Digital Counter Button
Button to store or reset the positions
OLED Display
Search for "0,96 Zoll OLED Display I2C 128 x 64 Pixel I2C" at your preferred hardware store. The display is very common used by Arduino projects.
Hardware
All you need is included on the hardware for the new tape deck CPU. The counter cannot be used without the new CPU since it handles and calculates the time.
The PCB contains a click IC with 56 bytes of memory powered by a 3V battery. It is used to store the counter position, the screen offset coordinates and the repeat mode.
Take care, the OLED display is a little bit too big and needs to be cut at the edge. The offset for the screen can be set with demo mode 02 and gets stored in the small memory.
Limitations
Since there are no sensors added to the tape mechanism there are some limitations. It might not be exactly accurate and also continues to count when rewind or forward gets switched of by the reel motor. However, I prefer this solution. It adds some useful functions.
Software
Again, the software is also part of the tape CPU
Using the digital counter adds the following features:
- OLED Display with minutes and seconds
- Automatic reset to 0:00 when rewind to the beginning of the tape
- Select the tape length C30, C60 or C90
- Jump to position 0
- Store up to three positions
- Select with previous key to select the position to jump to and click (a) the program key to go to the position and stop or (b) the play key to go to the position and play
- Save the selected repeat mode
- Save the last position
- Display side A or B
- Philips logo from the eighties on startup
- Screensaver, swith off the display after 5 minutes of no action
- Set the screen coordinates with help of the demo mode 02
- Optional clock (not implemented yet)
Future
The used IC contains a real time clock which is not used at the moment. This might be another feature which can easily added.