We’ve been getting excited about teletypes and making machines talk to each other.  But nothing quite describes the 1930s beauty (that Matt got for $1 on Ebay…. plus $100 for shipping) quite like the pictures.  Behold the Teletype:

We spent about 4 hours tonight cleaning it up and figuring out how it worked before we downloaded the manual for assurance that our conjunctures were correct.  This machine is electro-mechanical with a big emphasis on the mechanical.  It has a relay, a massive lightbulb looking fuse, a solenoid, massive AC motor, and more mechanical parts that any of us have seen on a communicatory device in a long time.  It’s peices have been banged up a bit, but having figured out the mecanics of it, we’re pretty sure we can get it up and running with some possible minor welding.

The clicks and sounds and gears were quite satisfying! And we did get the motor powered up tonight – here’s a video of it:

teletype motor

More glorius pictures here:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/littlegreenfroggy/sets/72157607651690722/

Noisebridge Has A Space

As if to throw the gauntlet down before our friends to the north, the San Francisco Hacker Space Noisebridge signed their lease today. Take that Canadia!

Their new space is ground level (something we had once hoped for here in NYC). They’re also only a few blocks from the best jicama salad in the SFO region. They got started in February 2007 and have been working hard for over a year and a half. They’ve even managed to establish non-profit status*, so if you’re looking for somewhere to throw your stock market windfall (uh. oops. . . .) Anyway, we couldn’t be happier to congratulate them on their new home.

Read more about them at their site: http://noisebridge.net/

*Correction, per Al’s comment: They’re still in the process of establishing themselves as a non-profit. You can give them money anyway. Really. Psychology research says it will make you feel good.

The Spooky Box is a simple interface for Processing that consists of 3 knobs and 4 buttons. There are two versions, an Arduino based hardware one which doesn’t exist yet, and a software emulator which I just finished. There’s also an accompanying Processing library that works for both which is ridiculously easy to use.

If you’re looking for a simple, generic UI for your Processing apps, consider trying this out. I’ll be releasing more info as the hardware gets put together.

PS. The skull image in the background there is CC licensed, and can be found here.

Metamorphosis from Glenn Marshall on Vimeo.

How appropriate!  Glenn’s video was generated using Processing, the rad visual programming suite that is so terribly useful for hacking Arduinos. 🙂  Take a look!

This is a fantastic segueway to the PROCESSING STUDY GROUP being hosted at NYCR tomorrow (Wed, 9/24) at 7:00PM by Justin DAY!  Join Justin for an evening of Processing chat, hacks, and general inspiration.

Via Gizmodo (and others)

For History Hacker, my fellow resistor Raphael Abrams helped prototype some projects with me. We were at NYCR working on making an AC Generator out of a bike when Adam had the bright idea to hook the two ends of the coil to a speaker to listen to the sound of music. Bonus points for anyone who comments with a cunning and subtle reference to that movie, the sound of music.

My show is coming in a week! If people watch the pilot and the Nielsen ratings are good, I’ll be able to make a whole season of History Hacker and get to investigate inventions and inventors in history and show you how to make them!

History Hacker
Friday September 26th
8PM and Midnight
History Channel
(Right before and right after the first presidential debate)

You can join the History Hacker facebook group where folks are discussing their favorite inventors of yesteryear and I set up a History Hacker flickr group because I’d actually like to see the people who are watching my show as they are watching the show with me on the tv. (I think it will be cool to see who is watching the show!)

The show will live or die based on ratings and feedback from folks.

The history channel has message boards to talk about the show. They are tracking what is said there.

And if you feel so moved to write a message to them, I’ve set up an email for History Hacker feedback that forwards to the people at the History Channel who need to know.