30 Jul
2010
30 Jul
'10
9:38 p.m.
Tony Duell wrote:
This discussion reminds me of a little thing I wired up when my daughter
was small. I don't recall all the details, but I probably have a hand
drawn logic diagram somewhere. I just took a single 2102, a 555 timer
or two, a couple of counter chips, etc. and made a thing that would
display M x N blobs on a scope. I intentionally mis-adjusted the focus
and astigmatism on the scope so that each blob pretty much touched its
neighbors. Each blob represented a bit in the 2102 and the 555's
generated the V and H deflection drive. The sweep and the address
counters were obviously in sync somehow. I gave her some paper forms
with M x N squares where she could draw a little picture by filling in
some of the squares. I had some crude way of entering the bits one at a
time. And no, we did not use all of the bits in the 2102 - more like
128 or so as I recall. When done entering, one could switch to run mode
and admire the results on the scope. It was a pretty fun
father/daughter project. No software required! Though she grew up to
be a teacher, I'll bet she still remembers it.
Though I think I wire-wrapped mine, it ran slowly enough I think it
would work fine on a solderless breadboard, and that might be a real
advantage for something like this. i.e. Dad could gently back away and
allow the victim (errrrr I mean child) to easily
modify/enhance/experiment if they were so inclined.
Later,
Charlie C.
I'm
looking at doing something similar (but simpler) with my 7yr old. It
struck me that the end product should actually 'do' something,
having a finished product that is a computer is great but being able to get
it to control something - eg r/c car, robots, bedroom lights, model railway
might well fire a child's imagination even more.
That's a darn good idea!. Every kid these days knows what a computer can
do :-). But having one control an actual physical device is something new
to them. And as was discussed last week, it;'s a lot easier to do
interfacing hacks on a classic machine than on a modern machine with PCI
and USB and not a lot else :-)
I don;t know where you are located, but if you're in the UK, you might
want to look at the Maplin toy robot kits. They do a little 2-motor 6
wheel chassis kit (no electronics) for < \pounds 10.00 which looks ideal
for computer control experieemnts. I am currently contemplating using
some classic HP interface hardware (HP59306 relay box HP59313 ADC, etc)
to control such things, but that's certainly not what you want to do.
-tony