Clever app-controlled analog split-flap display for your home or office

boing
21

You mean like this bad boy?


Spotted at the #34c3 this year.

1 Like
22

1957 called, is totally happy to swap one of these for $1800 worth of HD LCDs.

23

There are now flip-dot displays with built-in LEDs.

1 Like
24

Solari split-flap clocks are somewhat cheaper.

25
  1. I move that this sort of thing be called Transistorpunk.
  2. The messages to be displayed on this particular thingy should be fed via a TTY console.
26

Yup. The one I saw in our office was driven by a PC running windows 95. It used the built in winsock to connect to the internet and dialed automatically. But the winsock software required user confirmation so the developer had hooked into the mouse driver to simulate a mouse click at the appropriate location on the screen.

1 Like
27

I’d guess that they are using either stepper motors, which aren’t continuously variable in their angular position, (unless you’re using a very creative driving algorithm).

If servomotors, then sure, there is probably some portion of the chain which is based on a continuously-variable voltage, but it’s still attempting to take a discrete input and achieve a discrete output.

We’re into hair-splitting territory now. Everything is analog, in that it exists in the physical world. But on the other hand, quantum mechanics says that everything is discrete. It’s turtles all the way down… :smiley:

28

This topic was automatically closed after 5 days. New replies are no longer allowed.