electronic

Making solar-powered batteries

Making solar-powered batteries

Norwegian maker Knut Karlsen got some flexible solar material and decide to try his hand at prototyping solar-powered batteries. He wrapped the cells around some NiMH rechargeables he had on hand and wired them up. He writes: This setup is in fact a (quite weak) trickle charger. It is not ideal, but really convenient. A […]

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Speech synthesis in the year 1939

Speech synthesis in the year 1939

Featured at the 1939 World’s Fair, the Voder (Voice Operating DEmonstratoR) from Bell Laboratories created vocal sounds via dedicated noise and tone generating vacuum tubes. These sounds were formed into words by the hand of a specially trained operator seated at the Voder’s interface. In aninterview with CMJ, electronic music pioneer Wendy Carlos explains in […]

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Rotary sequencer threatens to consume your soul …

Rotary sequencer threatens to consume your soul …

… well it certainly looks capable of inducing ‘force choke’ at the very least. Either way – Thomas built this masterful ring of sequential synthesizer control around the 16-step sequencer project from MFOS. The prominent layout was created using Front Panel Express and design files are available on his site. But as with most complex […]

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