Modern inventions are great and there is no denying that the likes of Twitter have added an exciting twist to our lives in recent years. However, if you sometimes wish that you lived in the 19th century you might be frustrated by the lack of gadgets which cater to your seriously retro tendencies.
Thank goodness for Adam Vaughan then. The web developer from Cumbria has created a machine which is best described as a 19th century style tickertape tweeting type thing. Actually, he calls it the twittertape, which is a bit snappier we have to admit.
He built the contraption using old bits of clocks and other stuff he came across. For all its backwards looks, in the wooden base there is a micro controller and a thermal printer.
A Long History
This type of machine was used in ye olde worlde to print out share prices which had been received over telegraph lines onto ticker tape. The original invention dates back to 1867 and if you ever find an original one then it is probably going to be worth a lot of money as an antique.
The inventor of the twittertape say that he has a “keen interest” in history and that he has always been fascinated by ticker tape machines. When he began to think about what a modern one could be used to deal with he realised that Twitter is “perfect”. He spent three months putting the device together, with a lot of time spent scouring for the parts needed to bring the idea to life.
The only problem now is that Twitter has restricted access to 3rd party developers, making the design of future models more complicated.
