The Magic Phone, Part 1: Number Pad Matrix Decoding

Perhaps the following article is more of a hardware hack than anything. Still, I found the how-to for the ‘magic phone’ to be a fascinating read. Check it out at Engadget:

This How-To is the first in a series of construction instructions for a project titled The Magic Phone. I was inspired by the Port-O-Rotary from Spark Fun but wanted to take the project to the next level and with hardware I already had on hand. You may be able to extrapolate these instructions to different models of telephones, different telephony protocols, and even different projects.

So what makes up The Magic Phone? Basically, I first wanted to encrust a wireless home phone inside a vintage rotary phone. Here in Europe we have a standard for wireless handsets called DECT which has just been approved by the FCC for the US in April of this year. DECT compatibility is fun in a handset because you can take your phone to a conference or office building phone network which can then assign you a number within their DECT network. [Read the rest]