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Using the Time Machine

NOTE: These instructions are primarily for the MicroTM. Instructions specific to the Raspberry Pi based Time Machine are in red text. If you bought your Time Machine before February, 2024, you have a Raspberry Pi based Time Machine. For instructions for the Raspberry Pi version alone, you can see the instructions on the Wayback Machine

 

Using the Time Machine should be very intuitive.

  • Select a Month, Day, and Year by turning the Month, Day, and Year knobs.

  • Press the select button to select the date. It will start playing automatically.

  • Press the play/pause button to pause and resume playing the show.

  • Stop, Rewind, Fast Fwd behave as expected. See details below.

The Screen Layout

The top of the screen shows the staged date in a large font in the MM-DD-YY format.

If there is a show on the staged date, the venue, city, state is shown below the staged date.

If there is a tape from the archive on that date which is not a show this area will show the tape identifier.

 

Note that the venue, city, and state usually do not fit on the screen and will “scroll” over time.

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The area of the screen showing the venue, city, state will alternately display the tape identifier. If the tape is soundboard recording, the tape identifier is shown in white text. If the tape is an audience recording, the tape identifier is shown in red text.

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If the staged date is selected (by pressing the select button) it becomed the selected date, and is shown in a smaller font at the bottom of the screen in MM-DD-YYYY format.

The current track and next track are shown in the middle of the screen in a red font.

The bottom right-hand corner of the screen shows the playstate, either playing, paused, stopped, or empty.

Details about each knob and button

Some special controls and shortcuts are documented here. Each knob can be turned, and also pressed as a button. Each button may be “pressed” or “held” (pressed for a predefined period, generally 1 second).

Month Knob

  • Turning the Month knob changes the month of the staged date from 1 to 12.

  • Pressing the Month knob dims the screen.

  • RASPBERRY Pi Time Machines Only: Pressing the Month knob puts you into (or back out of) “Experience Mode”. In Experience Mode, you can not see which songs are coming up, rewind, ffwd, or stop the current show. As if you were there, experiencing the show.

Day Knob

  • Turning the Day knob changes the day of the staged date from 1 to 31 (depending on the Month (and Year if a Leap Year))

  • Pressing the Day knob moves the staged date to the next date on which there is a tape in the archive.

  • RASPBERRY Pi Time Machines Only: Holding the Day knob (for 3 seconds) turns off the screen. Turning or pressing any of the 3 knobs will wake up the screen.

Year Knob

  • Turning the Year knob changes the year of the staged date from the earliest to the latest date in your collections.

  • Pressing the Year knob moves the staged date to today’s month/day during the currently staged year (today in history, whether there is a tape on that date or not). Pressing the Year knob again will move the staged date to the next today in history on which there is a tape in the archive (or, if this is the last, it will start over again from 1965).

  • RASPBERRY Pi Time Machines Only: Holding the year knob displays the IP address of the Time Machine.

Select Button

  • Pressing the Select button selects the staged date, making it the selected date. This stops any currently playing tape.

  • Holding the Select button cycles through the tape identifiers of the staged date. The identifiers are shown in the venue, city, state field. Red text indicates audience recordings. Releasing the Select button selects the tape identifier currently displayed. In this way, all tapes from the archive are reachable.

Play/Pause Button
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  • Pressing the Play/Pause button plays or pauses the tape from the selected date.

  • RASPBERRY Pi Time Machines Only: Holding the Play/Pause button (for 8 seconds) selects and plays a random show from the archive.

Rewind and Fast Forward Buttons
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  • Pressing Rewind or Fast Forward advances to the next or moves back to the previous track.

  • RASPBERRY Pi Time Machines Only: Holding Rewind or Fast Forward advances or moves back the play head by 30 seconds every 2 seconds.

Stop Button
 

  • Pressing the Stop button stops the playback and moves the play head to the beginning of the show.

  • RASPBERRY Pi Time Machines Only:  Holding the Stop button (for 8 seconds) prepares to download the latest version of the software and restarts the program. After 8 seconds, the screen will display a message asking to continue hold the stop button for another 5 seconds if you really want to update.

 

 Power Button

  • Pressing the Power button stops the playback and dims the screen.

  • Micro Time Machines Only: Press and hold the Power Button to enter the menu to do things like add other artists, update the software, re-configure the WiFi, etc.

  • RASPBERRY Pi Time Machines Only:  The Power Button turns the device off.

knobs and buttons
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