Siri as a lippy and sometimes profane television remote

If the addition of Siri to your iPhone has given you a somewhat-real life companion (and hope that you might not be forever alone) this hack is right up your alley. [Todd Treece] built a hardware fixiture for the living room which bridges the gap between Apple’s new digital assitant and your television.

The box itself is an Arduino … Read the rest

Synthesizing sound with a light sensitive pen and CRT television

Here’s the latest project from [Niklas Roy's] workshop. Lumenoise is an audio synthesizer controlled by drawing with a light-sensitive pen on a CRT television.

The pen is a self-contained module which connects to the TV via audio and composite video RCA plugs. Inside the clear pen housing you’ll find a microcontroller which generates the audio and video. The business end … Read the rest

CRT art: Wobbulator

The Wobbulator is a black and white CRT television that has additional hardware to manipulate the electrons as they bombard the phosphor layer of the screen. It was created by [June Paik] and you can find it at The Experimental Television Center. [Blair Neal] took some time to share the background information and some video on this interesting device.… Read the rest

Hacking TVs in 1954

shaddap already!

This gem was published in Mechanix Illustrated magazine in may of 1954. AT that time, a remote control was the stuff of science fiction. This article shows the modern man how to modify his television to include a fancy button to stop all noise. This button, affectionately labelled the “SHADDAP” was marketed as a way to relieve the pain of … Read the rest

Paging system for your TV remote

[Matt] brought together a TV remote and cordless phone to add a locator system to the remote control. One of the best features of a cordless phone is the pager button on the base. When you press it the handset beeps until found. Matt gutted one and got rid of the unnecessary parts. He then cracked open his TV … Read the rest

Adding SCART to a cheap CRT television

[133MHz] cracked open a cheap tube television to add a SCART connector. He knew he had a chance at success when he discovered all of the knock-outs on the back of the connector panel because one of them was exactly the right size for the connector. But it wasn’t quite as easy as soldering in one component. He ended … Read the rest

Mechanical scanning television

This project explores the early days of television. Above you see a view from the back side of a mechanically scanning television. The black disk spins and the holes, aligned in a spiral pattern, create vertical scan lines for projected light to shine through. In this case, [Eckhard Etzold] is using red, green, and blue LEDs to create a … Read the rest