He realised that some of the off-the-shelf equipment used by serious amateurs is sensitive enough to measure the light drop caused by distant transits.

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Whereas creating a memory-chip industry is mostly a matter of buying fabrication equipment off the shelf, classier chips require lots of well-trained engineers, research and technology partners elsewhere in the computer industry.

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He added that the prototype had been built using existing off-the-shelf components, but there was scope to improve the equipment with customised parts.

BBC: Digits demo screenshot