iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Mike Coats 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿🇪🇺🌍♻️ @mikecoats.social · 28/09/2026

Managed to finish off the cake in time for my wee one's birthday tomorrow. 🕰️😅

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Mike Coats 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿🇪🇺🌍♻️ @mikecoats.social · 27/09/2026

It looks like they’re selling other people’s code, under their own license, without giving attribution to the original authors. I’d say that’s treading on some legally questionable egg shells.

Screenshot of dependencies, with each author listed as “Unknown”.

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Mike Coats 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿🇪🇺🌍♻️ @mikecoats.social · 27/09/2026

What the hell is Boilerplate? Some scummy internet marketer is slurping up free and open-source packages and re-selling them in bundles from their own store. Biz-bros need to wind their necks in.

A screenshot of an email informing me I’d been added to some random person’s database and that my code was up for sale.

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Mike Coats 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿🇪🇺🌍♻️ @mikecoats.social · 12/08/2026

So my new DIY Camera Obscura had to be put to another use.

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Mike Coats 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿🇪🇺🌍♻️ @mikecoats.social · 31/07/2026

And now for the real test.. Did I get the level-shift topology right? Did I get the MOSFETs' pinouts correct? Are we translating 3v3 to 5v? YES! That's a relief! #electronics #openHardware

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Mike Coats 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿🇪🇺🌍♻️ @mikecoats.social · 31/07/2026

First test fit of an @adafruit.com QT Py. My footprint matches up exactly! Wunderbar! The clearance between USB-C and the current measurement header is a little closer than I'd have liked, but still fine.

An Oops! All Servos! board, connected to an Adafruit QT Py board.

A USB-C cable connected to a QT Py, with plenty of clearance over the current measurement header.

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Mike Coats 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿🇪🇺🌍♻️ @mikecoats.social · 31/07/2026

I deliberately ordered a few unpopulated PCBs to use them as assembly jigs. Flipping the PCB over and using sockets in place of pin headers and vice versa works a real treat. Everything lines up perfectly. #ad #openHardware #sponsored

A red PCB, configured as a build jig, and a black PCB configured as a full “Oops! All Servos!” Board.

The red and black PCBs during assembly. The red jig is holding the black PCBs components in place for soldering.

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Mike Coats 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿🇪🇺🌍♻️ @mikecoats.social · 26/07/2026

That tense moment when taking inventory on a new order… Did I get all the parts, so I can start building? Did I get any freebies to pop up on the shelf for later? Never fear! Mouser's picking team hit 100.00%. Relief!

A shipment inventory overmarked with ticks against every line.

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Mike Coats 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿🇪🇺🌍♻️ @mikecoats.social · 17/07/2026

I've just found my new favourite thing on the internet! People leaving positive reviews for their posties on the Royal Mail listing in the App Store.

I a not very happy with the service at this
moment in time as my usual postman is
brilliant he is always happy to help if needed.
But he must be away and my post isn't turning
up at it's usual time scale and I'm waiting for a
package that should have been delivered on
Saturday tge 31st January but it didn't Stu
didn't see the postman and I now have no idea
where it is or when it is going to arrive as the
delivery details haven't been updated ?

My post lady does a fantastic job everyday she
comes and delivers she needs to be valued
more by the company as she's the best post
woman Calverton has ever had and she needs
a van as transport as she works extremely
hard, she does royal mail proud but why you
as a company isn't appreciating the hard work
she does it reflects badly on you as a company
please value Rachel more and give her
transport so she can continue to provide a
excellent service on behalf of royal mail!

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Mike Coats 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿🇪🇺🌍♻️ @mikecoats.social · 17/07/2026

My latest VanSpoof development: Installation instructions as a fold-your-own 'zine. Really easy to put together using Inkscape's built in template; the SVG will be up on my Codeberg repo later today. Folded, the zine fits neatly in my regular shipping boxes, too. #openHardware #diy #zine

The front cover of the instructional zine.

An inside page of the instructional zine.

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Mike Coats 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿🇪🇺🌍♻️ @mikecoats.social · 26/06/2026

A sneak peak of the logo for my upcoming Open Hardware PCB project which was drawn with @johanpeitz.com's #picoCAD2. It's got to have the fastest zero-to-hero progression of any 3D tool I've ever played with. It's great! #openSource #openHardware

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Mike Coats 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿🇪🇺🌍♻️ @mikecoats.social · 11/06/2026

Even after twenty years of playing with those two equations, I'm still delighted by the graphics they generate.

A rendering of a Peter de Jong attractor.

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Mike Coats 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿🇪🇺🌍♻️ @mikecoats.social · 19/01/2026

My biggest print to date! 🤞 I've never "filled" the build plate before. These will be two 4x2 gridfinity bins with vertical dividers to hold my @lectronz.com and @tindie.com stock. I'm finally getting around to bringing at least a modicum of organisation to my office. #3dPrinting

A BambuLab A1 Mini printing a whole bed of Gridfinity bins.

