On Tue, 4 May 1999 Scott Fink wrote : > I am putting together a short talk about Zany applications and hoped > that you folks could help me out. If YOU have used a PIC in any > highly cool, or weird application, and I would be allowed to talk > about in public (i.e. no NDA) and would like your 15 minutes of fame, > please let me know all about your app! .......... My Wacky, Zany PIC application is the control and timing mechanism for Arthur Ganson's sculpture "Machine with Wishbone", currently being exhibited at the MIT museum (Arthur is an artist-in-residence at MIT). You can see it at : <http://web.mit.edu/afs/athena.mit.edu/org/m/museum/exhibits/ganson.html> About this piece, David Simms writes in the Smithsonian Magazine : "Kids love 'Machine with Wishbone' because it's funny, odd and ingenious. Many adults, on the other hand, see pathos and tragedy as the enslaved little bone drags the clanking contraption behind it. Rube Goldberg meets Jean-Paul Sartre." Some details : The device uses a PIC 16C57 that reads 2 optical switches, 2 reed switches, 2 test switches, and then controls 2 solenoids, 3 motors, a single digit mode display, and a beeper. The control circuit's purpose is to pace the wishbone man along its track, to sequence the turntables on either end, and to shut the device off if a preset time for any part of the sequence has been exceeded. The piece was originally designed with relay and time-delay logic, but Arthur needed something more reliable when he installed it in the permanent exhibit at the MIT museum. This incarnation has been it, so far. Two of these have been built. I hope that you find it as amusing as I did when I was working on it. Walter Lenk Cambridge, MA 617-547-7781