Jog Wheel from VCR Head

Technology

In addition to being an online editor for MAKE Magazine, Michael Colombo works in fabrication, electronics, sound design, music production and performance (Yes. All that.) In the past he has also been a childrens' educator and entertainer, and holds a Masters degree from NYU's Interactive Telecommunications Program.

View more articles by Michael Colombo

July 13th, 2012 16

Rohit is an engineer who found himself turning through pages and pages of PDFs. The solution he created, from his site:

Now the simple solution would be to buy myself a jog wheel / spinner. Give the jog wheel a slight twist and its momentum would keep it gliding over pages and pages of the boring PDF. But I’m an engineer. So I decided to build myself one (obviously the phrase “Why buy a cow when milk is so cheap” does not apply to engineers).

Rohit reverse-engineered the pinout for the chip on a USB mouse to find the right pins to attach the VCR head to. Once finished, his device works like a charm, and looks pretty sharp too.

[via Dangerous Prototypes]