Next up in our collection of inspirational hacks first shown at the PUSH launch event is the Speak & Spell

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PUSH launch

When E.T. needed to call his mates for a lift home, he hacked a Speak & Spell© to send an interplanetary text message. Now, with the help of the Nokia N900’s phone functionality and the Maemo platform , you too can text your friends using this much-loved childhood toy.

INSTRUCTIONS:

1. Type in your text message and press “enter”.

2. Type in a phone number and press “enter”.

Stuck? Press “cancel” and start over.

HOW DOES IT WORK?

A Nokia N900 and an Arduino are hidden inside this Speak & Spell©. When you press a key, the Arduino detects which key you have pressed and sends that information over Bluetooth to the N900.

The letters you see are actually the N900 screen. A python script receives the information from the Arduino and uses pygame, an open-source python wrapper for controlling visuals, to display images that mimic the original Speak & Spell display. The voice synthesis is also generated on the phone, using flite, a speech synthesis engine that we compiled to run on the N900’s ARM processor.

When you complete a text message, the D-Bus messaging service is used to send your message to the phone number that you entered.

Inspired? Then make a submission. Have questions? Then join in the discussion or get in touch.