As a result, my partner gifted me a pair of AlphaZeta boards: one 7x28 flip-dots display, and one 7x4 seven-segment flip-digits (“Vane”)

Clapping Music for two flip-disc displays

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2024-12-23 13:30:02

As a result, my partner gifted me a pair of AlphaZeta boards: one 7x28 flip-dots display, and one 7x4 seven-segment flip-digits (“Vane”) display. We set them up in our living room and programmed them to show the date, current outside temperature, and current weather (prioritizing upcoming precipitation), updated on the half hour.1

Our display has been running for nearly three years at this point, with only minimal intervention (i.e., manual restarts after the power goes off.2 It makes me so happy! Two unexpected benefits:

One of my favorite things about electromechanical displays is how visceral they are—that tiny “chk!” when changing state. The two displays sound different from one another: while a single dot makes a soft snick, such that updating many dots yields a whirring noise, a single digit’s segment makes a much sharper clack, and a fast digits update creates an agressive clacking din.

As soon as we had successfully sent commands to the boards (a win in its own right!), I started playing around with playing basic rhythms with them. I sent a video of a beat to a musician/composer friend, whose immediate response was

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