Les Pounder - 3DTested

Articles by: Les Pounder

ATAboy bridges old IDE drives to the 21st century with Open Source USB host bridge — powered by a Raspberry Pi RP2350 and with custom "Award" BIOS menu

By Les Pounder published 24 February 26

Using the power of the Raspberry Pi Pico 2's RP2350, ATAboy bridges the hard drives of old, with the computers of today.

The best deals on tools for building PCs and fixing electronics — save money on the tech that fixes your tech

By Les Pounder last updated 20 February 26

We've scoured the internet and found the best tools to keep your rigs running!

ZX Spectrum flies simulated spacecraft using BASIC, Python, and serial — Kerbal Space Program Lunar lander powered by 1980s hardware

By Les Pounder published 3 February 26

"Houston, we have R Tape loading error, 0:1 problem"

Raspberry Pi 5 placed near an older Raspberry Pi on a board

Raspberry Pi 5 price increases drastically as AI shortage bites, 16GB version now $205 — second price increase in three months, over 70% more expensive than original MSRP

By Les Pounder published 2 February 26

Raspberry Pi is increasing its prices again.

Developer creates 'conversational AI' that can run in 64kb of RAM on 1976 Zilog Z80 CPU-powered system — features a tiny chatbot and a 20-question guessing game

By Les Pounder published 2 February 26

The venerable Z80 microprocessor has its own micro language model, and its quite terse in its responses

How to save memory in Windows — RAM is expensive; here’s how to maximize the RAM that you already have!

By Les Pounder published 31 January 26

As RAM prices soar, we show you how to do more with less RAM!

How to setup an Android smartphone as a webcam — Camo Studio unlocks new uses for old smartphones in Windows 10 or 11 and OBS software

By Les Pounder published 29 January 26

You don’t need to throw out that old Android smartphone; you can recycle it into a backup webcam or create a multi-camera setup for your streaming platform. And we show you how to do that, for free!

Jeff Merrick's Typeframe PS-85 cyberdeck

Alien fan builds a better Raspberry Pi cyberdeck — The MU/TH/UR of all homages to a classic movie series

By Les Pounder published 22 January 26

Powered by the Raspberry Pi Zero 2W, Jeff Merrick's slab of 1970 / 1980s aesthetic screams the "charm" of the worn and broken Alien universe that belies the powerful single board computer within.

At 30% off, this remarkable $14 USB-rechargeable flashlight is an indispensable PC building tool — Olight lights up the dark corners of any DIY project

By Les Pounder published 16 January 26

Deals It's dangerous to go alone! Take this

Best Soldering Irons and Stations 2026

By Les Pounder last updated 15 January 26

Choosing the right soldering iron can be difficult. Do you need temperature control, hot air rework and high wattage irons to do a good job?

Raspberry Pi AI HAT+ 2 Review: The brains and the brawn

By Les Pounder published 15 January 26

Raspberry Pis latest AI accessory brings a more powerful Hailo NPU, capable of LLMs and image inference, but the price tag is a key deciding factor.

Raspberry Pi and mini PC home lab prices hit parity as DRAM costs skyrocket — price hikes force hobbyists to weigh up performance versus power consumption

By Ben Stockton published 6 January 26

The price of a Raspberry Pi now has parity with Intel N100 mini PCs at just over $200, with flash memory price spikes continuing to push prices up across the board.

CES award outs MSI's monstrous 1600W RTX 5090 Lightning GPU — new flagship has next generation liquid cooling, dual 16-pin power connectors, and a surface-mounted LCD display

By Hassam Nasir published 5 January 26

You can even overclock it via an app

How to use Plex and a spare computer to build a streaming movie service

By Les Pounder published 2 January 26

Build your own streaming service all from the comfort of your own home. You only need a spare PC and a few hours to serve media across your home.

How to connect an Xbox controller to your Windows PC — wired and wireless gaming made easy

By Les Pounder published 31 December 25

Game controllers on PC has come a long way since early serial and game port devices, and Windows now makes it easier than ever to get your game on.

Raspberry Pis imposed over the New York skyline

New York's Mayoral Inauguration bans Raspberry Pi and Flipper Zero — devices join explosives, guns, drones, and beach balls on prohibited items list

By Les Pounder published 31 December 25

The invitation to Mayor-elect Mamdani's inauguration lists Raspberry Pi and Flipper Zero as prohibited items but does not provide a reason.

How to get Windows 11 for free (or less than $15) — Get the latest Microsoft OS for less than the price of Windows 10's ESU

By Avram Piltch last updated 22 December 25

Need an OS for your PC build? Microsoft charges a whopping $139 for Windows 11 Home. Here's how to get Windows free or at least cheap.

Maker builds tiny $10 secondary 1.14-inch display using an ESP32 — you could play Crysis on it, if you squint

By Les Pounder published 22 December 25

A 1.14 inch secondary display built around an ESP32, that receives video frames over Wi-Fi, and you could build your own for $10. Sounds like a fun weekend project

The USB Power Delivery (PD) Specification — everything you need to know about USB-PD

By Les Pounder published 20 December 25

Learn the secrets of the USB PD specification as we delve into how the specification has changed in over a decade of revisions

Commodore 64 Ultimate Review: 21st Century Computing from a 1982 perspective: Updated

By Les Pounder published 15 December 25

Editor's Choice

After a 30-year wait, the new FPGA-based Commodore 64’s are coming off the production line, and we’ve got one for review. It does not disappoint!

Here are the top ten PowerShell commands in Windows that will get you started

By Les Pounder published 12 December 25

PowerShell is a powerful tool and if you want to be a Windows power user, you need to learn it, so here are the top ten PowerShell commands to get you started.

Arduino Uno Q Review: The board with two brains

By Les Pounder published 9 December 25

Two heads are better than one?

Best PC tool deals — deals on iFixit, Hoto, and Wuben

By Les Pounder last updated 5 December 25

Deals You really do need all of these tools to keep your electronics in good order, and luckily they are all on offer.

Best retro tech deals — deals on retro tech for the modern PC setup

By Les Pounder last updated 5 December 25

Retro tech is cool and we've scoured the internet for the best deals for nostalgic technology

13 bargains under $13 to improve your tech life — the best cheap tech that you can still grab before Black Friday and Cyber Monday ends

By Les Pounder, Matt Safford last updated 2 December 25

Deals We've scoured Amazon Prime Day sales pages and found these 13 products that won't hurt your wallet too much

1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
View Archive

Other versions of this page are available with specific content for the following regions:

Staff Writer