# Old Tech thread



## Danny McG

Back in mid seventies I was a trainee in a UK coalmine. In one area of older workings there was a row of lights giving off a strange blue glow.
As far as I recall each light had an enclosed turbine/dynamo that was powered by compressed air.
I remember some old collier saying they'd been operating since the fifties in that area.

I've googled and you can still get compressed air lamps but these ones are hand held for inspection work inside oil tanks etc, the ones I saw were large and permanently mounted.

Just another bit of forgotten technology. No doubt the manufacturer has long since gone - very little coalmining now


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## Danny McG

Drat! Meant to put this thread in Technology forum, not science and nature


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## The Judge

Now moved.


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## Foxbat

I remember around the mid-seventies, being lectured on fluidics and its logic applications. It was going to change the world. You never hear about it now but, according to wiki, it's still being used in some areas like thrust vectoring.
Fluidics - Wikipedia


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## Danny McG

Wasn't fluidics one of the key reasons they developed the new (in those days)  trade of 'instrument mechanics'?


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## Foxbat

dannymcg said:


> Wasn't fluidics one of the key reasons they developed the new (in those days)  trade of 'instrument mechanics'?



Funnily enough, I started my working life as an Instrument Mechanic (but ended it in Health Physics in the Nuclear industry)


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## Vertigo

Your initial post had me googling compressed air lamps (fascinating) and that led on to Trompe water powered air compressors an equally fascinating bit of technology dating back I believe to the 16C that produces compressed air with no moving parts!


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## Edward M. Grant

I went to the Science Museum in London a few years ago for the first time in decades, and was amused by the fluid computer for economic forecasting. From what I remember, you adjusted the liquid levels at the inputs and they went through a bunch of pipes that eventually resulted in the output levels changing.

Probably explains a lot about British economic policy in the mid-20th century.

Edit: actually, I see it's mentioned in the Fluidics Wikipedia article linked up above.


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## Caledfwlch

What amazes me with British Coal mines, is they often don't appear to have accurate maps! Not in terms of how what is below relates to the actual surface. I spent a few years living in Stainforth, North of Doncaster, the village which is home to the Hatfield Main, and that lack of knowledge was a bit of a worry with all the house building going on, as they knew the tunnels went all over the place, but couldn't relate it to the surface, so it was entirely possible they had built homes, or would potentially be building homes above unstable ancient tunnels.


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## Danny McG

Thought it might be interesting to have a thread about tech from 'days of yore'

To start, here's a *memo watch* from 1984.


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## Dave

And here, thanks to Marconi's Wireless Telegraph Company, is the latest _amazing wonder of directional wireless_, which could allow London Croydon pilots to fly in a perfectly straight line, or to land, through cloud, or *even* at night!!!


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## WarriorMouse

Hows this.
A fully functional waterproof radial dial Linesman service phone
I love dial telephones and have a few of them in good working order.
1930's Northern Electric desk style
 Automatic Electric Type 50 Coffin top wall phone
Various RCAF office intercom phones(Military surplus)
1950's Northern Electric remote service phone


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## Danny McG

Me and my fellow mechanical craft apprentices all started buying and using these about halfway through our (1974 to 1978) apprenticeships.
The slide rules we'd all outfitted ourselves with were suddenly obsolete.
I still remember the maths lecturer (in love with his slide rule) grumpily saying " Oh yes, those are all fine and dandy, but what good are they if the batteries run out?"

File:Vintage Texas Instruments TI-30 Pocket Calculator, Red LED, Made in USA, A Very Widely Used Calculator, Price Was $24.95 in 1976 (8732557514).jpg - Wikimedia Commons


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## Dave

That was the first calculator I ever saw. I couldn't afford one though. I actually got some weird reverse logic calculator first, which wasn't so bad because no one else could work out how to use it (you had to sum 2 + 2 rather than 2 + 2 =) and so no one ever wanted to borrow it from me. When only half the class had a calculator you could find it going right around the whole class.


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## Danny McG

Dave said:


> That was the first calculator I ever saw. I couldn't afford one though



Yeah it cost me like two weeks pay! Had to save for a few weeks to get one.
They came with a fancy wallet with two belt loops, nobody ever wore it like that.

Most of us cut the loops off because you could then cram it all into a denim jacket (required wear back in the day) side pocket


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## farntfar

Ah! The "were so amazingly primitive that they still though digital watches were a pretty neat idea" thread.

My first calculator was like this one.





We were all especially impressed that you could write ShELL OIL on it if you turned it upside down.
And it was no use getting used to it, because you could only use sslide rules in exams.


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## Vladd67




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## Edward M. Grant

The Sinclair calculator was (as usual for Sinclair) a triumph of cost-cutting. If I remember correctly, they did things like reduce the number of digits they calculated in operations where they weren't really required, so they could free up a few bytes of program memory to add extra math functions that competing calculators didn't include.

I'd never seen a real one until I went to the Science Museum a few years ago and they had one on display.


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## Edward M. Grant

BTW, here are the gory details on the Sinclair calculator programming:

Reversing Sinclair's amazing 1974 calculator hack - half the ROM of the HP-35


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## Vladd67




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## BigBadBob141

I like the line from "Hitchickers Guide To The Galaxy".
At one point Arthur Dent's right arm goes floating away when he passes through improbability space.
"How am I going to operate my digital watch now?"
This is a reference to when watches had LED displays instead of liquid crystal today. 
To save batteries the face was blank until you pressed a button!


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## Onyx

Dave said:


> And here, thanks to Marconi's Wireless Telegraph Company, is the latest _amazing wonder of directional wireless_, which could allow London Croydon pilots to fly in a perfectly straight line, or to land, through cloud, or *even* at night!!!


Planes still use this technology. It sounds like a marker beacon used airport approaches, or a VOR before the direction needle was added.


On the calculators - I lost my nice TI calculator in the late '80s, and started taking the family Sears LED scientific to school - along with the power cord. I just started sitting in a desk next to a wall outlet. As far as I know it still works.


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## Foxbat

I still own 16mm, 8mm and 9.5mm film projectors. They are all in working order (at least they were the last time I used them). 

The 16mm also handles sound and comes with a really bad speaker.

The Pathe 9.5mm had a worn metal belt drive, which kept slipping so I replaced it using an O Ring and a blob of superglue. Also, the bulb was blown so I replaced it with a halogen but then had to create a swinging arm for it in order that it didn't burn film when stationary. It worked perfectly when in operation (start the film moving  then swing the halogen into place and off it went).

I suppose that makes it an old/new tech hybrid.


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## BigBadBob141

I still have my slide-rule.
Now that's really old tech!!!


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## Vertigo

BigBadBob141 said:


> I still have my slide-rule.
> Now that's really old tech!!!


I still have my log tables (unfortunately my slide rule disappeared in one of my house moves).


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## Danny McG

I mentioned this on a thread somewhere else in Chronicles, grandson came to see me and he'd brought an old slide rule to ask about it.

Maybe 18 months ago now, I grabbed it and said "Right, what you do is, er, um..... er"

I couldn't remember how to use it properly! 40 years of using a calculator has erased my old knowledge


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## WarriorMouse

BigBadBob141 said:


> I still have my slide-rule.
> Now that's really old tech!!!



I still have mine as well.


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## BAYLOR

I can remember life before the internet.


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## WarriorMouse

BAYLOR said:


> I can remember life before the internet.



As can I.

It was *AWESOME!*


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## BAYLOR

WarriorMouse said:


> As can I.
> 
> It was *AWESOME!*



I even remember when the original Star Trek and Lost in Space where on tv as first run shows.

I can even remember forgotten Saturday morning cartoon shows.


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## WarriorMouse

Not me. We had a TV but only a couple of stations, neither of which had Star Trek or Lost in Space.


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## 2DaveWixon

Not only do I remember slide rules, but I still have three of them. A big one, a small one, and one made in the shape of a cylinder. (I never learned to work that last one, because by the time I inherited it, I had a calculator...)


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## Foxbat

I remember buying my first computer - a Sinclair ZX81. I soon got bored with it and swapped it for a Ghetto Blaster


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## Danny McG

BAYLOR said:


> I can even remember forgotten Saturday morning cartoon shows



Name a couple mate, see if I remember any


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## BAYLOR

dannymcg said:


> Name a couple mate, see if I remember any



Autocat and Motor Mouse 

Inche High Private Eye


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## BigBadBob141

REF: Foxbat.
I've still got mine. 
But as you need a 625 line TV for display, I don't think you can anymore!


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## Venusian Broon

Foxbat said:


> I remember buying my first computer - a Sinclair ZX81. I soon got bored with it and swapped it for a Ghetto Blaster



My dad 'pilfered' a ZX80 from Napier College at some point in the early 80's.

(He was a lecturer there - he also borrowed Pet Commodores and proper lasers in the 1970s that I remember playing with at home)

We still have it. Ahh... the memories of actually running out of RAM memory (It had 1kb) and not being able to complete programs!  (when I got the 48kb ZX Spectrum it was like the age of Aquarius had re-dawned)

Having said that it was pretty incredible what one could do with 1kb - there was a chess program with AI that, I believe, used ~800 bytes


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## BAYLOR

farntfar said:


> Ah! The "were so amazingly primitive that they still though digital watches were a pretty neat idea" thread.
> 
> My first calculator was like this one.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> We were all especially impressed that you could write ShELL OIL on it if you turned it upside down.
> And it was no use getting used to it, because you could only use sslide rules in exams.



I remember  when many calculators  sold for 100 dollars or more. Now they're under 20 bucks.


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## Venusian Broon

BAYLOR said:


> I remember  when many calculators  sold for 100 dollars or more. Now they're under 20 bucks.



20 bucks? That's pricy.  You get basic ones (scientific even) for 3-5 quid.


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## Vladd67

BAYLOR said:


> Autocat and Motor Mouse
> 
> Inche High Private Eye


Motor Mouse and Autocat, I remember that along with the Hair Bear Bunch.


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## BAYLOR

Venusian Broon said:


> 20 bucks? That's pricy.  You get basic ones (scientific even) for 3-5 quid.



What is that  US dollars?


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## BAYLOR

Vladd67 said:


> Motor Mouse and Autocat, I remember that along with the Hair Bear Bunch.



I wish I could forget the Hair Bear Bunch ever existed.


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## Vladd67

There were worse, Grape Ape for instance, or the Scooby Doo rip off Goober and the Ghost chasers, and what was the one with a revolution era ghost that spoke like Snagglepuss? Heavens to Murgatroyd.


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## The Ace

I picked this up during the week.

The good thing is, it's still in working order, and can be useful.


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## BAYLOR

Vladd67 said:


> There were worse, Grape Ape for instance, or the Scooby Doo rip off Goober and the Ghost chasers, and what was the one with a revolution era ghost that spoke like Snagglepuss? Heavens to Murgatroyd.



Ive seen all of those cartoon travesties. The  one with Reveoltuionary ghost was called The Funky Phantom and the name of the Ghost was Johnathan Muddlemore ,  he got stuck in clock case for 200 hundred years,  awful show.


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## Venusian Broon

BAYLOR said:


> What is that  US dollars?



4-7 USD


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## BAYLOR

Venusian Broon said:


> 4-7 USD



Wow , that is cheap.


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## Danny McG

BAYLOR said:


> Autocat and Motor Mouse
> 
> Inche High Private Eye


That's the only one I ever saw, inch high!


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## Danny McG

I had variations of these beauties over the years.
I think it was the late nineties the last time I used one - TBH it was easier keeping all contacts phone numbers in a notebook, but you could impress people flipping open one of these  personal organisers....


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## Anthoney

When I first got cable internet through Adelphia in the mid 90s it was a hybrid system.  It would use phone to dial in and connect.  All up stream traffic went over the phone line (56k) and down stream came through the cable.  I loved it.  I bought an extra phone line so it could stay on all the time.


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## Foxbat

Kinescope and its death by videotape.
Kinescope - Wikipedia


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## Harpo




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## Danny McG

I like the "2 floppy drives with 100kb of storage on each!"


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## Anthoney

I took a class in the early 80s on the software listed (gotta love Wordstar) but I think dbase was also included.  It wasn't on an Osborne.  The lab used all Apple II machines.  Which I think are older.


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## Vince W

I went to a trade show in the 80s where I first saw the Osborne. It was amazing looking. I was still using a PET at that point.


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## Ursa major

Someone in the office had an Osborne 1 in the early eighties. Back then, it was a thing of wonder.


dannymcg said:


> I like the "2 floppy drives with 100kb of storage on each!"


That was more than was available on the TRS-80 model II, although you could, if you could afford it, have four drives: drives 2,3 and 4 could each hold, I think, 83k of data, but drive one had, I think, 57k available for storage, (the rest being used by the DOS).


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## Venusian Broon

Vince W said:


> I went to a trade show in the 80s where I first saw the Osborne. It was amazing looking. I was still using a PET at that point.



I always thought the PET was cool. But then it was the first computer my Dad (cough, cough) borrowed for a while from Napier and brought back to the house. Even had a game on it - the lunar lander one. Classic 70's computer shape.



Ursa major said:


> have four drives: drives 2,3 and 4 could each hold, I think, 83k of data, but drive one had, I think, 57k available for storage, (the rest being used by the DOS).



So the operating system was 26Kb in size? Now a Windows 10 system needs about 20+ Gb. That's progress for you.


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## Dave

The parents/teachers society at my school bought the school a PET. I did Computer Studies 'o' Level using it - the whole class using that one single computer. It was so heavily used - from as early in the morning as we could get in, to whenever we were finally kicked out. It would often crash and everything would be lost. Had to save programs on audio cassette then verify. That rarely worked either, but we loved it.


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## Vertigo

Ursa major said:


> Someone in the office had an Osborne 1 in the early eighties. Back then, it was a thing of wonder.
> That was more than was available on the TRS-80 model II, although you could, if you could afford it, have four drives: drives 2,3 and 4 could each hold, I think, 83k of data, but drive one had, I think, 57k available for storage, (the rest being used by the *DOS*).


CP/M

We used the Compaq portable PC in the early eighties which was a pretty similar, though slightly smaller machine. Again the two floppies but this time one over the other and, I think, being MSDOS now, the disk capacity was larger - 270 odd k seems familiar. Before that we used the much more expensive HP portable 9826 which was based on the far better 68000 chip which didn't have the then 64k RAM limit that Intel based machines suffered from. This was in offshore oil survey work.


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## Vince W

Dave said:


> The parents/teachers society at my school bought the school a PET. I did Computer Studies 'o' Level using it - the whole class using that one single computer. It was so heavily used - from as early in the morning as we could get in, to whenever we were finally kicked out. It would often crash and everything would be lost. Had to save programs on audio cassette then verify. That rarely worked either, but we loved it.


School is where I got to use the PET as well. At first, you could only use the cassette drive. Then the school got a 5 1/2" floppy drive. The speed was fantastic. I could save, search, load work and programs in under 20 seconds!


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## oganalp

This took me back to the days of controller cards for my 486 pc. It was damn hard to find one at where I lived.

And, to this day, nothing beats the General MIDI sounds of Sound Blaster AWE32.


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## Edward M. Grant

Vince W said:


> School is where I got to use the PET as well. At first, you could only use the cassette drive. Then the school got a 5 1/2" floppy drive. The speed was fantastic. I could save, search, load work and programs in under 20 seconds!



I remember when we went from cassette tapes to the Sinclair Microdrive, and could suddenly load 100k in six seconds instead of six minutes (or thereabouts). Not that we had 100k of RAM to load it into, of course.

And it was always amusing when someone pulled the cartridge out of the Microdrive without waiting for the motor to stop, and the tape spewed out across the floor.


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## Alex The G and T

I found this fabulous relic, about fifteen years ago, as I was clearing out the parts warehouse of a defunct auto dealership, prepping for a remodel project.

No one around me had a clue what it is.  I had only seen one once before... ca 1983.

I'm not sure what possessed me to keep it so long.  Some notion that it belongs in a museum, I suppose.

Anyone want to guess?  If you know what is the deal with the rubber cups on the lid; you're halfway there.


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## Vladd67

Telex machine? The rubber bits are where you put the phone handset.


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## Alex The G and T

Right about the rubber bits; but this is a much more modern unit than telex.


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## Vince W

That is a TTY. TeleTYpewriter.


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## Alex The G and T

Think techier.  It was a Big New Thing in '82 to '84; but had a limited sales-demand.  Not many people had the type of access to need one.

I didn't expect this to be quite so arcane; considering other posts on this thread.

To be fair, the only reason I recognized it was because I was taking programming classes at the time.  One of the Instructors brought one into the computer lab, excitedly showing off his amazing new acquisition.


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## Vertigo

I suspect it is a remote terminal for connecting to a computer; a TRS-80 I'd guess from the label, but can't read the rest of it. In those days the monitor was effectively just an endless roll of paper so I reckon you'd see exactly what you'd normally see on the monitor scrolling off that printer. And a Thermal printer would be my guess.

It's actually quite possibly worth a few bob.


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## Alex The G and T

Spot on, Vertigo.  The Top Geek Award goes to you.

PT-210 Portable Data Terminal


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## Parson

Whoa! That's too geeky for me. (I did play games on a TS 80 for a while. "Chyssome  (sp) Trail" comes to mind and "Space Defender." Didn't much use it as a computer.


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## Anthoney

Holy Radio Shack, Batman.  I never used any Tandy equipment except when I was freeloading in their stores.  They had great AC.


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## Alex The G and T

With the excitement about the advent of home computing, upthread, and looking back from today's tech; it's easy to forget that complex computing required access to a mainframe.

Hence the limited demand.  To need such a terminal, the user would have to be employed by Government, Military, Academia or a Very Large Corporation in order to have access to a mainframe computer.


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## Danny McG




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## HareBrain

It's unlikely we'll forget the floppy disk, as it'll probably be used as the "save" icon for the rest of time, and every so often a curious child will ask "what is that?"


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## Vladd67

HareBrain said:


> It's unlikely we'll forget the floppy disk, as it'll probably be used as the "save" icon for the rest of time, and every so often a curious child will ask "what is that?"


I did read somewhere that a kid saw an actual 3.5 disk and thought it was a 3D print of a save symbol.


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## Vince W

REAL floppy disks are 8" or at the very least 5 1/4".


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## Edward M. Grant

When I took my computing course at school they had removable 5MB hard drives. I think they were 12" across?

And, in one of my early jobs I worked with a jukebox of 12" optical disks with an amazing 4GB capacity. That was exciting when trying to read and write to more than two disks at once so the arm was continually swapping disks over between the storage rack and the drives.


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## Parson

8 in. floopys were amazing! But I started with the 5 1/2.


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## Vertigo

I finally bit the bullet and threw all my old 5 1/2 inch floppies away a couple of years ago. On the basis that I'll probably never even see a 5 1/2 inch drive again and besides the software on them would only run on a computer that hasn't been made for over thirty years. And as it used a proprietary HP operating system, not even CP/M, I suspect even trying to read them with an appropriate drive would be very difficult. Ho hum, life move one....


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## Dave

Could you not offer to donate them to a museum? 

I hate people throwing things away that have history and where there are no other examples left. There will be other examples of your 5 1/2 floppies, but when everyone has thrown them away, well then there won't be any longer.

I know that archivists working in museums have to go onto ebay to buy Betamax and 8-track tape players so that they can convert video and music to more modern formats. So, they would bite you hand off if you have any of those machines in working order. The same would presumably apply to old computers with ancient operating systems.


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## Edward M. Grant

Dave said:


> I know that archivists working in museums have to go onto ebay to buy Betamax and 8-track tape players so that they can convert video and music to more modern formats.



I had to go to ebay a couple of years back to buy a VCR so I could play back the camcorder tapes I recorded in the early 2000s. I still need to buy one to play the HD camcorder tapes I recorded in the late 2000s.

And I'd already bought a VCR off ebay in the 2000s so I could copy the analogue camcorder tapes from the 90s onto the digital tapes I was using at the time.

We're lucky everything is now digital, and you only need the right software to open the file.


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## psikeyhackr

Do the radioactive '50s belong here?

Atomic Follies


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## Edward M. Grant

If you get the chance, the Nevada nuclear test site tour is well worth taking. Not many people get to drive along a road with nuclear bomb craters on each side as far as you can see...

Or use a porta-potty on the edge of a hydrogen bomb crater.


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## Danny McG

Wang 2202...is it?
(I found the the image online on a dead site but the OP wasn't 100% sure)


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## Vince W

That built in cassette drive was a thing of beauty. It didn't matter that it required the same power as a small Welsh village to run.


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## psikeyhackr

dannymcg said:


> Wang 2202...is it?
> (I found the the image online on a dead site but the OP wasn't 100% sure)



Is that Stephen King's Great Big Wang?

https://jeff_mariotte.typepad.com/my_weblog/2011/11/stephen-kings-wang.html


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## Danny McG

Well, it looks similar!
https://www.nypl.org/events/programs/2011/12/16/stephen-kings-wang-literary-history-word-processing


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## Danny McG




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## Parson

dannymcg said:


> View attachment 51013


Danny, what a blast from the past. This might have been the least well known of all Sony products (of those which were mass produced.) But weren't they the Giant back in the "Walkman" days? ---- How that changed. Sony now is just one of many fighting a losing battle with the smart phone.


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## Dave

My Dad had a small TV like that when he worked night shifts. It wasn't a Walkman. He had bought it in Saudi Arabia so it would have been American. It was much less chunky than that but it had a huge aerial bigger than it was. I thought it was real Sci-Fi as there was nothing like it available in the UK then. This must have been about 1984-5. I've Googled "portable TV" images and it may have been a Zenith Model No. BT044S.

Does anyone else remember watching black & white portable TVs while camping run off the car battery? But _you_ try and _tell_ the young people _today_ that... and they won't _believe_ ya'.


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## Anthoney

I do.  My father brought a portable B&W with us on every family camping trip.  We only ran it from the battery a few times because most of the family campgrounds we stayed at had power.


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## Parson

My brother (22 years younger) had one in the early 80's and he thought he was in tech heaven. He could watch it in the car! It ran on D batteries if my memory serves.


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## Danny McG

Dave said:


> Does anyone else remember watching black & white portable TVs while camping run off the car battery?


Every one I ever saw, my Dad's, my friend's dad's, relations etc etc all had the crappy black plastic handle on top that had broken off at one side


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## Danny McG

I wish mine had looked like this in 2004


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## Ursa major

Surely that's not a home computer but one in a car.

(Why else would it have a steering wheel...?)


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## HanaBi

It might look incredibly clunky but it probably still ran better than Windows Vista 

As for the steering wheel gubbins - well perhaps the "home computer" had early portability pretensions and you could "steer" it to a different room!


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## Parson

At least you didn't have to type with only your thumbs!


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## -K2-

Who would want something that big when you could get the laptop version?






K2


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## Pyan

dannymcg said:


> I wish mine had looked like this in 2004
> View attachment 51559



  It's a spoof, but a classic one - the main console is from a missile submarine, with an old teletype/printer and a CRT tv photo-shopped on...

Rand Corp 1954 Home Computer?


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## Pyan

Mind you, I'm glad I wasn't born 20 years earlier...


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## farntfar

When I first got a job in computing we worked on a computer like this one.




The system which ran a manufacturing company of some 700 employees had a CPU with 64K of memory which took up the space of small van. It had four disk drives, each about the size of a washing machine, on which you could load removeable disks like a pile of 6 oversized pizzas (about 2 foot across). Programming was done on punched cards, (usually between 2000 and 9000 cards per program step, with 18 programs to run a payroll.)

Windows or other multiprocessing systems had yet to arrive. The 360 could run a staggering 1 process concurrently.

