Functional Raspberry Pi Payphone

Reddit user jareza shares how they made a working payphone using a Pi Zero.

I just wanted to show off my latest backyard addition to people who will really appreciate it: a fully functional payphone!

I’ve wanted a payphone for ages, but the ones I found for sale were either too expensive (now I know why: payphones are HEAVY) or really beaten up.

On a short trip to Monterrey, Mexico, I found a Facebook ad for a booth and a payphone shell for $30, local pickup only. This payphone was different: it had an extra keypad and a screen. I sent a message and rushed to pick it up.

Now I had a booth and a shell. I could make it shine and look good, but I wanted a real, working phone.

I have ZERO coding experience… but I asked Claude if it could be done, and we basically agreed on “I solder, you code.” That’s exactly what we did.

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Reverse-engineering the vintage Intel 8087’s tangent algorithm: more than CORDIC

Ken Shirriff has published another teardown of Intel’s 8087 floating-point coprocessor on righto.com, this time covering the FPTAN tangent instruction. He removed the chip’s lid with a chisel and imaged the die under a microscope, then read the 1648 micro-instructions in the microcode ROM to work out the algorithm.

The 8087 computes a tangent in 90 microseconds, against 13,000 microseconds for emulation on the 8086. It gets there by combining two methods. First it runs 16 CORDIC steps, an algorithm from 1956 that uses only shifts, adds and table lookups. That leaves a tiny residual angle, which the chip handles with a Padé approximant, the ratio 3x/(3-x2). The error is proportional to x to the fourth, so with x under 2^-16 the result meets the 64-bit accuracy requirement.

FPTAN does not return the tangent. It returns X and Y separately, so the division is left to the programmer. The instruction takes about 450 clock cycles typically. The post walks through the microcode, the implicit exponents used for the fixed-point arithmetic, and the 16-bit shift register that stores the CORDIC decision bits.

See much more at righto.com.

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Oregon Trail, Prince, and a magazine that still runs code

Fruit Jam display capture. TAFKAP/Prince’s school connection is documented, but his participation remains unconfirmed.

Here’s a game, originally printed in a 1978 magazine, now running on a Fruit Jam with Adabot riding shotgun… and it can still wreck your wagon

We took the OREGON BASIC listing out of Creative Computing’s May/June 1978 issue and wrote a CircuitPython interpreter for the RP2350 so the printed rules and prompts drive the game. Alongside it, your robot friend Adabot walks you through 28 chapters of the story with new pixel art, synthesized narration, and an original score. For this demonstration the game plays itself while the history scrolls along.

Three-minute capture of Fruit Jam display output and audio from the earlier 20-chapter build. The current exhibit adds eight chapters.

Creative Computing, May/June 1978. Read the complete magazine PDF at Internet Archive.

Oregon Trail started in 1971 when student teachers Don Rawitsch, Bill Heinemann, and Paul Dillenberger, and students typed decisions into a teletype hooked to a shared computer. Our source is the later published listing. Hey, paper turned out to be a useful backup format!

The OREGON listing, printed page 138. Source: Creative Computing, May/June 1978.

Actual Fruit Jam display output with modern illustrative artwork.

And, of course, there’s Prince. He went to Bryant Junior High, where early versions were tested. He may have played OREGON! We haven’t found confirmation, but the connection is interesting enough.

That led back to another project… Adafruit helped recover two TIFF symbol images from Anil Dash’s Prince press floppy, and I archived them in 2021. A magazine listing and a floppy disk, both intertwined in purple history.

The Fruit Jam’s display starts with a 320×240 framebuffer, doubled to 640×480. The sound effects run through this board’s custom DVI+audio firmware. CircuitPython keeps the modern presentation editable while the original BASIC listing stays inspectable. This is the retro work I like: get the files running, explain where they came from, give more people a way in. Preserve the context too, including the game’s limited settler viewpoint.

Floppsy covered-assembly render. The display artwork illustrates the interface.

Rear view of the Floppsy covered assembly. CAD render.

And Floppsy is pretty much done, it took years. It will be the next thing we do for what was called AdaBox (it’s club adabox). Get ready. More this week as we announce what comes next.

related

• The Prince symbol has been salvaged from a 1993 floppy disk #History @cdmblogs @adafruit @anildash
• Trailheads: The Oregon Trail’s Origins Documentary #Gamer #VintageGaming #History
• Floppsy rev B – now Apple-ier – a floppy disk-shaped board, fully open hardware / open source interface to archive diskettes!

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HalloWing M4 Animated Eye Candy Bowl

Upgrade your Halloween candy bowl with an Adafruit HalloWing M4! Use the touch pads to change the side lit NeoPixel animations! Customize the animated eyes and trick out your candy bowl to win this year’s Halloween!

Check out the guide from the Ruiz Brothers and make your own!

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Welcome to Michoud: Take a Look Inside NASA’s Rocket Factory

Viewers get a tour of the NASA Michoud Assembly Facility in New Orleans minutes n this video from C.W. Lemoine and 50×50: Science Across America.

In this episode, we sit down with NASA Production Manager Chandler Scheuremann to explore how this massive facility is shaping the future of deep space exploration. Discover the advanced engineering, specialized metallurgy, and heavy manufacturing power behind the Space Launch System (SLS) core stages and the Lockheed Martin Orion crew capsule, paving the way to send American astronauts back to the Moon, this time to stay.

See all the states here!

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Step into the Creative Mind of Guillermo del Toro

via Reddit

To celebrate the 20th anniversary of Pan’s Labyrinth, Guillermo del Toro recently hopped onto Reddit for an AMA. His answers gave a cool glimpse into his thought process, his inspirations when creating his worlds, and more.

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LAPL celebrates Latino Heritage Month #HispanicHeritageMonth

Los Angeles Libros Festival a free bilingual book festival will offer a full day of entertainment featuring Spanish-language and bilingual storytelling (and so much more) this weekend!

View all of the LAPL’s Latino heritage month events here! Via LAPL

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