Keyboard (PS2, USB, DIN5) to generate sounds + SIDcog

Cluso99

My grandson is 15 mths. When·his mum or dad, grandma·or I·are on our computers he wants to be also. So, I dug out an old keyboard and removed the cable.

He loves to sit with me and play on his keyboard when I am on my laptop. A lot of his toys play sounds when you press buttons. So I had a thought...

Use a Prop to make sounds when any key is pressed. Easy to put in a box with a speaker and batteries, or fit it inside the keyboard if there is room. Newer USB keyboards often still have PS2 compatibility and most likely use less power.·Software is easy too. Just a keyboard object and a sound generator.

Now to take this further, an SD card (microSD) would be great as we could then play longer sounds and use SDIcog. Later, I could expand it to speek the letter when each·key is pressed.

My RamBlade will form the basis of my pcb, but basically any prop pcb would do.

Initially, I will just·try the prop + eprom + piezzo speaker between 2 pins to get +/- 3V. When I am happy with the final job I may build a dedicated pcb if there is enough interest.

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Links to other interesting threads:

· Home of the MultiBladeProps: TriBlade,·RamBlade,·SixBlade, website
· Single Board Computer:·3 Propeller ICs·and a·TriBladeProp board (ZiCog Z80 Emulator)
· Prop Tools under Development or Completed (Index)
· Emulators: CPUs Z80 etc; Micros Altair etc;· Terminals·VT100 etc; (Index) ZiCog (Z80) , MoCog (6809)·
· Prop OS: SphinxOS·, PropDos , PropCmd··· Search the Propeller forums·(uses advanced Google search)
My cruising website is: ·www.bluemagic.biz·· MultiBlade Props: www.cluso.bluemagic.biz

Tubular

Sounds like fun. You could later upgrade it to make animal sounds when you spell Cat Dog Pig etc

One thing I'd be worried about though - the keycaps come off pretty easily by 1~2 year old standards. Those silicon flexi keyboards may be a better idea

Oldbitcollector (Jeff)

Love this idea!

Here's the keyboard.. nice and bright colored

www.sourcingmap.com/portable-mini-flexible-silicone-usb-ps2-computer-keyboard-blue-108-keys-p-23281.html?utm_source=google&utm_medium=froogle&utm_campaign=usfroogle

Put some melodies on the Function keys.

OBC

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StefanL38

Hello Cluso,

My answer is off topic but it is too important to know it so I hope the moderator forgives me.
This posting is a real challenge for my english. But I will try it.

Some months ago I would have reacted like you. Great new application for a propeller!
Then I read a book about how the human brain does work and how the cognitive functions of the brain develop.

Since then my children are half an hour short on watching TV. Regardless of what it is.

Such a young child should interact with REAL BASIC things like blocks of wood, cooking pots real plants etc. etc. Why? I will explain:

The first cognitive functions a brain is developing are the very elementary functions of seeing, hearing, sense of touch, smelling, tasting.

If you put a child only 12 months old two hours a day in front of a TV. This is 20% of it's time where it is not sleeping. That is pretty much.

Watching TV means: a 2-dimensional picture NO smelling, tasting, touching and picture and sound are NOT synchronised to the millisecond.
Now consider that a child only 15 months old has still a just poor experience even about very basic things. It does NOT know what is near
and what is far. Now imagine grobi explaining what is near and far on a TV-screen. What a poor poor copy of reality this is compared
to walking through a room by YOURSELF watching mom or dad getting bigger/smaller.

Imagine a person on TV hitting a glas with a spoon making it "ping" or hitting a a block of wood that sounds "tock".
What a poor poor copy of reality is this compared to a child doing these things by HIMSELF?

The human brain is very acurate about coincindences of perceptions between seeing, hearing and the location where signals came from
down to the level of milliseconds and centimeters.

In front of a TV the picture is in the middle and the sound comes from a two feet different place. (Not talking about a home-cinema-center
where it is even a bigger distance between screen and speakers)

Now imagine a brain that has NO experience with this at all. Making "experiences" in front of a TV learning

"if you put a spoon next to a glas you will hear a ping two feets beside of the glas"

compare it to the experience if I MYSELF take a spoon into my hand (feels a little cold and heavy) and knock it against a glas smoothly/hard,
right in this moment when it hits the glas i FEEL resistance that stops the moving and in the very same moment there comes a small/powerfull
"ping" right from this glas.

