6 ms·

Quest for the Whistler Button

79 points by josecastillo 6y ago

hughes 6y ago
As someone who has never seen Sneakers, I would have loved a clip of the button press that spawned this journey. What did it sound like?
- UI_at_80x24 6y ago
  Do yourself a favour and go watch that movie. There is a huge Hollywood sized grain of salt needed any time you deal with: Hacking, Computers, Internet, etc.. but this movie is EXCELLENT at showing 'Red Team' activities, social engineering, physical bypasses, and true historical hacking (debugging an IC to see what it does). There is great comedy, action, and intrigue in this film and should be in the top 3 of any nerd movie list.
  - andrew_ 6y ago
    My voice is my passport. Verify me.
  - m463 6y ago
    Now I have to watch it again. I was thinking of Angelina Jolie with short hair and modem relays connecting public phones... but that was hackers.
- garrettlarson 6y ago
  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KuIheGaiFLM&t=1m18s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KuIheGaiFLM&t=1m18s
isoprophlex 6y ago
Where I did my phd, we had nmr spectrometers that had to be shimmed using a console with these exact switches. I loved interacting with that console..: It was at the same futuristic and absurdly old fashioned. Futuretro. Edit: oh sweet lord they're listed on ebay. Imagine gutting this things' innards and turning it into a usb input device... https://www.ebay.com/itm/Bruker-BSMS-Boss-Keyboard-Z012706-1268-/264459946862 https://www.ebay.com/itm/Bruker-BSMS-Boss-Keyboard-Z012706-1...
- fit2rule 6y ago
  .. or bury a rpi-zero in it, and turn the thing into a battle station ..
JoeAltmaier 6y ago
Ha! The buttons in the movie were braille-labelled and had a red led when active. Why the LED? It reminds me of the braille on drive-thru ATMs.
- mbrubeck 6y ago
  Devices can have multiple users. A blind passenger in the rear seat can use a drive-through ATM.
- codezero 6y ago
  People with "disabilities" often have to buy off the shelf equipment made for the mass population, and then adapt it for their needs since most products aren't designed with them in mind.
  - JoeAltmaier 6y ago
    But ... braille buttons!
    - DanBC 6y ago
      You can buy Dymo labellers that output braille. https://shop.rnib.org.uk/braille-and-labelling/labelling/braille-labelling/braille-labeller.html?gclid=CjwKCAjwzvX7BRAeEiwAsXExo_NSWcWSSbeTgewNK4hjQQ03Wu4F3lGr0y5j9RsBeHYboLRjvWlxkhoCGfMQAvD_BwE#fo_c=1594&fo_k=8091b84836ec50707e832ec0bd569a15&fo_s=gplauk https://shop.rnib.org.uk/braille-and-labelling/labelling/bra...
    - geoffpado 6y ago
      It doesn’t look (in the clip posted above) that the Braille is on the buttons themselves, but rather a label applied by the character, e.g. https://duckduckgo.com/?q=braille+label+maker&ia=images&iax=images https://duckduckgo.com/?q=braille+label+maker&ia=images&iax=...
- Avshalom 6y ago
  aside from it being embossed tape added after market: blind covers a lot of ground. the ability to discern a red led against a black background when you're a couple feet away is well within the realm of blind
jdmoreira 6y ago
I recognized the buttons immediately as they are fairly common in vintage synths of Roland, Korg and Sequential among many others. And at least in my Mono/Poly the button is clearly not a single component but a combination of a tactile switch with a led and the cap.
mbostleman 6y ago
At around the same time, 1990 - 1992, a partner and I made a rack mounted utility unit that included a tuner, a metronome, surge protected outlets and rack lights. We used buttons almost identical to these from Digi-Key. Mouser was also a big vendor of ours.
culopatin 6y ago
This post makes me think that I could have a blog if I could avoid going straight to the point and I could build a story around my digikey investigations
jefftk 6y ago
Follow-up: https://newscrewdriver.com/2020/10/07/a-delight-for-the-button-connoisseur/ https://newscrewdriver.com/2020/10/07/a-delight-for-the-butt...
sneak 6y ago
....aaaand now I’m buying braille training books on eBay. Thanks. :D see also: https://www.ebay.com/itm/143224299851 https://www.ebay.com/itm/143224299851 (nick TOTALLY unrelated.)
slacktide 6y ago
I thought these looked familiar, I have product that uses them, but a version with dual LEDs. The CFFA3000 hard drive / floppy emulator for the Apple ][ used them in a floppy disc control panel. https://shop.dreher.net/shop?olsPage=products%2Flimit-3-per-customer-cffa3000-remote-switch https://shop.dreher.net/shop?olsPage=products%2Flimit-3-per-... http://dreher.net/?s=projects/CFforAppleII&c=projects/CFforAppleII/main.php http://dreher.net/?s=projects/CFforAppleII&c=projects/CFforA...

