[sdiy] Madder More Extreme DIY? (was: Extreme DIY?)

[R. D. Davis]

Quothe Keith Daniel, from writings of Wed, Aug 20, 2003 at 04:32:00PM -0400:
[calculator and AM radios]
> >>Someone discovered that with the right
> >> programming it would play music as well.  They had an AM portable radio
> >> that when placed in the right spot would play the music from it...

> When the Apple II was new and suddenly popular, I got a gig
> repairing them. I kept an AM radio on the bench, and I could tell by
> the sound whether or not it was booting properly...  :-)

There exists a program for DEC PDP-8 computers that will play music
over a radio placed nearby.  Alas, I've no peripherals attached to my
PDP-8/e yet, so I'd have to enter the code for something like this via
the front panel switches... still it's a tempting idea.  I've still
got a short "count down" program loaded in core, so, I should at least
try to see what that sounds like. :-)  

That still doesn't sound like a mad enough idea to satisfy tonight's
craving for something a bit more, shall we say, unusual, but a
slightly madder idea, of a related nature, did just occur to me: has
anyone on this list built a modulated spark-gap transmitter used in
conjunction with a jacobs ladder?  The output would be taken from both
the sounds generated on radio receivers and from microphones near the
sparks.  Ok, the FCC probably won't dig this neat-o sounding synthesis
equipment, but I can see some very interesting possibilities with
additional modifications to what I've mentioned, and one can't let a
little thing like the FCC stand in the way of artistic progress, can
one? ;-) I've already got a Jacob's ladder (alas, it's less than three
feet high at the present time), so now I just need to build a spark
gap x-mitter, which seems like an easy enough thing to
build... [muhahaha]

RDD

-- 
Copyright (C) 2003 R. D. Davis The difference between humans & other animals: 
All Rights Reserved            an unnatural belief that we're above Nature & 
rdd at rddavis.org  410-744-4900  her other creatures, using dogma to justify such
http://www.rddavis.org         beliefs and to justify much human cruelty.