Transforming a 1930s Rotary Phone into a Modern Cellphone Using Elixir and Nerves

In this presentation, Bryan Green introduces VintageCell, a project that turns a 1930s-era rotary phone into a functioning modern cellphone through Elixir and the Nerves framework. The project involves using a Raspberry Pi Zero and a WaveShare SIM7600G-H 4G modem to bring modern cellular capabilities to the vintage hardware. Bryan explains the inner workings of rotary phones and dives into the details of how the software components manage the state and functionality of the modified phone using gen_servers and gen_state_machines in Elixir. He highlights the practical challenges faced, including hardware fitting and power management for stability. The talk also includes insights on the Nerves project's features like OTA software updates and monitoring with SSH, and ends with suggestions for future enhancements and applications.