Circuit Bending an 80's Video Editor - An Exploration in Open Hardware
Turtle (Mill bee) | Thu 18 Apr 3:45 p.m.–4:30 p.m.
Presented by
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Simon Lees
@Simotek_Dot_Ne
http://simotek.net
Simon is a Senior Software Engineer at SUSE Linux, working primarily on Packaging, Integration and New Product Development. Simon has been contributing to open source projects for well over 10 years, with a particular focus on desktop customization and tweeking.
In his spare time Simon enjoys making Music and dabbling in Electronics including robotics, DIY Synth's and most recently Circuit bending analog Video equipment.
Simon Lees
@Simotek_Dot_Ne
http://simotek.net
Abstract
With the current push for open hardware and right to repair laws its easy to forget how open hardware really used to be. Recently I was made all too aware of this when I chose to Circuit Bend a 80's era Video editor and without much effort was able to find complete schematics and component lists.
This is a stark contrast to modern hardware and even the modern circuit bending community where generally there is very little information available around how to repair or modify hardware
With all that as a preface I will spend much of this talk explaining my approach to circuit bending and how I was able to use the openness of the hardware to my advantage. As someone with a limited understanding of electronics, circuit bending is an excersize in educated guessing combined with a whole lot of hope and significant levels of surprise when you actually end up with something cool. The open hardware of the 1980's makes this whole process significantly more educated and maybe slightly less guessy. Having access to service manuals made it simple for someone with limited knowledge such as myself to take a crazy idea and actually somewhat pull it off.
Alongside talking about the project I've worked on i'll cover some other simple designs for people who'd like to get started along with highlighting some of the other people doing significant work in this field. Of course there will also be a fair share of glitchy video demo's.
With the current push for open hardware and right to repair laws its easy to forget how open hardware really used to be. Recently I was made all too aware of this when I chose to Circuit Bend a 80's era Video editor and without much effort was able to find complete schematics and component lists. This is a stark contrast to modern hardware and even the modern circuit bending community where generally there is very little information available around how to repair or modify hardware With all that as a preface I will spend much of this talk explaining my approach to circuit bending and how I was able to use the openness of the hardware to my advantage. As someone with a limited understanding of electronics, circuit bending is an excersize in educated guessing combined with a whole lot of hope and significant levels of surprise when you actually end up with something cool. The open hardware of the 1980's makes this whole process significantly more educated and maybe slightly less guessy. Having access to service manuals made it simple for someone with limited knowledge such as myself to take a crazy idea and actually somewhat pull it off. Alongside talking about the project I've worked on i'll cover some other simple designs for people who'd like to get started along with highlighting some of the other people doing significant work in this field. Of course there will also be a fair share of glitchy video demo's.