Hardware

CL-1 Nixie Clock

One-off design based on a 1970s military-surplus time code display. The case, linear power supply, Nixie tubes, and N8701B drivers are original, but they're now driven by a PIC 16F690 and 74594 shift registers. A modified Bell telephone ringer assembly provides an hourly chime, which can be automatically disabled when the room is dark. Frequency reference is rectified 60 Hz taken from a spare transformer winding.

Software

Wedgetail

Wedgetail provides a web-standards-compliant method for modern browsers to connect to telnet-based MUSHes, MUCKs, and MOOs, using a server as a translation layer (or "wedge"). The client and server are both pure Javascript and use websockets for communications, allowing communications over any proxy that can pass HTTPS connections. Features include reconnect support with a configurable grace period, ANSI color, and server-configurable text highlighting.

For more information see the Wedgetail Mercurial repo. If you end up using it on your site, I'd be interested in hearing from you.

DuckClient

DuckClient was conceived as a MUCK client for ChromeOS devices. It was a full-fledged client written entirely in Javascript (including what may be the only existing implementation of RFC 854 in that language.) Versions for other OS's were provided via nw.js. Features included text highlight triggers, TLS encryption, compression, URL preview, logging, and many others. The rendering layers in Wedgetail are more or less directly lifted from this project.

With the sunsetting of the Chrome App API DuckClient is now a dead project, but source code is still available with a 2-clause BSD license. Note that I no longer support this software; if it breaks, you own both pieces.

Historical documents

Furries and the Media 1994-2000: An Abusive Relationship: My collection of articles and videos from that special period when the news media first recognized the furry fandom existed.
Copyright © 2026 D. "Orville" Brodbeck dba Laridyne Systems