[HN Gopher] Rotary Un-Smartphone Kit
___________________________________________________________________
Rotary Un-Smartphone Kit
Author : revorad
Score : 150 points
Date : 2022-04-26 11:10 UTC (11 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (skysedge.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (skysedge.com)
| nickt wrote:
| https://web.archive.org/web/20220426115020/https://skysedge....
| walrus01 wrote:
| for people who want to do something like this, not a cellphone
| but an actual desk phone, you can do it a lot cheaper if you want
| a rotary phone connected to modern phone networks.
|
| there's various oldschool bell system type desk rotary phones on
| ebay for $35-60
|
| and then add a pulse dial/rotary compatible ATA ($25-55) to speak
| SIP to asterisk or other standards-compliant voip systems.
| typically this will have a 100BaseTX ethernet interface.
|
| the rest is just ordinary voip phone setup, assuming you have an
| asterisk or similar system to talk to, main limitation is the
| rotary phone obviously can't send DTMF tones.
|
| http://www.classicrotaryphones.com/forum/index.php?topic=203...
|
| https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-1-d&q=pulse+d...
| rileyphone wrote:
| Given that the site is down and this is hn, I'll just add that
| I've been planning to make something like this with an old 302
| rotary, pulse to tone converter, pap2t, asterisk, and a program
| yet to be made that hooks it all up as a mic/headset for a
| computer.
| pipeline_peak wrote:
| It would be better if it worked with your phone calls through
| Bluetooth, implying it would actually be compatible this way.
|
| It's cool, but idk anyone who just has Spare SIM cards.
| omoikane wrote:
| This feels like exactly the kind of toy a person would buy if
| they want to annoy all their office mates.
|
| I wonder if there is a vibrate mode?
| toper-centage wrote:
| Honestly some great ideas (better antenna, e-ink display for
| basic SMSing, quick dial, probably huge battery life), but they
| can't be serious about the rotary dial.
|
| > Previously, phones with physical keys required a clamshell
| (flip) form-factor to prevent unintended dialing. Rotary dials
| are naturally resistant to butt dialing.
|
| You can solve butt dialing with a number of ways, like another
| hardware switch. This solution seems much more cumbersome, and I
| can't believe this is not done simply out of novelty.
| throwaway4aday wrote:
| From my perspective it's a feature, if I were to switch to a
| phone like this it would be because I wanted my phone to only
| do one thing _handle important communication_. No apps, no
| internet, no texting, phone calls only. That said, I could see
| having both a regular smartphone and a phone like this. In that
| case I would treat this phone as a private line only given out
| to a small number of people. That would allow me to leave my
| regular smartphone off or at home if I felt like disconnecting
| for a while but I would still be reachable by phone call
| through a distraction free device.
| ajsnigrutin wrote:
| > basic SMSing
|
| Aw man, typing an sms on a rotary dial would be fun :D It would
| take half an hour to respond, but still fun a first few times
| :)
| skupig wrote:
| What's wrong with novelty? I agree with the next comment over,
| the rotary dialer is the best part. This is an interesting and
| beautiful creative project, not a mass market consumer product.
| enriquto wrote:
| As I see it, the rotary dial _is_ the main feature, the rest
| are just nice things to have (that you can get elsewhere from
| many dumb phones).
|
| It's an extremely cool project and I can't wait to get one!
| recuter wrote:
| You know you can just get a vintage one for a song, real
| beauties, heavy enough to clobber a would be assassin.
|
| https://www.ebay.com/sch/182098/i.html?_from=R40&_nkw=rotary.
| ..
| dylan604 wrote:
| In no way would these qualify as mobile
| drewzero1 wrote:
| I have a couple of those around. I had to learn to dial
| them as a kid when we moved to a house that still had them
| hard-wired to the wall.
|
| Someday I'd like to try to use them as an intercom/hotline
| between the house and workshop, but I haven't figured out
| how to power the circuit and (especially) the ring signal.
| (Grandpa always did his own phone wiring and told me you
| really didn't want to be touching the terminal when a call
| came through, something like 100V AC!)
