[BC] Silence Sensor

[WFIFeng@aol.com]

In a message dated 03/28/2007 7:11:45 PM Eastern Daylight Time, 
amstereoexp at yahoo.com writes:

> As someone who was programming in BASIC long before I was old enough to
>  handle a soldering iron, my idea of "building" my own silence sensor would
>  be to use a old computer with an audio input, such as the Macintosh LC
>  that I got for $2.00 at a flea market.  With a few lines of code, you
>  could have it beeping its speaker or triggering a line on its serial port,
>  or anything else you want it to do when the DJ falls asleep.

That's great! Did the thing actually *work*, though?

I started programming BASIC on the Radio Shack TRS80 Model 1 back in the late 
70's! You weren't even born yet, were ya? ;) Did the Mac give you access to 
the audio port in BASIC? 

That's pretty cool if they did! I wrote a rudimentary automation system in 
BASIC on a Commodore 128D that started a pair of cassette decks recording from 
satellite at pre-programmed times. It saved our bacon quite often! :) It was 
replaced by a REAL automation system after about 2 years.

Although to most of us with extensive Electronics knowledge, building a 
silence sensor from parts would not be a terrible challenge, justifying spendin
g 
the time/expense would be difficult. As I suggested earlier, unless one wanted 
to do it as a hobby project, it just wouldn't be worth the effort when there 
are already many built and tested units available for very reasonable prices.

Tho I must admit, Kevin, your $2 Mac sounds like quite the bargain! ;)

Willie...
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