There were no screens. An operator would run the programs via a console consisting of an entry keyboard and a typewriter. (Think of the teletype on which the Grandstand football results used to come up). Error messages were restricted to 3 characters to save time. ("%14" for instance meant an employee who is no longer employed has been included in this pay run.)
The operators main job apart from monitoring these messages was swapping the disks after each program step.
A typical payroll run took over an hour to complete.
A cost analysis for the week, (run just after midnight on Wednesdays) took 3 1/2 hours.)

There was a big red emergency pull switch on the front, which was to be pulled if ever the CPU caught fire, which, happily, it never did. New staff were "initiated" by getting them to unscew said switch and screw it back on with a coke can tab hanging behind the red bit, without killing the system. (It would take half a day to reboot.)





Ah! Simpler times.


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## Danny McG

farntfar said:


> Think of the teletype on which the Grandstand football results used to come up


Full on nostalgia hit!
My Dad saying
"come on, come on, let me have a score draw! how long is that stupid dot going to bounce up and down?"


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## reiver33

My first 'real' job it IT was the payroll department of Lothian Regional Council in 1986. For the first half day I was sure they were winding me up, because the principle payroll program was 12,500 punch cards....


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## Parson

reiver33 said:


> My first 'real' job it IT was the payroll department of Lothian Regional Council in 1986. For the first half day I was sure they were winding me up, because the principle payroll program was 12,500 punch cards....



Wasn't that antiquated equipment in 86?


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## psikeyhackr

-K2- said:


>



I used to have one of those chairs.  They don't break like today's crap.


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## psikeyhackr

My first hard drive was 20 megabytes for $600.


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## farntfar

and weighed half a ton.


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## Cathbad

My first computer was a 5.25" floppy thingy, $905 from Sears.

Hated it... went back to my Selectric 3.

First desktop I ever worked on was a Wang, with a - I'm not sure... 18"? floppy.  A  USArmy mistake.  Took forever to load (step 1, disk 1) then you had to double the time, loading a program (step 2, disc 2).  By the time it was ready to use, I'd have been done with the projects I needed to do, using my Selectric.


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## Cathbad

Then the stupid Army went and bought those stoopid scan-pens.  "Look!  You can scan a whole page onto the screen!"

> One line at a time...
> Then correct the mistakes...
> Then realize the finished product is incompatible with your print program.

Wonderful tool!


----------



## reiver33

Parson said:


> Wasn't that antiquated equipment in 86?



It was obsolete, but worked, and the current management had grown up with it (these were the days of career path within a single organisation) and were comfortable with it. It was still going strong in ‘88 when I left.


----------



## HanaBi

This was my first computer (albeit used at school). A Tandy TRS80 Model 3, from as far back as 1979/80. I can't recall the exact specs but I know it only had 4K of RAM (yes, 4*K); *a green on black screen; and a couple of either 7" or 5" floppy disk drives.

Looked the bees knees back then but it was incredibly slow, heavy and noisy!


----------



## psikeyhackr

HanaBi said:


> a green on black screen; and a couple of either 7" or 5" floppy disk drives.
> 
> Looked the bees knees back then but it was incredibly slow, heavy and noisy!



You didn't like the loud buzzing noise of floppy disk drives?  LOL

There was another model with 8" floppy drives.  The word processing department used them at a hospital I worked at in the 1980.
They got chicken bones in the keyboard.s I was amazed.


----------



## reiver33

Prior to working for Lothian Council I was with a local light engineering firm, running their job costing and stock control system. This was on a Commadore Business Machine (it said so, right on the front), with 32k memory and twin external 5 1/4 floppy drive.


----------



## Parson

Ah yes, the "good old days" with green lettered screens, two floppies, and (for me) a 20 meg hard drive. Running at 2.4 ghz (IRC). 





This is what my first computer looked like. Yep! True Blue IBM, a synagogue was updating to a 286 and they gave us/me this. Worked well for years and years, but soon it seemed SOOOOO SLOOOOOW.


----------



## HanaBi

Sinclair ZX81.

My first home computer, bought for £69.99 in 1981 from WH Smiths. I also had to buy a cassette recorder to save and load games. Also bought some computer magazines like "ZX Computing" and would spend hours copying gaming code line by line, and as soon as I clicked "Run" the game would crash without me saving the game to tape first!

Shortly after I bought the 16K RAM pack and the thermal printer (with the "silver" paper). Great fun, especially with the games on offer like "3D Monster Maze" and some text-only adventure games


----------



## Ursa major

Parson said:


> Running at 2.4 ghz (IRC)


I doubt there was anything giga about the Hertz on an IBM PC. It was more likely the be X.Y MHz, where X was a low single digit number.


----------



## Vladd67

HanaBi said:


> Sinclair ZX81.
> 
> My first home computer, bought for £69.99 in 1981 from WH Smiths. I also had to buy a cassette recorder to save and load games. Also bought some computer magazines like "ZX Computing" and would spend hours copying gaming code line by line, and as soon as I clicked "Run" the game would crash without me saving the game to tape first!
> 
> Shortly after I bought the 16K RAM pack and the thermal printer (with the "silver" paper). Great fun, especially with the games on offer like "3D Monster Maze" and some text-only adventure games


Did you paint a stripe on the cassette player’s volume control so you could easily use it?


----------



## Pyan

I've still got my Spectrum's thermal printer, and a box of paper rolls to go with it...


----------



## Parson

Ursa major said:


> I doubt there was anything giga about the Hertz on an IBM PC.



dah ..... 2.4 Mhz


----------



## Cathbad

HanaBi said:


> This was my first computer (albeit used at school). A Tandy TRS80 Model 3, from as far back as 1979/80. I can't recall the exact specs but I know it only had 4K of RAM (yes, 4*K); *a green on black screen; and a couple of either 7" or 5" floppy disk drives.
> 
> Looked the bees knees back then but it was incredibly slow, heavy and noisy!


Gads I hated these!  No one who typed over 60wpm could use the slow-*ss things!!


----------



## reiver33

In the 90s the first server I built was a 486x100 with 16meg and was considered a monster.


----------



## Venusian Broon

reiver33 said:


> In the 90s the first server I built was a 486x100 with 16meg and was considered a monster.



In about 1981 I remember programing with a ZX80 and running out of memory just typing in a program. But then it had a huge 1k. 16 Meg would be a supercomputer at that time. 

It's amazing how for granted we take todays computer's massive storage spaces!


----------



## Graymalkin

Good lord. Time machine...
Just tap on the link below...








						Commodore PET 2001
					

An online emulator of the Commodore PET 2001 computer. Original JavaScript emulation code by Thomas Skibo (2014), revised for interface enhancements by Norbert Landsteiner (2017-2022).




					www.masswerk.at


----------



## HanaBi

After learning all about Sinclair Basic and Machine Code on the ZX81 and Spectrum machines. I upscaled to what I still consider to be a "proper" home computer - the Sharp MZ80A in 1983.

Not only was it fully integrated (keyboard, cassette deck and monitor) but had a fairly decent 48K of RAM (good for the times) and a decent processor. Still had a green on black screen with some lumpen graphic resolution and basic sounds. 

But what I liked most was how easy it was to load and save games and other applications too and from cassette tape. No more fiddling about with volume levels and hoping for the best. And the keyboard was pretty excellent too, which made for writing programs and learning new languages like Super-Basic, Pascal Interpreter and Disassemblers.


----------



## Danny McG

A bargain


----------



## HareBrain

@dannymcg , @pyan posted that same ad in this thread ten days ago, and you "liked" it!!

Maybe your own hard drive needs replacing  ...


----------



## farntfar

It's called mirroring your disks.


----------



## Robert Zwilling

I still have my slide rule but I lost the leather case it was stored in. Smart HP calculators were okay to use during tests, the only trick was being able to afford one. I had one of those Sinclair computers and soldered a keyboard to it, didn't like the little keyboard. One of these days I will have to get a bluetooth keyboard for the phone. I have several black model 500 rotary phones, they work great when the power goes out. Might even have a yellow one somewhere. Couple of old electric fans with a simple screen made of a few 16 gauge wires covering the blades, you can stick your hand inside the cage. I guess it was there to protect the fan blades.


----------



## Dave

I still have a slide rule in the plastic sheaf it came in, but I'm tired of all this computing stuff. Here is some real High Tech?


----------



## Dave

And here is something joyful for winter evenings... but no Game of Thrones to watch yet.


----------



## Danny McG

HareBrain said:


> @dannymcg , @pyan posted that same ad in this thread ten days ago, and you "liked" it!!
> 
> Maybe your own hard drive needs replacing  ...


I realised that after I'd posted it, just too late to edit. 
I was thinking when I put it up "I've saw this recently" but I couldn't think where!


----------



## Danny McG

Anyways, I feel this ad was a bit misleading, IMO they were promoting a TV set that's ugly


----------



## HanaBi

An who can forget (regrettably), Amstrad's emailer telephone device!

Developed at the turn of the millennium by Alan Sugar's faltering Amstrad company. It was an emailing messenger machine that you attached to your home landline to browse the web and create emails via the built-in LCD (this was in the days before mobile phones could send and receive emails). This device wasn't very mobile but the concept was there - the only problem was that it had to be plugged into a phone socket.

Cheap device, but expensive to use as I recall (the company I used to work for bought half a dozen for a proof-of-concept); slow and hugely unreliable. And probably helped sink the Amstrad name!


----------



## Cathbad

dannymcg said:


> Anyways, I feel this ad was a bit misleading, IMO they were promoting a TV set that's ugly
> View attachment 51892


I would have loved this!!


----------



## Dave

The incredible shape of things to come...





The hovercraft tank and hovercraft ocean liner are pretty incredible. Imagine instead of Steampunk with Zeppelins everywhere, there was mid-20th Century alternative reality with Hovercraft everywhere?


----------



## Dave

Here's an idea! What if electricity could assume the burden of an unpopular domestic task?


----------



## reiver33

My first calculator needed 4 x AA batteries and sported a VAT button, preset to the current rate. And, no, it couldn't be reprogrammed.


----------



## Pyan

An ingenious solution to a short-lived problem - lack of aircraft fuel capacity...


----------



## HanaBi

Back in the late 70s early 80s I was a big fan of Sir Clive Sinclair (not least for his ZX80, ZX81 and Spectrum computers). As such I was suckered into buying some of his other offerings (see below)

The Black Watch was pretty cool back in the 70s because LED watches were all the rage back then.

The calculator was also very useful for my "O" level mathematics lessons at school (a step up from the old slide rule and log book, even though calculators were banned in exams - which never made any sense to me!)

The C5 - less said about that the better! Although to be honest the concept was good; but the practicalities less so.


----------



## Danny McG




----------



## Venusian Broon

You tell kids now that this: 





Kept us occupied as children for hours....

....and they wouldn't believe you.


----------



## Venusian Broon

Actually here's a toy I had, that after about five minutes (including time setting up) I couldn't believe we bought (it was _cr*p) _:


----------



## Parson

Venusian Broon said:


> You tell kids now that this:
> 
> View attachment 51909
> Kept us occupied as children for hours....
> 
> ....and they wouldn't believe you.


They are still on the shelves and still being sold.


----------



## HanaBi

I remember the original Thunderbirds as a kid back in the 60s and 70s, and my favourite was Thunderbird 2. And one Christmas my parents bought me Tracey Island and model of T2, along with one or two of the laden vehicles. 

Great fun, up until my grandmother stepped on it


----------



## Vladd67

Venusian Broon said:


> Actually here's a toy I had, that after about five minutes (including time setting up) I couldn't believe we bought (it was _cr*p) _:
> 
> View attachment 51910


I had that, I believe I used the nylon thread in it to create a Lego cable car run.


----------



## Venusian Broon

Vladd67 said:


> I had that, I believe I used the nylon thread in it to create a Lego cable car run.



Precisely...you wouldn't use it for the intended purchase


----------



## Pyan

dannymcg said:


> View attachment 51908


Umm - this is part of an art project for retro promotional posters, dating from 2010...

ALT/1977: If Today's Gadgets Had Been Made in the 70s


----------



## -K2-

Venusian Broon said:


> You tell kids now that this:
> 
> View attachment 51909
> Kept us occupied as children for hours....
> 
> ....and they wouldn't believe you.



That's one of those futuristic hi-tech toys...  There were simpler things:






K2


----------



## Dave

-K2- said:


> That's one of those futuristic hi-tech toys...  There were simpler things:


Indeed, and when you needed a new set of wheels for the BMX track...


----------



## Danny McG




----------



## Pyan

...and if you get tired of walking:





or for those longer journeys:


----------



## Pyan

Oh dear, Mr Gates...


----------



## HanaBi

I vaguely remember those very old acoustic coupler phone modems with a very slow baud rate, noisy tranfers and unstable connections.


----------



## reiver33

Ah, the old 14.4k modem - how we drooled over the rare and wonderful 56k when it was announced...


----------



## Anthoney

I remember waiting to upgrade my expensive 300 baud modem to a more expensive 1200 baud that was coming out.


----------



## Danny McG




----------



## HanaBi

OMG, software p0rn!

I find myself more attracted to the W95 OS than Ms Aniston - which cannot be right! 

Have never seen the video, and I have to say I really must try and track it down via a P2P and see how our two Friends can sex up this creaky old operating system!


----------



## Parson

Windows 95 one of the worst ever.


----------



## Danny McG

Parson said:


> Windows 95 one of the worst ever.


I remember it well, my first experience with Windows


----------



## Dave

The Sinclair Digital Car Clock (fits inside steering wheel and only £9.95)


----------



## Ursa major

*wonders if the Car Clock was airbag-compatible....*

​


----------



## HanaBi

pyan said:


> Oh dear, Mr Gates...
> 
> View attachment 51995



Is that Mike Read?


----------



## Danny McG

HanaBi said:


> Is that Mike Read?


It appears to be a USA advert so probably not


----------



## HanaBi

Parson said:


> Windows 95 one of the worst ever.



95 was pretty decent, and was certainly a big leap in user friendliness compared to W3.1x. I certainly welcomed the gui


----------



## HanaBi

dannymcg said:


> It appears to be a USA advert so probably not



Yeah, that's what I thought; but whoever he is he's a dead ringer for Read


----------



## Dave

"This is the most exciting evolution in television since Logie Baird first demonstrated the feasibility of television 40 years ago!!!"


----------



## HanaBi

The *Atari 2600 VCS* first saw the light of day in the late 70s, and brought arcade games like Asteroids and Space Invaders into the home.

I still have mine, along with one working joystick and about 20 games, including the immortal Pong!


----------



## Dave

We had a cheaper knock-off version of Pong. I remember it was something called "Grandstand." I can't be sure anymore but i think it was this:


----------



## Danny McG

The screen size!


----------



## psikeyhackr

The sea level rise.


----------



## Danny McG

Was this real or some kind of internet fake?


----------



## Pyan

Seems to be genuine - The 1950s Science Kit That Had Real Uranium

Things have been lauded in the past that would horrify today's H&S culture. Take Asbestos:





Or even sugar:


----------



## Pyan

Back to the tech:


----------



## Anthoney

I just built a new pc today.  The first since 2005.  I feel like old technology.


----------



## HanaBi

Back in the late 70s early 80s there was always a two-way battle for & hearts and minds of video recorder customers - VHS and Betamax; but there was a third format trying to muscle in on the party- Video 2000!

Philips & Grundig were the main players with their sleek and futuristic recorders, and the quality of the tape recordings were often superior to both their peers. 

However, both the V-2000 players and blank cassette tapes were expensive, unreliable and not many video distribution companies bothered to release films onto that format. As such Video 2000 more or less died by the end of the 80s


----------



## Dave




----------



## Danny McG

I wanna go on this trip, what a fun-filled family day out!


----------



## -K2-

_*Smithereens...*_ Genuine atoms too, not fake ones.  You just know it's gonna' be awesome! 

Actually, I'd pay $30,000 contrary to their $3 to go back in time and watch it.  Fun for the whole family!

K2


----------



## Vertigo

dannymcg said:


> I wanna go on this trip, what a fun-filled family day out!
> View attachment 52265


The really worrying thing is that they appear to have been firing off test explosions 6 days a week, every day but Sunday! Eeeek!


----------



## Venusian Broon

dannymcg said:


> I wanna go on this trip, what a fun-filled family day out!
> View attachment 52265



Looks like a spoof concocted for something like the video game Fallout. They definitely were not exploding nuclear weapons on a daily basis....


----------



## Dave

Pity, but you could always go to see this *Theatre of the Atom* for the _man in the street_ instead:






It looks pretty hair raising.


----------



## Dave

Or, you could travel by the Atom Queen


----------



## Danny McG

Dave said:


> Or, you could travel by the Atom Queen
> 
> View attachment 52287


I noticed the article refers to *Britains air giant, The Brabazon*, this amazing plane would be so big it could take one hundred passengers across the Atlantic!








						Bristol Brabazon - Wikipedia
					






					en.m.wikipedia.org


----------



## Pyan

It's not the future until...


----------



## Danny McG

A radio with a built in TV!


----------



## Pyan

▲ Adds a new facet to Marxism...

I'd love one of these 1961 air-conditioned lawnmowers ..

................................................


----------



## Venusian Broon

pyan said:


> ▲ Adds a new facet to Marxism...
> 
> I'd love one of these 1961 air-conditioned lawnmowers ..
> 
> ................................................View attachment 52299


Probably needs to have cockpit so that you don't get irradiated from the atomic engine in the back.


----------



## Dave

Some more futuristic car design ideas from Ford. They look a little clunky to me - not your classic Ford designs. 

The top design has an atomic power plant in the back remarkably similar to the 1960's TV _Batman_ Batmobile but without the rocket power. They envisage electric charging stations to replace petrol stations (it is 2019 and some boroughs in London still have only 15 charging points in the whole borough.) The Land Cruiser, below it, looks like a cross between a _Captain Scarlet _SPC (Spectrum Patrol Car) and SPV (Special Patrol Vehicle.) They also mention Hovercraft, and it is amazing how popular they thought hovercraft were going to be.


----------



## WarriorMouse

pyan said:


> ▲ Adds a new facet to Marxism...
> 
> I'd love one of these 1961 air-conditioned lawnmowers ..
> 
> ................................................View attachment 52299


If you think about it .....

That's what  combine harvester's look like today


----------



## -K2-

The above is NOT a single prop helicopter invention (that would kill you in seconds due to the unbalanced forces).  It is a bearing supported/spin-control option for a parachute, based on the characteristics of a maple seed.

K2


----------



## HanaBi

Rolf Harris and his "electric finger" playing his Stylophone back in the early 70s

Nice idea, but the sound was extremely tinny - although that was more testament to my poor playing of it than anything


----------



## Danny McG

HanaBi said:


> Rolf Harris and his "electric finger" playing his Stylophone back in the early 70s
> 
> Nice idea, but the sound was extremely tinny - although that was more testament to my poor playing of it than anything


I'm sure I saw a proper orchestra playing once and it had a stylophone section, thinking back it was probably on Blue Peter or Magpie


----------



## Danny McG

I can't remember seeing these in the UK, I would have got one


----------



## Danny McG

And this Philips 1950's car record player


----------



## Pyan

Really, danny? And you 'liked' it, too...

Old Tech thread


----------



## Danny McG

pyan said:


> Really, danny? And you 'liked' it, too...
> 
> Old Tech thread


That's twice recently I've done that, in this very same thread!

I'm gonna look next for an early electric pencil sharpener...*nobody else find one!*


----------



## Dave

This is Camp Century - a whole city and US Army Camp built beneath Greenland Ice Cap in the early 1960's during the Cold War. Hundreds of people lived and worked there in a state-of-the-art nuclear powered city, It was then abandoned after the ice began to shift and the underground tunnels were blocked. The nuclear reactor was hastily decommissioned and removed but the nuclear waste was left behind, buried under tonnes of ice. Now it has begun to melt due to rising temperatures, and the waste is liable to re-surface and become a real danger.


----------



## Dave




----------



## Danny McG

Dave said:


> View attachment 52819


In the print at the bottom it mentions an '*electric flesh* *brush!' *does anyone know of such a device?


----------



## Vladd67




----------



## Danny McG

Well done Vladd, they were very inventive!
I notice this implement quickly  removes those "back aches" peculiar to ladies (as it says in the blurb)


----------



## Venusian Broon

This was the first 'music system' that I ever had:






A full six buttons and one volume dial. Hi-tech '77 style.


----------



## Danny McG

Venusian Broon said:


> This was the first 'music system' that I ever had:
> 
> View attachment 52846
> 
> A full six buttons and one volume dial. Hi-tech '77 style.


I had one as well! The same make/model I think


----------



## Alex The G and T

'77?!?  I would have thought '67.  Or maybe it was state-of-the-art portable in '77.

By '77, I had a Sony 7 inch reel to reel stereo tape deck, patched into the turntable and integrated reciever/amp.

Aahhhh piracy was so easy in those days.  Borrow an LP.  Listen to it and copy it at the same time.  A 1200 foot 1.5 mil tape would hold an entire LP on each side.  I could squeeze three LP's onto two sides of an 1800 foot 1 mil tape.


----------



## -K2-

It's surprising how so many people 40 and under have no idea what these amazing pieces of technology are:













@ctg ; I think I found your grand-dad






K2


----------



## ctg

He's so big!!!


----------



## mosaix

dannymcg said:


> I noticed the article refers to *Britains air giant, The Brabazon*, this amazing plane would be so big it could take one hundred passengers across the Atlantic!
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Bristol Brabazon - Wikipedia
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> en.m.wikipedia.org



I seem to remember that there was an ‘exploded diagram’ of the  Barabazon in an Eagle annual in the late 50s. Very impressive. I seem to remember it had bunks for the passengers much like sleeper trains.


----------



## Danny McG

Apparently this was a genuine thing back in 1955 ... I can't suss out if the radio was dynamo powered, "pedal faster to play it louder"


----------



## Ursa major

dannymcg said:


> I can't suss out if the radio was dynamo powered, "pedal faster to play it louder"


From Wikipedia:





> The Huffy "RadioBike"® (one word) featured an electron-tube radio built into the tank and an antenna and battery pack on the rear carrier.


(my underlining)


----------



## Anthoney

dannymcg said:


> Apparently this was a genuine thing back in 1955 ... I can't suss out if the radio was dynamo powered, "pedal faster to play it louder"
> View attachment 52902




That thing is still cool.


----------



## -K2-

Ursa major said:


> From Wikipedia... my underlining)




"Power / Pak" a minor give-away...






Why you were to "See the other side for service."  Those pesky tubes, conveniently located as a thigh heater :






K2


----------



## Dave

Why has no one commented on the pink rabbit's foot key fob? Were pink rabbits also "a genuine thing back in 1955"?


----------



## Danny McG

Dave said:


> Why has no one commented on the pink rabbit's foot key fob? Were pink rabbits also "a genuine thing back in 1955"?


I went a-looking Dave, and I did indeed find reference to a dyed pink rabbits foot in 1956, however this was in a blog article that also uses the N word (common in those days it seems) so I'm not sure that I should post a link


----------



## Dave

Actually, YouTube has lots of pink rabbits. Even using safe food dye, I'm not sure that it is a humane thing to do, so I won't give them any promotion with a link here.


----------



## Danny McG

Dave said:


> Even using safe food dye, I'm not sure that it is a humane thing to do


And it's not very nice chopping one of their feet off to make a lucky charm. No wonder they do the bunny hop


----------



## farntfar

The foot was actually from an elephant during an under-cover operation.
Sure ain't using that disguise again!


----------



## Pyan

Bet you won't lose this down the back of the sofa!


----------



## Pyan

Art Deco laundry van built in the 1930s by Holland Coachcraft of Govan, Scotland.





And here's another:


----------



## farntfar

pyan said:


>



I remember my grandfather inventing a tv remote, a bit earlier than this.
It worked some of the time but failed on the fine tuning.

Basically it was a long stick with a rubber bung on the end.

