Cyberpunk Theme Bar in A2

[Michael Grube]

Woah!

There's a cyberpunk themed bar that just opened!

https://www.mlive.com/news/ann-arbor/index.ssf/2018/11/lo-fi_bar_downtown_ann_arbor.html

Who wants to go sometime?

[Mitchell Newberry]

Who needs wallpaper when you can have NEON!?! Lets make our own
cyberpunk themed bar after devoting part of the hackerspace to a
neon sign making studio.

I'll go with you sometime!

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[Michael Grube]

Right?!

Some neon at AHA would be amazing. I don't really know where to start, though.

[James Kruth]

It's just glass tubes, neon gas and high voltage, right? Anyone know how to blow glass?

- James

[Michael Grube]

I know how to... buy neon lights! Is that the same thing?

[James Kruth]

Yes. Basically. :)

- James

[Ndubisi Onimo]

I like the neon idea, I just worry about neon's practicality in regards to safety, operating costs, and mounting. It would probably be easier (and more versatile) to use something like LED's, though this does come with a non negligible loss of retro griminess.

There's also fluorescence based lighting technologies. In particular, I'm very fond of vacuum fluorescent displays (which I am personally very fond of), They're small, but could still be made into something neat, like a gritty retro looking panel of VFD bar graphs alongside some LED sements.

Purchasing a decommissioned color LED matrix sign might be fun to look into (as a bonus they can be used as makeshift strobe lights!), and could probably make an enclosure to lend some grung aesthetic to it.

[ja...@arsmentis.com]

I'm just wondering here, but it seems like it wouldn't be terribly hard to build a grid out of a bunch of LEDs and an Arduino. It would be a lot of fun to make something that looked very retro (say 60s or 70s era tech). With a big enough grid we could do all kinds of fun things - hook up sensors so it responds to the environment, play videos in monochrome, display scrolling messages, etc...

[N Y]

There are a number of LED matrix displays out there these days, but I don't know how "retro" they look.  What would be awesome is a grid of LED bubble displays from yesteryear.  Sadly they are hard to find, and pricey since they are no longer manufactured.  I loved their bright red appearance, which was reminiscent of the small nixie tube displays or VFDs on vintage calculators without the power supply hassles.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1N3NrF5UwEw

-- Nate

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[N Y]

Also in the "retro" vein: a donation of old radio gear we received a while back contained a few analog volt/amp meters.  I always thought it would be neat to collect a couple dozen of them, and hook them to some kind of microcontroller-controlled variable power source to make the needles dance around randomly.

-- Nate

[James Kruth]

I actually have an old HP calculator with that kind of display and RPN!

As for LED matrix - I actually think the "retro" feel depends a lot on the packaging. For instance:

Not super retro, but very cool: https://hackaday.com/2013/10/26/an-impressively-large-led-matrix/ (BTW, I would LOVE to have a game of life display running 24/7 in the space)

Not really a matrix, but super retro: https://www.rs-online.com/designspark/my-raspberry-pi-thinks-its-a-pdp-8

So - I think maybe the "retro" feel has more to do with packaging than anything. I'm wondering if it would be possible to disguise a bunch of modern stuff to look old (like the PiDP-8).

- James

[Ndubisi Onimo]

+1 to the meter idea. We could even make them functional by feeding useful data, perhaps a status meter for something like the cnc, laser cutter or microwave.

Would rigging klaxons to the microwave be going too far?