Friday, August 20, 2010

Typewriter concept change

Due to technical difficulties working out how to get position feedback to the server I was beginning to doubt the possibility of executing the concept as planned.
I certainly wasn't deterred from pursuing the concept, but the issue made me think about alternatives. Working with the typewriter to see if I could work out how to rig it so that I could extend the key inputs to a different location, I found I really like the aesthetic of the typewriter working without fingers actually striking the keys. It has a spooky look because of the huge mechanical force required to strike the key. If the device weren't such a physical object to use I'm sure it appearing to work independent of any human input wouldn't have the same impact.

This line of thought got me wondering if I could bypass the middle-man altogether and have the people on the web interfacing directly with the typewriter, through some kind of electromechanical apparatus I would design to surreptitiously trigger the keys. This would remove one extra element of human error out of the equation too, raising the probability of getting coherent output.

I have always been interested in computer control, in particular computer assisted machining (CAM). This interest drove my decision to develop a CNC axis that would traverse the keys and strike the required key, all under the control of a computer system grabbing data down from a server.

Tags: cnc typewriter

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