Twitter, like many social networks, used to feature a useful API. This let people do fun things like create toasters that could automatically post breaderly updates, or even load Twitter posts on machines that couldn’t handle full-fat websites. That API is now history, but [NEKOPLA] used it for a cute Game Boy-like Twitter device in its dying days earlier this year.
The “TW BOY”, as it is known, runs on a Raspberry Pi Zero 2 W, which includes a WiFi chip on board for easy internet connectivity. A Python script was charged with fetching Tweets for viewing using the now-dead Twitter API. Dithering was used to display color images on the 320×240 monochrome screen. Everything was wrapped up in a tidy 3D-printed housing to complete the look. The device uses two action buttons, and four directional buttons for navigation. It’s the layout popularized by the original Game Boy, and it looks super cute here, too.
The project was built as [NEKOPLA] has a penchant for single-use devices, due to their solitary focuses on doing one thing well. We can appreciate that ethos, and we love the final product, even if Twitter decreed it would no longer work. (Time to move on to Mastodon?) More images after the break.
Twitterの閲覧だけに特化した、ゲーム機型の専用端末できた！
・ボタン操作でツイートを次々と辿れる
・Fav、RT専用ボタンあり
・ディスプレイはモノクロ液晶、写真も白黒2値画像さらばAPI、Twitter専用ガジェット「TW BOY」を作って遊ぶ | fabcross https://t.co/bJhNYkLFOs pic.twitter.com/bnAtbVvlmW
— NEKOPLA 斎藤 (@kawausokawauso) April 11, 2023
[via Adafruit]
This is the future!
Free no longer “free”.
Who cares ? Let Twitter dry out, and the MollUSK learn a lesson.
Is he gonna be the new guy that everyone comes up with asinine names for and pretends it’s funny? I thought we were over that.
I was always a fan of seeing people call him Elongated Muskrat. Quite the mental picture.
I’m curious if the lack of API access will just inevitably cost twitter more in the long run as people just slam their front-end with poorly written scripts using regex.
Ding Ding Ding. This.
You’re not making any sense. Their initial post had nothing to do with what you said. Are you feeling alright?
Use proprietary software/services get burned, happens every time.
Protocols > platforms
Maybe create a janky interface to the front-end, as you suggested. Any good names for it? Well if it used BeautifulSoup as a library to interface with the site, bird soup might be appropriate perhaps? It is TWITTER after all :D
Twitter will probably BE bird soup by the time Musk has finished with it anyway.
This also broke every WordPress site that used Twitter integration. It’s as if millions of voices suddenly cried out in terror and were suddenly silenced…