Motorola T900 2-Way Pager Conversion
I’ve been working on a project for the last little while that I figured this group might appreciate.
I picked up an old Motorola T900 two-way pager with the goal of completely replacing the original electronics, but keeping the original case, QWERTY keyboard and Lcd. I had one in 2000 and loved it.
The biggest hurdle was figuring out the original Motorola hardware. There’s basically no useful documentation out there for the display, so I ended up reverse engineering both the keyboard and LCD myself. After a lot of probing and experimenting, I now have both working with a modern microcontroller.
Right now the prototype is running on a Heltec V4 with an ESP32-S3, so the hardware is already there for Meshtastic, Wi-Fi and Bluetooth.
The obvious next step is Meshtastic.
I’m working on a prototype interface now that keeps the general feel of the original T900, but the idea is to take it quite a bit further than just making it a Meshtastic terminal.
A few things I’m playing with:
- Meshtastic messaging using the original keyboard and Lcd (Sending messages just fine so far)
- Bluetooth connection to an Android phone for receiving and replying to SMS through your normal phone number
- Wi-Fi messaging between devices through a separate pager-style messaging service
- Wi-Fi/Bluetooth configuration and updates
- Classic little 90s/early-2000s games like Snake
- A Tamagotchi-style virtual pet app, because it seems like exactly the kind of ridiculous thing that belongs on one of these
- Original EL backlighting
- Vibration and old-school pager/phone alert tones
- Rechargeable lithium battery instead of the original AA setup
Basically I want it to still feel like a T900, just with everything you’d want one to do in 2026.
I’m also thinking about building a simple pager-style messaging service where each unit has its own pager ID/number, with direct messages, channels, pages/acknowledgements, etc. It could use Wi-Fi when available and Meshtastic/LoRa when it isn’t.
The prototype is still very much a work in progress, but getting the original screen and keyboard under my control was the part I wasn’t sure would even be possible. That’s working now.
If there’s enough interest, my eventual goal would be to design a drop-in replacement PCB shaped specifically for the T900. Ideally you’d take a donor T900 apart, remove the original Motorola electronics, install the new board and reuse the original screen, keyboard, case and conductive connectors without having to hack everything together like my prototype.
I’m curious how much interest there would actually be in something like that. Would you guys want a T900 conversion board/kit if I get this to the point where it’s reliable?
I’ll post more as I make progress. The photos are from the current prototype/software work, so definitely not a finished product yet.