[via Gizmodo (via Neatorama, {via Make: Online}) ]

Austrian composer Peter Ablinger digitized a recording of a child speaking and then programmed a mechanical piano to replicate the sounds. The video above is in German, but Hack a Day has provided a translation:

I break down this phonography, meaning a recording of something the voice, in this case -, in individual pixels, one can say. And if I have the possibility of a rendering in a fairly high resolution (and that I only get with a mechanical piano), then I in fact restore some kind of continuity. Therefore, with a little practice, or help or subtitling, we actually can hear a human voice in a piano sound.

The content of the speech is taken from the Proclamation of the European Environmental Criminal Court at World Venice Forum 2009.

Composer’s Webpage

For those who are in NYC, make sure to hit up the NYU-ITP show

In tribute to my alma mater, I submit to you, my wonderful readers this wonderful video (found via Erik Fabian of GoodMeet)

Description:
This is dedicated to all fans of Queen and hey let’s not forget about Mike Myers and Dana Carvey of Wayne’s World.

No effects or sampling were used. What you see is what you hear (does that even make sense?)
Atari 800XL was used for the lead piano/organ sound
Texas Instruments TI-99/4a as lead guitar
8 Inch Floppy Disk as Bass
3.5 inch Harddrive as the gong

HP ScanJet 3C was used for all vocals. Please note I had to record the HP scanner 4 seperate times for each voice. I wanted to buy 4 HP scanners but for some reason sellers on E-Bay expect you to pay $80-$100, I got mine for $30.

I keep hearing parts of the song are out of tune. Keep in mind the scanner and floppy drive are not musical instruments. These are mechanical devices whose motors tend to drift and can cause some notes to be out of tune.

BugLabs shows off its impressive prototype. This is a modular physical device. Meaning if you want it to be a PDA, gaming device, or video recorder, you simply change the physical configurations.

Definitely worth watching the first few minutes…

I think this is a nice approach for “the consumer’s desires for an all-in-one device.” Let the buyer build, and innovators innovate.

For more, visit BugLabs.net

[seen via A VC]

Track the progress of the tape.

Reveal the “narrative” of the tape. Highlite its path and let the user see its path – do not obscure its path with wires.

Perhaps add a DSP (digital signal processor) Chip – add a video feedback loop in addition to the audio feedback loop.

Add an electromagnet instead of a regular static magnet.

Pulse the record head on the first VCR – investigate what it is to “record” an image – and then recall / “playback” this same image.

vhs Hack presentation

Click here for pictures of our VHS installation

This code controls a DC motor with a switch. When the switch is pressed, the motor moves one way for 3 seconds. When the switch is pressed again, the motor moves in the reverses direction for 3 seconds.

From: jakilevy@mac.com
Subject: final code
Date: June 20, 2006 10:12:30 PM EDT
To: jakilevy@mac.com

‘******************************************************************************
‘Some explanations: *
‘For my HPWM dutycycle *
‘I Chose 0 because 0 is reverse – explanation follows: *
‘128 is SLOW fwd … 255 is fast fwd *
‘126 is SLOW REV … 0 fast rev *
‘ 0(rev)…..126(slow rev)…..127(stop)……128(slow fwd)…..255(fast fwd) *
‘ *
‘EXAMPLE HPWM *
‘HPWM 1,0,330 ‘pwm at 0% duty cycle @ 330Hz on CCP1 (portc.2) *
‘HPWM 2,127,330 ‘pwm at 50% duty cycle @ 330Hz on CCP2 (portc.1) *
’some code pulled off of *
‘http://www.grayfuse.com/blog/wp-content/code/simpleHPWM_452.bas *
‘ Another good link for stepper motors: *
‘http://www.embeddedrelated.com/groups/piclist/show/9220.php *
‘******************************************************************************

‘http://www.melabs.com/resources/articles/boolean.htm
‘ ~ is not
‘ | is OR
‘Todd suggested using a ROLLER SWITCH to DETECT the position of my motor

‘in subroutine, dir = !dir
‘ speed = 255
‘ in subroutine , dutycycle = speed*dir
‘thanks to Rob Faludi for helping with this code

DEFINE OSC 4

‘Enable HPWM on PORTC.1 (HPWM 2)
DEFINE CCP2_REG PORTC
DEFINE CCP2_BIT 1

‘THIS IS FOR A POTENTIOMETER
‘ Define ADCIN parameters
‘ Set number of bits in result
DEFINE ADC_BITS 10
‘ Set clock source (3=rc)
DEFINE ADC_CLOCK 3
‘ Set sampling time in microseconds
DEFINE ADC_SAMPLEUS 10
‘ Set PORTA to all input
TRISA = %11111111
‘ Set up ADCON1 analog and right justify the result
adcon1 = %10000010

‘****************
‘DEFINE VARIABLES
‘****************
‘define adc vars
adcVar VAR WORD ‘ Create variable to store result

i var BYTE ‘this sets i as a variable – COUNTER
dir VAR bit ‘Boolean variable dir
speed VAR BYTE ‘0-255

‘Initialize the direction
dir = 0
‘Initialize speed
speed = 255

start:
INCLUDE “modedefs.bas”

