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Cool vintage electronics projects to do in 2023

falter

falter

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Joined
Jan 22, 2011
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Vancouver, BC
Just looking for ideas for neat projects to tackle. Mostly for my own amusement but occasionally to be videoed.

Right now I'm working obviously on my Sol terminal prototype as well as a SWTPC PPG joystick. But I'd like to tackle some smaller, less insane projects.

In magazines so far I've found things like:

Digital clocks
Ultrasonic kid repellent device
Alarms
Homebrew Pong
Tennis (already have)
Some kinda battleship thing

Anyone else remember some unique ones to look for? I've been searching mainly PE and RE mags so far.
 
Couple of DACs ought to do it. Many don't realize that the dual displays on the old CDC DD60 were nothing more than big 'scopes (i.e. not raster). Some rather ingenious RLC circuits to form characters and a 512x512 graphics capability--with no buffering. It had to be constantly redrawn. ca. 1964.

Bitsavers has some good stuff on it.

cdc.dd60.console.jpg
 
They don't say anything more than 'General Purpose Computer' on the block diagram, something that the author had access to at his uni.
As an aside, it's interesting that this issue has one of the first ads for the PDP-11/05.
 
@Plasma beat me to it, but no matter how high the wattage, I just can't keep those little B@s3$%S off my lawn!

Are you looking for a genuine legacy kit/project or a more modern invocation? Many, but not all, of the easy "entertainment" article projects sucked. While I read the thread and can appreciate your tennis game, I would not spend much time playing it - do you?

As for 'pong', yeah - I am nearly finished with the enclosure and will post in that thread when I am finished (assuming I don't brick it along the way). Quite cool - and quite playable. If you read that thread, you will see a GI catalog link that shows that toward the end of that niche era, they had some pretty sophisticated chips that went well beyond 'pong'. Color, and including a bunch of games - tank games and a whole load of stuff. You are very good at tracking these down and that would be a cool project, but maybe not all that easy.

Another one that is much easier are all the LED reaction time variants. Here is a simple example https://www.ebay.com/itm/POT-SHOT-v...ce-skill-toy-kit-set-NOS-/303827765869?_ul=IL

Years ago, I went into a 'Dave and Busters', which is basically a casino for kids. They had a very playable one of these and a year or so ago I decided to build a pseudo-modern version.

20231031_105702.jpg

An LED flashes indicating your target (randomly chosen). Then, a legacy 74154 (4 to 16 line multiplexer) sequentially flashes the 16 LEDs and you have to press the button when the target is lit. You can adjust the intensity of LEDs and the sequencing speed (the pots). I have period-appropriate sound effects (which is all that is in my repertoire) coming out of a dirt-cheap speaker. An Arduino clone (you can see it in the pic) runs the whole thing.

I have show-and-tell'd this with at least 4 people and it is actually a lot of fun to play! One feature that I thought of adding was that you start at a medium speed and if you catch it, the next trial is faster. If you miss, the next trial is slower. Hence you get a score based on a larger n ....then I thought, enough - forget the feature creature. Yeah, I have to get it off the breadboard (stop nagging me - what, are you my wife?).

You could build one of these and add all kinds of stuff....imagine...There could be a universally accepted "Falter" score that clinicians would use to diagnose slower-than-molasses people. The sky is the limit.

Alternatively, you could create something that would solve the generations old question of how these things work - hey I would watch that video!
x-ray-specs-100-reinvintaged.jpg
 
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Plasma said:
:unsure:
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I forget the exact name for it but I think it was someone here that actually first pointed it out. Supposedly this device emits an annoying tone at a frequency only young people can hear (maybe like crt whine) and it causes them to want to leave the area lol
 
falter said:
Ultrasonic kid repellent device
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Is this correct? Not Dog repellent? I am very intrigued! Point me to the plans please.... I am going to have this and a cell phone jammer on me no matter where I go now. By the way anyone else ever use a cell phone jammer if they are going somewhere like the movies or a nice restaurant?
 
If you want to go retro, consider the telephone-dial-neon-lamp calculator here. Around the same time, I recall an article detailing construction of a Morse code typewriter using relays. Lots of interesting projects in old magazines.
 
VERAULT said:
Is this correct? Not Dog repellent? I am very intrigued! Point me to the plans please.... I am going to have this and a cell phone jammer on me no matter where I go now. By the way anyone else ever use a cell phone jammer if they are going somewhere like the movies or a nice restaurant?
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Jammers are illegal in the US, unless of course you are the government. And not just "slap on the wrist" illegal.
 
Plasma said:
Jammers are illegal in the US, unless of course you are the government. And not just "slap on the wrist" illegal.
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I only use it in situations that call for it.. which is rare. I dont go to the movies anymore and haven't in years by the way.
 
does it have to be computer related?

Back in the 1980s for R/C cars Australian magazines ran articles to help people save money with electronics projects.
There was plans for a Electronic speed controller, A peak detection charger for NICD that was modular with different sensor plugins, and a road dyno.
I went back a few years ago and started to collect these very rare now magazines and I built many of the projects, upgraded a bunch of them too.
used my 3d printer to complete many of them as they were unfinished DYI projects.

some of the magazines are archived here

Many projects were designed by Ken Stone, and i found out he has a website and he still sells some of these projects.


he has many products for the home modeler.

