Watch: Man Reverse-Engineers Old Landline Into Music Player, Fires Up Tame Impala Song

A hobbyist developer has caught social media's attention after reverse-engineering an old landline telephone into a music player, capable of playing numerous songs. In a now-viral social media post, the user not only detailed the clever, creative engineering but also demonstrated it by playing a Tame Impala song. In the clip, the user picked up the receiver and dialled '56'. The phone's small display instantly flashed the song title "Let It Happen" just before the track began playing on a connected desktop system.

The user said they were cleaning the room and not planning on building anything. However, after finding the old Beetel M59 landline that had not been touched for the last few years, they decided to open it, and the idea of turning it into a music player took shape. 

"Old telephone I found in my store room, itched my brain, replaced the built-in LCD with one I had lying around, used a multi-meter to reverse engineer the keypad matrix and hardcoded the pin values on the esp," the user explained in a Reddit post.

"Whenever the pins connect, that number is registered, everything is sent to the backend server, which plays music corresponding to that number using the Spotify API."

Check The Viral Clip Here:

reverse engineered an old telephone into a music player
by u/studious_gamer in developersIndia

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'Fun Project'

As the post gained traction, social media users were impressed by the user's creativity and praised them for the technical depth, specifically the decision to preserve the original internal circuitry rather than simply replacing it with modern components.

"A writeup on this project would be a very fun read. OP please make it happen," said one user while another added: "This is the coolest sh*t I have come across lately."

A third commented: "The keypad matrix reverse engineering part is what got me. Most people would've just ripped the internals and put in a bluetooth speaker, but actually figuring out the pin values with a multimeter and hardcoding it on the ESP, that's the fun part to be honest."