LDA#$AF Posted April 1, 2003 Share Posted April 1, 2003 I would be interested in hearing what types of projects you've seen, heard about, done, or considered doing with your 8-bit that aren't game related. Are there any cool things that an 8-bit can do that are somewhat practical or useful beyond nostalgia? The ones I've thought of have been: automatically operate an electric train set use it to work with the Lego Robots connect to weather sensors your thoughts, please... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rob Mitchell Posted April 1, 2003 Share Posted April 1, 2003 Back in 1982, I was part of a college fraternity .. and we put together a homecoming display that was made out of wood, chicken wire, and pastel tissue paper .. There was a robot, and several spinning turntable items ..all powered with relay controlled AC motors .. and music syncronized with control interfaced through the front controller ports of the Atari 800. I remember I built a power transistor interface that took the TTL signals from the Atari and then would switch the relays on/off. A friend and I wrote a timing program in basic that would trigger the controller ports in sequence and then at the end it would reset all the motorized animations. Cool! Rob Mitchell, Atlanta, GA Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nukey Shay Posted April 1, 2003 Share Posted April 1, 2003 I used to use a 16-bit sound routine and pipe it out to a bullhorn to drive the neighbor's dogs crazy when they'd start yapping in the middle of the night Memories... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CPUWIZ Posted April 1, 2003 Share Posted April 1, 2003 Do you mean strictly Atari computers or in general ? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nukey Shay Posted April 1, 2003 Share Posted April 1, 2003 ...with your 8-bit... I'd guess the Atari computer. I wouldn't have replied to the other thing Oh...also I programmed a digital clock to run on my small backup Atari400. It would scream "WAKE UP!" (from Cheech & Chong's Sister Mary Elephant). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paul Slocum Posted April 1, 2003 Share Posted April 1, 2003 In the olden days, the most fun I had was using BBS's -- playing online games, posting messages etc. (I had a C64, but same thing on Atari computers.) As for modern day uses, my favorite non-game use is to turn older computers into musical instruments. -Paul Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CPUWIZ Posted April 1, 2003 Share Posted April 1, 2003 ...with your 8-bit... My VIC20 and C64 were 8 bit. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nukey Shay Posted April 1, 2003 Share Posted April 1, 2003 Good point...the Commodore computers had quite a large number of hobby project kits made for them. I could turn my 64 into a smoking time-bomb if I hooked up the Leaderboard pirate resister wrong to the user port. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CPUWIZ Posted April 1, 2003 Share Posted April 1, 2003 Uhuhu, he said userport. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Goochman Posted April 1, 2003 Share Posted April 1, 2003 A buddy of mine's father used his 8bit to track seismic waves in the earth to track Earthquakes and Volcanic activity - actually got something during the Mt St Helens one (he was on the East Coast) He then turned it to space and tried to find ET Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Sauron Posted April 4, 2003 Share Posted April 4, 2003 I used to use a 16-bit sound routine and pipe it out to a bullhorn to drive the neighbor's dogs crazy when they'd start yapping in the middle of the night Memories... That sounds kinda similar to a story related many years ago by Dave Small. You can read it here. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RJ Posted April 4, 2003 Share Posted April 4, 2003 If it's Legos you're into you might read this: www.atarimagazines.com/v6n6/atarischool.html It's an old article but still interesting. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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