Advertise here with Carbon Ads

This site is made possible by member support. โค๏ธ

Big thanks to Arcustech for hosting the site and offering amazing tech support.

When you buy through links on kottke.org, I may earn an affiliate commission. Thanks for supporting the site!

kottke.org. home of fine hypertext products since 1998.

๐Ÿ”  ๐Ÿ’€  ๐Ÿ“ธ  ๐Ÿ˜ญ  ๐Ÿ•ณ๏ธ  ๐Ÿค   ๐ŸŽฌ  ๐Ÿฅ”

Playing Music With Barcode Scanners

A Japanese group called Electronicos Fantasticos! figured out that by connecting a supermarket barcode scanner to a powered speaker and rhythmically scanning barcode-like patterns with it, you can make music. This is so fun!

Comments  4

Sort by: thread โ€” thread . latest . faves

Mils Yobtaf

Similar but different is this amazing Symphony #2 For Dot Matrix Printers I came across on the web an uncomfortably long time ago.

You can listen on the Internet Archive here.

enbeecee

You can play the beginning of Oye Como Va by Santana on any microwave oven.

Jason KottkeMOD

I'm sorry, we're going to need some more information on the microwave oven Santana please ๐Ÿ‘€

Greg Lescoe

Oh nice, I saw these folks at the Maker's Faire in Kyoto earlier this year, and they had a setup for people to play with themselves! Very cool stuff.

Reply in this thread

Hello! In order to leave a comment, you need to be a current kottke.org member. If you'd like to sign up for a membership to support the site and join the conversation, you can explore your options here.

Existing members can sign in here. If you're a former member, you can renew your membership.

Note: If you are a member and tried to log in, it didn't work, and now you're stuck in a neverending login loop of death, try disabling any ad blockers or extensions that you have installed on your browser...sometimes they can interfere with the Memberful links. Still having trouble? Email me!