On Wed, 2004-09-22 at 11:17 -0700, Vintage Computer Festival wrote:
On Wed, 22 Sep 2004, Jules Richardson wrote:
Apologies if someone's mentioned this one
before. Quite possibly the
coolest gadget I've seen in a long time, though:
http://www.cyberniklas.de/pongmechanik/indexen.html
Awesome. It would be great to get stuff like this exhibited at the VCF.
The web page is pretty smart also. What terrific technical and design
work.
Amazing, huh? If I read that right, it's 52 relays though (I don't know
any German) which makes it sound rather like a 'simple' relay control
system rather than an actual relay computer. I fired off an email to
them to see if they'll let me have a nose at the wiring diagrams.
I was just thinking that it would be an interesting challenge to build a
fully mechanical version - no electrical parts whatsoever. Steam-powered
pong, that'd be different... "Babbage Pong", maybe... :-)
And given the light loading involved, why not use wooden gearing instead
of metal: "Organic Pong"...
Heh!
J.