It's proof positive that there exists a generation of devs who have never seen a physical user interface made of buttons, knobs, or sliders. E for effort.
What hardware do you need to make the slider? Other than that and finding displays of the correct dimensions, with a 3D printer it should be pretty simple to make.
I literally did a double take reading this. The very possibility that an adult in the world has never interacted with analog controls on anything more complex than a toaster trips me out a bit. Like, how in the hell has software driven UI (with all of the problems that entails) managed to take over? Why must literally everything suck?
Tempus fugit. I still get taken aback when someone reminds me 1990s weren't 10 years ago. There's a whole generation of adults now, who grew up with touchscreens. Original iPhone release date isn't perhaps the best milestone here, but arguably the most well known one, and it happened - I can't really believe what I'm writing - 16 years ago.
So yes, it's totally possible for someone doing tech today to have never interacted with complex analog interfaces since being a little kid. Still unlikely for the next couple years, but possible.
Because slapping a touchscreen or an OLED gets you out of the inconvenience of making stuff repairable. "Just chuck it out" because it's impossible to actually repair a touch screen is way more convenient and cheaper for the manufacturer to do than making their products repairable. Look at the modern disposable camera lenses. Even the most expensive ones have no manual controls, but are full of motors and displays making them way less future proof and actually unrepairable.
How is it not blindingly obvious yet? It's money. Everything sucks because you aren't an executive or a shareholder. Everything sucks because everything isn't for you, it's to extract money from you. And places like this are the Mos Eisley cantina where everyone talks about the best way to do that.
I was so disappointed as well when I saw he just grabbed a screen and called it a day.
I was really expecting some mechanical tricks around the play/pause buttons liked I had on my old cassette player to make them xor-like .. so disappointed. And frustrated I just don't have the skills or time to make one but would love to see someone actually do it.
Since this is like ten of the top ten comments here, complaining that it's not physical, I'd like to point out that physical controls are expensive. Slide pots are about a dollar: https://www.digikey.co.uk/en/products/detail/bourns-inc/PTA2... ; if you want a motorized one, that's way more.
Pushbuttons are similar. The XOR system is literally "radio buttons" or "ganged switches", but I can no longer find that exact item on catalogues. It works by having a bar hooked around all the switches so that when one is halfway-pressed it triggers the unlock across all switches, so the unused one pops out.
Then you need to hook all that up to your microcontroller as inputs, do panel cutouts, etc. The switches tend to be through-hole, complicating manufacturing. Then you discover that you end up needing two boards, one full of inputs and display parts which are through-hole so there isn't space on the back for the actual MCU.
A massive overstatement. Even ignoring everything else, cars may have started down the touchscreen route (which is insane for anything the driver is using), but that is recent and not universal still. I can't believe there is a professional dev today that hasn't seen a few cars with physical user interfaces.
This will be in v2. The player in fact will not work unless said attachment is within suitable lashing distance of a llama. CRM (camelid rights management).
Yeah I thought someone had taken the 3D render that's made the rounds of the classic Winamp 3x player and made it into hardware. Not as impressive as that would be.
I think this device is rather meant to be shown to old colleagues than be actually used. If the author wanted to give some late 90s vibes I call it a success, at least for me. I always had it in a screen corner playing some prog rock song in my phones while banging code back then.
I'm working on my own version that's going to be all buttons and sliders, but I'm hesitant to mention this anywhere because I'm only working on this sporadically as a learning exercise, and the first video already got me more attention than I thought I'd get.
Since then I've changed to a Pi Pico, and using PIO (programmable pins) makes the touch-delay problems I had magically go away. PIO really is awesome.
I've also replaced the DC motor with a tiny stepper motor, and now everything works peachy. Just waiting for some screens and stuff from AliExpress.
I also couldn't help but notice that the account that posted it is 3 days old, has made 5 submissions, 3 of which are from the same xatakaon(dot)com domain.
ugh - I really need to get my butt in gear and finish my winamp car stereo thing. The gimmick in mine is the use of a linear servo for the progress bar. I stmbled on a super easy way to control it that i never seen anybody use.
My one holdup is that its hard to find a TFT of exactly the right rize for the upper part. Also the volume/balance sliders get in the way a bit s the mechanical design is harder than anticipated. Also I feel that FDM printing doesn't do it justice.
Update: forgot to include the trick - cheap servos are crap because of the cheap potiometers. The electronics have to work and are the cheapest way to compensate for sub-standard parts elsewhere so they are somewhat ok. So if you combine the board from a 1EUR servo with an ALPS linear motorized slider that has a super high quality potiometer since its far larger and you would hear it being crap - the gears and motor are also good. This combined with the board from the servo gets you super smooth control.
