andrew@intertrader.com wrote: > > Hi, > > Forgive me if this sounds stupid or too old-fashioned. > > I spend ~100 minutes every day walking to and from work and would > often like to be able to record some of the things I am thinking > (like writing a letter to a friend - I can think what I will say, > but then forget before I can write it down). > > I don't want to look unusual and I don't want to walk into lamposts > or get hit by cars, so it seemed to me that rather than reading > something I should listen to it. I'd like to be able to type on > something in a coat pocket, so it would have to be small and one- > handed. I've seen a microwriter (do they still exist?), but that's > large and complicated. > > In the end I decided that something that records and plays back morse > code would be sufficient. I have various ideas for the software (editing) > and have built some hardware before (a long time ago - a Z80 based > stepper motor driver). But I have no idea what is possible with current > hardware (would I still need to blow my own EPROMS for example). There are alot of embedded computers that could replace a Z80 based system out there and have builtin interfaces to TTL/line level voltages (i.e. you could control a motor, sense button presses, optical encoders, etc.) An example would be the Motorolla HC6811(think that's the right number). Unfortunately most of these things are the size of a paperback book.. there might be smaller form factor stuff out there. The other thing you might look at are Pic chips: http://www.parallaxinc.com/ these could be programmed (from a pc via a serial/parallel cable) to sense morse code, a keyboard, etc. but they have tiny amounts of memory (not sure what the limit is, maybe 32K/64K?) You also might want to consider a Palm Pilot; already have software to xfer text, email, etc. via serial cable, can use graffiti to write text using a stylus, etc. Pretty small form factor. > Is > there some low-power consumption chip that includes a CPU, memory, and > some IO ports that can be programmed easily from a computer running > Linux? > > Any comments welcome, If you just want a quick list of hardware people are using for wearable computers take a peek at: http://wearables.ml.org/hardwear.html Cheers! -Paul
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