I was always a big fan of the rather laggy but famous carrier-pigeon IP implementation (IPoAC). It’s a great demonstration of the true flexibility achieved by the layering of the OSI model which has been key to the Internet’s success.
This time it’s been done in real style with xylophones, LEDs, Arduinos – and people. A bum note may cause a network dropout, but if you’ve been practicing your arpeggios you can rock up a 30 minute ping time and a heady one baud – leaving the doves in the dust.
“Geiger’s network protocol, Internet Protocol over Xylophone Players (IPoXP), provides a fully compliant IP connection between two computers. His setup uses a pair of Arduino microcontrollers, some sensors, a pair of xylophones and two people to play the xylophones.
In a typical setup, the computer will send a message packet to the microcontroller in the ACSII format, which the microcontroller converts into hexadecimal code. The Arduino is attached to a series of series of LED’s. Each LED corresponds to a hexadecimal character, as well as a key on a xylophone”
Read the full Network World article here
Pip Jones
Technical Director
