Sinclair ZX81 Sending SMS Text Messages

[gamewizard]

Completely useless. If you need another computer to process the message and send it, why not just send the message from that computer in the first place?

[bukster1]

I've still got my ZX81. Last time I turned it on it still worked. As this shows, ZX81s can do anything.

[sandovezmctare]

kinda an insult to show Regan in a picture in a video related to the ZX81, I think it might've actually been smarter than he was.

[gamewizard]

@sandovezmctare

Firstly, learn to spell. It's Reagan. Secondly, Shut the fuck up.

[wisteela]

Awesome! And love your style.

[rob1969in]

brilliant

[doubledragonuk]

Cool

[dfarmbrough]

Excellent fun! And I like the slightly sarcastic, can't pronounce his "r"s, 1980s-style nerd voiceover. Just the sort of person who would have had a ZX81...or had a Nascom 2 and looked down his nose at Sinclair owners!

[dafyddllrees]

These are amazing people and I really miss working with them.

[fallingwater]

I get the spirit of the video, but for everyone else, the laptop is the machine that's really doing the work. The ZX81 is just used as a text input - essentially a keyboard with a complicated interface. :P

[hewey999]

great vid, love your style :-)

[lewis95stephen]

what is the actual machine attached to your pc to send the message.

and do you need any software on your pc to send the message via the zx81?

[basic70x]

We're glad to see that our EMG is of good use to you. :)

"Because we can" is a good reason of doing things.

/Daniel, at Nordic Messaging/Infoflex Connect

[19800327tomi]

ez c64 ről is működik?

[rwap01]

Well it certainly appears as though it can be done, although the ZX81 does not play that big a part in it unfortunately. For more hardware projects, have a look at the ZX80/ZX81 discussion forums on RWAP Software

[namachari]

I think this is a joke

[wdsglobalgroup]

@namachari We think this is a fun and pointless project, but if it makes you laugh, it's probably also a joke ;)

[namachari]

I'm big on fun and pointless.

Maybe an explanation of how you did it would be great/interesting to see.

[wdsglobalgroup]

@namachari There's more explanation a few comments down (to @zxspectrum128). But, by way of an overview, ZX81 -> SAVE file -> laptop converting beeps back to data -> WDS SMS Sender -> Nordic EMG -> SMSC. We have some infrastructure here already (an SMSC link), although you could use equally use a mobile dongle. To be honest, the ZX81 doesn't play the biggest part in this!

[c3dr1cb]

@namachari it's a joke, I never seen 3 basic commands like "PRINT", "INPUT" and "GOTO" have the capacity to send a SMS or only to print on the screen a message, wait a chain character and make a loop :)

[Svettjodd]

@c3dr1cb It's no joke, see comment by wdsglobalgroup below!

(The shallow tone of the narrator of the clip makes it sound like a joke though ;)

[theapeman10]

@c3dr1cb - yeah I thought the same but I missed the save command in the program list when I first watched the video - as the laptop is converting this sound output from the zx81 save's command. So yeah the Save command save the program and the program's variables normally on tape. but the audio out is going into the laptop and that is reconstructing a program listing - it's only interested in parsing the input variables and using that as the SMS TEXT.

[Infausto69]

Dovrò ricomprare uno ZX81, mi è indispensabile per spedire i miei SMS !!

Sicuramente il progettista di questa macchina mai avrebbe pensato a questo utilizzo! Lunga vita allo ZX81 , il mio primo computer!

[wdsglobalgroup]

@Infausto69 ZX81 era il mio primo calcolatore anche. Sono felice voi lo ho gradetto!

[zxspectrum128]

Er, assuming you really did this (I've seen it done via an ethernet interface for Sinclair machines), where's the description of how the data was forwarded? The audio description is very incomplete. Or maybe this was a joke?

[wdsglobalgroup]

@zxspectrum128 The data was sent by audio (using the SAVE command on the ZX81) to a laptop that converted the audio back to data and then forwarded the data to WDSGlobal's SMS Sender, which uses Nordic Messaging's EMG to connect to the SMSC. It's a light hearted project with little point, but it does really work!

It's interesting that someone else has done it with an ethernet interface. Was that on a Speccy?

[zxspectrum128]

I can't remember, but I believe it was either a ZX81 or a Speccy. The reason why people are asking for details is because there are many hobbyists working on projects for the zx81: web browser, web server, sd card interface, etc. and when they see something like this, they want to know the technical details (because they take it seriously). I have a friend who visits irc channels with his Speccy and ethernet interface! Can you please give detais on how the data is extracted from the audio?

[wdsglobalgroup]

The program inputs some data, PRINTs it to the screen (with prefixes like "M:" for mobile number) and calls SAVE which outputs it's entire 1K memory as audio.

zx81get is a tiny c-language program bundled with the "z81" emulator that converts audio data to characters. We hacked it to write data to STDOUT. It reads from /dev/dsp on Linux with a low baud rate (to reduce possibly of noise). The beeps are short or long, representing 0 & 1.

A ruby script parses this data and calls the SMS Sender.

[1958cyclist]

Im off to the charity shop!

[miklops]

Great video!

Where can I find that background music?

[aaron87a]

I see sales of zx81s going up massively with all these burgeoning twitterers