(PS note how they've cut the right hand side off the TV (and her shins/feet) in the photo; ie where all the knobs and dials are. Presumably the other half of the "universal remote" fits over these and twiddles and pushes them on the tv itself)


----------



## Dave

farntfar said:


> ...note how they've cut the right hand side off the TV (and her shins/feet) in the photo...


She really has no feet. That's why she needs the remote!


----------



## Pyan

Sorry, farntfar, already (genuinely) been patented... TV control device


----------



## Ursa major

pyan said:


> View attachment 52920


An early, not to say unique, example of a private police organisation being very honest about its poor arrest statistics in the publicity it puts on its vans....

​


----------



## farntfar

pyan said:


> Sorry, farntfar, already (genuinely) been patented... TV control device



It was definitely before 1976 when your patent was filed, and it was in England.

It wasn't his only invention either.
Most of them were, of course, rubbish, but if he'd only taken a copyright on saying "This time next year we could be millionnaires." before Del Boy stole it, he might really have been.


----------



## Vertigo

dannymcg said:


> Apparently this was a genuine thing back in 1955 ... I can't suss out if the radio was dynamo powered, "pedal faster to play it louder"
> View attachment 52902


Anyone notice the distinct absence of brakes on that bike. Eeeek!


----------



## Ursa major

Given the lack of gearing and the absence of obvious brakes, perhaps braking required using the pedals to stop the wheels going round.


----------



## -K2-

Vertigo said:


> Anyone notice the distinct absence of brakes on that bike. Eeeek!



It I suspect uses "coaster brakes.'  By turning the peddles backwards just slightly and applying pressure, an internal drum on the rear wheel about the axle is the break.  They're actually very effective.






K2


----------



## -K2-

So I'm going to mention something that is actually old technology that most folks will never even know exists, but, most people will make use of them at one time or another.  It's called a 'sprag clutch.'  A guy here turned me on to these due to their ingenious but simplistic design.  The backlash, how much the cone rotates before the clutch engages, is virtually nill/zero/imperceptible.  It really is an amazing piece of engineering.






*I believe* (yet can't confirm), that this is a Formsprag Co. design from WWII.  There are other types using springs and so on, yet nothing else works quite so well, so simply, yet amazingly due to the ingenious shape of the sprag.  History of Formsprag Clutch

K2


----------



## Pyan

More Art Deco tech - a 1930s custom KJ Henderson motorbike...





And a late 30's GM Futureliner truck, more a concept vehicle than a production item:


----------



## Parson

Oh Wow! @pyan  that morocycle is to die for! I'll bet it's worth a mint! The camper? panel truck? bus? is pretty cool too.


----------



## Dave

The Atom's Power for Peace: Diagrammatic drawings of a locomotive train, a power house and an ocean liner.


----------



## M. Robert Gibson

dannymcg said:


> I'm sure I saw a proper orchestra playing once and it had a stylophone section


----------



## Alex The G and T

The Nun would be bashing the student organist's knuckles with a ruler for such sloppy fingering.


----------



## BigBadBob141

REF: Pyan.
That 1930s custom built motorbike looks a bit like Judge Dredds Law Master!


----------



## Pyan

Dave said:


> The Atom's Power for Peace: Diagrammatic drawings of a locomotive train, a power house and an ocean liner.
> 
> View attachment 52964


There was a nuclear powered passenger/ cargo ship built: the NS (Nuclear Ship) Savannah, back in the late Fifties. She was decommissioned in 1971, and is now a museum ship in Baltimore.





NS Savannah Virtual Tour


----------



## psikeyhackr

pyan said:


> There was a nuclear powered passenger/ cargo ship built: the NS (Nuclear Ship) Savannah, back in the late Fifties. She was decommissioned in 1971, and is now a museum ship in Baltimore.
> 
> NS Savannah Virtual Tour



I wonder if a nuclear ship with a Thorium molten salt design would make more sense.


----------



## KiraAnn

Back in the 60’s we bought an old house in Telluride - before it became the hangout of the rich. Among other things we found in that old house was this gadget.






Pretty cool piece of engineering. And a great toy.


----------



## Phyrebrat

@pyan s Art Deco vehicles are a thing(s) of beauty! I know what internet rabbit hole I’ll be falling through the rest of the day.

pH


----------



## Vince W

-K2- said:


> It's surprising how so many people 40 and under have no idea what these amazing pieces of technology are:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> @ctg ; I think I found your grand-dad
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> K2



Anyone who has every played guitar in a semi-serious way lusts after the warm overdriven tones of a tube amp.





and my grandparents had one of these (well similar):





The sound was astounding.


----------



## Venusian Broon

Vince W said:


> Anyone who has every played guitar in a semi-serious way lusts after the warm overdriven tones of a tube amp.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> and my grandparents had one of these (well similar):
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> The sound was astounding.


Yep all guitarists really want the warm sound of 'tube amplifiers and the smoothness of analogue effects pedals. Probably. If they can afford it. (In their defence Digital racks of effects are pretty cheap and do tons of stuff.) 

At least I do.


----------



## Phyrebrat

Vince W said:


> Anyone who has every played guitar in a semi-serious way lusts after the warm overdriven tones of a tube amp.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> and my grandparents had one of these (well similar):
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> The sound was astounding.



As a vocalist, I used an AKG Solidtube or RODE NT1 with one of these babies Joemeek VC1Q. Long live Joemeek!






pH


----------



## M. Robert Gibson

Found an article on this very theme








						Obsolete technologies that will baffle modern children - in pictures
					






					www.telegraph.co.uk
				




I'm not sure all of them would baffle though


----------



## Vince W

M. Robert Gibson said:


> Found an article on this very theme
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Obsolete technologies that will baffle modern children - in pictures
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> www.telegraph.co.uk
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> I'm not sure all of them would baffle though


I think this technology will baffle today's children more:


----------



## Dave

Vince W said:


> I think this technology will baffle today's children more


And the thing was, when you actually didn't know someone's number it was usually in a directory that you weren't given.

I'm not sure that "baffled" is the right word either. When my kids first saw an old telephone with a dial, they weren't sure about how to use the dial, but a keyboard is still a keyboard, and a camera is still a camera.


----------



## Parson

I can say my grandkids --- not one of the 8 --- has ever used nor, I think, seen a rotary phone, yet the youngest just over two picks up the ancient pull toy telephone and proceeds to play with it like a phone. ---- You never know...


----------



## MaxiPower

Life before the internet was awesome... but that feeling once you first got the internet was even better. Id love to experience it again. Where the possibilities are endless. Now its taken for granted.


----------



## reiver33

Life before the internet meant libraries, or at least reading.


----------



## Anthoney

I ran out and bought one of these when they were first released.


----------



## psikeyhackr

reiver33 said:


> Life before the internet meant libraries, or at least reading.



Now we can wade through more bullsh** faster.  What do you mean the percentage of bullsh** has risen?


----------



## Vince W

psikeyhackr said:


> Now we can wade through more bullsh** faster.  What do you mean the percentage of bullsh** has risen?


Exponentially!


----------



## The Ace

Anthoney said:


> I ran out and bought one of these when they were first released.



I saw what kodak were trying to do at the time, and waited for the bump.

While the disc was a flop (the negative was just too small) the improvements to film that made it possible were astounding when carried over to 35mm.

What got me was Advanced Photo System (APS) which must've taken millions to develop, only for digital to remove its market overnight.


----------



## Parson

The Ace said:


> I saw what kodak were trying to do at the time, and waited for the bump.
> 
> While the disc was a flop (the negative was just too small) the improvements to film that made it possible were astounding when carried over to 35mm.
> 
> What got me was Advanced Photo System (APS) which must've taken millions to develop, only for digital to remove its market overnight.



You do realize that Kodak had the technology for digital photography first, but did not pursue it? I don't know why, but I suspect that they didn't see it as anything that would help their business, and in that they were right. 

Photos: The history of the digital camera


----------



## Vertigo

Parson said:


> You do realize that Kodak had the technology for digital photography first, but did not pursue it? I don't know why, but I suspect that they didn't see it as anything that would help their business, and in that they were right.
> 
> Photos: The history of the digital camera


I think they didn't realise its full potential and, to be fair, very few did at that time. Fuji did but that's about it. Professional photographers were convinced it would never deliver the quality that film did. SF authors, right up until digital imagery became commonplace, still had chemical photography in the far future. A classic for that was Asimov in The Caves of Steel; his robots had positronic brains, but the one of the points that the whole crime case of that book hinged on was the fogging of camera film by radiation. There are many things that have been missed over the years by future predictors, but I've always been fascinated by how blind we all were to the future of digital imagery, especially as I work in that field and we are still printing using a chemical printer! Though we do print from digital images! Our printer exposes photographic paper with a laser and it is then processed chemically. 

Disclosure: we'll probably be going to pro ink jet within the next 12 months.


----------



## Ursa major

Vertigo said:


> we do print from digital images! Our printer exposes photographic paper with a laser


You old traditionalist you....


----------



## psikeyhackr

Vince W said:


> Exponentially!



I can't do the math.  Too much bullsh** in my eyes.


----------



## Danny McG

'Internet' from the early 1960's


----------



## Ursa major

So Jen Barber from _The IT Crowd_ was correct: the Internet _was_ contained in a small box....


----------



## Dave

It looks like something a Terminator brought back from the future. Why else would they require a "Magnetic Earphone"? The amazing thing about these 1960 transistor radios is how quickly we forgot how small they were and then how revolutionary we believed the SONY Walkman was in the 1980s. I also don't live far from that address. It's been rebuilt now and is a carpet shop and convenience store.


----------



## Danny McG

There's a hi-fi version as well


----------



## Anthoney

Internet for the hearing impaired and it takes up less space than the braille version.


----------



## Danny McG

Anthoney said:


> Internet for the hearing impaired and it takes up less space than the braille version.


Why would a hearing impaired person use Braille?


----------



## Anthoney

One's for the deaf people.  One's for the blind.  That's leaves the regular version for us dumb people.


----------



## Peter V

Commodore Pet, the first computer I used.

I remember being blown away when the school upgraded the cassette storage to a floppy disc drive!


----------



## Vince W

Peter V said:


> Commodore Pet, the first computer I used.
> 
> I remember being blown away when the school upgraded the cassette storage to a floppy disc drive!
> 
> View attachment 54296


Same here. There was nothing finer than the warm tones of a cassette desperately seeking the file you wanted. Unless it was the ear shattering thunder of the teletype printing said file.


----------



## Dave

Peter V said:


> Commodore Pet


Also the first computer I used. We never upgraded from cassette though.


----------



## Cathbad

Peter V said:


> Commodore Pet, the first computer I used.
> 
> I remember being blown away when the school upgraded the cassette storage to a floppy disc drive!
> 
> View attachment 54296


*loads shotgun*


----------



## Cathbad

The Selectric III was better than all things Commodore!


----------



## Dave

I had a Smith Corona Personal Word Processor before I finally bought a personal computer. Being able to type without needing tipex felt like entering a whole new world. I would have never have dreamed that only a few years later you would be able to create and format newspapers, graphs and charts at home. When I wrote my dissertation in the mid 1980's I had to draw graphs by hand. The ability of Excel to produce instant pie charts would have seemed like black magic, and to put them on a Powerpoint and show them on a white board....


----------



## reiver33

My mother used an Amstrad word processor with its non-standard disks, but the local computer shop was able to somehow port her documents to a floppy when she got her first PC.


----------



## Vince W

Cathbad said:


> The Selectric III was better than all things Commodore!
> 
> View attachment 54297


I rate this tech 4.7 on the Richter Scale.


----------



## -K2-

Who remembers what this is for besides as a battle axe outside the bar?  Believe it or not, many people today, don't realize you can use this yourself even though their are instructions with it.






Here's something else they can't believe is for everyone to use... I won't show the wrench to change the filter.  That might be too much 






K2


----------



## Alex The G and T

That's what a Triple-A card is for.


----------



## Parson

And believe it or not this is rapidly becoming old tech.


----------



## MikeAnderson

Hey kids, this may come as a shock, but televisions used to be the size and weight of a casket with a body stuffed in it. I introduce to you, the Curtis Mathes. The only 13" television set that weighed more than your car. No USB or HDMI ports, no smart home options, and the only way it was ever wireless is when your dad made you get up and change the channel. Plus, it generated enough heat to cook a chicken on a spit. I actually witnessed one of these things short out and catch on fire as a kid.


----------



## -K2-

@MikeAnderson You need to also show them what's under those end or mid top lid(s)... Likely a turntable and receiver:







That said... Tell me that you wouldn't want this in your home, right now!  Oh sure, you might fit in a new monitor where the CRT resides, but the design to me below is a gas 














There is even an add-on top option:







Of course, the simpler option does have its pluses 






K2


----------



## Lumens

Suddenly, having my telephone/telex/typewriter/fax machine/television/hifi/record collection/video games/video player/library/music studio, and you lot in my pocket seems like it's not such a bad idea after all.


----------



## BigBadBob141

I can remember someone my mother knew had a radiogram, old valve AM (LW/MW) radio coupled to a record player/gramophone !
I always wanted one, but I guess we were to poor!
Have noticed an annoying trend lately on film and tv, people calling a gramophone a phonograph, they both use the same recording tech. but are completely different machines, one playing a disc while the other a cylinder.
It's a bit like calling a typewriter a word processor!


----------



## BigBadBob141

One bit of old tech I have just remembered, which I would think now days would be very illegal!
Does anyone remember the toy called Jet-X, basically it was a tiny solid rocket motor designed to fit on flying model aircraft/gliders!
The rocket ( if I remember correctly ) had a base that was fitted on its side which in turn was fitted to the craft.
It was powered by solid fuel pellets, these fitted in the rocket case behind a wire mesh and were ignited with a match.
The rocket burned for a few seconds, launching your plane high into the air, goodness knows how many boys got their fingers burned in the process!
This was back in the fifties and sixties, my brother had a kit and I remember him lighting it while clamped to my dad's work bench, don't know if he actually used it on a model!
He was a good balsa wood airo modeler, I never had the skill or patience or brains for this, my only models were courtesy of Airfix.


----------



## Vladd67

BigBadBob141 said:


> One bit of old tech I have just remembered, which I would think now days would be very illegal!
> Does anyone remember the toy called Jet-X, basically it was a tiny solid rocket motor designed to fit on flying model aircraft/gliders!
> The rocket ( if I remember correctly ) had a base that was fitted on its side which in turn was fitted to the craft.
> It was powered by solid fuel pellets, these fitted in the rocket case behind a wire mesh and were ignited with a match.
> The rocket burned for a few seconds, launching your plane high into the air, goodness knows how many boys got their fingers burned in the process!
> This was back in the fifties and sixties, my brother had a kit and I remember him lighting it while clamped to my dad's work bench, don't know if he actually used it on a model!
> He was a good balsa wood airo modeler, I never had the skill or patience or brains for this, my only models were courtesy of Airfix.


My dad had a book on how to make balsa wood models published by the Eagle comic. Of course one model was of Dan Dare’s space ship which you could fit to a line and fly it down the garden like a sci fi cable car. This model was powered by an engine which sounds very much like a Jet- X.


----------



## Vince W

Sounds a bit like the model rocketry kits I used to build.


BigBadBob141 said:


> One bit of old tech I have just remembered, which I would think now days would be very illegal!
> Does anyone remember the toy called Jet-X, basically it was a tiny solid rocket motor designed to fit on flying model aircraft/gliders!
> The rocket ( if I remember correctly ) had a base that was fitted on its side which in turn was fitted to the craft.
> It was powered by solid fuel pellets, these fitted in the rocket case behind a wire mesh and were ignited with a match.
> The rocket burned for a few seconds, launching your plane high into the air, goodness knows how many boys got their fingers burned in the process!
> This was back in the fifties and sixties, my brother had a kit and I remember him lighting it while clamped to my dad's work bench, don't know if he actually used it on a model!
> He was a good balsa wood airo modeler, I never had the skill or patience or brains for this, my only models were courtesy of Airfix.


It's alive!
Jet-x Model Jet Planes & Engines – Fly Higher Fly Faster


----------



## psikeyhackr

Cathbad said:


> The Selectric III was better than all things Commodore!
> 
> View attachment 54297


Trying to replace those ribbons that make the type ball tilt and turn was a real pain in the ass.  I never did get any good at it.


----------



## psikeyhackr

-K2- said:


> Who remembers what this is for besides as a battle axe outside the bar?  Believe it or not, many people today, don't realize you can use this yourself even though their are instructions with it.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Here's something else they can't believe is for everyone to use... I won't show the wrench to change the filter.  That might be too much



Exactly like my 1967 Dodge Dart.


----------



## Cathbad

psikeyhackr said:


> Trying to replace those ribbons that make the type ball tilt and turn was a real pain in the ass.  I never did get any good at it.


Seriously?  I found it rather easy.  Typing on a Selectric is still easier than a computer keyboard.  Interchangeable type balls were easy to change as well.  If the Selectric could save files, I'm sure I would still have one!  

But, each of us are different.


----------



## Cathbad

psikeyhackr said:


> Exactly like my 1967 Dodge Dart.


My '62 Dart was the best working/driving car I ever owned.  Of course, being 16, I gave it up for a GTO.


----------



## Anthoney

I had a 67 Rambler with a manual column transmission.  3 on the tree.  That's old tech you never see anymore.


----------



## Cathbad

The '62 Dodge Dart was a push-button automatic.  I'd never seen that before, nor have I ever seen it since!


----------



## Parson

My folks had one of these: A 61 DeSoto --- it had a push button automatic.


----------



## Pyan

And here's the dash of my old 1968 Fiat 500...


----------



## Pyan

Parson said:


> My folks had one of these: A 61 DeSoto --- it had a push button automatic.
> View attachment 54401


Why has it got tea-towel holders to the left of the wheel?


----------



## reiver33

You needed tea-towels to wipe the sweat off the vynal upholstery?


----------



## Vertigo

Parson said:


> My folks had one of these: A 61 DeSoto --- it had a push button automatic.
> View attachment 54401


That is... seriously red!



pyan said:


> And here's the dash of my old 1968 Fiat 500...
> 
> View attachment 54405


And that is something that we had when I was a kid. Every now and then we'd get up to 70 (downhill with the wind behind us). I remember my brother and I used to stand on the passenger seat with our heads out of the canvas 'sunroof'. Don't think you'd get away with that nowadays!


----------



## Dave

Vertigo said:


> Don't think you'd get away with that nowadays!


I talked with a man last week who said that he drove the milkman's electric vehicle every morning when he was eight-years-old. He had to stand up standing on the peddles to see over the dashboard. The milkman would get locked up for child abuse today. 

As kids we used to regularly sleep lying in the back of a Bedford van. I also went on Scout camp in the back of a removal van several times. Neither of those would be allowed today, but no harm ever came of it, and the risks were far less than you would imagine.


----------



## Parson

Vertigo said:


> That is... seriously red!



Our's wasn't red it was white with a golden? color along the side of the tail fins. --- But don't you love the "Buck Rogers" feel to the cock pit? ---- In serious contrast to the absolute minimalist of @pyan's Fiat. Weren't those toggles even labeled?


----------



## Anthoney

They look cool.  Super advanced retro style.  Kind of oxymoronic but still true.


----------



## farntfar

Parson said:


> Weren't those toggles even labeled?



That was so mere mortals didn't know which one engaged the hyperdrive, Parson.
These babies were fast!
Did you also notice the little star field display screen above the keyhole, cunningly disguised as an ashtray?


----------



## Alex The G and T

Once upon a time, my dad brought home a Corvair  (Unsafe at any Speed) as a loaner when his AMC Hornet was in the shop for a week.

Ohh, the Hornet was my Saturday night ride as a teenager.  Three on the Tree, ugly as sin and all plasticky inside.  Not exactly a Babe Magnet; but, at least it had a bench seat up front for snoggling.... when the shifting elbow wasn't getting all awkward, bumping into Bosoms and other rude intrusions....  But I digress.

I opened up the Boot of the Corvair, or as we Americans would say, the Trunk Lid; which, in a rear engine car is actually the "Bonnet;" or "Hood" as we say in the states,

I got a gander at the Fan belt, for a truly WTF moment.  The engineering on the fan belt was an exercise in idiocy.  the thing operated (allegedly) within two 90 degree divergent planes.  It spun all down there, around whatever, then back up over the whatsis idler, then horizontal around some popcorn popper, then around back, over the falls, back to the vertical whence it wrapped around  the Hootis, then back up to another Mobius idler.

A more modern "Serpentine" belt runs all over hell and gone driving everything from the water pump, Alternator to the AC and whatever mysterious emission control devices; but it's a more stoutly engineered piece of belting and remains, faithfully within a single plane of operation.

The only more astounding item of incomprehensible engineering I've ever seen is the inside of an 8 track audio tape.  How the hell does the tape magically pull out of the center of the reel only to wrap around the outside of the same reel.  It's Bizzarre, I tell you. It makes no sense.

But the Corvair fan belt is such a delusional piece of Floppy Belt engineering that you'd laugh in the face of anyone who tried to sell you a lawn mower rigged like that.

And this is only the top half of it:


----------



## Pyan

Vertigo said:


> That is... seriously red!
> 
> 
> And that is something that we had when I was a kid. Every now and then we'd get up to 70 (downhill with the wind behind us). I remember my brother and I used to stand on the passenger seat with our heads out of the canvas 'sunroof'. Don't think you'd get away with that nowadays!


I once drove it like that (on a gated road up in the fells) for a bet. Opened the sun roof, advanced the hand throttle Fiat 500s used to have on the column, and stuck my head and shoulders out of the roof...


----------



## Pyan

Parson said:


> Weren't those toggles even labeled?



They were fairly easy to memorise...




And here's what is amusingly referred to as the "Power Train"...




And the "performance". Note the top speed, Vertigo! Just love the speed lines on the performance/gradient graphic...


----------



## BigBadBob141

Many is the Fiat 500 I rode in the back of as a child, they weren't half cramped!


----------



## Dave

I've a friend who is 6ft 4. I can still see him trying to get into an original Mini.


----------



## WarriorMouse

Dave said:


> I've a friend who is 6ft 4. I can still see him trying to get into an original Mini.



I'm 6'4" and I owned a 69 Mini for a while. It was a hoot of a car. Bored the engine to 1293cc, gave it a hot cam and ported manifold and had a ball driving it till the body rotted out.  I did know a guy in high school who was 6' and he would drive his dad's Lotus Europa to school sometimes. Now that was hilarious!


----------



## Vertigo

I too am 6'4" and the worst car I ever tried to get into was a Triumph Spitfire. It just wasn't going to happen!   That's why many years later I bought myself a Triumph Stag instead. Now that was a car!


----------



## Pyan

Those extra three inches (of height!) must make a difference - I'm 6'1" and had no problems with my Mk 2 Spit. Mind you, I was a third of my present age, and a bit more lish in those days: didn't bother opening the door, just hopped over and slid down...


----------



## Ursa major

I'm nowhere near 6ft tall, and I recall being very cramped lying -- sitting wasn't an option -- on the back "seat" of an MGB GT.


pyan said:


> lish


...is a word I haven't heard in a _very_ long time.


----------



## Pyan

*As’t thee ‘iver sin a cuddy lowp a five bar yat? Sin thee 'as, it were a gey lish cuddy, or a gey laal yat..*.

(Have you ever seen a donkey jump over a five bar gate? If you have, it was a very agile donkey, or a very small gate...)


----------



## Pyan

Vertigo said:


> ../ That's why many years later I bought myself a Triumph Stag instead. Now that was a car!



Until the (alloy) cylinder head and the (cast iron) block parted company...


----------



## Pyan

Now here's a brilliant idea that never happened - reminds me a bit of the Thunderbird 2 pod system...


----------



## CupofJoe

pyan said:


> Now here's a brilliant idea that never happened - reminds me a bit of the Thunderbird 2 pod system...
> 
> View attachment 54519


Fiat tried to develop something like that in the 80s with the first Fiat Panda. 
They thought that if you bought a basic chassis and standard 4 seat cabin tops, then we would rent different tops when we needed them. 
I saw a design for a six seat version. They made a test piece of a cabin designed to carry two bicycles down one side and driver and passenger tandem style on the other. That looked cool.


