[Maximilian Ernestus] sent us a quick little demo that shows him using
a rotary phone dial as a num pad. We’re often frustrated when notebooks and netbooks prohibit us from using our mad 10-key skills (alternate key mapping doesn’t count). This makes coding and using
GnuCash undesirable on small form factor portables.
Instead of fixing the problem, [Maximilian] made it worse by interfacing a rotary phone as a num pad. An Arduino counts the pulses and feeds them to the computer via a serial connection.* From there it’s just a bit of software handling to issue a keypress.* He mentions that a future version should register as a USB keyboard. This is a great opportunity to ditch the Arduino and use the
V-USB library.
Want to dig a bit deeper into this old technology? Don’t miss out on the information available from the
Magic Phone hack.
Lower productivity by using a rotary num pad 
Linear Mode
