Electromechanical Pong

[Jules Richardson]

On Wed, 2004-09-22 at 11:17 -0700, Vintage Computer Festival wrote:
> On Wed, 22 Sep 2004, Jules Richardson wrote:
> 
> > Apologies if someone's mentioned this one before. Quite possibly the
> > coolest gadget I've seen in a long time, though:
> >
> > http://www.cyberniklas.de/pongmechanik/indexen.html
> 
> Awesome.  It would be great to get stuff like this exhibited at the VCF.
> 
> The web page is pretty smart also.  What terrific technical and design
> work.

Amazing, huh? If I read that right, it's 52 relays though (I don't know
any German) which makes it sound rather like a 'simple' relay control
system rather than an actual relay computer. I fired off an email to
them to see if they'll let me have a nose at the wiring diagrams.

I was just thinking that it would be an interesting challenge to build a
fully mechanical version - no electrical parts whatsoever. Steam-powered
pong, that'd be different... "Babbage Pong", maybe... :-)

And given the light loading involved, why not use wooden gearing instead
of metal: "Organic Pong"...

Heh!

J.