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Trivial Pursuits => Arts & Entertainment => Topic started by: Arachno-capitalist on September 02, 2010, 02:28:35 am

Title: My first retarded tech mini-project
Post by: Arachno-capitalist on September 02, 2010, 02:28:35 am
I want to take something like this: http://www.amazon.com/Crosley-302-Desk-Phone-CR60-RE/dp/B000238LD8
And make it work with my cell phone.
Step 0.5 would be a basic cosmetic connection between the two devices.
Step one would be integrating the two on a basic level so that it rings when my cell phone rings. I have already seen a black model phone like this that plugs into the 2.5mm jack of a cell phone, but that doesn't come in red and does not come with the stand, it is only a headset.
Step two would be a dial interface.
Step three would be a more detailed integration where the red phone would have speed dial for each of its number keys.
End result: I have a red retro style phone next to my black networked office phone. The red phone for my cell phone calls and the black phone for my interoffice calls.


Any ideas?

Title: Re: My first retarded tech mini-project
Post by: Doc on September 02, 2010, 03:08:37 am
My first thought would be to rip apart a bluetooth headset and use that.
Some quick searching reveals this  (http://hackaday.com/2010/01/04/bt-phone-is-much-more-than-retrofit/)and this (http://hackaday.com/2009/12/23/bluetooth-handset-hacks/) which shows that others have thought along the same lines.

Edit: Look at that second link first, it's more along the lines of what I'd try, that first one looks like something for Advanced Users.
Title: Re: My first retarded tech mini-project
Post by: Arachno-capitalist on September 02, 2010, 03:19:52 am
Awesome yeah, that gets me on the right path.
Voice dialing is an ultimate goal such that I can pick up the red phone say "call the boss" or whatever and bruce Springsteen gets a call from my cell phone contacts. Or more realistically "call hardware guy" and that vendor is called.
Title: Re: My first retarded tech mini-project
Post by: Doc on September 02, 2010, 04:39:25 am
I mean a red phone on your desk should ideally respond to 'call Batman' and 'Get me the President' or the Pentagon.
No one need know that this actually speed dials your mother.

Actually, thinking a bit more about it, I'd imagine voice dialing would be easier to implement since that would be handled by your phone, whereas you'd have to find a bluetooth headset that has some sort of dialing functionality on it to get the keypad or rotary dial working on your red phone.
A red phone with absolutely no buttons on it looks kind of more important anyway.
Title: Re: My first retarded tech mini-project
Post by: littlefallsmets on September 02, 2010, 07:14:45 am
The only thing more boss than a phone with no buttons on it...

Is a phone with ONE button on it.

This is important.
Title: Re: My first retarded tech mini-project
Post by: Doc on September 02, 2010, 07:26:23 am
Possibly a button that is also a light?
Title: Re: My first retarded tech mini-project
Post by: KeithHernandez on September 02, 2010, 07:39:01 am
If you could make a really heavy, red, one button, one light bluetooth set up old phone that could make you money.  At least mildly internet popular? 

You could have an optional word like "President" or "J. Edgar Hoover" (that is what mine would be.  I hide my dope in a clogged out J Edgar Hoover book.) by the button.

Man, if this was done right it would be so boss.  You would just have to charge it and have the buttons hidden really well.  Also make it heavy.  Really Heavy.
Title: Re: My first retarded tech mini-project
Post by: Arachno-capitalist on September 02, 2010, 10:53:33 pm
Ok so what is the deal with making it heavy?
Title: Re: My first retarded tech mini-project
Post by: miles on September 02, 2010, 11:32:55 pm
Because shit was heavy back in the day?

I guess if you're going to buy something for its nostalgic value, you don't want it to feel like a cheap, plastic piece of crap.
Title: Re: My first retarded tech mini-project
Post by: littlefallsmets on September 02, 2010, 11:54:08 pm
It is the idea of the metaphorical gravitas turned back into literal gravitas.

ALSO: yes, more fun for smashy-smashy.
Title: Re: My first retarded tech mini-project
Post by: AugustWest on September 03, 2010, 01:41:23 am
Ok so what is the deal with making it heavy?

Because actual dial phones that looked like that weighed about 8 pounds.
Title: Re: My first retarded tech mini-project
Post by: Nabubrush on September 03, 2010, 02:35:51 am
Now things have gone from big heavy important phones to little crap cordless phones to "what the fuck are you even talking about - you didn't carry your phone around in your pocket?"
Title: Re: My first retarded tech mini-project
Post by: Arachno-capitalist on September 03, 2010, 03:03:21 am
Yeah, I don't need to be a hundred years old to know phones used to be heavy. I have seen and used old phones. Old phones weren't even owned by the customer and they were heavy as hell. New phones are so light you can not even tell you are carrying one, and it can do a trillion different things. And it does those trillion different things so effectively that a 1% fuck-up rate is business killing.
I can't generalize for my entire generation, but everyone I know has entirely abandoned the landline phone. It is retarded. Why do I want or need a phone number than can only be used when I am within earshot of a particular fixture? Anyway, don't pretend that younger people don't know what phones are or how they used to work.