What a poor respective rich experience the TV or doing it by yourself is.

Now imagine a brain where all these very basic cognitive functions are build mostly on these poor experiences.
It will be much less "sophisticated" than a brain of a child that has made a lot of REAL WORLD experiences.

EVERYTHING what the TV-child is seeing, hearing etc. will be based on this poor sensual "hardware" percepting things blurred and unsharp

That's NOT what I call a good start into life.

And now I think you can understand if I say we are on the way to make the next generation really DUMB if we give them their own TV
at an age of two years into the childs own room. Even if they watch only teletubbies, muppet show, sesam-street and franklin the turtle.
It is REALLY BAD for them!!

I think with toys that make some sounds it is the almost the same.

So a real good propeller-application would be to create something that automates something giving his parents more time to play with their
child in the garden or playing together with their child with a set of (12) wooden blocks some old pots, cups, drums and sticks to make sounds with that.

Do have children aged 5 to 12 near you? Are they able to balance on a fallen tree? Are they able to walk backwards?
(I'm not kidding try it with them) Not at all? Throw their TV out of their room!


I love electronics and I dream of that my son will love it too. But after knowing the above described,
more and more often I stop sitting in front of my computer going outside with my 6 years old son riding bike, inline-skating,
playing soccer or building a shelter into a tree or building a barrage in the tiny river.

best regards

Stefan

Post Edited (StefanL38) : 6/4/2010 3:58:55 AM GMT

Cluso99

Hi Stefan. Yes I understand what you are saying. My grandson's mother (my daughter-in-law) is a Pre-School teacher and my daughter is an infants teacher, so we do understand.

My grandson is only with us for a short time when we babysit, so it is not like we are replacing other things. He already understands how to climb up a set of bookshelves (much to his mother's dismay) to get a toy of the top. They have the chairs occi-strapped so he cannot climb onto the table, etc.

I play lego (duplo - the big kind) with him and we have the duplo trains from our kids. He feeds the ducks (yes, bad for the ducks, but he eats most of the bread anyway). He likes to examine photos on the wall, etc, etc.

My kids grew up playing with the computer. They knew when the mini-computer in the garage was on (lights on the Video Terminal). At 3 my son knew how to use Apple's Paint program on the Apple //c. TV and computers these days certainly impact negatively on kids progress.

I think this is a good idea though, to be used in moderation like anything.

OBC: Yes, I have seen them. They look great and probably do not use much current, able to be cleaned easily, and also available in pink (the photo was of a blue one).

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Links to other interesting threads:

· Home of the MultiBladeProps: TriBlade,·RamBlade,·SixBlade, website
· Single Board Computer:·3 Propeller ICs·and a·TriBladeProp board (ZiCog Z80 Emulator)
· Prop Tools under Development or Completed (Index)
· Emulators: CPUs Z80 etc; Micros Altair etc;· Terminals·VT100 etc; (Index) ZiCog (Z80) , MoCog (6809)·
· Prop OS: SphinxOS·, PropDos , PropCmd··· Search the Propeller forums·(uses advanced Google search)
My cruising website is: ·www.bluemagic.biz·· MultiBlade Props: www.cluso.bluemagic.biz

Tubular

OBC you gotta keep me away from sites like that or nothing will get done!

StefanL you raise some very good points. Do you have a link to the book you read? I have young kids and we keep them away from TV and computer programs that turn them into antisocial zombies. However there are some great exceptions which energise them and get them playing actively for hours. For this our kids seem to particularly like Mr Maker (UK), Soupe Opera (France?), LazyTown (iceland?), Yo Gaba Gaba (US), Playschool (oz). There are others but these are the ones I would rate best for stimulation, ie more active/sensory experience after the show, than if they hadn't watched at all

Post Edited (Tubular) : 6/4/2010 4:35:18 AM GMT

StefanL38

Hello tubular,

I'm from germany and it is a german book and a german talk of Prof. Manfred Spitzer

it is a talk available on DVD

Vorsicht Bildschirm! Attention Screen !

and a book

Lernen (learning and the school of life)

tubular if you would like to go on discussing this we should start a new thread in the sandbox

I found a german page explaining it a bit shorter and made google translate it

Caution screen
Elektronische Medien, Gehirnentwicklung, Electronic media, brain development,
Gesundheit und Gesellschaft Health and Society

original site in german

best regards

Stefan