For years I have dismantled old printers, clocks, radio’s, disk drives, got all the screws out and sorted them in neat little boxes, taking the plastic gears, bearings, etc.. and storing them all separately. This all resulted in a workshop with a large amount of boxes, drawers, cabinets, all filled with a wealth of electronicRead more
Although most modern telephones have GPS installed – this project takes things a little differently. An old rotary phone is connected using the phonebox to a GPS antenna. Stories are being recorded and stored with location data in the device. When the device re-visits the location, it will give a phone call using the earlierRead more
Yezz! another retrointerface ready. The phonebox simulates all necessary signals to operate a rotary-dial style telephone to any other device. Dialed numbers are put through to a serial port. For audio connection a line-in and line-out are given. The board puts a 12V line-voltage on the phone, and can also generate the 70V – 20HzRead more
Some time ago I tried rep-strapping using 5-1/4” diskdrive motors and MDF wood. (see here). The motors turned out to be way too weak, the M5 thread way to slow. Perhaps a larger thread (M12) and some bigger steppermotors can save this evening of work. In this second attempt I have been using only theRead more
Old ball-type Mice make perfect resources for rotational encoders. There are however numerous different sensors. Some have plain photodiodes, some have IC’s which do part of the converting to TTL signals. Last is the case with plain old logitech mice (the ones with encoder wheel). Simply hook up the first two wires to Vcc andRead more
Finally, the holy grail in physical computing and interaction design. Lo and Behold, the internet enabled furby! Whenever you need an email-warning you can stroke, or a furry newsreader, here’s the starting point for your project.. ahum. I used a lantronix Xport ethernet-to-serial interface to connect a normal Arduino duemillianove board to the internet. TheRead more
So much for the ‘paws’, on to the whiskers. I used old guitar string which is very flexible (but does not permanently deform that easy) so it stays in shape nicely. The switch is made out of one loop of wire which normally does not touch the feeler-wire. As soon as the feeler is bendedRead more
The first RetroInterface is a fact!. I used an Ottantotto to convert the signals to and from a T100S telex by Siemens to ‘modern day ASCII’ at 9600 baud. The system works well. Any type of terminal emulator on PC can be used to write and read data (half duplex) to the telex. Apparently theRead more
After some useful hints and tips from Tom Igoe, I am happy to present the small atmega88 board aimed at servo-control. Since it is using the mega88 I dubbed the board ‘Ottantotto’ which is Italian for Eighty eight. More on this board can be found on the wiki page.Read more
Connecting everything with everything… Here a computer playing Pong with itself. The motorfaders from the Behringer BCF2000 can either used as user-input or taken over by the PC. Check the processing example hereRead more