----------



## Vertigo

pyan said:


> Until the (alloy) cylinder head and the (cast iron) block parted company...


Yes we had the original engine and to say it had overheating problems - which typically resulted in said parting problem - would be an understatement. There's a lot to be said for the people that put the Rover V8 (all aluminium) engine in.


pyan said:


> Now here's a brilliant idea that never happened - reminds me a bit of the Thunderbird 2 pod system...
> 
> View attachment 54519


Now you see this isn't so different from the Stag; it had a hard top that you could put on in Winter and then in summer you'd go with the soft top!


----------



## Pyan

Blériot 125 (1931)


----------



## Ursa major

From the Wiki article on the Blériot 125:





> When flown the following year, it displayed very poor flight characteristics and although attempts to improve it continued on into 1933, certification could not be achieved and the sole prototype was scrapped the following year.


Not a complete surprise, really.


----------



## BigBadBob141

With four tail fins and rudders it must have been hell on the legs to stear!
There was a WW2 glider the Germans built, it could carry troops plus a tank, it was huge, but they had a hell of a job towing it, first they used three ME110 fighter-bombers, then two HE111 bombers that were welded together at the wings to give it three engines!!
Finally they fitted it with engines and turned into a plane, on its first test flight it nearly crashed because it's control surfaces were so big the pilot had a hell of a job moving them.
To solve this they gave it two pilots, working in tandem, but it was slow and very easy meat for allied fighters so not many were used!!!


----------



## Foxbat

BigBadBob141 said:


> With four tail fins and rudders it must have been hell on the legs to stear!
> There was a WW2 glider the Germans built, it could carry troops plus a tank, it was huge, but they had a hell of a job towing it, first they used three ME110 fighter-bombers, then two HE111 bombers that were welded together at the wings to give it three engines!!
> Finally they fitted it with engines and turned into a plane, on its first test flight it nearly crashed because it's control surfaces were so big the pilot had a hell of a job moving them.
> To solve this they gave it two pilots, working in tandem, but it was slow and very easy meat for allied fighters so not many were used!!!


That would be the Me 321 Gigant. It eventually became the six engined Me 323 Gigant.








						Messerschmitt Me 321 Gigant - Wikipedia
					






					en.wikipedia.org


----------



## Parson

Alaska is full of float planes, and many of them were built in the 40's and 50's. They were a treat to watch during my recent vacation.


----------



## Dave

Parson said:


> Alaska is full of float planes, and many of them were built in the 40's and 50's. They were a treat to watch during my recent vacation.


I was reading a book written by a distant cousin who was a pilot (First World War, then Commercial later, secret missions with VIPs aboard in Second World War.) He worked in the Far East trying to find beaches where aircraft could land in order to open up routes there. Without concrete runways, aircraft would dig into soft soil, beaches and marshes. Flying boats were thought to be the answer for a very long time until better airports were built. They still are the only answer in more difficult to reach places such as Alaska.


----------



## Pyan

Or even New York...


----------



## reiver33

Is that the 'clipper' service, that staged via the Canaries and Bermuda?


----------



## CupofJoe

Dave said:


> I was reading a book written by a distant cousin who was a pilot (First World War, then Commercial later, secret missions with VIPs aboard in Second World War.) He worked in the Far East trying to find beaches where aircraft could land in order to open up routes there. Without concrete runways, aircraft would dig into soft soil, beaches and marshes. Flying boats were thought to be the answer for a very long time until better airports were built. They still are the only answer in more difficult to reach places such as Alaska.


Do you know the title of the book? It sounds like an interesting read...


----------



## Dave

It was actually Imperial Airways that he worked for. He opened their Bermuda to New York service in 1937.

The book is called "Pioneer Pilot" by William Armstrong, Blandford Press. 1952. I bought the book for about £10 second hand. I can see it advertised at the moment for £15. It is a really good read considering it is non-fiction, (up until the last chapter when he starts to proselytise.) He also talks about the home movies that he made during the 1930's during flights to Spain and Morocco undertaken for rich passengers. He says that he was the first person to strap such a camera on the bottom of an aircraft, though I can't verify that claim. I actually tracked down these movies to the University of Brighton, who put them online for me in their Screen Archive here: http://screenarchive.brighton.ac.uk/search/William%20Armstrong/ There are some great old films of a street procession. It also includes some family scenes in Egypt (where they lived until one of the children got sick and nearly died) and a Wedding in Surrey (lived somewhere near to Croydon Airport.)


----------



## Ursa major

I live a few miles from an old flying boat "airport", i.e. Poole Harbour.

Here's a page containing a (recent-ish) aerial photograph of the harbour and here's page containing a map showing the "runways". According to the text on that second page:





> Throughout the war and until 1948, BOAC had 600 staff in Poole to support their various flight crews and the Flying Boat services. Up to 24 of its passenger Flying Boats were based in the Harbour.
> 
> Its Marine Department had 60 more staff operating 12 high speed launches used to convey flight crews, passengers, mail and freight from Poole Quay and the Marine Terminal to the Flying Boats. There was another fleet of 14 fast launches used for Water Control - operated by the Ministry of Civil Aviation and maintained by the British Power Boat Company with its Poole base in West Quay Rd. These marked out runways, and kept them clear of all obstructions.
> 
> Sometimes small, powerful boats called pinnaces were required to assist the Flying Boats between the runways and their moorings.


----------



## Foxbat

pyan said:


> Or even New York...
> 
> View attachment 55060


Is that a civilian version of the Short Sunderland?

Not a flying boat but my favourite plane design from the thirties is the 8 seater De Havilland Dragon Rapide. They don't make 'em like this anymore.


----------



## CupofJoe

Saw one of these up close a few years ago. It flew to a small airfield [and I do mean Field]. It looked amazing and even parked up it looked faster than the Cessnas and Beechcraft around it,


----------



## Parson

That  De Havilland Dragon Rapide reminded me of probably the most successful early passenger plane. I'm not sure there's a better looking early plane than the old Ford Trimotor.


----------



## Pyan

And right at the other end of the prettiness scale to the Dragon Rapide, I give you the  1932 GeeBee Model R:


----------



## Cathbad

pyan said:


> View attachment 55130


He lost half his plane!!


----------



## Dave

Foxbat said:


> Is that a civilian version of the Short Sunderland?


I believe so, yes. It was common to make civilian versions of military designs. 

In the 1920's and 1930's only the very rich could afford to travel by plane, but it could not have been very comfortable and was certainly very drafty. A far cry from the alternative; the luxury of on ocean going liner. And much less safe too. Still, they must have been exciting times, visiting places that few in the West had ever been too before.


----------



## CupofJoe

Dave said:


> I believe so, yes. It was common to make civilian versions of military designs.
> 
> In the 1920's and 1930's only the very rich could afford to travel by plane, but it could not have been very comfortable and was certainly very drafty. A far cry from the alternative; the luxury of on ocean going liner. And much less safe too. Still, they must have been exciting times, visiting places that few in the West had ever been too before.


Or combine both the draftiness of flight and the speed of an ocean liner [okay not quite] and go by Airship!


----------



## Foxbat

Parson said:


> That  De Havilland Dragon Rapide reminded me of probably the most successful early passenger plane. I'm not sure there's a better looking early plane than the old Ford Trimotor.
> 
> View attachment 55129


The Junkers 52 perhaps? Apparently the Ford Trimotor was built using Hugo Junkers design principles. The main difference appears to be in wing position.
Here's a photo of a model JU52 I built.


----------



## Foxbat

Dave said:


> I believe so, yes. It was common to make civilian versions of military designs.
> 
> In the 1920's and 1930's only the very rich could afford to travel by plane, but it could not have been very comfortable and was certainly very drafty. A far cry from the alternative; the luxury of on ocean going liner. And much less safe too. Still, they must have been exciting times, visiting places that few in the West had ever been too before.


To be honest, I'm not keen on flying and only do it when absolutely necessary but I think I would have made an exception to travel in something like a Short Sunderland. It must be quite an adventure taking off from the water


----------



## The Ace

It's the other way around - the aircraft on the poster is a Short Empire.  The RAF needed a long-range flying-boat and Shorts developed the Sunderland from it.


----------



## Foxbat

The Ace said:


> It's the other way around - the aircraft on the poster is a Short Empire.  The RAF needed a long-range flying-boat and Shorts developed the Sunderland from it.


You learn something new everyday


----------



## CupofJoe

I was just reading about the Short aircraft, there were a half dozen[?] differently named aircraft that were each a development, adaption or varient of one of the others.


----------



## Foxbat

A couple of the instruments I used to use when I first started in the nuclear industry






They've long been replaced by more modern instruments.


----------



## Foxbat

I still have a working Pathe 9.5mm projector.




Mine has the back cover removed because I've modified it to run on newer bulbs (couldn't find an original replacement). The metal drive belt had to be replaced but, again, I couldn't source a replacement so used a large, modified O ring. It's still 90% old tech though

Edit: Oh yes. Forgot to mention. I completely rewired it because that old insulation was in a dangerous way.


----------



## Cathbad

9.5!  Never seen one!


----------



## Foxbat

They were popular between the wars. The film has a sprocket hole in the centre between the frames (rather than at the sides). The 9.5mm format was chosen because three strips of 9.5 could be made by splitting 35mm lengthways giving three times the footage. Having the hole central meant that the frame size was almost as big as 16mm (which has sprocket holes on both edges, taking up some of the available space).

Just to build on that, it's a similar reason we had 8mm because splitting 16mm lengthways gives twice as much footage of 8mm (and explains why 8mm has sprocket holes on just one side).


----------



## Vince W

I remember in school how excited we all got whenever a projector was in our classroom when we got in. It didn't matter what was shown or for what purpose but it always felt like a holiday.

Then there was the film strip projector.




As often as not there was a recorded lecture played as someone advanced the film strip at the tone. Not as good as the projector, but it served its purpose.


----------



## Foxbat

I remember the overhead projector from school. It had a particular smell that came from the transparencies. I think it was acetate.

We had a geography teacher who used one to display a load of information, which we had to copy down in our notebooks. He also used to march up and down the lanes of desks, reciting what was on display. I once asked him why he did all of this. His answer was that if we see it, write it down and also hear it, then some of us might actually learn it.

He was also the same teacher who told me I was the only boy he knew that had started at the bottom of the ladder but was still managing to work his way down. Where the art of sarcasm was concerned,  he was my hero.

He must have done something right because I passed all my geography exams


----------



## Pyan

This is the radio my grandfather had, and that I inherited, and is still in the attic somewhere...





Close-up of the tuning dial:





As I recall, the amber badge in the middle glowed when the set was on. 5 valves, internal aerial, long, medium and short wave, sheer nostalgia. And it was _huge_ (460 x 340 x 220 mm / 18.1 x 13.4 x 8.7 inches)... 

https://www.radiomuseum.org/r/belcher_westminster_a_5350a535.html?language_id=2


----------



## Vince W

Foxbat said:


> I remember the overhead projector from school. It had a particular smell that came from the transparencies. I think it was acetate.


Mimeographs are the smell I remember most. The teach would pass out the freshly copied sheets and the first thing everyone did was inhale the smell. I guess we were trying to get some sort of buzz.


----------



## Cathbad

I hated using that mimeograph macine!

But I loved the smell!!


----------



## Foxbat

pyan said:


> This is the radio my grandfather had, and that I inherited, and is still in the attic somewhere...
> 
> View attachment 55176
> 
> Close-up of the tuning dial:
> 
> View attachment 55177
> 
> As I recall, the amber badge in the middle glowed when the set was on. 5 valves, internal aerial, long, medium and short wave, sheer nostalgia. And it was _huge_ (460 x 340 x 220 mm / 18.1 x 13.4 x 8.7 inches)...
> 
> https://www.radiomuseum.org/r/belcher_westminster_a_5350a535.html?language_id=2


It might be worth a few quid
P.S. If you ever think of getting it restored, valves are still being manufactured. It's mainly for the music business but a lot of valves are pretty generic (EL34s for example).


----------



## Foxbat

Vince W said:


> Mimeographs are the smell I remember most. The teach would pass out the freshly copied sheets and the first thing everyone did was inhale the smell. I guess we were trying to get some sort of buzz.


This might be where I also recall the smell from.


----------



## Vertigo

Foxbat said:


> This might be where I also recall the smell from.





Vince W said:


> Mimeographs are the smell I remember most. The teach would pass out the freshly copied sheets and the first thing everyone did was inhale the smell. I guess we were trying to get some sort of buzz.


Wasn't the smell methylayted spirits or some such?


----------



## Foxbat

Vertigo said:


> Wasn't the smell methylayted spirits or some such?


Now that you mention it......could well have been. So long ago. My memory chips are not what they used to be.


----------



## CupofJoe

Foxbat said:


> Now that you mention it......could well have been. So long ago. My memory chips are not what they used to be.


I can remember lighting myself of fire when I overfilled one of these and someone else decided that it was a good time to have a smoke [there was no H&S in the 80s]. Fortunately, the fire was so cool, that I had the time to take off the lab coat I was wearing before I got burned [other than a few singed hairs].


----------



## Vertigo

CupofJoe said:


> I can remember lighting myself of fire when I overfilled one of these and someone else decided that it was a good time to have a smoke [there was no H&S in the 80s]. Fortunately, the fire was so cool, that I had the time to take off the lab coat I was wearing before I got burned [other than a few singed hairs].


In the outdoor world there is a kind of cooker called a Trangia which runs off meths. The meths reservoir is also the burner with a perforated top. Physically it can theoretically be filled whilst actually still burning by squirting the meths from the bottle into the top of the tank. But... there are all those naked flames around. A mate of mine tried this once and the flame travelled up the squirting jet and set the whole meths bottle alight.

… he's never tried this again to my knowledge!


----------



## Foxbat

I remember hearing stories about people drinking meths so (idiot teenager that I was) I decided to taste it for myself(didn't swallow). 
Don't do it. It really burns your tongue.


----------



## CupofJoe

Foxbat said:


> I remember hearing stories about people drinking meths so (idiot teenager that I was) I decided to taste it for myself(didn't swallow).
> Don't do it. It really burns your tongue.


The purple meths you can by from a hardware store has some methanol added to it [that why we call it meths]. Also a taste and a dye added to it to stop you from drinking it. If you can get clear meths or more accurately ethanol alcohol, you can drink it... I don't recommend it but it has been done. It is what I preferred to use when I was fire-breathing. White Spirit made me sick, and as you say Meths tasted awful. Ethanol just tasted like really, really bad vodka.


----------



## Foxbat

I think you're the first fire-breather I've ever come across 

Edit: should correct myself and say that you're the first I've had a conversation with (I've obviously seen fire-breathers before in a circus or funfare setting)

There's a fire festival in Scotland (Beltane). You'd fit right in. 








						Beltane Fire Festival 2019
					

Celebrate the first signs of summer at Scotland’s largest fire festival with a wild mix of fire, drumming, dance, and acrobatics.




					beltane.org


----------



## Abernovo

CupofJoe said:


> The purple meths you can by from a hardware store has some methanol added to it [that why we call it meths]. Also a taste and a dye added to it to stop you from drinking it. If you can get clear meths or more accurately ethanol alcohol, you can drink it... I don't recommend it but it has been done. It is what I preferred to use when I was fire-breathing. White Spirit made me sick, and as you say Meths tasted awful. Ethanol just tasted like really, really bad vodka.


I'm sorry, CupofJoe, but that's wrong, and more than a little dangerous, information. Clear meths and ethanol are two very different things.

The purple methylated spirits (meths) is ethanol which has been denatured by having dye and methanol added to it. It tastes vile (accidentally missed a spot when cleaning my hands, then had a mint), and is poisonous in any proper quantity (barring a slight splash on the skin, and transference).

Methanol is highly toxic - the stories you hear about moonshine sending people blind, or killing people, is due to the methanol not being properly separated from ethanol in the distilling process. It used to be called wood alcohol.

Ethanol is toxic, but is (simply put) pure alcohol. Vodka is up to 96% ethanol, with the flavours (either from the raw product, or added) making the difference.

Sorry if I come across too serious, and lecturing, but I work with alcohol, and the differences (and dangers of each) are drummed into us. I suspect you already know this stuff, and it was a typo, but I don't want anyone else reading it getting the wrong idea. Meths and methanol are deadly.

I am, however, in awe of your fire-breathing. Always been tempted to try it.


----------



## CupofJoe

Abernovo said:


> I'm sorry, CupofJoe, but that's wrong, and more than a little dangerous, information. Clear meths and ethanol are two very different things.
> 
> The purple methylated spirits (meths) is ethanol which has been denatured by having dye and methanol added to it. It tastes vile (accidentally missed a spot when cleaning my hands, then had a mint), and is poisonous in any proper quantity (barring a slight splash on the skin, and transference).
> 
> Methanol is highly toxic - the stories you hear about moonshine sending people blind, or killing people, is due to the methanol not being properly separated from ethanol in the distilling process. It used to be called wood alcohol.
> 
> Ethanol is toxic, but is (simply put) pure alcohol. Vodka is up to 96% ethanol, with the flavours (either from the raw product, or added) making the difference.
> 
> Sorry if I come across too serious, and lecturing, but I work with alcohol, and the differences (and dangers of each) are drummed into us. I suspect you already know this stuff, and it was a typo, but I don't want anyone else reading it getting the wrong idea. Meths and methanol are deadly.
> 
> I am, however, in awe of your fire-breathing. Always been tempted to try it.


I stand corrected. Back in the day, and I'm going back 20+ years, I was told that clear meths and ethanol were the same. I thought that when you took out the methanol [and the dye etc] what you were left with was ethanol...
Maybe fire-breathers [which I don't do anymore] are even more lax with H&S than I thought...
I recommend giving fire-breathing a go if you can find some to teach you... It is not something to be learned off youtube...


----------



## Parson

CupofJoe said:


> I recommend giving fire-breathing a go if you can find some to teach you... It is not something to be learned off youtube...



I doubt I've ever believed anything so much with so little corroboration.


----------



## Alex The G and T

I reckon I'll keep my fire breathing fuels in the Jalapeno/Habanero category.  With a side of Wasabi.


----------



## Foxbat

I'd try it if I weren't such a coward


----------



## Alex The G and T

@Foxbat 's Projector reminded me that I still possess my Great Grandfather's 8 mm Movie camera.  The Great and Terrible predecessor produced boxes and boxes of travelogues with this thing.

My Dad, and his cohorts actually made some ridiculous movies with this contraption in the '60's and 70's .  And I made a few, myself; long, long ago.

So, here's the gig:  The unexposed film was purchased on a 16 mm roll.  Color film had to be loaded and threaded through the machinery, by touch, in absolute darkness.

If the photographer could manage that procedure, he was prepared for ca. 4 minutes of shooting.  Thence, back into the closet to flip over the film, re thread it and go capture the next 4 minutes of action.

The processors would split the 16 mm reel into two 3 inch reels of 8mm silent movies.

There was a whole 'nother contraption (which, I guess, my Dad still has) for editing.  With the reels on hand cranks, the film threaded through a back-lit magnifier; where the films could be examined frame-by-frame.

Then, for editing, there was a doohicky with a knife blade for to make a clean cut, then the next segment could be clamped in, dabbed with  brush-on cement and a blunt-bladed vise-sort-of-thing that would hold the splice in place until the glue set.

The camera operated on a coil spring, like a clock.  The winder is the butterfly-looking handle, shown in the pic.  Also seen in the pic is the telephoto lens.  Not seen, is the external, hand-held light meter required to set up each shot.  (Who knows where that got to.)

The viewfinder is built in to the fold-down handle, on top.  Visible, kinda, if you look close enough. Tiny round lens at the rear,  and a larger square lens at the front end.

Inside, in the second pic, the thing is a glory of very fine, precision machine work.


----------



## Pyan

Alex said:
			
		

> ...The Great and Terrible predecessor produced boxes and boxes of travelogues with this thing.



You learn something new every day... I thought that the "G and T" bit stood for Gin and Tonic...


----------



## Alex The G and T

A common misperception, rising from a shortage of character length in user names when I signed up.


----------



## Foxbat

Alex The G and T said:


> @Foxbat 's Projector reminded me that I still possess my Great Grandfather's 8 mm Movie camera.  The Great and Terrible predecessor produced boxes and boxes of travelogues with this thing.
> 
> My Dad, and his cohorts actually made some ridiculous movies with this contraption in the '60's and 70's .  And I made a few, myself; long, long ago.
> 
> So, here's the gig:  The unexposed film was purchased on a 16 mm roll.  Color film had to be loaded and threaded through the machinery, by touch, in absolute darkness.
> 
> If the photographer could manage that procedure, he was prepared for ca. 4 minutes of shooting.  Thence, back into the closet to flip over the film, re thread it and go capture the next 4 minutes of action.
> 
> The processors would split the 16 mm reel into two 3 inch reels of 8mm silent movies.
> 
> There was a whole 'nother contraption (which, I guess, my Dad still has) for editing.  With the reels on hand cranks, the film threaded through a back-lit magnifier; where the films could be examined frame-by-frame.
> 
> Then, for editing, there was a doohicky with a knife blade for to make a clean cut, then the next segment could be clamped in, dabbed with  brush-on cement and a blunt-bladed vise-sort-of-thing that would hold the splice in place until the glue set.
> 
> The camera operated on a coil spring, like a clock.  The winder is the butterfly-looking handle, shown in the pic.  Also seen in the pic is the telephoto lens.  Not seen, is the external, hand-held light meter required to set up each shot.  (Who knows where that got to.)
> 
> The viewfinder is built in to the fold-down handle, on top.  Visible, kinda, if you look close enough. Tiny round lens at the rear,  and a larger square lens at the front end.
> 
> Inside, in the second pic, the thing is a glory of very fine, precision machine work.
> 
> 
> View attachment 55246
> View attachment 55247


Jeez! What a palaver! Thank the Lord for digital filming and editing nowadays


----------



## CupofJoe

Foxbat said:


> I think you're the first fire-breather I've ever come across
> 
> Edit: should correct myself and say that you're the first I've had a conversation with (I've obviously seen fire-breathers before in a circus or funfare setting)
> 
> There's a fire festival in Scotland (Beltane). You'd fit right in.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Beltane Fire Festival 2019
> 
> 
> Celebrate the first signs of summer at Scotland’s largest fire festival with a wild mix of fire, drumming, dance, and acrobatics.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> beltane.org


That looks great!
Get to any Pagan Beltane festival/rite [usually around 1 May] and you should see lots of fire working. Tis, the season and all.
I never got brave enough to train to do Fire Poi.
There is a clip online of a friend of mine doing this at Avebury but I can't find it. This is close enough...Fire Poi


----------



## BigBadBob141

REF: CupofJoe.
Used to use purple meths to clean the gunge left behind by sticky labels ( the bane of my life among other things ) on book and magazine covers, sometimes it would work, other times it only made things worse, now days I tend to use Mr Sheen!
As for the old thermonic valve radios, when I was young we had one, would put it on before Sunday lunch/dinner for comedy such as "Round The Horne" or "The Clithroe Kid".
It would take about four or five minutes to warm up, worse then the old black & white television!


----------



## Vince W

Did anyone else indulge in this hobby? Bonus nerd points if you built it yourself.






My uncle built his and we would spend hours trying to get a clear signal. It was always a thrill to find someone new out there.


----------



## Pyan

This was my first stereo amplifier. You bought the bits (1 pre-amp and controls, 1 power supply and 2 power amplifiers), then wired them up and built a box to keep out the dust. My dad, who was a senior maintenance engineer for the BBC Transmitter Service, helped me build it, then we teamed it up with a Garrard SP25 record deck and a pair of Wharfedale Linton 2 speakers. Not the most sophisticated of setups, but I thought it was brilliant.