| timonoko wrote:
| Connecting two rotary phones (via 40 volt battery) is the
| easiest thing. They work as-they-are without
| modifications. When the phone is off-hook, the dialling
| rotator makes pulses and when the phone is on-hook those
| pulses cause the bell to ring. But not very loudly,
| because the real ringing pulses are 80 volts.
|
| Source: I am rotary-telephone-era Telecommunication
| Engineer.
| drewzero1 wrote:
| Thanks for the info! Sounds a lot easier than anything I
| was imagining. I'll have to dig up a couple of those
| 4-pin sockets and see if I can source a battery.
| ipdashc wrote:
| Completely overkill for just an intercom, but an analog
| telephone adapter would let you connect those to a VoIP
| server (like Asterisk, etc). Could be cool.
|
| For just a hotline/intercom setup, I think a telephone
| line simulator might do the job, but those seem stupidly
| expensive!
|
| EDIT: The other reply seems a lot more knowledgeable,
| ignore this one
| drewzero1 wrote:
| Thanks! I was looking into a line simulator, but yeah
| they're expensive!
|
| I thought about setting something up with an old PBX from
| work, but they're too new for pulse dialing. I was trying
| to figure out if I could build something with old modems
| but never got anywhere with that.
| kwhitefoot wrote:
| Weight is helpful not only for fighting off assassins. A
| dial telephone needs to be heavy with good non-slip feet or
| you have to hold it down while dialling. The UK Trimphone
| weighed 800 g and people complained that dialling with it
| was difficult.
| JasonFruit wrote:
| This particular kind of novelty is kind of appealing to people
| who want to be conspicuously, obstreperously Luddite, while
| still carrying a mobile phone. I admit I kind of want one of
| these novel bits of tech just to show off how Luddite I am.
| Syonyk wrote:
| Indeed... I want one too! Pocketable rotary dial phone? Just,
| $400 can cover a lot of other things.
|
| I consider carrying something like this (I carry an AT&T Flip
| IV at the moment if I remember the thing) to serve as a
| reminder to other people that not everyone has, nor wants,
| smartphone-type capabilities. At the local farmer's market
| last weekend, a number of various political booths (on all
| sides of the spectrum) had "Sign our petition!" type signs -
| as QR codes only. My device doesn't decode QR codes easily,
| nor will the browser handle a standard website very well. I
| typically carry a laptop, but they don't print the URLs...
|
| Of course, then there's the problem of being on the fringe
| and the absurdity of "And therefore follow us on Facebook,
| Twitter, and a bunch of other big tech platforms!" - I point
| that one out often enough too.
|
| I'm at a position in my life where there's really no downside
| to carrying "the weird alternative" and showing people that,
| yes, I do in fact continue to exist, can have phone calls,
| SMS text, and basic maps, while not feeding into the horribly
| human-toxic ecosystem that modern smartphones have become. I
| mean, I can even use Bluetooth to the car for making phone
| calls, or play music from my SD card to a Bluetooth speaker!
| But I don't have email on it, I don't have any social medias,
| the games are crap and I don't bother with them, etc. It's a
| minimally functional device that I end up leaving home a lot
| because I just forget about it - and that, coming from the
| smartphone world, is a huge improvement.
|
| I get a lot of positive reactions, too - most people simply
| haven't thought about the fact that the smartphone is really
| only 10-15 years old for most people. We lived before it. We
| will live after it. And life is objectively better without
| one now.
| stavros wrote:
| This is just throwing the baby out with the bathwater. I
| love my phone, even though I don't use social media, or
| play predatory games, or whatever. It lets me talk to my
| friends all day, doesn't distract me unless I want to be
| distracted (all notifications are off), and entertains me
| when I'm bored.
|
| Your post seems a bit "I couldn't use my phone responsibly
| so I got rid of it", which is fine (I can't have sweets in
| the house, as I'll eat them too often), but you shouldn't
| generalize your lack of self-control to everyone. Some
| people have a perfectly fine relationship with their
| smartphone.
