The "coolest stud at MIT" and his retro-cell phone hack job: questions

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

the link

:stuck_out_tongue: and :cool:

At first, I thought the photo would have to be a put-on, but apparently it’s not only possible; others are doing it too (follow the links from that one, to the “Pokia” page and Ebay links). It’s too cool and geeky for words. And the MIT student’s unselfconcious braggadocio and hip-hop stylin’ is priceless.

But seriously, a couple of questions for the electrical engineers out there:

  1. How difficult a “hack” is this? Does it involve anything more than rerouting a wire leading to the cell speaker to a retro handset?

  2. Would you still be able to access computerized phone trees (“To continue in English, press one,” etc.)?

  3. Would this hack be possible using the handset from an old rotary-style phone, or would it have to be from a pushbutton phone?

  4. Would this setup likely drain the cell phone battery faster?

2

I don’t know; your link goes to the “Reply to Thread” dialog instead of you cite.

Try again, and I’ll let you know.

3

:smack: :o

Hopefully this will work:

link

4

OK, I googled “Pokia”, and saw what you were talking about. Most cells have access to the speaker and mike at the bottom, and that’s no biggie.

If the handsets use the old induction coil components, they they would be power hogs. However, nothing says that the guy couldn’t use newer style piezo components in the handsets, which would consume much less power.

5

Well, the ‘hack’ (if it can really be called that) in the picture in your link looks like nothing more than the shell of an old phone handset, drilled to accomodate an ordinary hand-sfree headset (consisting of a button earpiece and a microphone further down the cable).

Yes, but you’d have to press the buttons on the cellphone

This ‘hack’ woudl be possible using an ordinary banana - I don’t believe any of the handset’s original electronics have been used.

No.

6

Here’s what I mean; it’s just one of these type of things, threaded inside the plastic casing of an old phone handset; you could do the same thing with, say, this shoe, this plastic shark or one of these puppets - none of which would make you look any more or less a ridiculous object of scorn and pity than the pokia phone hack.

7

Like Mangetout said, it’s pretty clearly a handsfree headset in an old-style telephone handset (probably rotary, FTR).

I like the d10 next to the phone. It just makes the ‘Coolest PHAT PIMP at MIT’ bit that much more amusing.

And Mangetout, using the magicanbear puppet would be Too Cool For Words. :smiley:

8

It would be particularly amusing, as Harry and Matthew Corbett (owners of the Sooty glove puppet) used to pretend that Sooty was speaking in their ears. “What’s that sooty? A text message? For me?”

9

I thought the Coolest Stud at MIT was holding the walls together at the Low Temperature Physics Lab.

(drum roll …rim shot)