HiKnitterStream

Day 1 (02.10.2014)

Dissembled and reassembled PASSAP E6000. Found out some things can be disconnected beforehand, making it easier for transportation later on. Lesson learned: read the manual!

Managed to open the E6000 console. Turns out the hardware is exactly the same (serial no. 05.351.05.4.02) as used in the original KnitterStream. Software is probably an older version (dated 01.11.1993) and the pattern-reading scanner (?) is from 23.09.1994 -- in summary, some 20 year old hard- and software.

Started going through the code on github by Evan Borgstrom and Ivan Sharko. Never having done any 'physical' computer programming before, the learning curve is a bit steep. However looking at the instagram photo attached to the creators' blog post the penny finally dropped. Each constant in the code represent a button on the console, and it's just a matter of soldering some insane amounts of wires (sounds daunting, but doable) onto the arduino board.

It looks like to make room for the arduino components, the punch-card scanner device must go out. Not wanting to lose that retro feature, the plan is to try something less intrusive. Perhaps make a circuit board from scratch, thereby making full use of the FABLAB facilities. Before doing that, I'd need more information about what the creators of KnitterStream were actually doing, a) how is everything connected? b) where are the analog pins located on the board? c) and what's their function? d) what's the motor part doing, i.e., what does M1_PWM and M1_DIR stand for? And if all possible, try to obtain a schematic of pictures of the process.