I converted a rotary phone into a meeting handset

11 days ago

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The author has a fascination with old rotary phones and has collected a few.
They dislike meetings and jokingly pretended to get irate during one, leading to the idea of slamming a phone handset to 'hang up' on virtual meetings.
They modified an old Siemens rotary phone to function as a meeting handset with a keyboard/soundcard combo.
The phone's design allowed for reversible modifications without soldering, using 3D-printed connectors for wiring.
Initially, they attempted to use an RP2040 microcontroller as a combined sound card and keyboard but faced challenges and high costs with AI-assisted coding.
They pivoted to using a USB hub with separate devices: an RP2040 as a keyboard and an off-the-shelf USB sound card.
The sound card was modified to connect to the phone's handset, and the RP2040 was programmed to detect the phone's hook switch and rotary dial inputs.
The final setup allows the phone to 'hang up' meetings by sending keystrokes (e.g., Ctrl+Shift+E for Zoom) and to dial numbers via the rotary dial.
The project was successful, with the author expressing satisfaction with the result.

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