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Mike Coats 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿🇪🇺🌍♻️ @mikecoats.social · 06/01/2026

Some "absolute units" of snowflakes falling in Inverness at the moment. #snow #uksnow #iv2

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Mike Coats 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿🇪🇺🌍♻️ @mikecoats.social · 23/12/2025

Test No. 4: DE-9 connector re-seated and the noise and corruption has disappeared. The spacing between statements looks like it's more than 5 lines, though. I wonder if ?we really need CR & LF for newlines

"Hello, world!" written several times on a receipt with many blank lines between each statement. There's no corruption or noise!

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Mike Coats 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿🇪🇺🌍♻️ @mikecoats.social · 23/12/2025

Test No. 3: 5 x CR+LFs added per string. There's now enough spacing between runs that I can see the corruption and tweak the system "live". I wonder if my hacked together cable/connector isn't clean enough?

"Hello, world!" written several times on a receipt with many blank lines between each statement. Some corruption is still visible.

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Mike Coats 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿🇪🇺🌍♻️ @mikecoats.social · 23/12/2025

Test No. 2: Newlines added. There's still corruption, but it's hard to diagnose. These lines were too close to the print head to see until many more lines were printed and sometimes the only newline was when we overflowed the "page" width. With the age of this machine, does it want CRs+LFs?

"Hello, world!" written several times on a receipt. Every time is corrupted in one way or another, but mostly, it's one statement per line.

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Mike Coats 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿🇪🇺🌍♻️ @mikecoats.social · 23/12/2025

Test No. 1: Apart from the obvious noise, introducing spurious characters and corrupting others, I forgot to add "\n" to my "Hello, world!\n".

"Hello, world!" printed again and again with lots of corruption visible.

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Mike Coats 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿🇪🇺🌍♻️ @mikecoats.social · 23/12/2025

My proofs of concept are complete! I've managed to print "Hello, world!" on my 4610-TG3 from some Rust code running on an ESP32-C6. I've also dumped the opening screens from Zork to get a feel for where the project's going. bsky.app/profile/mike... #electronics #esp32 #rustLang #riscV #vintage

"Hello, world!" being output repeatedly on a receipt printer.

The opening of Zork, output on a receipt printer.

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Mike Coats 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿🇪🇺🌍♻️ @mikecoats.social · 19/12/2025

Despite all of these improvements, it still always comes back to setting up a UART to run at 9600 8N1 with hardware flow control!

Rust code to set up a UART running at 9600 baud with 8N1 configuration.

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Mike Coats 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿🇪🇺🌍♻️ @mikecoats.social · 16/12/2025

With a fresh roll of thermal paper and bench top power supply bodged to fit, the 4610-TG3 receipt printer lives once again! It’s pretty power hungry, though. Even with 24 of your finest DC volts heading its way, it still pulls down over 2 amps when it’s printing.

An IBM receipt printer’s self test output.

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Mike Coats 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿🇪🇺🌍♻️ @mikecoats.social · 15/12/2025

Power connector pin-out confirmed. Pin 1 has a very obvious ground plane connection, it looks like there's nothing on 2, so by deduction (and tracing) we must have our positive supply on pin 3. #ibm #vintage #electronics #reverseEngineering

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Mike Coats 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿🇪🇺🌍♻️ @mikecoats.social · 15/12/2025

Time to get ready for some holiday reverse engineering. 10 points to the first person to guess what this board is from. #vintage #electronics #ibm

The top of a PCB. Along one side is a board to board connector and there is a row of ports across the bottom.

The bottom of the PCB. Solder points, traces and copper fills are visible.

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Mike Coats 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿🇪🇺🌍♻️ @mikecoats.social · 15/07/2025

Here we go! An ESP32-S3 running MicroPython using each of the Monstera leafs as a capacitive touch pad. Each pad works individually and multitouch works across all four too! #electronics #microPython

A green LED being lit while pad 1 is touched.

A blue LED being lit while pad 2 is touched.

A red LED being lit while pad 3 is touched.

A yellow LED being lit while pad 4 is touched.

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Mike Coats 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿🇪🇺🌍♻️ @mikecoats.social · 15/07/2025

I've soldered on a set of pins to one board and headers to another to test the Monstera pads. The only LEDs I have stock of in four colours are these excellent not-LEGO blocks from the now defunct Lunchbox Electronics. I believe they came from an old @oshwassociation.bsky.social OHS swag bag.

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Mike Coats 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿🇪🇺🌍♻️ @mikecoats.social · 15/07/2025

My latest boards from @oshpark.bsky.social have arrived! Hand-drawn Monstera leaf capacitive touch pads with curved PCB traces. I wonder how well they will work. They're a bit of a proof-of-concept at the moment. #electronics

Three PCBs in OSH Park Purple. Gold Monstera leaves are visible.

A close up of one capacitive touch pad Monstera leaf and some curved PCB traces.

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Mike Coats 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿🇪🇺🌍♻️ @mikecoats.social · 29/05/2025

On my way to @oshwassociation.bsky.social #OHS2025! Can you really call yourself a local if you don't use the station's sneaky side gate? #Inverness

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