          ..................


----------



## Vince W

pyan said:


> This was my first stereo amplifier. You bought the bits (1 pre-amp and controls, 1 power supply and 2 power amplifiers), then wired them up and built a box to keep out the dust. My dad, who was a senior maintenance engineer for the BBC Transmitter Service, helped me build it, then we teamed it up with a Garrard SP25 record deck and a pair of Wharfedale Linton 2 speakers. Not the most sophisticated of setups, but I thought it was brilliant.
> 
> View attachment 55379
> 
> View attachment 55380          ..................View attachment 55381


That's pure class.


----------



## Foxbat

Vince W said:


> Did anyone else indulge in this hobby? Bonus nerd points if you built it yourself.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> My uncle built his and we would spend hours trying to get a clear signal. It was always a thrill to find someone new out there.


A friend of mine (sadly dead now) was heavily into radio and even managed to contact the space shuttle one time I think around the late 1980s (one of the astronauts was a radio ham). I have no idea if he built his rig himself but it looked quite impressive.

The most surprising thing about this friend of mine was that he had an incredibly bad stutter but he used to wear a device, kind of like a plastic tube. One end was attached to his throat and the other went in his ears. It improved his speech no end. I'm no biologist but I presume this device in some way was related to the Eustacian Tube.


----------



## CupofJoe

Back in the 70s and 80s my dad had contacts inside the Polish [and I think Russian?] Embassies. Anyway, he could get radio valves that no-one else could. So packets marked Fragile in English and Cyrillic arrived every few months, usually followed by he and I taking a trip to a barn or shed that was full of glowing radio gear. I wish I'd paid more attention.


----------



## mosaix

pyan said:


> This was my first stereo amplifier. You bought the bits (1 pre-amp and controls, 1 power supply and 2 power amplifiers), then wired them up and built a box to keep out the dust. My dad, who was a senior maintenance engineer for the BBC Transmitter Service, helped me build it, then we teamed it up with a Garrard SP25 record deck and a pair of Wharfedale Linton 2 speakers. Not the most sophisticated of setups, but I thought it was brilliant.
> 
> View attachment 55379
> 
> View attachment 55380          ..................View attachment 55381



Wharfedale speakers were the best.  Mine were stolen, along with the rest of my stereo system, when I was burgled in 1972. 

Some of my LPs were also taken and for years it irritated me that someone was listening to my LPs on my stereo. Come to think of it, it still does!


----------



## Vertigo

I remember when I was about 10 stringing this 50 odd metre length of enamelled copper wire between our house and the top of a Cedar at the back of our garden and wiring it to my first crystal set. I was so excited that I had a tunable radio set that that I could listen to on some ancient (even then) ex army headphones with not a battery in sight! This would have been mid '60s.

An ancient friend of my father's used to build all his own electronic kit at that time (he was the one who gave me the parts and instructions for the crystal set) and he built his own transceivers for ham radio. He lived close to the Solent (south coast of the UK) and used to chat with the fishermen out at sea. One day a government official came round demanding he pay for a radio transmitter licence fee whereupon he turned round to the (young) government official and told him he had been transmitting since before this lad had been born and before the government had even considered charging licencing fees and he was d****d if he would start paying for the privilege now. The young government official spluttered that that was against the law and my dad's friend, a sprightly man in his late eighties at the time, said fine they could come and arrest him and put him in gaol if they wanted but he wasn't paying any d****d licence fee. I was actually present at the time; a little ten-year-old gaping in shock that someone would defy authority like that! He never heard from them again and continued chatting with his fishermen friends!

He also used to ride this old Cotton motorbike (in a cloud of smoke) and half the parts for it he made himself!


----------



## Foxbat

mosaix said:


> Wharfedale speakers were the best.  Mine were stolen, along with the rest of my stereo system, when I was burgled in 1972.
> 
> Some of my LPs were also taken and for years it irritated me that someone was listening to my LPs on my stereo. Come to think of it, it still does!


Being burgled stinks!

I'd be severly pissed if somebody stole my Mission 773s. They're over 20 years old now and still sound great.


----------



## Vince W

CupofJoe said:


> Back in the 70s and 80s my dad had contacts inside the Polish [and I think Russian?] Embassies. Anyway, he could get radio valves that no-one else could. So packets marked Fragile in English and Cyrillic arrived every few months, usually followed by he and I taking a trip to a barn or shed that was full of glowing radio gear. I wish I'd paid more attention.


Say what you will, but Soviet/Russian valves were top notch. They're still worth a mint for repairing old valve amps, radios, and such.


----------



## mosaix

Foxbat said:


> Being burgled stinks!
> 
> I'd be severly pissed if somebody stole my Mission 773s. They're over 20 years old now and still sound great.



What was even more irritating was that they stole Volume 1 of _The Blues_ but left me with Volume 2!

I replaced my Wharfedale speakers with Marston Hall Annexes because Wharfedales were in short supply at the time. I wish I'd waited. The Annexes are ok but haven't got quite the same tone as the Wharfedales had.


----------



## Foxbat

At least you know I'm not your burglar because I'd have definitely taken both volumes


----------



## Foxbat

Vince W said:


> Say what you will, but Soviet/Russian valves were top notch. They're still worth a mint for repairing old valve amps, radios, and such.


I think the Russians might be the only ones still making them. JSC Svetlana in St petersburg is reputed to make the best quality ones today.


----------



## Anthoney

An interesting piece on early cassette tech.


----------



## Caledfwlch

High definition TV is seen as a modern invention, yet I seem to recall reading that John Logie baird actually invented HD in the 40s or 50s!!
He also invented a higher quality TV transmission system - its been so long since CRTs were the standard type of TV that I forget the old terminally but the "lines" that make up a crt picture, his preferred system had more of them iirc, and when they set up the BBC as the uks first television service despite his arguments, the Whitehall mandarins went for the lower quality option as it was cheaper. He also invented colour TV around the same time. 

So with a bit of forward thinking and investment the UK could very well have had a full colour high definition television service in the 1950s or 60s!!
Makes you wonder what we would have now had that foresight and development been present!! 

Oh, I was at a friend's the other day and the 80s film about a mermaid, Splash was on - Tom hanks characters apartment appeared to have a TV that was very nearly flat screen!!! Really, shockingly thin - was this real tech or out of camera shot, was their a large box with all the crt gubbins inside it, and the screen simply perched on top rather than at the front as was usual?


----------



## CupofJoe

Caledfwlch said:


> Oh, I was at a friend's the other day and the 80s film about a mermaid, Splash was on - Tom hanks characters apartment appeared to have a TV that was very nearly flat screen!!! Really, shockingly thin - was this real tech or out of camera shot, was their a large box with all the crt gubbins inside it, and the screen simply perched on top rather than at the front as was usual?


What it may have been was a prism or mirror Display. There is a smaller [but usually fairly big for the time] CRT lying on its back facing up showing a reversed picture. Above it, there is a mirror at a slight angle to give the big screen. I remember a friend having one in the 80s and it did give a huge [60+ inch] picture but it had the same standard resolution picture. It looked terrible unless you were on the other side of the room. So it was great for a football-night-with-the-boys where twenty people could watch at once but truly awful if you want to see the dimbles on Krk Douglas' chin.


----------



## Foxbat

CupofJoe said:


> What it may have been was a prism or mirror Display. There is a smaller [but usually fairly big for the time] CRT lying on its back facing up showing a reversed picture. Above it, there is a mirror at a slight angle to give the big screen. I remember a friend having one in the 80s and it did give a huge [60+ inch] picture but it had the same standard resolution picture. It looked terrible unless you were on the other side of the room. So it was great for a football-night-with-the-boys where twenty people could watch at once but truly awful if you want to see the dimbles on Krk Douglas' chin.


Rear Projection is what we used to call them. I've helped a friend install one (you have to set up the convergence). Then, he upgraded  to a CRT overhead projector with a 10 foot motorised screen attached to the wall. It dropped down when you hit the power on the projector. The screen was easy. The projector weighed 75 kilos and it took three of us to lift it onto its brackets. It was a complete nightmare to set up. You had to set up according to distance, convergence and a host of other things. After a few hours of trying to get it right, he turned to me and said,  'I suppose we'd better read the manual then.' I just nodded wearily.


----------



## Danny McG

I wonder if we'll ever get phones like this prediction...


----------



## Ursa major

As it happens, I realised very early on (well before I got one of my own) that mobile phones _do_ provide an escape that, sometimes, the original sort of land-line phones cannot: you can switch them off and/or put them out of earshot. (I'm doing that now.)


** -


----------



## Pyan

Ursa major said:


> As it happens, I realised very early on (well before I got one of my own) that mobile phones _do_ provide an escape that, sometimes, the original sort of land-line phones cannot: you can switch them off and/or put them out of earshot. (I'm doing that now.)



And there's a phrase that has just about, or will soon have, disappeared: "Oh, I've taken the phone off the hook"...


----------



## -K2-

Ursa major said:


> As it happens, I realised very early on (well before I got one of my own) that mobile phones _do_ provide an escape that, sometimes, the original sort of land-line phones cannot: you can switch them off and/or put them out of earshot. (I'm doing that now.)
> ** -



Are you sure? 



Spoiler










(I'll not derail the thread posting the video outside the spoiler... past asking you, 'Are you sure your old rotary-dial phone really turned off the microphone when you hung it up?')

K2


----------



## Ursa major

I have two mobile phones:

A cheapo Nokia non-smart one that I now keep in my car (currently parked in a brick-built garage) for emergencies;
a smartphone that's in a drawer upstairs while I'm here typing downstairs.
Both are "switched off" and the smartphone is in airplane mode.

At least one of them would have to have a very good microphone to hear the wide repetoire of expletives that I direct (quite loudly) towards those persons on the TV and radio who are lying (and/or inadvertantly displaying their almost total ignorance) in an attempt to attract my vote in the forthcoming election. (I hope anyone listening just now enjoyed my loud playing of a recording of Shostakovich's 5th symphony, which I was inspired to do in commemoration of the 30th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall. )

I don't own a rotary land-line phone. My two old _push-button_ instruments are not plugged in (and I'm not sure where they're now "stored"); the (CT1?) radio handsets I use are, obviously, "mobile", so are also easy to place out of earshot. (My asnswerphone answers my calls for me, saving me the bother of shouting, "Spammer!" or "Phisher!" at the majority of the callers.)


I am aware, as the owner of a Samsung smart TV, that those expletives I mentioned _are_ probably being picked up when I'm in earshot (even though I've never activated the voice control); I'm sure anyone listening in will be very familiar with all of them, particularly as I suspect that I'm very far from alone in not being as ignorant as politicians seem to believe members of the electorate are.


----------



## Dave

pyan said:


> And there's a phrase that has just about, or will soon have, disappeared: "Oh, I've taken the phone off the hook"...


About 3pm every day we get spam calls from India pretending to be from BT (yes, I have reported it before but makes no difference) and afterwards I sometimes leave the phone "off the hook." After a few minutes there is now a warbling siren to alert you that you have forgotten to put the phone back on the stand. Years ago, back in the 1970's, the operator once called us to tell us we had left the phone off the hook for several days without realising. I doubt they even employ operators now, but then who would go several days without realising now.


----------



## -K2-

Dave said:


> I doubt they even employ operators now, but then who would go several days without realising now.



Speaking of:







Note the women's legs sticking out from the narrow desks to the right (from https://time.com ):






This image is pre-pre-recorded time.  IOW, a live person spoke the time when called:






K2


----------



## Ursa major

More than 30 years ago, I worked for a company that supplied equipment to Post Office Telephones (later British Telecom/BT).

One of the systems with which I was peripherally involved (no pun intended) was a system that provided operator services in concert with the digital exchanges we were making. Its (I think) immediate predecessor (made by a different company) was called ACRE (my recollection is that this meant Automatic Call Recording Equipment, but it might have been Authorization and Call Routing Equipment). Both systems were being, or had been, developed in close cooperation with the customer, i.e. the Post Office Telecoms.

In those days, liaison officers coordinated this cooperation, and they had, depending on which side they worked, the titles of either POLOs or CLOs (respectively Post Office Liaison Officers and Company Liaison Officers).

I always felt sorry for whoever had been the Company Liason Officer for ACRE: their title would have been CLO ACRE (which, unfortunately, would be pronounced cloaca). I hope the job was better than this title makes it sound.


----------



## Pyan

My Dad (who worked for the BBC all his working life) once told me that there was an "External/Internal Electronic Information Officer" at Broadcasting House, and his office_, _in the normal BBC style, had a sign on it that read _*E.I.E.I.O.*_


----------



## Parson

Amazing Photo's @-K2- As I have it the top photo would be about 1948, the middle one 1962, and the bottom one 1935. In the middle picture I noted the slave drivers/supervisors standing to make sure noone was wasting their time. 
When I was about 8 years old we had a crank style phone where you would give the crank a twirl and the operator would come on and you would tell her the number or (believe it or not) the family you wanted to be connected to.


----------



## Dave

The secret Cold War era tunnels underneath Dover Castle that were built to be the Regional Seat of Government for South East England, known as R.S.G.12, include radiation proof telecoms equipment, T.V. and radio studios, living accommodation and an operations centre, and have the feel of that 1960's photo above. The porous chalk above would have offered little, if any, protection against contaminated rainwater percolating down from any nuclear winter at ground level. 








						Dover Castle & Secret Wartime Tunnels - Beyond the Point
					

Situated above the White Cliffs of Dover, this iconic castle has guarded our shores from invasion for 20 centuries and is the largest castle in England. Dover Castle is owned by English Heritage and is a Scheduled Monument meaning that it’s “nationally important” and is protected from any...




					www.beyondthepoint.co.uk


----------



## psikeyhackr

Ursa major said:


> As it happens, I realised very early on (well before I got one of my own) that mobile phones _do_ provide an escape that, sometimes, the original sort of land-line phones cannot: you can switch them off and/or put them out of earshot. (I'm doing that now.)
> 
> 
> ** -



There is a different kind of escape that they provide.  Remember hanging around waiting for a phone call when you wanted to go somewhere else.


----------



## Alex The G and T

I still carry a flip phone, because it fits in the watch pocket of my jeans.  (Does anyone else remember what that little pocket was designed for?)  And I don't need a bunch of other crap on my telephone.  The flip phone has this amazing capability for actual voice communication.

And yeah.  What an amazing freedom to not have to camp by the landline waiting for an important call.  I gots schtuff to do outdoors, most of the time.


----------



## Vince W

I thought the little pocket was a place to put coins.


----------



## CupofJoe

or tickets. A good jacket or coat will always have a ticket pocket - if you live in Edwardian England...


----------



## J Riff

Not cellphone OR teevee set owner here... walk down the nearest main drag though - and there are 175 televisions in a 20 block stretch. I counted 'em one day. What used to be 'nightclubs' are now 'sportbars' each with 4-5 of the things on the walls.


----------



## mosaix

Talking of telephone switch boards, I first started work in 1963 and soon became friends with a co-worker. We had a really nice boss who was a bit deaf (lost most of his hearing due to a bomb landing nearby at Dunkirk).

Each desk had two telephones, a black one and a grey one. The black one was internal (desk to desk) and continued to ring until answered. The grey one was connected to the switch board. It rang once and when you picked it up you were connected to the switch board operator, who had a call for you. According to the ring (continuous or just once) you knew which 'phone to pick up.

Anyway, for a bit of a joke, we rang our boss's phone and let it ring just once then ended the call. Of course he thought it was the switch board and picked up the grey phone.

*Boss* "Hello?"
*Switch board* "Hello?"
*Boss* "You rang me."
*Switch board* "Don't think so."
*Boss* "You sure?"
*Switch board* "Yes."
*Boss* "Must be my hearing. Sorry."

After doing this four or five times over a period of a week or two:

*Boss to us* "Those girls are always playing tricks."

*Switch board operators overheard in canteen* "That John N______n's a bit weird."

Three years later at our boss's retirement do I gave a little speech part of which explained what we had done. Much laughter all round but mostly from our boss and the switch board operators.


----------



## -K2-

Check out these monorails stores used as Christmas kid's rides however long ago:











K2


----------



## -K2-

Here are a few other versions (most/all made by Louden Machinery Corp. who made a lot of farm equipment... the monorails taken from barn loft hay hoists):





















The back end of that 'Rocket Express' ride:














K2


----------



## Danny McG

Not really 'old tech' but this thread seems the closest to the spirit of this photo:-


----------



## Dave

Well that belt is Bling-bling, and beards are back in fashion, but the antennae never happened.


----------



## reiver33

You sure? I've been wearing one for years...


----------



## Alex The G and T

It's the high tech, elitist version of a Tin Foil Hat.


(And why is his beard only beautiful on one side?  The other side looks sparse... weak, I'd say.)


----------



## -K2-

Alex The G and T said:


> It's the high tech, elitist version of a Tin Foil Hat. (And why is his beard only beautiful on one side?  The other side looks sparse... weak, I'd say.)



The far side is either his chops or hair sticking out. Clearly, he's a space hippy.

K2


----------



## Dave

Also, what's this? A respirator against the pollution and viruses? 

And why does he need so much so much high voltage electricity?


----------



## Caledfwlch

Dave - my first thought was the outfit is very reminiscent of the Cybermen! 

You could argue that instead of antennae, we have Bluetooth headsets which perform a similar role. In many ways, the photo is going down the right way, in concept if not specific appearance. 

Onesies / jumpsuits are popular these days too.


----------



## -K2-

Caledfwlch said:


> Onesies / jumpsuits are popular these days too.



That's what these guys said:






K2


----------



## Extollager

WarriorMouse said:


> Not me. We had a TV but only a couple of stations, neither of which had Star Trek or Lost in Space.



We had a TV with one channel, an NBC affiliate, so, happily for me, I was there for the *Star Trek *premiere in early Sept. 1966.  To this day I don't know if I was home alone or just oblivious of anyone else in the house.


----------



## Extollager

I got a small portable reel-to-reel tape recorder around 1970 with which I would record songs I liked off the radio, and with which I'd record the audio of syndicated *Star Trek* broadcasts.  The machine looked a little like this one:





I would typically hold the microphone up to the sound source.

Once I recorded Donovan's "Rikkui-Tikki-Tavi" off the radio.  You might remember this song alluding to Kipling's *Jungle Book*.  In the background I heard the sounds of jungle folk singing.



Only actually what I was hearing was sounds from another radio station leaking into the airwaves.  I don't think I realized that right away.


----------



## J Riff

I had a real custom home-made tinfoil-lined hat circa 1978. It actually blocked the odd bit of cosmic radiation, which may kill the odd brain cell. Probably saved a few hundred cells I reckon that's how I ended up here.


----------



## Caledfwlch

J Riff said:


> I had a real custom home-made tinfoil-lined hat circa 1978. It actually blocked the odd bit of cosmic radiation, which may kill the odd brain cell. Probably saved a few hundred cells I reckon that's how I ended up here.



I thought the tin foil hat was de riguert for AFTER one has joined and begun posting within this Parish


----------



## Vince W

Caledfwlch said:


> I thought the tin foil hat was de riguert for AFTER one has joined and begun posting within this Parish


No before. Filtering and receiving the correct signals is how you find this place.


----------



## Danny McG

Awesomeness from (I think) 1971


----------



## Vertigo

dannymcg said:


> Awesomeness from (I think) 1971View attachment 65428


A little bit later. The front left computer is a 16 bit microprocessor running CP/M which didn't first appear until '74 and probably wouldn't have appeared in a British microprocessor until a little later. I was going to guess about 1982 from the keyboard, but the clincher is the red tag in the top right inviting the reader to see them at COMPEC 15 - 16 November 1984.


----------



## Astro Pen

Here is the program card from my hoover "Keymatic" washing machine. It is about 4 inches across and double sided so 8 washing programs were available. It was a basic motor and microswitched relay system. No semiconductors.  
The machine went 30 years ago but I kept the key because I knew that one day I would need it for a sci-fi and fantasy forum thread


----------



## Pyan

And here's a job which is probably never going to have to be done again, ever...


----------



## Danny McG

Vertigo said:


> A little bit later. The front left computer is a 16 bit microprocessor running CP/M which didn't first appear until '74 and probably wouldn't have appeared in a British microprocessor until a little later. I was going to guess about 1982 from the keyboard, but the clincher is the red tag in the top right inviting the reader to see them at COMPEC 15 - 16 November 1984.


Yeah my bad, I was reading the blurb that said the company was established in 1971 and my brain must have locked on to that


----------



## Pyan




----------



## Vince W

pyan said:


> View attachment 65495


I have this fantasy where I collect all my favourite games into my own personal arcade. Not one of those emulation systems either.


----------



## Pyan

Vince W said:


> I have this fantasy where I collect all my favourite games into my own personal arcade. Not one of those emulation systems either.


No, you can't hammer a keyboard like we used to hammer those buttons...


----------



## -K2-

I'll see your video game and raise you an old Southern standard... True 'pinball' games, not flipper ball (what most folks call pinball):






K2


----------



## Don

Vince W said:


> I have this fantasy where I collect all my favourite games into my own personal arcade. Not one of those emulation systems either.



The guy behind Luna City Arcade actualized your fantasy. He built a barn and stuffed it with old arcade games. (Scroll down to the bottom at the link to see more images.)


----------



## HareBrain

Wow, that carpet looks like it was _manufactured _sticky.


----------



## Vince W

HareBrain said:


> Wow, that carpet looks like it was _manufactured _sticky.


It wouldn't be a real arcade unless the floor _was_ sticky. It just needs a couple of teens with weedy moustaches smoking in front for that authentic _je ne sais quoi._


----------



## Biskit

Astro Pen said:


> Here is the program card from my hoover "Keymatic" washing machine. It is about 4 inches across and double sided so 8 washing programs were available. It was a basic motor and microswitched relay system. No semiconductors.
> The machine went 30 years ago but I kept the key because I knew that one day I would need it for a sci-fi and fantasy forum thread
> 
> View attachment 65446


That actually looks familiar - I think Mum must have had one, possibly the successor to the twin-tub that had to be hauled out and set up next to the sink.


----------



## -K2-

Vince W said:


> It wouldn't be a real arcade unless the floor _was_ sticky. It just needs a couple of teens with weedy moustaches smoking in front for that authentic _je ne sais quoi._



Arcade+sticky floor... I think you guys are starting to drift into my end of the pool; bookstore movie arcades and the like. Although, the history of that technology is fascinating, actually, genius.

K2


----------



## BigBadBob141

REF: Astro Pen.
The good old Hoover Keymatic, we had one of those for years and years, once it needed its brain changing, it was a good sized transparent plastic box filled wires, switches and levers ect. that the program tablet plugged into, you got one program per edge in the tablet so eight in total, wish I'd kept the old brain, it was completely electro-mechanical.


----------



## Ursa major

I remember us (i.e. my parents) having a keymatic. As BigBadBob141 says, there were eight programs (although I don't recall us ever using all eight of them).


----------



## Pyan

Couldn't resist this, if only because it must qualify for the laziest attempt at a snappy slogan ever...


----------



## -K2-

The only can opener you'll ever need... The P-38 & P-51:












K2


----------



## Vertigo

-K2- said:


> The only can opener you'll ever need... The P-38 & P-51:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> K2


They don't last long before they blunt though which is why you used to get a new one in every pack of rations! But agree it's about as compact and simple as you can get. Lethal, though, if you brush against the cut edges!


----------



## HareBrain

I wouldn't use a P-51 or a P-38 to open a can. A can is a very small target to hit on a strafing run, and if you are accurate, those 20mm cannon aren't going to leave much left.


----------



## Vince W

The original multi-tool.


----------



## Elckerlyc

Vince W said:


> The original multi-tool.


Yep, beats everything.


----------



## Parson

Elckerlyc said:


> Yep, beats everything.


