An idea to regret at leisure.
Mar. 1st, 2013 08:15 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
hirezI have an odd memory of what I think was a tabletop semaphore machine that lived in the attic of Holt Farm, which was where we lived until 1976.
Like most of the the rest of the interesting things in my past, it has been removed by agents of the Ministry for Temporal Affairs, and its like does not appear in the Google for similar reasons.
It seems that for some reason, perhaps to do with the safety of other people, no material trace of things I remember can continue to exist. It's like being in a terrible film.
Anyway. Semaphore machine. The two arms were on a common spindle, each operated by pulleys and a pair of levers close to the base of the device. I can only guess that it had been a teaching device, or perhaps some part of a command-and-control structure for Edwardian assault-pedalos.
It struck me today that it would be an ideal sort of thing to drive via an Arduino. Indeed, someone has already had a similar idea and written the code. However, the other half of the project is missing. I wonder what it would take to hack up an IP-over-semaphore rig? I imagine one would begin by finding some cheap stepper motors...
Like most of the the rest of the interesting things in my past, it has been removed by agents of the Ministry for Temporal Affairs, and its like does not appear in the Google for similar reasons.
It seems that for some reason, perhaps to do with the safety of other people, no material trace of things I remember can continue to exist. It's like being in a terrible film.
Anyway. Semaphore machine. The two arms were on a common spindle, each operated by pulleys and a pair of levers close to the base of the device. I can only guess that it had been a teaching device, or perhaps some part of a command-and-control structure for Edwardian assault-pedalos.
It struck me today that it would be an ideal sort of thing to drive via an Arduino. Indeed, someone has already had a similar idea and written the code. However, the other half of the project is missing. I wonder what it would take to hack up an IP-over-semaphore rig? I imagine one would begin by finding some cheap stepper motors...
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Date: 2013-03-01 08:33 pm (UTC)http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/5V-Stepper-Motor-28BYJ-48-With-Drive-Test-Module-Board-ULN2003-5-Line-4-Phase-/200712530295?pt=UK_BOI_Electrical_Components_Supplies_ET&hash=item2ebb662977
Suitably geared, too.
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Date: 2013-03-01 08:47 pm (UTC)Mind, some more poking shows up several ebay shops of random electronic bits for £cheap.
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Date: 2013-03-01 09:56 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-03-01 09:44 pm (UTC)They're dead good and dead cheap, but they don't half break easily.
In other news, I recently acquired the Big Book Of Optical Telegraph History.
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Date: 2013-03-01 11:36 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-03-13 08:26 am (UTC)http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Optical_telegraph01_4484.jpg
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Date: 2013-03-13 07:23 pm (UTC)3 x 3 matrix is symbolic Marain, surely?
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Date: 2013-03-13 07:26 pm (UTC)Ok. So. Is there a RFC for IP-over-Marain ?