Help me rediscover an electronics project from Radio Shack from back in the '80s.

May 12, 2011 5:57 AM

Help me rediscover an electronics project from Radio Shack from back in the '80s.

I don't know if this was a Forrest Mims III project, but I've been looking for it ever since I first saw it. Maybe you bright guys remember it. I think it was in the early 80's, definitely at Radio Shack. Not sure if it was in a magazine or a Mims book.

Anyway, the project was a calculator that used a rotary telephone dial to enter numbers. That's about all I remember about it. Oh, and also I couldn't build the project because at that time, Radio Shack was beginning its quick decline in usefulness to hobbyists and the telephone dial plus sundry other parts simply weren't available.

Anyone? It would be fun to see if the project exists somewhere on the Intarwebz and can still interest me into building it.

_{I crossposted this on BoingBoing, since there was a recent post there about Mims. So no, this isn't quite copypasta!}

posted by babbageboole to Technology (2 answers total)

Something like this? I can't find any vintage 80s-era DIY instructions, but if you feel like searching through old Radio Shack catalogs and manuals, they're all digitally archived here. [Radio Shack link via]
posted by amyms at 11:08 AM on May 12, 2011

Response by poster: Something like that, but it certainly didn't have all those LEDs, and it looked much more... grungier? It may have had actual small light bulbs. No vacuum tubes, though.
posted by babbageboole at 12:11 PM on May 12, 2011