| JasonFruit wrote:
| The parent post even says, "I'm at the point in my life,"
| which doesn't sound like they're saying it's for
| everyone.
|
| Further, are you sure that "entertains me when I'm bored"
| represents a benefit? I think boredom serves a useful
| purpose, and quelling it with empty activity might defeat
| that purpose.
| stavros wrote:
| > "I'm at the point in my life," which doesn't sound like
| they're saying it's for everyone.
|
| I took that as a generalization, but maybe they did mean
| in their specific life, rather than every human's life.
|
| > Further, are you sure that "entertains me when I'm
| bored" represents a benefit?
|
| I do, sometimes I'm bored and want to be productive,
| sometimes I want to be unproductive. The phone is for the
| latter. If I didn't have it, I wouldn't be productive,
| I'd just be feeling bad.
| Syonyk wrote:
| > _...but maybe they did mean in their specific life,
| rather than every human 's life._
|
| Yes, it's something I can do in my life specifically. I
| recognize not everyone is able to do it depending on work
| (I couldn't drive for Uber/Lyft/[insert food delivery
| service of the week here] with a KaiOS device, but
| neither am I trying to do that), and there are some
| downsides in terms of having to carry separate devices
| for other functions (typically a pocket camera for
| photos, and CDs in the car for audiobooks), but they're
| nothing I find particularly objectionable.
|
| The reality is that I'm just dropping back to a 1990s or
| early 2000s way of doing things, which I lived through,
| and find a better way of handling things than a
| smartphone-mediated-always-on world that's become the
| default - not because people have thought through it and
| want it, but because it's the most profitable set of
| defaults to the tech companies and app vendors involved.
|
| > _The phone is for the latter. If I didn 't have it, I
| wouldn't be productive, I'd just be feeling bad. _
|
| I find boredom quite useful. I typically have a paper
| notebook and pencil in my pocket anymore for those times.
| stavros wrote:
| Aw you're younger than me if you "only" lived through the
| 90s :P
| Syonyk wrote:
| > _Your post seems a bit "I couldn't use my phone
| responsibly so I got rid of it", which is fine..._
|
| I was perfectly fine with my smartphone, I had it
| greyscale, heavily restricted in terms of what was
| installed, etc. It wasn't a particular problem... but at
| that point, neither was it a particular benefit. Battery
| life was "a few days at best," it was large and
| expensive, and I tend to enjoy playing in the weeds of
| "What's possible?" vs "What's the default?"
|
| As I didn't know anyone who was carrying a feature phone
| instead of a smartphone, I set out to figure out what
| that looks like, with the constraints of "I don't want to
| annoy other people too badly with my choices" - so the
| first attempt, a Bananaphone, went out quickly because it
| couldn't do MMS based group texting. The Flip IV handles
| that, if not well, then "in a way that doesn't irritate
| other people, mostly." It doesn't render any emojis, but
| I'm fine with that.
|
| By "point in my life where I can do this," I mean that
| people around me simply expect me to have oddly broken or
| limited computer systems and communications systems, so
| if I'm off in some weeds or another, it's no particular
| surprise. I don't _need_ 100% reliably daily comms,
| people don 't _expect_ me to respond instantly, and
| everyone knows that if something 's on fire, use the
| phone feature of the cell system and I'll pick up.
| Assuming my phone is nearby.
|
| I've written up more on the experiments here:
| https://www.sevarg.net/2022/01/22/kaios-bananaphone-flip-
| iv-...
|
| I _hate_ what modern smartphones have become, and I 'm
| fairly vocal about that. I think that they've turned into
| expensive, human-toxic bits of ewaste looking for a place
| to happen, and that they've been the primary enablers of
| the always-on surveillance capitalism systems we see
| today, to such great harm to humanity. To then continue
| using them, despite "Well, yeah, but I turned off
| notifications...", is a form of hypocrisy I try to avoid
| in life as much as I can. I can be as right as the day is
| long about the benefits of a vegetarian, low meat, or
| vegan diet, but if I'm talking to people about it while
| chowing down on a bacon double cheeseburger, I can
| reasonably expect nobody to listen to me. The same goes
| for tech habits. I can't rail against smartphones and
| social media, on smartphones and social media, and expect
| much beyond a well deserved eye roll.
