Parasitic device adds baud modem tones to your wireless router

For those who are lucky enough to have only known the internet care of broadband, you might be a bit unfamiliar with the pings and screeches of days past, but for those all too familiar with dialing up in an attempt to hop on the world wide web, you could probably hum it back on command. In yet another instance of DIY creativity being used in a completely unnecessary (albeit very retro) manner, Jonah Brucker-Cohen is developing the Forward Compatible, which is a "parasitic object" that utilizes a light sensor in order to sense when a modern day modem / router is transmitting data, and subsequently belts out tones from a 2,400 baud modem from yesteryear. The FC is also designed to simply strap onto any internet-connected device without internal modifications, making it completely portable and universal in nature. So if you're interested in adding a dash of vintage to your otherwise fresh device, grab yourself an audio recording circuit, a photo-transistor, and tag the read link for a bit of old fashioned fun.

[Via MAKE]

[strider_mt2k @ Feb 19th 2007 5:43PM]

Seems like the marriage of a simple RF detector (like from a cheap cell phone flashy antenna) and a sound chip.

Would it also go off if you placed it near your cell phone?
I know the frequencies are different, but I'm counting on it being built cheap, not particularly well.

[pyro @ Feb 19th 2007 6:17PM]

read the article, it says it uses a light sensor, so it probably just reads the activity LED on a router.

Any ya, why would anyone ever want to hear dialup sounds again?

[ByronGman @ Feb 19th 2007 5:52PM]

Award for biggest waste of ingenuity and thought, anyone?

[David @ Feb 19th 2007 6:12PM]

This is such an iPhone rip-off!

[1ApeCrazy @ Feb 20th 2007 12:13PM]

Hey where can I download the dial-up ringtone?

[adelossa @ Feb 19th 2007 6:15PM]

I have that dialup tone as a ringtone. :D

[Jeremy K. @ Feb 19th 2007 6:28PM]

WOW... The BEST Devise EVAR!

[guidedbyVOIP @ Feb 19th 2007 7:37PM]

if it emitted the baud beeps when a new client connected to the network, *that* would be kinda cool. but everytime the modem sends? ugh.

[Paul @ Feb 19th 2007 8:19PM]

Now all I need is some antennae for my 1200 baud modem so I can make it look like a wireless router!

[T-Will @ Feb 19th 2007 8:36PM]

If only this router had a built-in tape dispenser and USB hub...then it would be teh mostest useful device of teh year!11

[Dudeskee @ Feb 19th 2007 9:16PM]

It'd be neater if it plugged into one of the ports on the router, modulated the packets, and output the audio as a 2400 baud modem would.

[paul34 @ Feb 19th 2007 9:47PM]

drooo drooo shhhhhh bading, bading ERR ERR

"Unable to establish connection"

[ebob9 @ Feb 20th 2007 10:41AM]

Um.. The "drooo drooo shhhhhh bading, bading" was definitely 28.8k baud.

[Kyoji @ Feb 19th 2007 10:08PM]

Hah I remember forgetting to turn the modem speaker off and trying to connect to the net late at night and totally waking everybody up. Good times, good times.

[tchiseen @ Feb 19th 2007 10:30PM]

just in case you didn't have enough reasons to go commit suicide, you can listen to POSSIBLY the most annoying sound ever, idk it's either that or fran drescher.