I'm not sure of that, but it is a smashing success.


----------



## Pyan

Vince W said:


> The original multi-tool.


I thought it was this one:


----------



## Astro Pen

My_ 'Man from Uncle'_ era 16 mm minolta  pocket camera. It would probably dispense knockout gas if I knew the button combination. It has a tiny holder that you can hand load film into in the darkroom.


----------



## Ursa major

pyan said:


> I thought it was this one:
> 
> View attachment 65607


Someone's been boning up (or is it down) on their (film) history....


----------



## mosaix

Venusian Broon said:


> My dad 'pilfered' a ZX80 from Napier College at some point in the early 80's.
> 
> (He was a lecturer there - he also borrowed Pet Commodores and proper lasers in the 1970s that I remember playing with at home)
> 
> We still have it. Ahh... the memories of actually running out of RAM memory (It had 1kb) and not being able to complete programs!  (when I got the 48kb ZX Spectrum it was like the age of Aquarius had re-dawned)
> 
> Having said that it was pretty incredible what one could do with 1kb - there was a chess program with AI that, I believe, used ~800 bytes



This is precisely why I get so irritated with the ‘we never landed on the moon because the computers weren’t powerful enough or didn’t have enough memory’ crowd.

Modern computers use most of their processing power supporting bloated operating systems that incorporate functions that most of us will never use.

I spent most of my early programming career (during the period when people DID land on the moon) programming complicated commercial systems on a machine that had a 2.4k character (not byte) memory. With a little inventiveness we could work miracles - just like NASA did when they landed on the moon.

*end of rant*


----------



## Foxbat

Talking of moon landings, I remember software (on cassette) I had for my ZX81 about landing on the moon. You had to direct a ‘B‘ to land on a row of ‘A’s using that strange little keyboard.  Took about twenty minutes to load the cassette into memory. 
Maybe that’s why I swapped it for a boombox


----------



## Dave

Foxbat said:


> Talking of moon landings, I remember software (on cassette) I had for my ZX81 about landing on the moon. You had to direct a ‘B‘ to land on a row of ‘A’s using that strange little keyboard.  Took about twenty minutes to load the cassette into memory.


I didn't have a ZX81 myself but I do remember playing that on one.


----------



## Astro Pen

Like @Venusian Broon I had a 4k Commodore PET to play with at work. A wonderful monochrome machine to learn basic programming and control external devices with. True computer adulthood came a little later in the shape of an Olivetti M24, (a PC clone)


----------



## Vince W

Astro Pen said:


> Like @Venusian Broon I had a 4k Commodore PET to play with at work. A wonderful monochrome machine to learn basic programming and control external devices with. True computer adulthood came a little later in the shape of an Olivetti M24, (a PC clone)


I used one of those for years at school, first with a tape drive and then floppy disc. Great machine.


----------



## Starbeast

I had a Switchblade cell phone a while back. The idea wasn't popular, so it faded out.


----------



## BigBadBob141

Sinclair ZX81 then a Commodore C64 finally a Commodore Amiga 500Plus (my first floppy drive 3 1/2 inch and hard disc drive( sold seperately and costing a fortune)), happy days!


----------



## Vince W

The Amiga was a brilliant line of computers.


----------



## BigBadBob141

It did have a very good OS (Amiga Workbench) , pity it lost out to Microsoft in the end.
It was a well know secret at the time that at some exhibition they had a giant wall of TV screens advertising the latest version of Microsoft Windows.
Unknown to everyone they were using an Amiga to drive it all as the Ms Windows just couldn't cope!


----------



## Elckerlyc

Sinclair ZX80 -> ITT2020 ->  Sinclair QL -> start of PC era.


----------



## Ursa major

Not counting the Commodore PET (not mine) that was the first "home" computer I ever got to use (and not listing various mainframes and minis, accessed with MOP and other remote terminals, I used at work)...:

TRS-80 (Model II) -> BBC Micro (Model B) -> Archimedes -> RiscPC -> various Windows laptops and PCs.​


----------



## CupofJoe

A few years ago [maybe 10?] I was at a recording of *Have I Got News For You* and was amazed to see behind the staging, a Commodore 64 running the titles. I went to have a look - as I couldn't believe it and a very serious Security Guard leapt to stop me getting close like he was in the Secret Service taking a bullet for POTUS... Okay maybe I _shouldn't_ have been behind the staging...


----------



## Foxbat

BigBadBob141 said:


> It did have a very good OS (Amiga Workbench) , pity it lost out to Microsoft in the end.
> It was a well know secret at the time that at some exhibition they had a giant wall of TV screens advertising the latest version of Microsoft Windows.
> Unknown to everyone they were using an Amiga to drive it all as the Ms Windows just couldn't cope!


The Amiga was also used in the early days of Babylon 5 




__





						Babylon 5 Behind the Scenes: The Effects
					





					www.midwinter.com


----------



## Danny McG




----------



## Ursa major

Danny McG said:


> View attachment 71406


Someday you'll be a star!

Just one out of billions of them...

...as you'd realise if you'd ever bothered to look up at the sky at night rather than staring at your mobile phone....​


----------



## Pyan

On the same lines:




Just look at the price, though...

'Shudder'


----------



## CupofJoe

When I first saw this I thought it was soooooo cool!


----------



## .matthew.

pyan said:


> Just look at the price, though...


At first glance, yikes...
At second, hang on... that's the _current _price of phones 

Edit: Except the official accessories were clearly cheaper back then.


----------



## Dave

Well the cable leads and connecters look stronger and I'm sure they're cheaper too.


----------



## Vince W

CupofJoe said:


> When I first saw this I thought it was soooooo cool!
> View attachment 71411


I preferred this one.


----------



## farntfar

He's been buying his petrol at Esso stations.

I remember when Goldfinger came out, Esso gave you bullethole stickers with every refill.
We had my dad refill at every esso station along the A30 on the way to our holiday in Cornwall, sometimes for hardly a gallon of petrol so that we could cover our car in bulletholes.


----------



## Starbeast




----------



## Starbeast




----------



## Starbeast




----------



## reiver33

My 21inch CRT monitor from 1999 is still going strong. It was designed for CAD with a 1600 x whatever you want resolution and degausses automatically when switched on. It weighs 36 kg.

And, yes, it’s a cat bed of great renown.


----------



## CupofJoe

At work, we are only [and just] getting rid of 1990s CRTs because up to lately no digital screen came close to image quality. You can do really strange things by rewiring the HT side to flip and reverse images and overdrive them as nothing digital could handle.
Digital will or will not, Analogue will give you something. It tries harder...
And there are whole fields of research on the noise of CRTs and human vision...


----------



## Dave

Never mind about the laptop. She's wearing a jet pack rocketman suit!!


----------



## BigBadBob141

I would imagine the so called laptop is actually a wooden wax faced tablet with a wooden cover tied to it plus a scriber /scrapper to write and erase with.


----------



## Danny McG




----------



## Phyrebrat

Danny McG said:


> View attachment 71818



The Colonel refused to share his secret spices recipe with his step brother forcing him to find a new career. Finger Clickin’ Good!


----------



## Danny McG

Hmmmmm, I don't know if this is real or photostopped


----------



## Danny McG

Look at the little insert picture, this was portable, this was probably the first laptop design!


----------



## Dave

Danny McG said:


> I don't know if this is real or photostopped


I think that if you "found these on the internet" then those are most probably photoshopped and designed to be spread virally by social media. Most of those that I have posted were copied directly from old newspaper archives, so I'm quite sure of the source of those, but then they aren't quite as striking, interesting or as shocking either. On the other hand, Stevie Wonder personally vouching for Atari isn't that unlikely and the other pictures of bricks as mobile phones, well, I actually remember that.


----------



## Pyan

Sorry, Danny - it's definitely a fake, though weirdly not that far from the original...

Sorry, That Crazy Stevie Wonder + Atari Poster Is Fake


----------



## mosaix

Danny McG said:


> Look at the little insert picture, this was portable, this was probably the first laptop design!
> View attachment 72101



I considered buying one of those in the early 80s. It was quite an impressive little machine. It had twin 4 1/4” drives and the keyboard folded up and over the front to make it into a portable box.  The screen, that is visible in the centre, was a bit small though.


----------



## Foxbat

pyan said:


> Sorry, Danny - it's definitely a fake, though weirdly not that far from the original...
> 
> Sorry, That Crazy Stevie Wonder + Atari Poster Is Fake


Ironically, Atari was a reasonable option for music creation back then (the ST having built in midi ports). I know that Tangerine Dream released at least one album created with an ST (I still have it somewhere) so it would have been quite possible that Wonder could have considered Atari for music production.


----------



## tinkerdan

Just for the record





standard disk sizes were 8 inch 5 1/4 inch and 3 1/2 inch
Back in the early 80's when I worked at the MSU Cyclotron




Many of the engineers were still using kaypro's like the one pictured.
However the university already had a central Vax machines with terminals[screens and keyboards]spread throughout the building.\







And a coax network connection to several other universities.

We also had line-printer/terminals



Where the print out was what normally would be on the screen.
One of these was near a plotter where the user could input Fortran commands to send to the plotter while sending a plot job.
That was why I had to learn Fortran.

PLOTTER


----------



## Foxbat

I remember using a Vax. I remember using dBase IV on it. I found it to be not very user friendly but maybe that was just me.


----------



## Vertigo

Danny McG said:


> Look at the little insert picture, this was portable, this was probably the first laptop design!
> View attachment 72101


We used to use a similar beast at the beginning of the '80s:



It was a remarkably tough beast, as it needed to be, going out into the North Sea on survey boats! It was also one of the earliest IBM PC 'compatibles.'


----------



## Dave

Vertigo said:


> It was a remarkably tough beast, as it needed to be, going out into the North Sea on survey boats! It was also one of the earliest IBM PC 'compatibles.'


I was going to ask why these portable computers needed to be so "well-built". Overheating must have been a problem in those heavy cases. I could see them going up a few floors in an office lift, but I didn't think of them being taken to sea, however, I expect they actually went all over the world.


----------



## Toby Frost




----------



## Ursa major

Danny McG said:


> Look at the little insert picture, this was portable, this was probably the first laptop design!
> View attachment 72101


We -- an engineering department, that is -- had one of those in the office back in the day.


----------



## Dave

Ursa major said:


> We -- an engineering department, that is -- had one of those in the office back in the day.


You had an alien organism? In the office?


----------



## Ursa major

Dave said:


> You had an alien organism? In the office?


And you _didn't_...?!

​


----------



## Vladd67

Toby Frost said:


> View attachment 72122


Watched the special edition last night.


----------



## Biskit

tinkerdan said:


> That was why I had to learn Fortran.


I got my last job partly because I knew Fortran. The company was replacing an old Fortran-based system and having someone who could read the existing code and its data structures was useful in the migration process.


----------



## Ursa major

Biskit said:


> I got my last job partly because I knew Fortran. The company was replacing an old Fortran-based system and having someone who could read the existing code and its data structures was useful in the migration process.


So you were employed for translation work then...?

​


----------



## Vince W

Ursa major said:


> So you were employed for translation work then...?
> 
> ​


That joke was so bad I almost reported it!


----------



## mosaix

Vince W said:


> That joke was so bad I almost reported it!



Think I might.


----------



## Narkalui

This was our first computer:






by the way, thanks for this thread Danny, only found it the other week and it's been very enlightening!


----------



## Pyan

It was a happier age, when this was all the housewife had to worry about... _"femineered"_ indeed,


----------



## Starbeast

I miss those old computers where you had to build them inside the room. When I was a kid, the dog and I used to sleep on top of the warm device. You get used to the humming sound it made.


----------



## Danny McG

Starbeast said:


> When I was a kid, the dog and I used to sleep on top of the warm device. You get used to the humming sound it made


Why did your dog make a humming sound?


----------



## Biskit

Danny McG said:


> Why did your dog make a humming sound?


I thought it was because only cats know how to purr.


----------



## Bick

This is what I wrote my PhD on:





It did everything I do these days pretty much, perfectly well from memory.  
I was 'lucky' in a sense, it was only a few years prior to my year that students were typing them...


----------



## Biskit

Bick said:


> This is what I wrote my PhD on:
> 
> View attachment 72168
> 
> It did everything I do these days pretty much, perfectly well from memory.
> I was 'lucky' in a sense, it was only a few years prior to my year that students were typing them...


I used one of these for my PhD...





with external 51/4 drive and a word processor I wrote myself.
(When not being a word processor, my BBC micro also doubled up as a terminal to the university mainframe.)


----------



## reiver33

The first server I built for the NHS was a 486/100 with 16 meg of memory, and over-specified for its intended purpose (end of financial year budget splurge)


----------



## Pyan

I'm always astonished at the way the price of memory has fallen - this one would hold about the equivalent of two photos...



​And that's for a refurbished one - a brand new disk would set you back $4,495, in 1980 dollars. That's about $15,775 today (£12,000!)


----------



## Ursa major

The first "Winchester" hard disk drive I saw reviewed in PCW magazine had a whopping 3Mbytes of data, cost (I think) at least a couple of grand (in pounds) and was described as sounding like a jet engine.


----------



## farntfar

The above mentioned 5440s  were removeable hard drives, very similar to (and slightly later than) the 2311s that I used when I first started in computing.

The disks, like a stack of overlarge LPs were screwed into a drive the size of a washing machine, which we had 4 of in the computer room. Each disk could hold just over 7 meg of data and you would normally have to change the disks several times in the course of a fairly simple process. (A payroll for instance).
This was not because 7M was not enough for the data involved in a payroll (and the programs), but rather because you never wanted to be accessing more than one file (employee master; Addresses; Bank master, Rates etc) at a time on any disk, because the movement of the read/write heads took too long. You could hear the heads move from one file to another (Clunk, pause,Clunk).
Here is a 2311 with its disk loaded.


----------



## Vince W

Hmmm. This thread is getting somewhat competitive...


----------



## farntfar

I'm sorry, Vince, if you thought my post about 2311s was written competitively, following Pyan's entry on 5440s. I was actually trying to add a bit of context. Py's picture didn't seem to me to really show the physical size of the disks in those days, nor the limitations of their use, which I thought was important.
The difference between the 2 models of disk is far less important than their similarity. The head contention (spreading files over disks) issue I also thought might interest people. It was a large factor in system design at the time.


----------



## CupofJoe

At work we had a 20 Mb "Winchester" Hard Drive that was on a network of BBC Micro B+. It sounded like it belong in Blade Runner somewhere when it powered up. It was also the size of small filing cabinet. I wasn't allowed to turn it on unassisted for about 6 months after I started work... Until they were sure I wouldn't kill it.


----------



## Ursa major

CupofJoe said:


> Until they were sure I wouldn't kill it.


They were obviously spying on you, checking to make sure that you never communed with butterflies....


----------



## Vince W

farntfar said:


> I'm sorry, Vince, if you thought my post about 2311s was written competitively, following Pyan's entry on 5440s. I was actually trying to add a bit of context. Py's picture didn't seem to me to really show the physical size of the disks in those days, nor the limitations of their use, which I thought was important.
> The difference between the 2 models of disk is far less important than their similarity. The head contention (spreading files over disks) issue I also thought might interest people. It was a large factor in system design at the time.


I don't really, I find this sort of thread fascinating myself.


----------



## CupofJoe

Ursa major said:


> They were obviously spying on you, checking to make sure that you never communed with butterflies....


Well... A couple of years later, I did manage to kill a VAX mini... So maybe they had a reason.


----------



## mosaix

farntfar said:


> I'm sorry, Vince, if you thought my post about 2311s was written competitively, following Pyan's entry on 5440s. I was actually trying to add a bit of context. Py's picture didn't seem to me to really show the physical size of the disks in those days, nor the limitations of their use, which I thought was important.
> The difference between the 2 models of disk is far less important than their similarity. The head contention (spreading files over disks) issue I also thought might interest people. It was a large factor in system design at the time.



The NCR Century range (1960's) had a drive with twelve heads per surface (on a single arm) so the head movement was much reduced. The one thing that only came to light after a couple of years was that the drive was subject to twelve times more head crashes than a normal drive. It was very fast though.

NCR also had a device called CRAM. Strips of magnetic tape were stored on mylar cards (256 or 512 cards to a deck). The removable deck was held vertically over a drum and each card could be addressed individualy and released to drop and wrap around the drum and then be accessed by a set of heads. Sounds complex? Sounds too complex? It was. A common fear amongst operators was a 'double drop'. The term speaks for itself.

The CRAM drive is on the left in the picture and you can see the cradle that held the cards and was used to mount the deck in the unit.


----------



## farntfar

There was a guy who used to work for IBM from some time in the 60s onwards and then when he was getting on a bit, and probably a bit out of touch, he moved into after-dinner speaking for techie type conferences and seminars.
He did a great talk and slide show about equipment of yesteryear, that I saw a couple of times in the early 90s.
The main thrust of his talk was how much computers had advanced and could do amazing things, but were now (then) just dull black boxes, and how much more fun they were when you could hear the heads move and see the tapes wind and unwind etc. You could even see the instruction bytes flash up on 16 LEDs on the front of the machine as they were processed. (as you could with the 360 that I started on in 1980).
He was hilarious. He'll be long dead now I expect, but wouldn't be able to even compare today's machines with his early days.


----------



## Biskit

farntfar said:


> You could even see the instruction bytes flash up on 16 LEDs on the front of the machine as they were processed. (as you could with the 360 that I started on in 1980).


There was a defunct early PDP(?) "mainframe"  (the only hardware I saw was like a tall filing cabinet in size) in the physics department where you had to set the initial starting state with the switches on the front, and beware of overly tight code loops that might overheat the magnetic core memory. Supposedly, the beast was still functional but I never saw it running, and there probably weren't that many people around who knew how to turn it on.


----------



## Ambrose

Oh dear!  I can recall when the only random access portable data store was a book.


----------



## Biskit

Ambrose said:


> Oh dear!  I can recall when the only random access portable data store was a book.


Bring back papyrus.


----------



## farntfar

Aye.   You tell that to the youth of today, and they'll not believe you.


----------



## Dave

I still have a Slide Rule somewhere. I got it at school. I think we were the last year to get taught to use one.


----------



## farntfar

I've got one too. But I can't remember the password.


----------



## reiver33

1980’s financial systems using COBOL - no mouse, no graphics, no colour, just numbers on a screen, plus the odd reverse screen flashing alert.

But, man, did it HAVE to be quick, and accurate.

I was working on ICL mainframes and McDonald-Douglas ‘midi’ systems.

In the early 80’s, Lothian council’s payroll backup of last resort was held on magnetic drum.


----------



## mosaix

This thread has brought back an incident from my youth that still makes me giggle.

I move from NCR to Honeywell in the late 60s. They had a system called the Honeywell 200 series. The system at Honeywell's office in Manchester didn't have a console but a set of buttons and lights on a panel that stood up from the processor.

The machine operated in octal (don't ask) and the lights displayed the state of the system and the buttons allowed entry of commands - again in octal.

Beneath the main set of lights and buttons were two additional pairs of buttons, Halt and Central Clear  (basically a system reset) and Power On and Power off.

I was in the machine room late one night waiting for a collegue, Henry, to finish testing a program so we could go off down the pub.

The processor was against one wall with a 600 line a minute printer next to it. On the opposite wall was a set of six mag tape drives. Henry was looking at the tape drives and it was obvious he had a program run-away. Without turning he put one finger on Central Clear and the other on Halt. Except he didn't - he had one finger on Power Off and the other on Power On.

Now the buttons were of such a design that it wasn't absolutely obvious that they had been fully depressed so we had the habit of pressing them several times - just to make sure.

The Power On and Off were for the entire system including printers and tape drives. After a couple of seconds of Henry pressing them we ended up with the system on and the tape drives rotating in various directions. However the big problem was the printer - it was emptying the entire contents of a box of continuous paper onto the floor of the computer room - took about ten seconds.

The room was a shambles. We turned the machine off (it sounded sick) and tried to return the paper to the box - impossible. It was a mountain.

To cut a long story short we manhandled it out of the building and heaved it over a hedge opposite into small park - it was there for weeks.

A few weeks later Henry and I were sharing a table with a computer engineer in the canteen.

"Tell me," said Henry to the engineer, "what would happen if you pressed Power and and Power off, together, several times?"

The engineer paused with fork half to mouth. "It was you!"


----------



## reiver33

Octal? Don’t talk to me about octal - hex, that’s the way ahead!


----------



## Dave

farntfar said:


> I've got one too. But I can't remember the password.


I've found it. It's still in the packet with the instructions. Boots 10' Standard Slide Rule. I'd take a photo but I'm going to watch Task Master.


----------



## Vince W

Dave said:


> I've found it. It's still in the packet with the instructions. Boots 10' Standard Slide Rule. I'd take a photo but I'm going to watch Task Master.


As a kid I said I wanted to be an engineer, for the next two years all I got for gifts were slide rules and socks! What does that say about people's perceptions of engineers?


----------



## reiver33

Vince W said:


> As a kid I said I wanted to be an engineer, for the next two years all I got for gifts were slide rules and socks! What does that say about people's perceptions of engineers?



Engineers stuff balled-up socks down their pants and use the variable scaling on the slide rule to enhance the 'measured' effect even further...


----------



## Dave

Vince W said:


> all I got for gifts were slide rules and socks!


I wondered what type of engineer they expected you to become?




__





						Sock Machine Museum Sock Knitting Machine Information, Sales, Patterns and Museum
					

Sock machine information, Sock knitting machines for sale, Sock machine knitting,  Circular sock machines & more!



					oldtymestockings.com
				



I actually have distant cousins who first introduced frame-work knitting machines into Scotland and owned a Borders company. You wouldn't have heard of them, but you might have heard of their rivals, Pringles.


----------



## Ursa major

Dave said:


> You wouldn't have heard of them, but you might have heard of their rivals, Pringles.


I've never eaten any Pringles.

Do they smell of socks (old or otherwise)...?


----------



## Vertigo

I remember a particular hard disk drive we got in the early eighties. We hadn't been able to use the new fangled Winchester drives on our offshore survey boats because the movement of the boats would cause instant head crashes so we still had to use the big tape drives. Then one day this guy came in to demonstrate this new 5M hard drive. It was about the size of a modern desktop pc and I remember us watching with jaws thoroughly dropped as he picked it up (carefully) and moved it (gently) whilst it was being accessed _and it didn't crash_. We were gobsmacked and it duly went to sea, though we still didn't dare use it when the weather got a bit rough!


----------



## farntfar

The IBM 360 was known to overheat (although I never saw ours do so) and consequently had a big red emergency toggle in the top right corner which you could pull to cut the power instantly if it ever started to do so. Unfortunately, if you did, or if you powered off any other way for that matter, it took a day and a half to ipl (reboot), so it wasn't a good idea to try. 
Now this toggle screwed onto a shaft which went inside the machine, and after explaining all that to new employees, it was a rite of entry to get them to unscrew the toggle and then screw it back on without cutting the power.
Actually, you had to really yank it to power off, so there really wasn't much danger, but of course as a newbie, you didn't know that.
It felt like you were defusing a bomb.


----------



## mosaix

Vertigo said:


> I remember a particular hard disk drive we got in the early eighties. We hadn't been able to use the new fangled Winchester drives on our offshore survey boats because the movement of the boats would cause instant head crashes so we still had to use the big tape drives. Then one day this guy came in to demonstrate this new 5M hard drive. It was about the size of a modern desktop pc and I remember us watching with jaws thoroughly dropped as he picked it up (carefully) and moved it (gently) whilst it was being accessed _and it didn't crash_. We were gobsmacked and it duly went to sea, though we still didn't dare use it when the weather got a bit rough!



In the late 80s we were looking for a hand-held that we could program and sell to our customers for their reps to take orders in shops (before the internet) and transmit the orders back to our back-office system over land lines.