|
| I at least try to live out my convictions regarding
| technology, which means that things like the blog post I
| linked above are hosted on a server I own and have colo'd
| locally.
|
| And I'll entirely admit that there exist a small number
| of features I've not found ways to replace a smartphone
| for, so I use my legacy device for those and only carry
| it with me when I need access to a particular building
| that has smartphone based locks (I don't like them, but I
| didn't install them, other people like them, and they
| don't have an easily usable key backup), or if I'm doing
| Part 107 drone operations for some reason or another.
| stavros wrote:
| Ah, yeah, I can agree with that. I don't have the same
| experience as you, but if yours works for you, I'm glad.
| ydlr wrote:
| I had to lookup "obstreperously." Thank you for teaching me a
| new word.
| hoffspot wrote:
| I think there are shades of gray to be recognized between
| obstreperously "Retro" and obstreperously Luddite. There are
| still a significant cohort of people alive that grew up in
| the era where the rotary phone interface was the only phone
| interface. Using this device in public could be merely a nod
| and a wink to others in the same cohort and a nice
| conversation starter rather than a position against the
| advancement of technology. You will pry my smartphone out of
| my cold, dead hands but I think it would be fun to have this
| device around to occasionally sport out in public for the
| laughs. And in a nod to yourself and the other comment, thank
| you for teaching me a new word (obstreperously).
| NikolaNovak wrote:
| Curious - Why "obstreperously "?
|
| I would've assumed something like "Ostentatiously" would've
| been the word; but I've seen "obstreperously" couple of
| times in this thread now, and had to look it up (it's a new
| word to me:) - seems to be "noisy and difficult to
| control", and that gives it a whole different, perhaps more
| negative slant?
|
| P.S. FWIW, in my limited experience, it is typically the
| most technologically savvy amongst us that go through
| incredible effort to discover, purchase, setup, own,
| operate and integrate retro/Luddite devices in their lives
| :-)
| Syonyk wrote:
| > _P.S. FWIW, in my limited experience, it is typically
| the most technologically savvy amongst us that go through
| incredible effort to discover, purchase, setup, own,
| operate and integrate retro /Luddite devices in their
| lives_
|
| Oh, absolutely! Part of it is the enjoyment and skill to
| make something like that work (it's a non-trivial bit of
| programming to interface modern electronics with a rotary
| dialer, cell modem, audio codec, etc, and to have it all
| more or less work reliably).
|
| The other part, though, I think is that people in those
| spaces see just how wrong everything has gone - the piles
| of complexity that never quite work, the constant data
| leaks, the invasion of privacy for surveillance profits,
| the fight for attention based on what's good for the
| company and not good for the users, etc. And a lot of us,
| myself included, want no part of that.
|
| My wife and I spent last night on the couch listening
| through a wonderful recording of Handel's Messiah, on 4
| quite heavy vinyl LPs. It was a great evening!
| NikolaNovak wrote:
| Thx; I suppose that's also why my fridge, microwave, tv
| and door lock are as dumb and unconnected as I can make
| them :->
|
| I found a quote a while back - don't know the source -
| which sums up how many IT experts view IT:
|
| "Non-magic users: collect crystals, call their pet a
| familiar, draw pentagrams.
|
| Magic users:the most magical things I keep in my house
| are rocks, and I keep a hammer next to them in case they
| act up"
| Syonyk wrote:
| I've seen the more directly tech version of that:
|
| _Tech Enthusiasts: Everything in my house is wired to
| the Internet of Things! I control it all from my
| smartphone! My smart-house is Bluetooth enabled and I can
| give it voice commands via Alexa! I love the future!_
|
| _Programmers / Engineers: The most recent piece of
| technology I own is a printer from 2004 and I keep a
| loaded gun ready to shoot it if it ever makes an
| unexpected noise._
|
| I'm definitely on the second half. We still have a Nest,
| but only because I've not convinced myself that the
| HestiaPi will actually run our system properly... and I
| can't get parts for it.