The screens are by far the most tricky part to get right, size and positioning.
At first I thought about using one of the super thin Sony mobile screens for the entire thing, then using an overlay to separate them, annnd then to make it tactile with knobs, the knobs would touch the screen, and the phone would send the co-ords to the playback device (RPi in my case).
But that's because I wanted a very "thin" end product. Making it deeper allows for some more creative layout.
I've settled on a linear potentiometer driven by a stepper motor, and it's working out for me so far!
Good luck with yours! Got any links to follow it on?
Yes, thin would be super hard to do - I expect at least a good few CM in depth. The Alps fader alone is almost the biggest factor.
This is a link to a German electronics store that offers the same I have been using: https://www.reichelt.com/de/en/alps-rsa0n-studio-fader-motor...
I will see if i can find the box with my prototype setup because its way smoother than your setup is. its unbelievable smooth when using a cheap analog servo board.
From your video you came to almost exact the same solution I have. :)
I really can suggest trying to run it from a servo board - it has all the stuff for smooth movement already in it.
Lack of physical buttons aside, I really miss this era of UI design. Part of it is nostalgia, sure, but there is something comforting about skeuomorphism that we just don't see anymore. Perhaps it was necessary back then to enable a smooth transition towards digital interfaces, whereas now we have digital native generations that don't need it. The sad thing is that now these digital interfaces are driving the design of our physical ones, which I think most consumers would agree is a regression from what we've had before. Manufacturers: stop optimizing for cost, and start optimizing for user experience.
It does kind of look like a sticker now that you mention it. I went over to look at the video of the device itself and it seems like it was just the angle of the photo.
Readit News
(the original page is now 404)
https://web.archive.org/web/20230522141639/https://www.rickg...
The message about stolen artwork is most unfortunate.
I wonder what happens if you press the EQ or PL buttons. :)
So yes, it's totally possible for someone doing tech today to have never interacted with complex analog interfaces since being a little kid. Still unlikely for the next couple years, but possible.
Dead Comment
I was really expecting some mechanical tricks around the play/pause buttons liked I had on my old cassette player to make them xor-like .. so disappointed. And frustrated I just don't have the skills or time to make one but would love to see someone actually do it.
Radio buttons?
Pushbuttons are similar. The XOR system is literally "radio buttons" or "ganged switches", but I can no longer find that exact item on catalogues. It works by having a bar hooked around all the switches so that when one is halfway-pressed it triggers the unlock across all switches, so the unused one pops out.
Then you need to hook all that up to your microcontroller as inputs, do panel cutouts, etc. The switches tend to be through-hole, complicating manufacturing. Then you discover that you end up needing two boards, one full of inputs and display parts which are through-hole so there isn't space on the back for the actual MCU.
I was hoping for physical buttons and sliders.
Since then I've changed to a Pi Pico, and using PIO (programmable pins) makes the touch-delay problems I had magically go away. PIO really is awesome.
I've also replaced the DC motor with a tiny stepper motor, and now everything works peachy. Just waiting for some screens and stuff from AliExpress.
Anyhoo, shooting myself in the foot: https://youtu.be/GjmFbgqFeMQ
Those physical concepts at 0:38 look very good.
That capacitive touch slider is really cool.
My one holdup is that its hard to find a TFT of exactly the right rize for the upper part. Also the volume/balance sliders get in the way a bit s the mechanical design is harder than anticipated. Also I feel that FDM printing doesn't do it justice.
Update: forgot to include the trick - cheap servos are crap because of the cheap potiometers. The electronics have to work and are the cheapest way to compensate for sub-standard parts elsewhere so they are somewhat ok. So if you combine the board from a 1EUR servo with an ALPS linear motorized slider that has a super high quality potiometer since its far larger and you would hear it being crap - the gears and motor are also good. This combined with the board from the servo gets you super smooth control.
The screens are by far the most tricky part to get right, size and positioning. At first I thought about using one of the super thin Sony mobile screens for the entire thing, then using an overlay to separate them, annnd then to make it tactile with knobs, the knobs would touch the screen, and the phone would send the co-ords to the playback device (RPi in my case).
But that's because I wanted a very "thin" end product. Making it deeper allows for some more creative layout.
I've settled on a linear potentiometer driven by a stepper motor, and it's working out for me so far!
Good luck with yours! Got any links to follow it on?
Here's mine FWIW: https://youtu.be/GjmFbgqFeMQ
From your video you came to almost exact the same solution I have. :) I really can suggest trying to run it from a servo board - it has all the stuff for smooth movement already in it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5nUYHROVOmo