The device I am trying to build retains the aesthetic quality of an old phone and recalls the legendary red phone on the president's desk - While being entirely modern day functional. The housing of the phone is easy, that part is easy. The electronic components list I want to buy off-the-shelf and the operations of combining those parts is what I'm trying to get together.
Title: Re: My first retarded tech mini-project
Post by: Choop on September 03, 2010, 03:50:46 am
why don't you contact sparkfun (http://www.sparkfun.com/commerce/product_info.php?products_id=8929) (from doc's second link) and see if they can do you one like you're talking, it'd be heck of easier than trying to rig it yourself
Title: Re: My first retarded tech mini-project
Post by: Nabubrush on September 03, 2010, 05:02:59 am
Not tryin' to throw stones, A-Cap.
Title: Re: My first retarded tech mini-project
Post by: Arachno-capitalist on September 03, 2010, 11:28:49 am
Not tryin' to throw stones, A-Cap.
No.
No.
Do not even try to explain now.
I am clearly way butt hurt about this and there is no way our internet friendship will ever be the same.
Title: Re: My first retarded tech mini-project
Post by: AugustWest on September 03, 2010, 12:34:21 pm
No.
No.
Do not even try to explain now.
I am clearly way butt hurt about this and there is no way our internet friendship will ever be the same.

Ha ha!  You don't even know how much an antique phone weighs!

Philistine.
Title: Re: My first retarded tech mini-project
Post by: CortJstr on September 03, 2010, 02:10:44 pm
At my last apartment we needed a land line for the buzzer. You could have the buzzer call any number you wanted  but it didn't make much sense to have it ring my roommate's cell phone because she was often in Chicago. And it didn't make sense for it to ring mine because I was at work when roommate was home.

So since we had a land line I used it all the time. The phones themselves were way more comfortable to talk on, never ran out of battery, and sounded better. And since I have Google Voice none of my friends needed to learn a new number. Now that I live alone I won't pay $20/month for that convenience but I might pay $5 bundled w/ my cable service.
Title: Re: My first retarded tech mini-project
Post by: pmcd9 on September 03, 2010, 02:38:15 pm
I'll Call You Back (http://www.flickr.com/photos/pmcd9/3279139542/)
Title: Re: My first retarded tech mini-project
Post by: Nabubrush on September 03, 2010, 04:12:53 pm
I'll Call You Back (http://www.flickr.com/photos/pmcd9/3279139542/)

I Just Called (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XxoBaEQGMPo)

Seriously, though - when you lose your shit, it's way more fun to slam that receiver down about ten times on a real, honest-to-God phone, all clanging and jangling and then breaking. Also, you can't use a cellie as a garrote.
Title: Re: My first retarded tech mini-project
Post by: smick on September 05, 2010, 08:08:52 am
Once upon a time, I was on the phone with someone while driving. 

They had said something super awful to me.  (I don't remember clearly, but certainly awful things were said back and forth.  I was younger and burned hotter then.)  It was one of those Kill Bill/Ironsides moments where I saw red, and the only thing that would, could pay was the phone.  So I threw it directly out of the car window.



Or... I would have, had the window not been rolled up.  Instead I mashed it up against the window with a *PONK* noise, and it landed in my lap.  The person on the other end still yelling, and me all stewing in impotent rage.


Certainly slamming a phone down would have been better, were the option telephonically available to me.
Title: Re: My first retarded tech mini-project
Post by: lprkn on September 06, 2010, 10:48:41 pm
Obviously, the answer is 10-pound red analog phone mounted in your center console.

Never get a ticket for talking on your phone. ever
Title: Re: My first retarded tech mini-project
Post by: Choop on September 07, 2010, 11:28:11 pm
how bout one o' these (http://www.allnewsmac.com/2010/09/07/interesting-a-retro-phone-iphone-dock/)
Title: Re: My first retarded tech mini-project
Post by: fanta on October 06, 2010, 07:20:42 pm
there is a product for sale I saw somewhere recently that is basically an adapter that is an RJ-whatever jack (the size used by telephone handsets, which is slightly smaller than the size used by a wall jack) connected to a standard size co-axial plug of the variety that most cell phones have a jack for.  So you could have your cell phone in your pocket, and be talking on the old-fashioned handset.
Title: Re: My first retarded tech mini-project
Post by: Arachno-capitalist on October 06, 2010, 10:29:02 pm
Thanks for that fanta.