[GreenKeys] So what else can I do with this?

[epvgk at limpoc.com]

> I've pretty much done what I need to do with my M15 / C-64 project, but I 
> still have this M15 sitting in the shop. 
>  
> So just what the heck do you guys do with these old girls? I've heard tell 
> of Internet TTY and so forth, but how would that be approached?
>
> Much as I love it, it would be good if I could put it to some use, so it's
> not just sitting collecting dust, you know? If these machines are like most
> others, inertia is among their worst enemies..

I have a M28, a M14 reperf, and a M19 set connected to a small linux computer
running HeavyMetal. This alone lets you type various commands on the machines
and get responses from the computer. Builtin commands are things like time, date,
RSS feeds, pre-recorded messages, chatting with other instances of HeavyMetal
over the internet, sending and receiving email, weather reports, news, etc. 

But having an internet computer on the loop via HeavyMetal also let me extend
functionality, and I've written a lot of additional programs using the HM interface:

- Both sending and receiving SMS messages using the google voice interface
- a fairly complete program to use the Slack.com online chat service via teletype
- a fairly complete Twitter client, including realtime streaming and direct msgs
- programs to pretty-print some local websites
- a Reddit client
- a Facebook client (this is halfassed because they keep changing the API)
- a program to show nicely formatted weather forecasts from the national weather service
- a program for posting to a Wordpress blog via teletype

I've set up the machines with remote power controls so that if an email is received,
the Model 28 powers up and prints it; but if a text messages is received, it instead
powers up the model 14 reperf and prints the text message on tape instead.  Often if 
i'm in the room where the teletype machines are, my wife will start one of them up 
remotely and print a message if she's looking for me :) 

Basically anything you can run from a commandline on linux can be run and have its
output redirected to the teletypes easily. Interactive things are only a little
harder, using a network connection to HeavyMetal. It's been pretty fun thinking up
more and more ways to extend it. 

Of course, even without the computer interfacing, you can always use a terminal
unit or simple demodulator to print the constant stream of articles and stuff from
ITTY (http://rtty.com) which gives you something to print 24/7, and depending on
where you are, if you have a radio and antenna, you can get the saturday morning
(11 am pacific) broadcast from KSM on 6328 khz and 12631 khz, and if you're on 
the east coast you may be able to receive the German Weather Service (DWD) on
147.3 KHz, 11039 khz, 14467.3 khz, 4583 khz, 7646 khz, or 10100.8 khz. The first
of these is very narrow (85hz) shift so you need a TU that can handle that. 

btw i will shortly (next weekish) have a bunch more RTTY demod boards available
just like the ones i was selling a couple years ago. Got a discount on board fab
due to having put in a big order for the USB-teletype adapters so I had them make
another 25 demod pcbs too. 


eric