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A satirical article poking enjoyable a arcade collectors and software-as-a-service alike might appear to be an odd inspiration for a {hardware} venture, however self-described “open supply mad scientist” Peter Jansen’s coin-operated graphing calculator arcade cupboard proves it is doable.
“Native man Alton Yates was reportedly overjoyed Wednesday after scoring a classic coin-operated Texas Devices graphing cupboard,” an article printed final yr on satirical outlet The Onion reads. “I can’t resist the nostalgia,” the fictional interview with the non-existent Yates continued, “as quickly as I take a look at this factor, it brings me proper again to being a young person, assembly up after college to observe classmates plot the amplitude, interval, and section shift of a regular graph whereas all of us cheered them on.”
However what if, Jansen requested himself, it wasn’t satire? The result’s, Jansen says, “maybe one of many strangest initiatives I’ve ever put collectively”: A real, fully-operational Texas Devices-branded coin-operated calculator cupboard, the one one in every of its variety on this world or every other.
“The article simply actually cracks me up, however presumably one of the best half is the image — equal components sensible, stunning, and offensive to the eyes in a means that solely 70s/80s wooden paneling might be,” Jansen writes. “I felt surprisingly compelled to make one, and with my father coming to go to for the vacations, it gave us an ideal fast venture to assist maintain us each out of hassle (and an excuse to show my 4 yr outdated sand…)”
Designed to imitate, so far as doable, the looks of The Onion’s mock-up, the plywood cupboard stands round 5 toes tall and is 14 inches deep. Controls are dealt with by a pair of rotary encoders on the entrance, driving an on-screen cursor for coming into equations utilizing a pop-up keyboard.
The calculator is pushed by two knobs, controlling an on-screen keyboard. (📷: Peter Jansen)
“Every little thing is off-the-shelf,” Jansen writes of the {hardware}, “so there is not a lot to it. A Raspberry Pi drives an historical 4:3 LCD monitor I discovered on Craigslist. An Arduino Uno interfaces with the encoders, in addition to the coin acceptor, and streams these as serial knowledge to the Pi at 115200 baud. A fast graphing calculator program written in PyGame takes care of all of the graphics and logic.”
Whereas purposeful, nonetheless, the cupboard does not make calculation low-cost: At 1 / 4 a plot, Jansen jokes, “you do not wish to be within the horrible place of selecting between quarters for laundry and quarters for graphing.”
The total write-up is out there on Jansen’s Hackaday.io venture web page.
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