I thought that you might be bored by all these cool HP pocket computers and scientific calculators I’ve presented over the last few weeks. So I decided to give you a break. I will write about this unlikely gizmo I picked-up today in a shop I like to visit on a regular basis: SurplusGizmos. OK, if you are not living in Oregon – Hillsboro in particular –, you might not be able to pay them a visit shortly. However, I really like the place because you can find everything related to electronics and manufacturing you may need for a project. With the foundries all over the place, they really have the good stuff you don’t find often and at a very reasonable price. For example today, I picked up an 8 connector STD bus back-plane for $10. Try to beat it (they rather go for 20 times more these days). Sure you have to pull-up your sleeves and dig into the bins, but who doesn’t like this? To prove my point, I found today’s gizmo deep in a bin and it looked quite curious. Eyeballing at the silk screening, it was obvious that the device had a compass and an accelerometer. In addition, it seemed ready to be tested with a small LCD and even a battery attached. The USB connector and the mini joystick finished to convince me to spend the few extra bucks. Why not, I could have some fun and it would not require too much time – time that I am definitively short of this week. Last but not least, the fortune compass – domain which doesn’t respond anymore – really triggered my curiosity. Could it replace a fortune cookie? Guess what? It turned out to be a Feng Shui electronic Fortune Compass! Not that I know anything about Feng Shui or even what a fortune compass is, but what an improbable gizmo. The good news is that it can probably be re-purposed for some compass/accelerometer application. Just find – or print – a snug case to house it, et voila!
