During the gilded age, oil magnates, entrepreneurs, and robber barons would have a ticker tape machine in their study. This machine would print stock and commodity prices and chart these men’s assets climbing higher and higher. A lot has changed in 100 years, as now [Adam] can be kept apprised of what @KimKardashian, @BarackObama and @stephenfry ate for breakfast with his Twittertape machine.
Interestingly, [Adam]’s build didn’t start off as a tarnished lump of 100-year-old brass; he built his beautiful ticker machine out of old clock movements he picked up on eBay. Even though the shiny part of the build only holds the roll of paper, it’s still a wonderful build. Right now the machine is connected to Ethernet, but he’s planning on adding WiFi and a few batteries for a completely wireless build.
Unlike the other ticker tape machine we saw this week, [Adam] did away with the loud clashing of gears and solenoids found in 100-year-old ticker machines. This ticker machine prints on cash register receipt paper and a very small thermal printer in the base. Although [Adam]’s build doesn’t sound like two robots trading blows, there’s no ink needed and no danger of the letter wheel becoming misaligned and misspelling everything.
Check out [Adam]’s build in action after the break.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5RvgPJHROzo&w=470]
via reddit
AHA! finally something I can apply all the guts of old recipt printers to!
But where to get clocks…
Its a nice job but the point of using old equipment is to keep them old.
What the hell did I just say?
Not sure but I second your opinion!
It’s a replica built from scratch, I promise no actual stock tickers were harmed in the making of this gizmo!
Oh, then I’m even more impressed, but I still like the sound of the old stuff. By the way the paper tape looked slightly uneven, did you cut down a larger paper roll?
Yes agreed about the sound, the real thing sounds awesome – might be able to add the option to simulate the clacking of the original in version 2 for users who want it to sound a bit more authentic. The paper is ordinary till receipt paper cut down to ticker tape size with a band saw (hence the uneven finish!), the finish of this will be improved next time by using a proper paper cutting guillotine.
It needs to under a birdcage not glass!
Neat build. But he seriously could not find a better use for this than following dumb celebrities. For shame.
I have thought about using a ticker tape machine to display twitter messages for a long time. Even Using one to show text messages when I’m at home. A business could use one for its customers to tweet at.
lol – now I can get my Kim Kardashian fix.
:rolleyes:
What’s better than disposable and topical social media? Wasting paper by printing it!
I want one for tracking my twitter account!