| JasonFruit wrote:
| I started the "obstreperously" thing in this thread, so I
| guess I'm honor-bound to explain. You've exactly pegged
| what I meant to communicate: loud, obnoxious, over-the-
| top obvious, like ostentatious, but no chance of being
| taken as non-annoying.
| kwhitefoot wrote:
| I know this is off topic and it's not a criticism of your
| comment but I think it's a shame that Luddite has become so
| watered down. The real life Luddites put their lives on the
| line in the fight against industrial weaving. The didn't just
| avoid using a steam loom while drinking an almond latte.
| JasonFruit wrote:
| I'm more bothered when "Luddite" is used as a slur against
| people who refuse certain technologies in a principled way.
| That is, when it's used in a historically-knowledgeable
| way, but still deployed as an insult.
| dylan604 wrote:
| first definition in a dictionary says Luddite is someone
| opposed to new technology. your definition has been moved
| to the second definition of the word. so the world has
| moved past you and you now seem to be a Luddite (of sorts)
| hanging on to a definition of the word the world has found
| less useful.
| egypturnash wrote:
| I suspect the main point of this whole phone is "having a big
| rotary dial on a cel phone would be funny". "Naturally
| resistant to butt dialing" is a bit of deadpan humor.
| ValtteriL wrote:
| With a physical alarm bell and everything!
|
| Unfortunately having smartphone is kinda mandatory around here
| for internet banking and commute tickets. Signal is also
| important for me personally.
| SamBam wrote:
| This looks lovely. Pocket-sized? Perhaps with big pockets. But
| certainly it can be thrown in a bag without worrying that it's
| taking up space.
| _joel wrote:
| Still has the baseband in it though, right, or am I missing
| something?
| krisoft wrote:
| You are right it does have a baseband processor. It is using a
| uBlox TOBY-R20[02] chip to act as one. That runs some
| proprietary code written by who knows who and it can act
| against your interest.
|
| There are some mitigations in place: They claim to have a
| physical cut-off switch for the microphone. They also say that
| the power switch is an actual slide switch. If these are
| correctly implemented you can be certain when is the phone able
| to listen to you, and when is it properly off.
|
| Also it is much more likely that the AtMega2560 acting as the
| application processor is properly isolated from the baseband
| processor. (If for no other reason that the developers would
| have to go out of their way to program/wire it in such a manner
| to be half as vulnerable as most other phone's application
| processors are.)
|
| That being said the text of the product page focuses on the
| usability of the phone not on the privacy or security aspects.
| Out of the 9 positives they list, only 1 talks about
| privacy/security. This would indicate the focus of the people
| who built it.
|
| Just to be clear on this: There is nothing wrong with focusing
| on UX. Not every product has to be laser focused on
| privacy/security. It is clearly made by a small team. (Perhaps
| only by a single person?) They wanted to make a phone which
| causes less distractions to the phone's users. All the power to
| them.
| wffurr wrote:
| Well yeah. Usually the "smart" in smartphone refers to the
| application processor and user facing OS. I don't think you can
| connect to an LTE network _without_ a baseband processor.
|
| If your threat model includes the firmware on the baseband
| processor, best not to use a smartphone at all. Or leave your
| cave in the mountains of Pakistan.
| _joel wrote:
| True, just wondering...
| pabs3 wrote:
| Hmm, that "open source" license doesn't seem to be compliant with
| the Open Source Definition.
|
| https://skysedge.com/opensource/ https://opensource.org/osd
| sandworm101 wrote:
| Is it a rotary phone or a touchscreen app underneath a rotary? I
| cannot tell from the pictures.
|
| For 400$ I would rather have a dongle/cord/app that would allow
| me to plug an actual oldschool phone into my cellphone.
| mothsonasloth wrote:
| I always fancied making an old TV or Radio dial with some preset
| channels that my grandmother could use to view news or see funny
| youtube videos, rather than use a keyboard.
