Visualizing Text on an Oscilloscope is an Interesting Process That Maps Characters to Specific Frequencies

This interesting project by Mitxela shows text on an oscilloscope by pretending it’s a sound. The plan is to take words, turn them into a sound wave, and then add audio effects to make cool, eye-catching shapes on the oscilloscope’s screen.

Here’s how it works: the text gets changed into something that can be processed as audio, like mapping characters to specific frequencies or amplitudes. This “text-as-audio” gets sent to an oscilloscope in XY mode, where one part moves the picture side to side (X) and another up and down (Y), drawing the text like a line picture. When audio effects are added—like reverb, distortion, or delay—it changes the wave, which twists how the text looks. For instance, distortion might make letters look spiky, and reverb could add a fading, echoey trail.

Custom software is used for this conversion and effect processing, sending the sound through a sound card to the oscilloscope. If you’re thinking of trying this, you’d need an oscilloscope with XY mode, a sound card, and software to generate the waveforms.
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