20-year old electronics magazine project. This is a device I created and had published in Everyday Practical Electronics magazine. It was also published in a modified form in Electronics the Maplin Magazine. Based on a PIC 16C54 microcontroller, it generates random numbers between 1 and 49.
LED Matrix Displays and Non-Optimal Byte Orientation:
https://youtu.be/5jg8yw1Vh94
Retro Electronics: Fixing the EPE Fruit Machine:
https://youtu.be/GCGmK0gCCUI
National Lottery Predictor constructional project reproduced with permission from Wimborne Publishing Ltd.
http://www.epemag.com
LED Matrix Displays and Non-Optimal Byte Orientation:
https://youtu.be/5jg8yw1Vh94
Retro Electronics: Fixing the EPE Fruit Machine:
https://youtu.be/GCGmK0gCCUI
National Lottery Predictor constructional project reproduced with permission from Wimborne Publishing Ltd.
http://www.epemag.com
I was an avid collector of Electronics magazines from the age of 10. I had Everyday Electronics, Practical Electronics (and of course EPE, the merger of both).I also collected Elektor and Hobby Electronics.
I remember your projects well.
You say that Maplins paid you for every kit they sold, and I've always wondered what the situation is with putting any magazine projects into mass production, the magazines only tell you about publication copyrights and are unclear on this.
It would be interesting to see an Arduino version of this lottery predictor, Hint Hint!!
Great look back at how things were and it wasn't really that long ago!!
Joe
If I understood, this is entirely useless. I had two designs published by Maplin on the deal that they get copyright of what I wrote and pay me nothing. Good for the ego, though, to see one's name in print.
I suppose it would not be respectful of the original design to add debounce to the button at this point
Julian, did you design the 'Mind Pickler'?
I hadn't seen this video on your channel before. Thought it was great seeing those old school electronic hobbyist magazines, and your product and design!
nice
You needed permission to video your own article…
For what it's worth I love your videos Julian! Cool stuff 🙂
how cool!
In the early 2000s I wrote a program in BASIC to predict lottery numbers. It picked 50,000 random numbers and then sorted by the top 6 and then gave those as an answer. My aunt thought that I had some how "cracked the code" and was sure that this was the secret to winning. She asked if I could put it on her computer, so I did. After several weeks she said "your program doesn't work! I haven't won a single cent!" I told her that just because they are computer generated doesn't mean there is any higher chance than blind luck. Especially since the lottery numbers at the time (and I think still are) based on ping pong balls being blown inside a clear plastic bubble that somehow make their way down a chute. One feature of this program which I think made it more attractive (in sort of a movie special effects way) was the fact that it scrolled all 50,000 numbers across the screen via a PRINT statement with a semicolon on the end. So rather than the 6 lottery numbers simply displaying instantly, since picking 50,000 random numbers is nearly instantaneous, you had to wait 30 seconds or so to get your result. So it seemed like the computer was having to do some heavy work and calculation, but it was simply relying on the video card to slow it down and look more cool.
Wow! Never thought you've been designing microcontroller circuits for quite sometime… Really appreciate your videos!
I'll give you half of whatever I win 😁