Telepoem

Poems by telephone

There's a poem on the line.

An old phone on the wall. Pick it up, dial a number, and someone reads you a poem. You already know how it works.

Build your ownHow it works
Pick up

Tap the receiver. Sound on.

Directory

How it works

An old phone, with something to say.

  1. 1

    Lift

    Pick up the receiver. A voice says hello and tells you what to dial.

  2. 2

    Dial

    Press a number. You'll hear the old tones, then a poem.

  3. 3

    Listen

    Just you and the voice. Hang up when you're ready.

If you want, the poem can also come home with you by tapping your phone or scanning a code.

The kit

Lift the receiver, hear a poem.

The board inside every Telepoem, for your own phone. It makes an old touch-tone phone think it's on a live line: it dials, it rings, and it plays your recordings. Put your poems on a memory card and plug it in.

What's in your kit
Total$100

Please hold.The kits will be with you shortly.

Inside the kit

A custom printed circuit board that plugs into any vintage touch-tone phone. The board has a small computer chip that reads an SD card loaded with your recorded poems* and a small file which tells it what poems to play.

  • It makes the phone think it's on a real line, so the keypad works and the bell can ring.
  • It runs on USB power, with an optional battery for places without an outlet.
  • It's small enough to fit inside the phone.

* It plays any audio, so music and other sounds are fair game.

Specifications
Brain
RP2040 microcontroller with 4 MB flash, running CircuitPython.
Line
Silvertel Ag1170 line module (Ag1171 also supported, selected by jumper). Supplies real loop current and around 65 V of ringing, and detects the hook. It powers down between calls.
Keypad
Touch-tone digits are decoded in software on the RP2040. Multi-digit numbers work, and you can dial over a poem to interrupt it.
Audio
PCM5102A digital-to-analogue converter feeding the line. Plays 8 kHz, 16-bit mono WAV.
Storage
microSD card. CONFIG.TXT maps each number to a file, so you can change poems without touching the code.
Power
USB-C with a BQ24075 charger and an optional single-cell LiPo, regulated to 3.3 V by a TPS63031. Protected against a reversed battery. Dial *228 to hear the charge level.
Expansion
STEMMA I²C port (4-pin JST-PH, 3.3 V) for sensors.
Board
45 × 90 mm, two layers, factory assembled. The jacks and line module are fitted by hand.