OUTPUT PORTB.7 ‘ Test LED
OUTPUT PORTB.6 ‘ Test LED

INPUT PORTD.2 ‘Switch 1
INPUT PORTD.3 ‘Roller Switch – 0
INPUT PORTD.4 ‘Roller Switch – 255

‘BLINK AN LED to Test the PIC
high portd.0
pause 500
low portd.0
pause 500
high portd.0
pause 500
low portd.0
Pause 500

main:
‘Read channel 0
‘ADCIN 0, adcVar
HPWM 2, 127, 1000 ‘ Frequency of 1000 suggested by Todd Holoubek

‘IF Switch 1 is pressed
‘TURN MOTOR
‘FOR a motor – 127 is 0 point
if portd.2 = 1 then
GOSUB motorGo
endif

‘If Switch 1 is NOT pressed – turn LED off – just as a test
if portd.2 = 0 then
‘Test LED’s
low PORTB.7
HIGH PORTD.6
endif

GoTo main

‘Subroutine
motorGo:
‘Drive motor for 3 seconds

‘test LED’S
higH PORTB.7
LOW PORTB.6

‘HPWM Channel,Dutycycle,Frequency
HPWM 2, dir*speed, 1000 ‘ Frequency of 1000 suggested by Todd Holoubek
pause 3000

‘REVERSE Direction
dir = ~dir

‘My regulator started overheating when the switch was NOT pressed
‘because the motor was getting stuck
’so I decided to do HPWM for only 3 seconds
‘which is how long I needed to motor to run
‘After 3 seconds, I reverse the direction

return

from micro code studio help option:

HPWM Channel,Dutycycle,Frequency

HPWM run continuously in the background while the program is doing other things. Channel specifies which hardware PWM channel to use. Some devices have 1, 2 or 3 PWM channels. On devices with 2 channels, the Frequency must be the same on both channels. Dutycycle specifies the on/off (high/low) ratio of the signal. It ranges from 0 to 255, where 0 is off (low all the time) and 255 is on (high) all the time. A value of 127 gives a 50% duty cycle (square wave). Frequency is the desired frequency of the PWM signal. Not all frequencies are available at all oscillator settings. The lowest frequency at 4MHz is 245Hz. The highest frequency at any oscillator speed is 32767Hz.

The lowest usable HPWM Frequency at each oscillator setting is shown in the following table:

Some devices, such as the PIC18C452, have alternate pins that may be used for HPWM. The following DEFINEs allow using these pins:

DEFINE CCP1_REG PORTC ‘Hpwm 1 pin port
DEFINE CCP1_BIT 2 ‘Hpwm 1 pin bit
DEFINE CCP2_REG PORTC ‘Hpwm 2 pin port
DEFINE CCP2_BIT 1 ‘Hpwm 2 pin bit

The following DEFINEs specify which timer, 1 or 2, to use with PWM channel 2 and PWM channel 3 for the PIC17C7xx devices. The default is timer 1 if no DEFINE is specified.

DEFINE HPWM2_TIMER 1 ‘Hpwm 2 timer select
DEFINE HPWM3_TIMER 1 ‘Hpwm 3 timer select

Example

HPWM 1,127,1000 ‘ Send a 50% duty cycle PWM signal at 1kHz
HPWM 1,64,200   ‘ Send a 25% duty cycle PWM signal at 2kHz

See Also

PWM

Copyright © 2001 microEngineering Labs, Inc.
All rights reserved.

Here is a good article on H-Bridges

I am using an allegro motor driver
Click for Datasheet

PIC BASIC PRO CODE:

DEFINE OSC 4
start:
INCLUDE “modedefs.bas”
‘break

OUTPUT PORTD.0
INPUT PORTD.2 ‘Switch 1
INPUT PORTB.0
i var byte
‘Wait .5 second

‘BLINK AN LED to Test the PIC
high portd.0
pause 500
low portd.0
pause 500
high portd.0
pause 500
low portd.0
Pause 500

main:
‘IF Switch 1 is pressed
if portd.2 = 1 then

‘test LED’S
low portb.7
higH PORTD.0

‘TURN MOTOR 1 – REVERSE
HIGH PORTD.1
‘For i = 0 to 255 step 1
‘FOR a motor – 127 is 0 point
‘128 is SLOW fwd … 255 is fast fwd
‘126 is SLOW REV … 0 fast rev

‘PWM Pin,Duty,Cycle
PWM PORTD.1,0, 10
next
endif
‘If Switch 1 is NOT pressed – TURN MOTOR OTHER WAY
if portd.2 = 0 then

‘TEST LED
low PORTD.0

‘TURN MOTOr 1 – FWD
‘For i = 255 to 0 step -1
‘PWM Pin,Duty,Cycle
PWM PORTD.1,255, 10
next
endif

GoTo main

Today we modified the first VHS cassette for use in the project. Because our first version had open spools of tape, we had to thread the tape through the whole VCR each time. By modifying the VHS cassette, we were able to spend much less time fumbling with the tape and more time on the VCR itself.

The main challenge in adding more VCR’s to the project is maintaining tape tension. If we can find a way to maintain the tension in the tape, we could very easily add more VCR’s with our newly modified VHS cassette holder.