There's always something interesting in the labs at Sprocks. We keep the cool stuff in a place we call The EmbedRoom. Of course it's all about embedded computing ....
 A
teletype from the 1950's sits in the corner of the labs cranking out the
latest news and alerts from a variety of websites around the world.
Originally connected to shortwave radios, teletypes spread breaking news
at speeds that are still difficult to match on the Internet.
Type your message in the box to the left ... press the send button and the message will be printed at the incredible rate of 60 words per minute (55 baud) right here in the The Cellar! We could upgrade to 66 baud but it takes a new set of gears that we don't have. More on this project ... |
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 This
is an old Seeburg Wallbox model 200W. It's a wonderful
mechanical device that accepts nidkels, dimes and quarters and at the
push of a button it whrrrrs and clicks sending a coded train of pulses
to an embedded processor for decoding. The decoded pulse train
is then sent along to an old PC that waits for the switch selections
and then plays the corresponding mp3 file through the speakers in the
room. This was never intended to be used this way but does a
wonderful job of bringing back memories, at least for those of us old
enough to remember these devices. For the younger generation,
it's simply cool! Here's some more pictures and details of the
design. |
 Running
around the walls in the lab you'll find a trolley. You may start
and stop it with the buttons to the right. Every 20 minutes when
it's running, it ventures around the room making stops every so often
until returning to the trolley barn. Of course it's controlled
from the Internet; shouldn't everything be?
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| Piano Roll Player |
 Sprocks is in the process of developing an electronic piano roll reader and player. Piano rolls are quickly becoming part of history, not because there aren't any rolls around but because there aren't any players. The Sprocks Piano Roll reader reads a roll and generates a MIDI data stream that can be played by a computer or a MIDI equipped keyboard. We would like your comments on this. Please email us at michael.bengtson@gmail.com.
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| Meter Controller |
 This one is simply fun! Take an old analog meter
and connect it to the Internet. A small controller lets one
choose what data from the Internet will be displayed on the
meter! These are limited but make great gifts for family or
friends. Especially that person that seems to have
everything. He won't have one of these yet! More ... |
 Sprocks
has been working on creating an embedded device that captures scoring
information from high school sporting events for retransmission on the
Internet. Specifically, the device receives the same stream of
data as the scoreboard and generates an image that is an exact replica
of the one at the event. This image is updated in real time and
can be retrieved from the high school's website. A text only
version of the score can be retrieved from a mobile phone with
Internet service.
Extensions to this service are really cool. We are working on creating small scale models of scoreboards that would get the current scores from the Internet and put them on the small version in your home. You can watch the clock count down, and see all the relevant data right there. Of course, this is for the hard core sports enthusiast. |
