
The Programmable Typewriter - GauntletWizard
http://zachtronics.com/typewriter/
======
rtpg
This is the guy behind spacechem and TIS-100

I envy Zach so much, he seems to have succeeded in making his entire life
about turing machines and different execution models, all while making cool
games to boot.

I think it's the dream of many (including myself) to put some basic
programming mechanism into everything; There's a bit of magic about having a
typewriter print out your output so you can debug it here and there

I do kind of wonder how well this old-school programming style meshes with a
higher-level language like Haskell. I can only imagine it being even better. A
terse language with huge columns to write your ocmments/debugging. I've seen
it done with APL, maybe we need J in there too.

~~~
CmonDev
He also designed the game Minecraft had heavily "borrowed" from.

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Animats
Daisy wheel typewriters were the first consumer product with many moving parts
in which all the coordination and control was entirely electronic. The
electronics behind getting the print wheel into position that fast are very
clever. The coarse positioning uses a stepping motor, but the fine positioning
and and braking involve an analog servo loop.

~~~
kw71
I had some Brother typewriters but I think the most amazing piece of this I
ever had was a (Xerox) Diablo 630. Aside from the daisywheel printhead, it had
what looked like a 1/2 hp motor to move the carriage. I used to watch in
amazement as this monster worked with such precision.

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jacobolus
Cool project, but bragging about using a $10 Chinese Saleae Logic knockoff
seems pretty scummy. Saleae is a tiny Bay Area company who make a great
product and put a ton of hard work into their software, which is then
shamelessly ripped off by the Chinese companies selling these inferior knock-
offs which even steal their trademark.

[https://www.saleae.com/counterfeit](https://www.saleae.com/counterfeit)

If someone wrote a post about how buying the full collection of Zachtronics
games for $5 from a Russian pirate site made them feel like a Gibson novel
character, I imagine he’d be a bit less sanguine.

~~~
sneak
Perhaps the Saleae devices (in their beautiful machined, anodized cases) are
too expensive if someone is eating their lunch for $10. (The Saleae devices
are ~$100.)

I have one of the plastic, "counterfeit" knockoffs, and it works great. It
would be a different story if they didn't function, but it is a fine device.

They're just bad at capitalism. If someone printing your company name on a
sticker and reusing your USB VID/PID is all it takes to destroy your business,
perhaps you shouldn't have that business.

Hackintoshes exist, yet Apple still sells Macs, because they are a great
hardware company. Saleae is an overpriced hardware company.

PS: How is the fact that the knockoffs are Chinese or that Saleae is in the
Bay Area relevant? I posit it is simply racism that you offer.

~~~
jdswain
It's not quite that simple. Saleae wrote desktop software, which is an
important part of the product. By reusing the USB VID/PID I'm guessing (I've
not looked at a knockoffs) that the knockoffs allow you to use Saleae's
software, so you're basically stealing the software to use with your cheap
hardware device.

The price difference does seem at the extreme end, but it's a lot easier to
copy than to create. Saleae are doing a lot more work on product design,
software development, marketing, advertising, SolidWorks licenses and all the
other things that the knockoffs don't need to do. In the end if Saleae can't
make a profit competing against the knockoffs then there'll be nothing to copy
and no software to steal and then the knockoffs will cease to exist too.

Plus they seem to be really good guys, who have worked on this for years and
really do a good job.

~~~
sneak
> It's not quite that simple. Saleae wrote desktop software, which is an
> important part of the product. By reusing the USB VID/PID I'm guessing (I've
> not looked at a knockoffs) that the knockoffs allow you to use Saleae's
> software, so you're basically stealing the software to use with your cheap
> hardware device.

Except that one can't steal software, and the copying of bytes does not harm
Saleae in any way. It harms their expectation of revenue based on software
development, but it's not stealing as it obviously doesn't deprive them of
their own use of the software.

I guess what I'm saying is that anyone can copy iOS too, but Apple's one-two
punch of a) best-in-class hardware (and hardware value) and b) use of DRM
prevents it.

Maybe Saleae should have used DRM (but again maybe not, as it could just be
cracked).

Really though, the software argument is a red herring, because it's impossible
to "steal" software. Making the software is a basic prerequisite for their own
hardware being salable. It's a sunk cost. The fact that other organizations
can sell compatible hardware at much, much lower prices means that perhaps the
value proposition of their hardware is just sort of crap to begin with.

It's lame that the competitor is using their trademark, but I say again: if
all it takes is some dude with a label printer to eat your lunch, maybe your
business model sucked in the first place.

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sobkas
I somehow fail to see how this is more than just an advertisement for his
game... I would say it's nice one, but I felt a bit duped.

------
stevebmark
I imagine if you brought noisy contraption that to a hackathon, a bunch of
people working together in a room trying to cram out a project, you would make
a lot of enemies very fast.

~~~
ackalker
I guess that you nave never been to a demoscene event then (or it doesn't
count as a hackathon in your book). Lots of chance that there are teams there
working in frenzy to finish their demo in time while across the table others
are busy boozing till they drop (accompanied by the requisite loud banter).

If a team _really_ need quiet time at such an event, they usually retire to
(the basement/a hotel/someone's garage/a coffeeshop).

And no, they don't just hack software demos at such events, I've come across
(noisy) 3D printers, pinball tables, slot machines, robots in many sizes and
shapes, RC racing cars, drones, you name it.