As liability laws changed the magazines had to pull DYI electronics projects and so these were published for a very short time before 1989.
Airplane magazines also publish DYI radio systems many ended up as heathkit.

basically these dyi projects are much like a computer kit of the 1970s.

you do kind of reach a burn out on vintage electronics kits.
 
"The cost of not having to listen to some douchebag carrying on a completely pointless conversation while yelling for no reason just to feel self important in a relatively quiet environment......... PRICELESS....." Verault 11-1-2023

You guys need an example for some reason.. Fine.. Its not necessary but fine.

My wife and I like to take sight seeing boat trips. One boat trip in particular had this woman carrying on a completely idiotic conversation on her phone.... on speaker of course.. At full volume and yelling into it as if it was a sandwich that had done her wrong. This is a sight seeing trip mind you.. with someone narrating certain areas and thier significance. Shes ruining it for the whole group of paid passengers.. All rolling thier eyes but not doing anything. Flip the device on,, her call ends.. And the rest of the trip was rather nice.

After her call was dropped she just sat quietly playing some game on her phone... Never once looking up at anything.. Why was she even there?

Think it was wrong of me? To damned bad.. I couldnt care less. I paid good money for that trip, so did all the other people which I think was around 30 in total. All of them well behaved and interested in the ride and its narration. She was ruining it for us... Problem averted..
 
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Just noting that if someone tries paging a heart surgeon or calling the cops, they can't, and someone figures out you did it you're going to prison. I mean, if you're fine with that more power to you.

Yes, phone idiots suck. But s**tting in the punch bowl for everyone because one person's being a dick isn't necessarily the right response.

... I'll be blunt here, I hate confrontation myself. *A lot*. But I've called people out on this exact thing before and gotten support for doing so. Someone needs to make a public example of these people if you want it to stop the right way.
 
Thats a what if scenario..... What ifs are all conjecture and irrelevant. We cannot go through life planning for the extremely minuscule likelihood every situation can happen. Its impossible to foresee these things. We existed fine before cell phones. That ship has a ship to shore radio in the slim case of "bad things happening". And it was working,, because they were using it to talk to another ship and thier office. It was not affected by my device. And why would any of you assume I left it on? Why would I do that?

And power wasnt what I was going for. I was the same level of human being as everyone else there. I chose to do something about it. Not because Im better.. because I could. And I helped the situation, I made it better for those there. Arguing its dangerous.. well thats just "snowflake" talk.

Sometimes you need to shit in the punch bowl to get people to wake the F#$k up and see what thier drinking.... That purpa drink is poison yall......

Eudimorphodon said:
... I'll be blunt here, I hate confrontation myself. *A lot*. But I've called people out on this exact thing before and gotten support for doing so. Someone needs to make a public example of these people if you want it to stop the right way.
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Id say most people do. Id say the vast majority of users here certainly do.. Nerd culture in the old days being what it was.... I mean I grew up in city. A real shitty place mind you. I was the kid of immigrant parents, quiet, shy, and I liked computers and nerdy things.. I got my ass kicked all the time when I was little. It made me angry and I had to learn to be outspoken, defend myself, deal with people... Confrontations. I think most people would like to avoid these things but living in a society.,,, nay. Living in todays society YOU HAVE TO DEAL WITH PEOPLE DIRECTLY.

Another example. I turned my wife on to sushi years ago. I think she likes it more than me. I find it too trendy, over priced, and the quality is just not there most times. 9 out of 10 sushi restaurants are mediocre on their best day. Now Im a big FORMER advocate for bars... Now I dont just mean drinking. I mean DINER, Sushi, Airport.. Whatever. I LIKE TO TALK TO STRANGERS and just have a nice little conversation. Bars are dead because A holes sit at the bar and pull thier phone out negating the whole format of gettings singles (not in a sexual way) to interact. If you want to be alone get a booth.

Back to the sushi story. This has happened.. I dunno 5 times I think. We see the bar is empty or there may be just a couple people. We sit down. Now a days if someone wants to be social they more than likely have to do it first. So we talk to the sushi chef and each other. We dont use phones when eating. A woman and a much younger woman sit down directly next to us at the bar even though there are open seats.. Fine, no harm in that. They talk briefly and then the older woman pulls out her phone and starts watching videos at full speaker volume. Before I can do anything my wife who is not sitting directly next to this woman, I am, asks her if she could put it away. its loud and distracting.. The woman did. The same thing happened with a man a few weeks before that. If you want to sit alone in a restaurant I applaud you. I have done it enough. I even brought books.. If your going to use your phone use a god damn head phone.. Everyone else seems to worship the teeth of apple and have those stupid white things hanging out of their ear.. Why must they bother people? Yes I asked him to turn it off (not down... off). he did.

People used to be courteous.. Not anymore.. Snowflake mentality.
 
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VERAULT said:
Sometimes you need to shit in the punch bowl to get people to wake the F#$k up and see what thier drinking.... That purpa drink is poison yall......
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I'm sorry, no, you have zero right to throw out the word "snowflake" here. If you just quietly reached into your pocket and flipped it on without telling anyone *that* is being a snowflake, IE, the definition of someone who refuses to openly stand up for their beliefs and confront opposition to them.

And yes, it is "dangerous". I've carried a pager before. The only thing that would be lost if I didn't answer it would have been, I dunno, a few million dollars, not lives, but there are reasons the laws are written as they are. Here's the FCC's page on it, go ahead and look up the cited laws. Even local law enforcement aren't allowed to use jammers, and they have a hell of a lot more potential justifications than a quiet boat ride.
 
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