The machine had to be fairly rugged. For one demonstration we had the rep threw the thing across the room so it bounced off the floor. It was still working. It was waterproof down to about 5 metres and guaranteed not to emit sparks (so they could be used on oil rigs etc.). Don't think it had any type of disc - just enough memory to store a couple of orders until the next transmission.


----------



## mosaix

Anyone remember the line printers that played tunes? Programmers printed and fed paper so that the sound of the printing and paper movement sounded like a tune. I remember an IBM 1401 playing the theme-tune from the William Tell TV series.


----------



## CupofJoe




----------



## mosaix

CupofJoe said:


>



Excellent!


----------



## Ursa major

CupofJoe said:


>


Brilliant!

From Wikipedia:





> As of April 2019 there are more than one hundred songs played with the Floppotron in Zadrożniak's YouTube page. The songs include Queen's "Bohemian Rapsody", Nirvana's "Smells Like Teen Spirit", White Stripes's "Seven Nation Army", Eurythmics "Sweet Dreams", Michael Jackson's "Thriller" and "Song 2" by Blur.


----------



## Danny McG




----------



## mosaix

mosaix said:


> In the late 80s we were looking for a hand-held that we could program and sell to our customers for their reps to take orders in shops (before the internet) and transmit the orders back to our back-office system over land lines.
> 
> The machine had to be fairly rugged. For one demonstration we had the rep threw the thing across the room so it bounced off the floor. It was still working. It was waterproof down to about 5 metres and guaranteed not to emit sparks (so they could be used on oil rigs etc.). Don't think it had any type of disc - just enough memory to store a couple of orders until the next transmission.



Finally, after nine days, remembered the brand name - Husky.


----------



## Pyan

The first Roomba? _Miracle Kitchen Of The Future_, a display at the 1959 American National Exhibition in Moscow.


----------



## Vince W

pyan said:


> The first Roomba? _Miracle Kitchen Of The Future_, a display at the 1959 American National Exhibition in Moscow.
> 
> View attachment 73283


That is sooo much cooler than a Roomba. It looks like it's from the future. A Roomba looks like it came from a toy shop.


----------



## Pyan

Alas, further checking indicates that it's not quite the miracle of science that it seems to be:



> (Former RCA/Whirlpool sub-contractor Joe)_ Maxwell, a man now in his 80s, who helped design the Miracle Kitchen in the 1950s while working for the design firm Sundberg-Ferar in Detroit (says)
> _“They had a two-way mirror with a person sitting behind it that could see the room,” former designer Joe Maxwell told me over the phone. “And they radio-controlled the vacuum cleaner and the dishwasher._”


Shame, but they _were_ trying to, and succeeding in, impressing the Russians in the middle of the Cold War, and weren't averse to a tiny bit of cheating.


----------



## Vertigo

Vince W said:


> That is sooo much cooler than a Roomba. It looks like it's from the future. A Roomba looks like it came from a toy shop.


The really strange thing about everything in that picture is how it manages to look so futuristic and at the same time so sixties (even if it was '59).


----------



## CupofJoe

Vertigo said:


> The really strange thing about everything in that picture is how it manages to look so futuristic and at the same time so sixties (even if it was '59).


Ah... but that is when we learnt what the future would look like.
It was the time when were promised robot butlers, personal jet-packs, trips to the Moon and computers that were no bigger than a piano!


----------



## Ursa major

CupofJoe said:


> and computers that were no bigger than a piano


And with, presumably, a proper, full-size keyboard (so a darned sight better than a lot of us use today)....



pyan said:


> _“And they radio-controlled [...] the dishwasher._”
Click to expand...

Radio...?! For a stationary dishwasher that's connected to a power supply over a cable?

Just think: they were one tiny step away from inventing communications over the (domestic) electricity supply.


----------



## Parson

Ursa major said:


> And with, presumably, a proper, full-size keyboard (so a darned sight better than a lot of us use today)....



Indeed! I spent extra on my present laptop so that I could get a decent sized keyboard with a 10 key added to the keyboard.


----------



## Biskit




----------



## Wayne Mack

Ursa major said:


> Just think: they were one tiny step away from inventing communications over the (domestic) electricity supply.


That's actually been done for many years now.









						The Best Powerline Networking Adapter
					

When Wi-Fi just isn’t practical for your midsize home, powerline networking may be your best solution. These are the options we recommend.




					www.nytimes.com


----------



## Danny McG




----------



## Ursa major

Wayne Mack said:


> That's actually been done for many years now.


For some _decades_, I believe.


----------



## mosaix

Wayne Mack said:


> That's actually been done for many years now.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> The Best Powerline Networking Adapter
> 
> 
> When Wi-Fi just isn’t practical for your midsize home, powerline networking may be your best solution. These are the options we recommend.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> www.nytimes.com



The problem I have is that, because my house is two smaller houses knocked into one, I have two fuse boxes. The router is on one and the part if the house that would benefit most from the adapter is on the other. The resulting signal is too poor to be of any use. 

The two fuse boxes are linked together via live, neutral and earth but this doesn’t seem to make any difference.

Edit: one thing that I did that improved the signal around the whole house was to move it away from a steel radiator. It was on a table at radiator level, it’s now on a window ledge above the radiator.


----------



## Danny McG




----------



## Matteo

Danny McG said:


> View attachment 73617


*Mods* - please move @Danny McG 's post to the _*New*_ Tech thread  DeLorean Motor Company | New DeLorean Production Update | DeLorean Motor Company


----------



## mosaix

mosaix said:


> They had a system called the Honeywell 200 series. The system at Honeywell's office in Manchester didn't have a console but a set of buttons and lights on a panel that stood up from the processor.
> 
> The machine operated in octal (don't ask) and the lights displayed the state of the system and the buttons allowed entry of commands - again in octal.
> 
> Beneath the main set of lights and buttons were two additional pairs of buttons, Halt and Central Clear  (basically a system reset) and Power On and Power off.



Yesterday we were watching the six-part DVD version of the BBC's Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy. In the second episode, Arthur Dent and Ford Prefect enter what appears to be a computer room on Zaphod Beeblebrox's ship. Behind them is some kind of magnetic tape drive and on top of it is the control panel from a Honeywell 200 series! It's upside down, I suppose the props department had it donated when the BBC scrapped a 200 and didn't have any idea which way was 'up' - always a problem in space.


----------



## Dave

mosaix said:


> I suppose the props department had it donated when the BBC scrapped a 200 and didn't have any idea which way was 'up' - always a problem in space.


Or, they just thought no one would notice. How many people would have ever seen one?

The Death Star control panel used to destroy Alderaan, including the lighted switches and that lever that is pulled are, I was told on good authority, TV studio gallery desk controls for lighting and vision control, and for fading or mixing between cameras. I used to know someone who trained new cameramen there, and I visited the BBC studios at White City, London with him in the mid-1980's. It did look the same to me.

Here is the _Star Wars_ sequence:






And here is a photo of a similar, but smaller mixing desk, in another but very similar BBC studio taken in 1981, from this website: history of television studios in London


----------



## mosaix

Now I think about it, the reason I could never take Blake's 7 seriously was that part of the controls of the spaceship was the keyboard of an NCR Class 32 accounting machine. 

Being able to identify NCR equipment nearly got me into serious trouble once. Whilst I was out of the house one day in 1982 two detectives called and asked Mrs Mosaix if she owned a red Citroen 2CV - she did. They asked if she was driving it in Norfolk in September - "No but My husband was."

To explain why these two were so excited by her answer was that they had been given the task of interviewing every red 2CV owner in Shropshire and asking if it had been driven in Norfolk in September. They'd been doing this every day for three weeks and this was the first positive response they'd had.

I shortly returned home and the conversation went:

Detective: "Mr Mosaix we going to read you a statement of facts and then ask you some questions. During the evening of the sixth of September 1982 a filling station on road xxxx was the subject of an armed robbery. At the time of the robbery, a passing motorist saw a Citroen 2CV parked on the forecourt. An NCR Garage Forecourt Cash Register...

Me _(interrupting)_: "A Class 52..."

Detective _(with a very cold stare): "_...a Class 52 was stolen. The garage attendant was attacked and subsequently died in hospital."

You can imagine that they were particularly interested in my answers to their questions. It got quite uncomfortable for a while until Mrs Mosaix produced her diary and found that we'd gone to the theatre that night with some friends. They lived not far away and one detective went round to question them whilst the other stayed to 'keep us company'. 

Our friends later told us that they had no idea why they were questioned about their whereabouts on sixth September and couldn't remember. The detective finally mentioned the theatre as a possibility and then it all fell into place for them.

I often wonder what would have happened if we'd just spent that evening in with no proof of my whereabouts.


----------



## reiver33

Ah, the infamous 'Supportive Friends' gang strikes again...


----------



## Matteo

Hmm...but how could you _afford_ to go the theatre...

Unless...


----------



## Pyan

I've always wondered what the two Death Star crew were doing standing on an open, unshielded balcony beside a small console, while enough energy to blow up a full-size _planet_ went past them not 30 feet away!


----------



## Dave

_But the notorious Shropshire Supportive Friends Mob never worked in Norfolk. Everyone knows that was the infamous Hereford Wives Crime Syndicate, and that they drove blue Renaults._

But to return to subject, maybe we should have a separate "spotting of old machines within fictional spacecraft control units" thread?


----------



## Biskit

pyan said:


> I've always wondered what the two Death Star crew were doing standing on an open, unshielded balcony beside a small console, while enough energy to blow up a full-size _planet_ went past them not 30 feet away!


Dammit. Are you saying the Empire didn't pay proper attention to health and safety?


----------



## Vladd67

Dave said:


> _But the notorious Shropshire Supportive Friends Mob never worked in Norfolk. Everyone knows that was the infamous Hereford Wives Crime Syndicate, and that they drove blue Renaults._
> 
> But to return to subject, maybe we should have a separate "spotting of old machines within fictional spacecraft control units" thread?


Well it wasn’t an old machine but in an episode of Thunderbirds when the scene cut to a human hand turning a control it was obviously the knob from a gas cooker.


----------



## Vince W

Biskit said:


> Dammit. Are you saying the Empire didn't pay proper attention to health and safety?


The first thing to go in any evil empire are the health and safety drones.


----------



## Ursa major

Vladd67 said:


> it was obviously the knob from a gas cooker


As Macbeth (a well known swinger) said to his intended, while leaning over a gas cooker, "Me Thane, you Jane."

Or something like that.


----------



## Biskit

Mods: If this counts as political, please delete with extreme prejudice.

I read this and instantly thought of "Old Tech thread" which is sad, because I was sneaking into middle age when some of this stuff was still current...









						Brexit deal mentions Netscape browser and Mozilla Mail
					

Experts suggest officials saved time by copying and pasting text from old legislation.



					www.bbc.co.uk


----------



## Pyan

Not exactly tech, but...



'Over 100 graphic locations!' I had the Hobbit game for the Spectrum, and each 'graphic location' took literally up to 2 minutes to load, line by line.


----------



## Dave

pyan said:


> ...each 'graphic location' took literally up to 2 minutes to load, line by line...


I remember games like that, and I actually thought it was what the future looked like. "And you try and tell the young people of today that and they won't believe you!"

BTW I think I have actually become one of the four Yorkshiremen from that sketch now.


----------



## Vladd67

Ah the Spectrum, the joy of getting the volume just right on your cassette player to load a program. I even painted a line of tippex on mine so I could set it to the same volume everytime.
I remember explaining to some ‘youngsters’ about having to plug in an expansion pack to increase the ZX81 from 1K to 16K, they thought I was exaggerating, a cardboard box luxury!!!


----------



## Pyan

Dave said:
			
		

> "And you try and tell the young people of today that and they won't believe you!"



For you young 'uns, yes, this is really what it was like back in 1982. Those that remember it, have a wallow in nostalgia!


----------



## autodidact

For anybody who wants to experience what early 80's microcomputing was like, I can highly recommend this






I taught myself programming on a real one back then and, from a programming perspective, this facsimile is exactly like the real thing. The case is also very close to the original, and the keyboard is excellent and, again, very close to the original. I can't attest to the games experience as my interest was, and still is, from a programming perspective.


----------



## Ursa major

pyan said:


> For you young 'uns, yes, this is really what it was like back in 1982. Those that remember it, have a wallow in nostalgia!


But would that screen have loaded faster on a Smaug Dragon computer...?


----------



## Pyan

Not exactly tech as such, but:




*The official Apple® Beige*


----------



## mosaix

Ursa major said:


> But would that screen have loaded faster on a Smaug Dragon computer...?



That brought back some memories, Ursa.


----------



## CupofJoe

Vintage technology: 'It sounds so much cleaner'
					

Why do people like to use ancient personal organisers and music players?



					www.bbc.co.uk
				



I still use my Sony Minidisc player. Battery lasts for ages and I can recharge it just about anywhere in a few seconds [aka change the battery]


----------



## HareBrain

I would still be using my Creative Zen MP3 player if the LCD screen hadn't become unreadable. I still use the little docking station/speakers with my laptop; the sound is better than anything I've heard less than full stereo speakers.


----------



## Vladd67

Used to love my Zen


----------



## Toby Frost

I had one of those. It was really good.


----------



## paranoid marvin

pyan said:


> Not exactly tech, but...
> 
> View attachment 74673​'Over 100 graphic locations!' I had the Hobbit game for the Spectrum, and each 'graphic location' took literally up to 2 minutes to load, line by line.




It was actually done by the same guys who did The Hobbit, Melbourne House. It was much larger and you could switch between characters; but it was also much slower and less fun to play.

Watching the graphics draw (and then fill in) was pretty cool , and even today the graphical depictions in the game are interesting to view. The game (The Hobbit) was also incredibly complex in it's day, and quite possibly the first 'sand-box' game. In an era where most text adventure games used simple verb/noun combinations, in The Hobbit you could string together a complex series of commands, and the game also had it's own internal clock (again quite unique for the time). The non-player characters in the game also had their own free will; sometimes they would help you and sometimes they wouldn't. You'd could set up some 'interesting' situations , such as wearing the Ring then 'hitting' a non-player character such as Gandalf. Not being able to see you, he would assume he'd been hit by another  non-player character (such as Elrond) and they'd start fighting. All this was totally unique at the time,


----------



## Pyan

“You wait - time passes “
Then Thorin enters and starts singing about gold...


----------



## paranoid marvin

pyan said:


> “You wait - time passes “
> Then Thorin enters and starts singing about gold...




Ah, I see that I was preaching to the converted!


----------



## Vladd67

Does anyone else remember The Boggit adventure game? One memorable part had Goodguff the wizard swing in through the window on a rope, the game played the Milk Tray fanfare, Goodguff dropped a box of chocolates which then shortly exploded killing you unless you took appropriate action.


----------



## paranoid marvin

I never played Bored of the Rings or The Boggit, but I understand they were both great, funny games. That sounds like a good example, Vladd.


----------



## paranoid marvin

autodidact said:


> For anybody who wants to experience what early 80's microcomputing was like, I can highly recommend this
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> I taught myself programming on a real one back then and, from a programming perspective, this facsimile is exactly like the real thing. The case is also very close to the original, and the keyboard is excellent and, again, very close to the original. I can't attest to the games experience as my interest was, and still is, from a programming perspective.




I have the mini C64 which is great fun, and a cool looking piece of equipment.  What I would love to see (but probably won't) is a mini Atari 800 with the Activision games (BallBlazer, Fractulus etc) and some of the other Atari classics (Star Raiders, ElektraGlide, Alleycat etc)


----------



## Toby Frost

I had the Boggit and spent many annoying hours trying to get out of my own house.


----------



## BigBadBob141

Any one play any Level 9 games, I really enjoyed playing Snowball.
An interstellar colony ship built on a comet, using the frozen gases of said comet for fuel, hence the name.
You would wake up in mid-flight from deep freeze sleep only to die within a couple of minutes of starting the game,  turns out someone had given the robot nurse a poisoned syringe!
It had a pretty good parser, about as good as the Infocom games such as Zork ect.


----------



## Danny McG

From 1963!


----------



## Vladd67

I wonder if Roddenberry saw this?


----------



## Ursa major

Danny McG said:


> From 1963!
> 
> View attachment 78624


Flipping heck! That's a very early appearance of a clamshell phone (even if it is no more than a mock-up).



Vladd67 said:


> I wonder if Roddenberry saw this?



So now we know what the M in M class planet means...: "Mansfield"....


----------



## Dave

I did wonder if it was a fake newspaper report but that newspaper exists. It is Mansfield in Ohio not the one in Nottinghamshire. Sorry for being sceptical. 


Vladd67 said:


> I wonder if Roddenberry saw this?


I don't think he would need to have seen that particular report. If one newspaper was reporting this, then it is most-likely that it wasn't the only one. In the early 1960's, in the "white heat of technology", it was believed that in the future, _anything_ at all was possible with the application of science. There were no barriers to what could be achieved and it would all happen very, very soon. Only a few people mentioned resource depletion, limits to growth and sustainability. _Thunderbirds_ has video-phones but we don't see Gerry Anderson as a visionary in the same way as Gene Roddenberry is seen about the flip-open communicator. They actually designed mobile cell phones that looked like the _Star Trek_ communicator but they didn't catch on. You can still buy them for $149.95 if you are a real fan, but most people have progressed on to camera smartphones. No one ever predicted having computers that small, did they?


----------



## Vladd67

Not on tv but I remember an English teacher reading us a short story about a boy who had glasses that acted as a monitor for his edu-computer/communicator that he had fitted to his belt. this was in the early 80s


----------



## Dave

Vladd67 said:


> Not on tv but I remember an English teacher reading us a short story about a boy who had glasses that acted as a monitor for his edu-computer/communicator that he had fitted to his belt. this was in the early 80s


That sounds remarkably like _Joe 90_ 's glasses. 

What I meant though, was that (even in books) that "big brain" AI that "knows all," and controls all, was always the size of a city, or at least the size of a high-rise building, and that smart-phones themselves now fit in your pocket. You are perfectly right, of course, that smartphones wouldn't be possible without internet connected gigantic servers. They probably would take up a small city if they were all put together in one place. So, really it is the internet that allows geographically dispersed data centres that wasn't predicted.


----------



## CupofJoe

Danny McG said:


> From 1963!
> 
> View attachment 78624


and in case you needed double proof...
Did 1963 Newspaper Anticipate Phones That Fit in a Pocket? | Snopes.com


----------



## Foxbat

Many folk view electric cars as the future but they also predate the internal combustion engine so I think they qualify for this old tech thread


			https://www.sytner.co.uk/news/history-of-electric-cars/


----------



## Dave

Foxbat said:


> Many folk view electric cars as the future but they also predate the internal combustion engine so I think they qualify for this old tech thread
> 
> 
> https://www.sytner.co.uk/news/history-of-electric-cars/


I wasn't aware a much of that, such as the history of Porsche. Very interesting. I'm not convinced that the success of the Model T Ford was the cause of "everything [going] very quiet for the electric car". The well-known proverb, "necessity is the mother of invention" is quite true, but battery technology would have been driven by a lot more than car manufacturing and would have helped in electrical distribution networks if available. Maybe you could say the easy availability of fossil fuels was the cause, or maybe we were just lacking the right materials to manufacture modern batteries. It has certainly come a long way in the last few decades but that also coincides with computers and semi-conductor technology. I'm minded that the joke in _Stainless Steel Rat_ of the coal/steam powered robot was written in 1961.


----------



## Foxbat

I don’t buy the Model T argument either. The energy density of petrol is much greater than a battery (or steam, which was also an early power source for cars) and so I think it quickly became the obvious choice of fuel in the early days.


----------



## hitmouse

Foxbat said:


> I don’t buy the Model T argument either. The energy density of petrol is much greater than a battery (or steam, which was also an early power source for cars) and so I think it quickly became the obvious choice of fuel in the early days.


More to the point, the energy density of petrol is much greater than that of horse.
That article is not very good.


----------



## Foxbat

It’s worth remembering that I didn’t post the article because of energy density but because I was surprised at just how long electric vehicles had been around in some form or another.


----------



## Dave

One thing I thought of the other day*, which is related to this, is why do cars still use lead/acid batteries?  It is 1860's technology. Almost everything else in a modern car has been changed. 

They are cheap and reliable (generally, until they aren't anymore) but they are extremely heavy. They are slow to charge (14-16 hours for a full charge). They have a limited cycle life (5 years is very good), a low specific energy and a poor weight to energy ratio. 

*I was visiting Standen, East Grinstead, which is one of the first houses that ever had electricity (built 1892-1894). It was supplied by lead/acid batteries that had to be carried in and out of the house, charged by a steam engine in the garden. Armstrong's house, Cragside, in Northumberland, (built 1869–1895) was the first house with electricity, and it used an Archimedes screw to generate hydroelectricity.


----------



## Foxbat

Dave said:


> One thing I thought of the other day*, which is related to this, is why do cars still use lead/acid batteries? It is 1860's technology. Almost everything else in a modern car has been changed.



They’re relatively cheap to manufacture (no exotic materials required) and can produce a good strong current. The engine starter motor needs a good bit of oomph to turn over.  These might be factors in why they’re still used.


----------



## CupofJoe

A few years ago I heard an article about Iron - Air batteries that are being tested. Apparently, they have a huge capacity and are cheap to build but are [at the moment] incredibly delicate as it is effectively a mesh of rust flakes. Last I heard they were trying to bond the rust to Graphene sheets to make them more practical. The scientist/researcher believed that a functional battery was 10 years away.








						Renaissance of the iron-air battery
					

Iron-air batteries promise a higher energy density than present-day lithium-ion batteries. Their main constituent, iron, is an abundant and cheap material. Scientists from Forschungszentrum Jülich are pursuing research into this concept, first reported in the 1970s. Together with Oak Ridge...




					phys.org


----------



## Foxbat

This morning, I was busy recording some new music on my fancy new recording software. I'd just finished laying down the bouzouki and guitar tracks and was ready to tackle the vocals. Plugged in the mike. Nothing. I could record but couldn't hear myself (and therefore couldn't stay in tune, it's difficult enough without this malarky). No monitoring available. 

 After a couple of hours searching t'internet for a solution and then following up the negative results with a range of expletives and much yelling at the screen, I gave up and  went off in a rage to cut the hedge. It was only when I returned to try again that I realised that I must have accidentally hit the 'direct monitoring' button on the interface when plugging in the mike. Button pushed and problem sorted.  The simple old tech of button pushing beats the latest software drivers any day in my book


----------



## mosaix

Foxbat said:


> This morning, I was busy recording some new music on my fancy new recording software. I'd just finished laying down the bouzouki and guitar tracks and was ready to tackle the vocals. Plugged in the mike. Nothing. I could record but couldn't hear myself (and therefore couldn't stay in tune, it's difficult enough without this malarky). No monitoring available.
> 
> After a couple of hours searching t'internet for a solution and then following up the negative results with a range of expletives and much yelling at the screen, I gave up and  went off in a rage to cut the hedge. It was only when I returned to try again that I realised that I must have accidentally hit the 'direct monitoring' button on the interface when plugging in the mike. Button pushed and problem sorted.  The simple old tech of button pushing beats the latest software drivers any day in my book



So you just ‘turned it off and on again’.


----------



## Ori Vandewalle

Foxbat said:


> This morning, I was busy recording some new music on my fancy new recording software. I'd just finished laying down the bouzouki and guitar tracks and was ready to tackle the vocals. Plugged in the mike. Nothing. I could record but couldn't hear myself (and therefore couldn't stay in tune, it's difficult enough without this malarky). No monitoring available.
> 
> After a couple of hours searching t'internet for a solution and then following up the negative results with a range of expletives and much yelling at the screen, I gave up and  went off in a rage to cut the hedge. It was only when I returned to try again that I realised that I must have accidentally hit the 'direct monitoring' button on the interface when plugging in the mike. Button pushed and problem sorted.  The simple old tech of button pushing beats the latest software drivers any day in my book


Reminds me of the soundbar I got last year. Finished setting it up, connecting it to the TV, working out all the settings... and then for some reason the TV remote no longer worked! Stared at the whole system for quite awhile, fiddling with options and trying to figure out what was wrong, until I eventually realized the soundbar was sliiiiightly too tall and was blocking the TV's IR sensor. I was defeated by line of sight.