|
| I might have a hack now after seeing this.
| mmazing wrote:
| I'm interested in the LED choices (listed as incandescent-like) -
| what type of LED can I look for with my own personal projects to
| achieve this?
| wazoox wrote:
| Ridiculous, and necessary :)
| durgampudi wrote:
| durgampudi wrote:
| durgampudi wrote:
| Kaibeezy wrote:
| For me, a minimalist alternative phone would need to be able to
| hotspot a more flexible device (tablet, laptop) for when other
| tasks are required. Else, I'd need a second mobile account.
| simoneau wrote:
| "So you convince yourself that you only need to implement 20%
| of the features, and you can still sell 80% as many copies.
| Unfortunately, it's never the same 20%."
|
| https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2001/03/23/strategy-letter-iv...
| monsieurbanana wrote:
| I'm too young to really remember how it was in 2001, so all I
| can say is that the article has at the very least aged
| poorly.
|
| Hide your kids, check under the bed, in the closet, because
| bloatware is real and it's coming for you.
|
| No thanks Microsoft, I really don't need ads in my task bar.
| spockz wrote:
| Recently call quality on our normal mobile phone connections have
| severely degraded. (At least in the places I visit in NL and
| especially while in a moving vehicle.) I switched to using
| FaceTime audio and with the noise cancellation the audio quality
| is superb and I would t want to go back. So although I would love
| to use a minimal phone like this I would want to keep all the
| benefits of modern day audio connections.
| dleslie wrote:
| It's shocking to me how terrible regular cellular call quality
| is, when on the same network and device I access superior
| quality through WhatsApp.
| mplanchard wrote:
| I'd love something like this that I could just dock my phone into
| when I get home, rather than needing a separate SIM. Especially
| if it had a nice receiver. Trying to actually talk on a cell
| phone is so much harder than it used to be when you could cradle
| the receiver in your shoulder.
| 300bps wrote:
| _Trying to actually talk on a cell phone is so much harder than
| it used to be when you could cradle the receiver in your
| shoulder._
|
| If this was tongue-in-cheek, you got me! I would never go back
| to holding a physical phone up to my ear after using wireless
| airpods or equivalent.
| mplanchard wrote:
| Ha! I feel you, but it's not tongue in cheek. I almost never
| use earbuds, and I hate holding my featureless glass slab up
| to my ear for extended periods. I long for the days of
| sitting with something actually designed to be held to my
| ear.
|
| Edit: it's also part of a general desire to be more
| untethered from the phone. I wish I could have a classic
| phone + ringer experience that integrates with my smart
| phone, so I can just plug the phone in and forget about it
| once I'm home unless I get a call (for whatever reason my
| phone's ringer is not loud enough to be heard throughout the
| house, and I feel like having something to dock it to would
| make it easier psychologically to not feel like I have to
| carry it around with me all the time).
| steanne wrote:
| that exists. here's one, probably not the only.
|
| https://www.phonelabs.com/prd05.asp
| dotancohen wrote:
| I would use this as my daily-driver phone if it were to enable a
| Wifi hotspot so that my smart device - in the other pocket -
| could access e.g. Telegram.
| schwartzworld wrote:
| Is there a term for faux retro products? Modern tech used to
| emulate past hardware?
| mwexler wrote:
| It's like skeuomorphism, a bit... Wikipedia summarizes the big
| pieces at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skeuomorph
| ChrisClark wrote:
| Maybe we need a new word, anachromorphism.
| unclewalter wrote:
| The term I'm thinking is "pastiche". I usually apply it to
| "Disney World" type of items or places that try and recreate
| the feel of a different time. Some "speakeasy" bars fall in to
| that category.
| mxuribe wrote:
| I was about to reply "steampunk"...but, no, that's not the
| right term either. Now, i'm curious myself.
| Sporktacular wrote:
| A USD390 conversation piece for hipsters.
| bolingo007 wrote:
| Just try
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(page generated 2022-04-26 23:01 UTC)