Sam Johnson passed away the other day. For much of his life, he ran a little sewing machine shop in Raleigh and even invented sewing-machine devices that made sewing easier. We revisit this 2010 ...

Britons are being warned of a little-known setting on their washing machine that could actually save money on their energy bills. Recent research indicates that a significant number of people have ...

The de-scaling function on a coffee machine was identified as the least understood setting on a kitchen appliance. Similarly, the filter clean option on vacuum cleaners left many households puzzled.

TimesMachine is an exclusive benefit for home delivery and digital subscribers. About the Archive This is a digitized version of an article from The Times’s print archive, before the start of ...