----------



## Danny McG

Not really 'old tech' but I was browsing through the Argos online catalogue looking for a watch for one of the kids.
After a few minutes I changed the view to 'lowest prices first' and I was bemused to see the Casio F91-W appear (for less than ten pounds).

Surely this must be a design classic? It's been out since 1989 and still selling strong with no changes.


----------



## Venusian Broon

Danny McG said:


> Not really 'old tech' but I was browsing through the Argos online catalogue looking for a watch for one of the kids.
> After a few minutes I changed the view to 'lowest prices first' and I was bemused to see the Casio F91-W appear (for less than ten pounds).
> 
> Surely this must be a design classic? It's been out since 1989 and still selling strong with no changes.



I had to look this up to see it. I vaguely remember having something....like it. In the dim mists of history before I switched to smartphones.

But I noticed this come up in the search:

Casio F-91W

According to secret documents issued to interrogators at Guantanamo Bay, obtained and released by The Guardian, "*the Casio F-91W digital watch* was declared to be 'the sign of al-Qaeda' and a contributing factor to continued detention of prisoners by the analysts stationed at Guantanamo Bay.  Briefing documents used to train staff in assessing the threat level of new detainees advise that possession of the F-91W and the A159W – available online for as little as £4 – suggests the wearer has been trained in bomb making by al-Qaeda in Afghanistan.

On July 12, 2006, the magazine _Mother Jones_ provided excerpts from the transcripts of a selection of the Guantanamo detainees. The article informed readers:

"More than a dozen detainees were cited for owning cheap digital watches, particularly 'the infamous Casio watch of the type used by Al Qaeda members for bomb detonators.' "

Might be cool for the right sort of kid!

EDIT: Also - £10 today and they say it was available for £4 in 2006. Either watch inflation has gone through the roof or you aren't looking in the right websites.


----------



## HareBrain

Venusian Broon said:


> Might be cool for the right sort of kid!


@Danny McG , is the child in question named Al?


----------



## CupofJoe

If owning a 80s digital watch is a key marker for being a member of al-Qaeda... I'm going to have to re-evaluate my old Physics teacher. He had the watch and access to explosive chemical...


----------



## Dave

Err... didn't James Bond own a '80's digital watch too?

And you've all been ripped off. It says $1.29 for one here...


----------



## Bick

Dave said:


> Err... didn't James Bond own a '80's digital watch too?
> 
> And you've all been ripped off. It says $1.29 for one here...


“Plus tax”


----------



## Pyan

That is Roger Moore, yes? Took me a moment to work out...


----------



## .matthew.

Ha, imagine. James Bond walking around with a watch that literally says 007 on it


----------



## Vince W

Danny McG said:


> Not really 'old tech' but I was browsing through the Argos online catalogue looking for a watch for one of the kids.
> After a few minutes I changed the view to 'lowest prices first' and I was bemused to see the Casio F91-W appear (for less than ten pounds).
> 
> Surely this must be a design classic? It's been out since 1989 and still selling strong with no changes.


It was considered "amazingly primitive" but the humans of Earth considered it to be a pretty neat idea


----------



## Danny McG

Before eBay and Amazon you could (one day!) choose presents by television


----------



## Toby Frost

"Hello? Television? I want a giant man for Christmas. Yes, big enough to pick up an aeroplane. Excellent. I'll send my robot around with a postal order for 3 shillings and sixpence."


----------



## Dave

I thought the father was pointing a pistol at his son, "You will have this aeroplane toy and you will like it!" but then I realised it was a tobacco pipe. Those were the days, when you could tell husbands were relaxed because, although they were still wearing their work suit, they had their pipe out, and everyone used Macassar hair oil.

Note also, the extendable speaker phone to talk to the TV man.


----------



## dask

Someday we’ll be able to watch our favorite radio program:


----------



## Toby Frost

Hugo Gernsback, no less!


----------



## psikeyhackr

Is that a voice controlled television with a microphone sticking out of the front?

And you must not watch TV at home unless you are wearing a suit and tie.


----------



## Dave

"What's wrong with this picture?"

The clock on the TV screen and the grandfather clock show different times. The grandfather is 12 o'clock. (No TV during the daytime or that late at night.) The other clock says a quarter past seven. TV was live. (Nothing to record it on until metal discs in 1927 but that was prohibitively expensive until magnetic tape came along.)

Am I right?


----------



## dask

Is there an app for this?


----------



## Dave

I'm impressed by the Staccatone. I never realised there were electronic instruments as early as 1923.









						The ‘Staccatone’. Hugo Gernsback & C.J.Fitch. USA, 1923
					

Hugo Gernsback, perhaps better known as the ‘Father of Science Fiction’  (and currently eponymously celebrated in the ‘Hugos’ Science Fiction Awards) also invented and built…




					120years.net


----------



## farntfar

.matthew. said:


> Ha, imagine. James Bond walking around with a watch that literally says 007 on it


All digital watches had 0 07 on them, but normally only once per day.


----------



## Astro Pen

Danny McG said:


> Before eBay and Amazon you could (one day!) choose presents by television
> 
> View attachment 85500


"So what would you like Tommy?"
"A Radio please."


----------



## Parson

What's wrong with this picture?

the picture on the wall is seen through the screen. Am I right?


----------



## farntfar

Parson said:


> Am I right?


I couldn't help but hear this as asked by the Memory Man who appeared at the beginning and end of the film of The 39 Steps.
Members of the audience would ask him questions and he would reel of the answers ending each answer with  "Am I right sir?"

At the end of the film Richard Hannay (Robert Donat) asks him "What are the 39 steps" to which he starts to reply "The 39 Steps is a secret organisation dedicated to the overthrow of" when he gets shot. And as Hannay rushes to help him, with his dying breath he says "Am I right sir?"

So as Hannay, I think, replies, "You were right in every particular."


----------



## Vladd67

farntfar said:


> I couldn't help but hear this as asked by the Memory Man who appeared at the beginning and end of the film of The 39 Steps.
> Members of the audience would ask him questions and he would reel of the answers ending each answer with  "Am I right sir?"
> 
> At the end of the film Richard Hannay (Robert Donat) asks him "What are the 39 steps" to which he starts to reply "The 39 Steps is a secret organisation dedicated to the overthrow of" when he gets shot. And as Hannay rushes to help him, with his dying breath he says "Am I right sir?"
> 
> So as Hannay, I think, replies, "You were right in every particular."


----------



## farntfar

Indeed.
The conversation was slightly more complicated than I remembered, but the "Am I right, sir?", and his intonation,  is as I remember.


----------



## Vladd67

Great film and if you can watch the play, really funny.


----------



## Pyan

BBC audio tape recorder from 1932:





Or you could use a Blattnerphone:


----------



## hitmouse

I caught a really interesting programme on BBC R4 last week about old recordings. It had a piece on the Blattnerphone which used an astonishing amount of tape for fairly short recordings. One was used to record Neville Chamberlain when Britain declared war in 1939.


----------



## Danny McG

A lighter is always appreciated


----------



## JunkMonkey

Not really old tech* but I found a flatscreen TV with built in DVD player (with the remote taped to it ) in a skip (dumpster) a few months ago - it took about 5 minutes to figure out that all that was wrong with it was that there was a bit of corrosion on one of the battery terminals in the remote.  I gave it to my daughter and she had it out in her shed out in the garden where she does mysterious art stuff.  The other day she mentioned that it had stopped working. So we bought it inside, plonked it on the kitchen table switched it on and off a few times and it started working again. 
I said that I reckoned she just needed to give it time to warm up.  I'm old.   
She looked at me like I was an idiot.

She took it back out again. 
Next time she tried to use it it didn't work....


...then it did.

Vindicated.

* Though DVDs are now so 'old' that I heard someone in a shop sneeringly wondering who still had a DVD player - she seemed quite shocked when I said I had at least four... and three VHS players... and a Betamax.


----------



## Alex The G and T

... and a video camera with 8 m magnetic tape cartridges... and another video camera wit DAT magnetic tape cassettes.


----------



## Dave

We've got DVD and VHS players. I've got practically every Disney animation up to 1990 on VHS (and the original and best Star Wars). I recently had to get a DVD player for my laptop - I don't think any of them come with a DVD player any longer, but I still buy local history resources than are published in that way. We have a large selection of CDs which the kids turn up their noses at and ask, 'why don't you use Spotify, it's only **** per month'. Because you will never "own" the recordings, you need Wi-Fi, and they can remove artists from their catalogue for political reasons with zero notice, that's why. I also have an old car with an audio cassette player. It was really hard to get any tapes for it. Car Boot sales were the only source. Sadly, it's now broken (both tape tangled inside and the connector at the back is faulty.) I thought about replacing it with a new or second-hand CD player, but that would probably cost more than the car is worth itself.

And my usual method of listening to music is via an iPod (circa 1998) which I plug into the car, an iPod Dock, or computer I have about 4000 songs on it, more than anyone ever needs really. Also, it came in very useful when in a camper van around New Zealand, South Island, because most of the places we went to didn't have Wi-Fi, or even radio reception.


----------



## JunkMonkey

Dave said:


> We've got DVD and VHS players. I've got practically every Disney animation up to 1990 on VHS (and the original and best Star Wars). I recently had to get a DVD player for my laptop - I don't think any of them come with a DVD player any longer, but I still buy local history resources than are published in that way. We have a large selection of CDs which the kids turn up their noses at and ask, 'why don't you use Spotify, it's only **** per month'. Because you will never "own" the recordings, you need Wi-Fi, and they can remove artists from their catalogue for political reasons with zero notice, that's why.




And there's no context.  No sleeve notes. No art.  And, in the immortal words of someone long forgotten, 'you can't roll a joint on a download'.


----------



## Ursa major

JunkMonkey said:


> And there's no context. No sleeve notes.


And even if there were....

A slightly different thing I've noticed is that when I've played a CD on my laptop using Windows Media Player (or whatever it's called), the names of the tracks it displays do not always match what's on the CD.

I suppose that either whatever source WMP uses is inaccurate (or corrupted) or the CD number has been reused by the manufacturer, the CD itself not containing, not have had any need to contain) the names of the tracks.


----------



## JunkMonkey

Talking of VHS - am I the only one who uses old VHS cases for the purpose they were obviously subconsciously designed?

 They are JUST the right size to store a 3.5" internal HDD


----------



## Danny McG

Talking of CDs, I remember being awe struck in the late 1990s, my eldest daughter was starting university and we bought her what was, at the time, a high spec computer.

She was familiarizing herself with it for a few days before she left and put a music CD in, it turned out to be an enhanced CD and suddenly the group popped up on screen playing the song! - a hasty scrabble through our CD rack revealed a handful more that were in the enhanced format and showed the bands playing.

In those pre YouTube days this was gob- smacking.

I would suggest that enhanced CDs are now obsolete tech and have thus earned a place in this thread


----------



## JunkMonkey

Danny McG said:


> I would suggest that enhanced CDs are now obsolete tech and have thus earned a place in this thread



Judging  from the price CDs are in our local charity shops - one I frequent sells CDs five for a pound, another four for a pound, and they both  consider anything that looks like a box set to be a single item.  I think a lot of people would agree with you. 

I buy a LOT of CDs.


----------



## Dave

Danny McG said:


> I would suggest that enhanced CDs are now obsolete tech and have thus earned a place in this thread


There were also a lot of CD-ROM products that were enhanced CDs that only held data. The Microsoft encyclopaedia "Encarta" was one which everyone bought, and not for an inconsiderable amount of money, but there were also many Dorling Kindersley DK children's products. People had whole shelves full of these CD-ROMs.

I still have Family History products on CD-ROM but many were designed to work with Windows XP and to use them now is quite complicated and not really worth the bother when the same information is available online. Of course, that information online is all usually behind paywalls now (so is that progress?)


----------



## CupofJoe

I have a Gorillaz CD single that when I tried to rip on to my laptop showed me there was a driving game*** on it.
Nothing on the disc or sleeve about the game. you had to put it in a computer to know it was there.
*** It's more of a Driving Sandbox as there are no game elements, just obstacles to explore. If you tried hard enough you could leap out of the defined area and fall endlessly.


----------



## JunkMonkey

Dave said:


> There were also a lot of CD-ROM products that were enhanced CDs that only held data. The Microsoft encyclopaedia "Encarta" was one which everyone bought, and not for an inconsiderable amount of money, but there were also many Dorling Kindersley DK children's products. People had whole shelves full of these CD-ROMs.
> 
> I still have Family History products on CD-ROM but many were designed to work with Windows XP and to use them now is quite complicated and not really worth the bother when the same information is available online. Of course, that information online is all usually behind paywalls now (so is that progress?)



In addition to the big chunky desktop computer I'm typing this at (and all the various phones, tablets, chromebooks  and other, up to date(ish) stuff knocking around the house) we have an old XP tower plugged into the downstairs TV to get round this very issue.  My 12 year old son is playing the original Myst on it. An we have  a chunky old Win 95 laptop too - because we couldn't get Doom to work on anything else.  Myst and Doom.  He's a gamer boy. I think this is what passes for classical education these days.


----------



## JunkMonkey

Not sure if it's old tech but I just puled one of these out of a bin:








						LG  SJ2 Soundbar | LG UK
					

Get more information on the LG SJ2. Click for pictures, reviews, and tech specs for the LG  SJ2 Soundbar




					www.lg.com
				



There were still batteries in the remote and it all works.


----------



## Danny McG

I'm going back a few years, before Facebook and smartphone social media became popular.
WAP chat sites, I was a member of several and an admin on two.

Even then I lived in the sci-fi sub forums of those sites


----------



## Venusian Broon

Danny McG said:


> I'm going back a few years, before Facebook and smartphone social media became popular.
> WAP chat sites, I was a member of several and an admin on two.
> 
> Even then I lived in the sci-fi sub forums of those sites


WAP! That rings a faint bell. I remember it as being a shiny, amazing new service. 

But then I also remember using Usenet and being on the SF&F newsgroup on it, almost a decade before I got a mobile phone.  My further education, which gave me free access to computers and the internet before the WWW, was clearly worth it


----------



## Vertigo

Venusian Broon said:


> WAP! That rings a faint bell. I remember it as being a shiny, amazing new service.
> 
> But then I also remember using Usenet and being on the SF&F newsgroup on it, almost a decade before I got a mobile phone.  My further education, which gave me free access to computers and the internet before the WWW, was clearly worth it


usenet still going strong. Mainly for document exchange I think. Binsearch -- Usenet search engine


----------



## Harpo

Ignore this, the photo won’t load.


----------



## Harpo




----------



## Vertigo

Harpo said:


> View attachment 89038


Except is that not a film editing station? Certainly don't think it's a computer.


----------



## Harpo

Vertigo said:


> Except is that not a film editing station? Certainly don't think it's a computer.


Indeed, and they’re saying computers will be as small as that film editing station by 2020


----------



## Lumens

And boy were they right!

They just got the shape wrong, they aren't as round as that film roll.


----------



## JunkMonkey

I have a few of those How and Why books and I'm am pretty certain that that is a fake.  It doesn't appear on any checklist I have seen.






						How and Why Wonder Books - Wikipedia
					






					en.wikipedia.org
				








						How and Why Wonder Books - Wikipedia
					






					en.wikipedia.org
				




The fact that the 'Grumpy Old Gits'  (c) date in the bottom is MMXIX (2019) is also a bit of a clue.


----------



## Harpo

Ok please delete my post *apart* from the actual film editing station, which is old tech


----------



## JunkMonkey

It's FOSDIC (Film Optical Sensing Device for Input to Computersan) an 'Early US Census Machine' circa 1960


----------



## Orcadian

Danny McG said:


> Back in mid seventies I was a trainee in a UK coalmine. In one area of older workings there was a row of lights giving off a strange blue glow.
> As far as I recall each light had an enclosed turbine/dynamo that was powered by compressed air.
> I remember some old collier saying they'd been operating since the fifties in that area.


Might be one of these, @Danny McG:
Compressed air lamps​Compressed air powered lamps were designed for use in gassy mines. The lamp is powered by compressed air, which drives a turbine wheel contained within the lamp body. The turbine produces electricity to power the lamp bulb. These are for use in mine transport and fixed  installation. Not much info on the page it might be a a lead?


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## Ursa major

Orcadian said:


> it might be a a lead?


It can't be a lead: the whole point is that the electricity was generated _inside_ the lamp body....


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## Orcadian

Ursa major said:


> It can't be a lead: the whole point is that the electricity was generated _inside_ the lamp body....


Not sure about that, Ursa Major...  The article says the lamp is powered by compressed air, which drives a turbine wheel contained within the lamp body [that] then produces electricity to power the lamp bulb. Danny McG says "As far as I recall each light had _an enclosed turbine/dynamo_ that was powered by compressed air". Where do you see a contradiction?


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## Dave

That's just one of Ursa's puns. 

They are safety lamps - the modern day equivalent of the Davy Lamp as the article says.

I don't understand exactly how they work, but the electricity is enclosed to prevent any spark or heat, resulting in the ignition of any Methane (aka marsh gas, swamp gas or bog gas.) There is a lot of heavy machinery working in mines, so cables on walls or on transport could get damaged and wires frayed.

But why is it "a strange blue glow"? Is that some kind of safe filament or fluorescent tube too? Wouldn't any enclosed lamp be as safe as any other?


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## Orcadian

Ah, right! Thanks, Dave. Got it now.


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## Foxbat

Dave said:


> But why is it "a strange blue glow"? Is that some kind of safe filament or fluorescent tube too? Wouldn't any enclosed lamp be as safe as any other?


According to the specs on this modern version, the filament can be tungsten or halogen


			TURBOLITE – Safety Lamp of Houston
		


Perhaps it was a gas discharge light with a compressed air driven generator









						Gas-discharge lamp - Wikipedia
					






					en.wikipedia.org


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## Danny McG

Here's a classic bit of old tech, my wife spotted this fridge from 1956 online not long ago.
She's very enamoured of it and keeps saying she wants one!

Short video, just over a minute:-


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## Vladd67

Danny McG said:


> Here's a classic bit of old tech, my wife spotted this fridge from 1956 online not long ago.
> She's very enamoured of it and keeps saying she wants one!
> 
> Short video, just over a minute:-


I can see where she is coming from.


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## Danny McG

Vladd67 said:


> I can see where she is coming from.


Yeah, it is an awesome bit of kit
(I would have said it's cool, but I'm not Ursa!)


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## Ursa major

Danny McG said:


> (I would have said it's cool, but I'm not Ursa!)


Just as well, as I scream when people are claiming to be me (though not to the extent that I have a meltdown, let alone contact the cone helpline).


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## psikeyhackr

I remember the refrigerator from when I was a kid. 

Even the ice cube trays were built like tanks.


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## psikeyhackr

This is so cool:

*Giant Brains; or Machines that Think*
(1950) by Edmund Callis Berkeley



			Giant Brains Or Machines That Think, by Edmund Callis Berkely—A Project Gutenberg eBook
		


Just turned up today in Project Gutenberg. 

I have searched it for 'transistor' and it ain't there. I guess transistors cannot think. LOL


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## Vertigo

psikeyhackr said:


> This is so cool:
> 
> *Giant Brains; or Machines that Think*
> (1950) by Edmund Callis Berkeley
> 
> 
> 
> Giant Brains Or Machines That Think, by Edmund Callis Berkely—A Project Gutenberg eBook
> 
> 
> 
> Just turned up today in Project Gutenberg.
> 
> I have searched it for 'transistor' and it ain't there. I guess transistors cannot think. LOL


Fascinating! I might just have to have a look at that for a view of the thinking just prior to the arrival of modern computers.


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## psikeyhackr

psikeyhackr said:


> This is so cool:
> 
> *Giant Brains; or Machines that Think*
> (1950) by Edmund Callis Berkeley



Error! Error! Actually it's 1949. 
1950 was the 2nd printing.


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## Danny McG

This is why Britain should never have closed it's coal mines


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## Extollager

JunkMonkey said:


> Judging  from the price CDs are in our local charity shops - one I frequent sells CDs five for a pound, another four for a pound, and they both  consider anything that looks like a box set to be a single item.  I think a lot of people would agree with you.
> 
> I buy a LOT of CDs.


But I'm getting ready to pre-order a forthcoming set of Bob Dyland CDs for about $140.


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## Pyan

An idea seriously put forward to increase the safety and numbers of cross-Atlantic flights in 1929...


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## HareBrain

Interesting read (and idea), @Pyan. I assume it was never developed because it was anticipated that the rate of aviation advance would soon make the scheme redundant.


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## Astro Pen

edit: Reading the small print I see that they say "floating". So I removed the comment. 
I am reassured that the structure has been tested on a pond though.


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## Pyan

I rather like the anticipation that each one will cost about £300,000 - less than a 2-bed semi in Slough. Mind you, allowing for inflation, that £300k is about_ fifteen million_ pounds today, or a 6-bedroom house in Fulham.


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## Venusian Broon

Of course, in another universe, one would have reached the mid-Atlantic floating airport from the airport built on top of Kings Cross Railway station


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## HareBrain

Venusian Broon said:


> Of course, in another universe, one would have reached the mid-Atlantic floating airport from the airport built on top of Kings Cross Railway station
> 
> View attachment 95702


1) Good idea to have it in the shape of the British flag so that lost pilots can identify roughly where they are.

2) I assume the whole thing can act as a helicopter rotor, so the entire station can be transported in the event of a train strike?


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## JunkMonkey

Pyan said:


> An idea seriously put forward to increase the safety and numbers of cross-Atlantic flights in 1929...
> View attachment 95699
> View attachment 95700
> View attachment 95701



The idea was the basis for a 1932 science fiction film: F.P.1
​








						F.P.1 (1932) - IMDb
					

F.P.1: Directed by Karl Hartl. With Conrad Veidt, Jill Esmond, Leslie Fenton, George Merritt. (1932) Conrad Veldt, Jill Esmond, Leslie Fenton. Right out of Amazing Stories. A gigantic floating platform is built in the mid-Atlantic for use as a oceanic airport. However, its destruction seems...




					www.imdb.com


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## dask




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## dask




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## dask

Whatever this is…


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## reiver33

It’s either a gas proof pram or early mobile salmon smoker...


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## dask

reiver33 said:


> It’s either a gas proof pram or early mobile salmon smoker...


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## Ursa major

It's amazing the lengths people will go to avoid having to change their child's nappy....


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## Wayne Mack

dask said:


> View attachment 96760
> Whatever this is…


But do those high heels really complement the gas mask?


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## dask




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## reiver33

Eh, what? Any context available?


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## Pyan

reiver33 said:


> Eh, what? Any context available?


*http://cyberneticzoo.com/robots/1934-mac-the-mechanical-man-leighton-hilbert-american/*

Seems to need a mains power supply, removed for the shots with the bathing beauties.


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## dask




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## dask




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## Vince W

Grease from the fried bread would clog the grooves on the records.


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## Christine Wheelwright

Vince W said:


> Grease from the fried bread would clog the grooves on the records.


And it would still sound better than a CD


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## Ursa major

Vince W said:


> Grease from the fried bread would clog the grooves on the records.


That's why you have to use bakelite records: they're designed to be used only when greased.


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## dask




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## Pyan

Old Tech thread...


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## Vince W

Still smaller than an 80s boom box.


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## dask

Pre-electric, pre-computer chip:


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## dask




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## Pyan




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## Wayne Mack

Pyan said:


> View attachment 98205


Strange that they didn't mention protection from straying hands.


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