Hackable Microcontroller-Powered Valentine's Card

compumike writes "If you have a significant other to impress this Valentine's Day, consider putting your programming skills to use. This video tutorial shows how to build an LED Heart Valentine's card, powered by a microcontroller running C code, with a neat randomized 'twinkling' effect in an interrupt handler. Think about it: how many ladies can say that their Valentine's card runs at 14 MHz?"

More Likely Responses

[Arthur Grumbine]

Him: Yeah, babe, and now you can tell your friends that your Valentine's Day card runs at 14 MHz.
Her: Really?! 14? How many songs does that mean it can hold?

or
Him: Yeah, babe, and now you can tell your friends that your Valentine's Day card runs at 14 MHz.
Her: ...uh, yeah... I'll be doing that right away...

or
Him: Yeah, babe, and now you can tell your friends that your Valentine's Day card runs at 14 MHz.
Her: ...
(She remains as silent as all other RealDolls)

Yes...

[Anonymous Coward]

but can it run Ninnle Linux?

Chocolate

[Joebert]

I'm fairly sure they're going to be pretty pissed when they open it expecting chocolates and all they find is a bunch of wiring and batteries.

I don't have a girlfriend so I can't be entirely sure, but I do know that the chick at the video store wasn't happy when I finally got her to open the box of chocolates I was holding in front of me only to find my penis poking in from a hole in the bottom.

Overclock it?

[canatech]

I bet with liquid cooling you could get it to 18MHz!

Re:More Likely Responses

[Sepiraph]

Think about it: how many ladies can say that their Valentine's card runs at 14 MHz?"

Clearly this is a trick question. No such girlfriend ever existed in the first place.

Re:Come now

[iocat]

It's not too geeky, it's too PATHETIC. If you need a microcontroller running at 14Mhz and C code to blink some heart shaped LEDs, you should just turn in nerd card now. It's like using an anvil to hammer a picture hanging nail.

If you can't create that card with a 555 and a couple resistors, I wouldn't be surprised to see your Valentine laugh in your face and go off with a real He-Man who writes assembly.

Christ! A 14Mhz microcontroller... if you're gonna use that, the damn card better access the internet or play NES games at least.

Re:More Likely Responses

[Arthur Grumbine]

And that's why it's currently +5 funny. I know my audience.

Possible danger

[interstellar_donkey]

She might attempt to do something similar for next month's "guy" version of Valentine's Day. [steakandbjday.com]

Then again, that might work out well.

Re:not impressed

[princessproton]

Soo...um...are you seeing anybody?

Re:More Likely Responses

[moosesocks]

OK, but bear with me..... assume a spherical girlfriend of uniform density.....

Re:More Likely Responses

[pacificleo]

Why would someone want a girlfriend with uniform density . you need to have standard deviation and make a bell curve at appropriate places .

Re:More Likely Responses

[az1324]

or
Him: ...14 MHz.
Her: At least something knows how to oscillate around here.

Most Likely Response

[az1324]

Her: That's NOT the kind of crystal I had in mind.

Re:More Likely Responses

[Anonymous Coward]

That's easy, just imagine the average American woman.

Real Men

[zude]

A) Real men don't build a circuit with an 14Mhz ATmega, when a couple of 555's [wikipedia.org] and a few TTL counters would have sufficed.

B) Real men don't program micro-controllers in C (or, god forbid, BASIC), when a hundred or so assembly instructions would have sufficed.

C) Real men don't give their wives goofy hand-made electronic crap on Valentine's Day, because they know their wives will figuratively and possibly literally beat the shit out of them thus belying that whole 'real man' thing.

Not what she'd want

[Big Hairy Ian]

14Mhz??????

Personaly I'm sure she'd want something that ran at 150hz (approx)

BZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ

Re:Come now

[f0rk]

It's like using an anvil to hammer a picture hanging nail.

I don't get it...

Re:Make her a dinner reservation instead

[littlesparrow]

no, don't mod this Informative. This is bunk. Not all of us girls want stuff (well, I admit, there IS a lot of girls who do). But there are quite a few of us too, who want 'effort'. There's a difference. And I for one, like the blinking card. Finding it was coded by my sweetie would induce lots of lusty ideas. Any idiot can make reservations.