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Typewriter Hacked To Play Zork
UgLyPuNk writes "Typewriters that can type by themselves are one thing. Typewriters that can type by themselves and play Zork are totally different — the stuff that dreams are made of (at least the dreams of little girls who spent hours in front of a Commodore 64 telling the machine to GO NORTH and such)."
http://www.computermuseumgroningen.nl/terminals/teletypeclose.jpg
Are YOU using the TOOL, or is the TOOL using YOU? Think about it!
At least for me: http://vimeo.com/16311288
This post was generated by a Cadre of Uber Monkeys for Monkey-Man2000 (603495).
...though we called it a "printer". Also, are there any pictures of the thing from the front? Not everyone has the ability to view videos. All I can see are some internals pictures on the project page.
Printers don't generally accept feedback. I know you can't view the video but what you see is a typewriter (with the keys moving) typing out the opening to Zork and then the user issuing it a few commands on the same typewriter keys that then come back to life and respond. This level of interaction is unique and I've never seen a "printer" with that sort of functionality. If you're interested in how it displays the output:
computer to Arduino (via USB); Arduino to shift registers; shift registers to MOSFETs; MOSFETs to solenoids; solenoids to keys.
And to acquire input flattened resistors are placed beneath each key and are converted into a serialized device signal to the computer via USB. Not exactly earth shattering work but for the hobbyist that likes to see clever hacks and remembers Zork, it's a grin achieving piece of work.
My work here is dung.
My very first computer game was TREK.BAS, hosted on a city hall computer and played on a DecWriter paper terminal hidden in a janitor's closet at my St. Petersburg, FL middle school.
Why the janitor's closet? Because that's where they could get to a phone line.
This machine could replicate that experience.
(OK, well, you'd have to pour some ammonia and pine sol on it, to really take me back, but I'm talking about the game...)
I can see the fnords!
Given that Zork was originally run on the PDP-10 back in the late 70's chances are it already ran on a paper driven console..WHEN IT FIRST CAME OUT.
Instead of the Screen for the input and output they turned it to a piece of paper - which takes longer so it's not entirely practical.
Holy christ... you can tell how far Slashdot has fallen, as far as "News for Nerds" goes, when people are criticizing the *practicality* of something *truly* nerdy.
Waste is the highest virtue one can achieve in an advanced capitalist society. The fact that this guy bought paper from Canada and wasted vast quantities playing Zork put an extra spin in the global economy, and that extra spin lifted capitalism to yet greater heights. If you put an end to all the waste, mass panic would ensue and the global economy would go haywire. Waste is the fuel of contradiction, and contradiction activates the economy, and an active economy creates more waste.