Rotary Phone Debut in Nashville

The rotary phones were a hit! Shout-out to V for help making the UX design smooth, and also finding an actual copy of The Mystery of Chimney Rock.

Bespoke Dial v2

Bespoke Dial v2

Working on a new prototype in old timey automation. Time to breathe new life into these rotary phones.

It’s interesting to me the subtle differences in wiring over the years, especially in build quality between Bell (pre-breakup) and AT&T.

Excited to be able to get back into hardware hacking.

Bespoke Dial: Old-Timey Automation

Software development affords a great deal of freedom that you won’t find in the physical sciences and engineering. Tolerances, non-ideal particles, and even the laws of physics fall away as you construct ever larger digital systems. As Hal Abelson noted in his seminal 6.001 lecture, “in building a large program there’s not that much difference between what [you] can build and what [you] can imagine.”

It is always refreshing, therefore, to escape the cerebral world of code and return to the reassuringly palpable realm of the physical. Hardware and electronics, although bound by the laws of Newton and Maxwell, are instantly accessible solely because they can be touched and held by the user.