79 points by josecastillo 6y ago

As someone who has never seen Sneakers, I would have loved a clip of the button press that spawned this journey. What did it sound like?

UI_at_80x24 6y ago
Do yourself a favour and go watch that movie. There is a huge Hollywood sized grain of salt needed any time you deal with: Hacking, Computers, Internet, etc.. but this movie is EXCELLENT at showing 'Red Team' activities, social engineering, physical bypasses, and true historical hacking (debugging an IC to see what it does). There is great comedy, action, and intrigue in this film and should be in the top 3 of any nerd movie list.
- andrew_ 6y ago
  My voice is my passport. Verify me.
- m463 6y ago
  Now I have to watch it again. I was thinking of Angelina Jolie with short hair and modem relays connecting public phones... but that was hackers.
garrettlarson 6y ago
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KuIheGaiFLM&t=1m18s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KuIheGaiFLM&t=1m18s

isoprophlex 6y ago

Where I did my phd, we had nmr spectrometers that had to be shimmed using a console with these exact switches. I loved interacting with that console..: It was at the same futuristic and absurdly old fashioned. Futuretro. Edit: oh sweet lord they're listed on ebay. Imagine gutting this things' innards and turning it into a usb input device... https://www.ebay.com/itm/Bruker-BSMS-Boss-Keyboard-Z012706-1268-/264459946862 https://www.ebay.com/itm/Bruker-BSMS-Boss-Keyboard-Z012706-1...

fit2rule 6y ago
.. or bury a rpi-zero in it, and turn the thing into a battle station ..

JoeAltmaier 6y ago

Ha! The buttons in the movie were braille-labelled and had a red led when active. Why the LED? It reminds me of the braille on drive-thru ATMs.

mbrubeck 6y ago
Devices can have multiple users. A blind passenger in the rear seat can use a drive-through ATM.
codezero 6y ago
People with "disabilities" often have to buy off the shelf equipment made for the mass population, and then adapt it for their needs since most products aren't designed with them in mind.
- JoeAltmaier 6y ago
  But ... braille buttons!
  - DanBC 6y ago
    You can buy Dymo labellers that output braille. https://shop.rnib.org.uk/braille-and-labelling/labelling/braille-labelling/braille-labeller.html?gclid=CjwKCAjwzvX7BRAeEiwAsXExo_NSWcWSSbeTgewNK4hjQQ03Wu4F3lGr0y5j9RsBeHYboLRjvWlxkhoCGfMQAvD_BwE#fo_c=1594&fo_k=8091b84836ec50707e832ec0bd569a15&fo_s=gplauk https://shop.rnib.org.uk/braille-and-labelling/labelling/bra...
  - geoffpado 6y ago
    It doesn’t look (in the clip posted above) that the Braille is on the buttons themselves, but rather a label applied by the character, e.g. https://duckduckgo.com/?q=braille+label+maker&ia=images&iax=images https://duckduckgo.com/?q=braille+label+maker&ia=images&iax=...
Avshalom 6y ago
aside from it being embossed tape added after market: blind covers a lot of ground. the ability to discern a red led against a black background when you're a couple feet away is well within the realm of blind

jdmoreira 6y ago

I recognized the buttons immediately as they are fairly common in vintage synths of Roland, Korg and Sequential among many others. And at least in my Mono/Poly the button is clearly not a single component but a combination of a tactile switch with a led and the cap.

mbostleman 6y ago

At around the same time, 1990 - 1992, a partner and I made a rack mounted utility unit that included a tuner, a metronome, surge protected outlets and rack lights. We used buttons almost identical to these from Digi-Key. Mouser was also a big vendor of ours.

culopatin 6y ago

This post makes me think that I could have a blog if I could avoid going straight to the point and I could build a story around my digikey investigations

jefftk 6y ago

Follow-up: https://newscrewdriver.com/2020/10/07/a-delight-for-the-button-connoisseur/ https://newscrewdriver.com/2020/10/07/a-delight-for-the-butt...

sneak 6y ago

....aaaand now I’m buying braille training books on eBay. Thanks. :D see also: https://www.ebay.com/itm/143224299851 https://www.ebay.com/itm/143224299851 (nick TOTALLY unrelated.)

slacktide 6y ago

I thought these looked familiar, I have product that uses them, but a version with dual LEDs. The CFFA3000 hard drive / floppy emulator for the Apple ][ used them in a floppy disc control panel. https://shop.dreher.net/shop?olsPage=products%2Flimit-3-per-customer-cffa3000-remote-switch https://shop.dreher.net/shop?olsPage=products%2Flimit-3-per-... http://dreher.net/?s=projects/CFforAppleII&c=projects/CFforAppleII/main.php http://dreher.net/?s=projects/CFforAppleII&c=projects/CFforA...