Larry Cotton's Screechophone

Make contributor Larry Cotton says:

I built this bizarre musical instrument--based loosely on the playing-card-in-the-bicycle-spokes principle--a while back, shot a quick video, then cannibalized it for parts. As you'll see, the bicycle spokes were scaled down to a small white plastic gear. The card remained.

I called it a screechophone for reasons which will become obvious as you watch (and listen) to the video.

The whole thing was synced to accompanying music from a mini-CD through an ancient Commodore 64 computer, programmed in BASIC. A transparent disc printed only with black arcs spun with the CD and was read by a photocell.

[#1 posted by alisong76 , June 25, 2008 4:56 PM]

That is so adorably geeky I could just die. Love it! :-)

[#2 posted by snagglepuss , June 25, 2008 7:07 PM]

FREEBIRD!!!!

[#3 posted by the Other michael , June 26, 2008 7:48 AM]

that is so awesome

[#4 posted by Keneke , June 26, 2008 8:21 AM]

Twice as cool that he did prgrammed this on a C64.