Old Tech thread

[farntfar]

It's different strokes for different folks.

 

[Ursa major]

Might start a row.

You must know that's rollocks.

 

[Pyan]

TV-8-301 Sony portable television, 1959.

 

[HareBrain]

Victorians always look so miserable in photographs.

The exposure time could be upwards of three months, meaning holding a smile could produce permanent cramping of the facial muscles.

People think beards became popular during Victorian times because of the Crimean war, but they were all grown while sitting for photographic portraits.

 

[Pyan]

Or if you wanted something a little smaller - though how you use the keyboard is a mystery. Maybe a long pin? 1981.

 

[farntfar]

Oooh. I want a half inch floppy disc drive in my watch (and a real floppy floppy disc at that. You must be able to save all 500 bytes on that.)

 

[psikeyhackr]

Easy, Might start a row.

I want to see the designer ride it and do a figure 8. Of course he might be kind of old by now.

 

[Ursa major]

I want to see the designer ride it and do a figure 8.

At the time that machine was patented, I suspect far more people would have wanted to see the Tiller Girls (established 1889).

 

[dask]

 

[Cthulhu.Science]

And some people are still waiting for Tesla to catch up...

 

[Cthulhu.Science]

View attachment 107426

My great grandfather was the town butcher and town Ice Man (for ice boxes) well into the middle of the 20th century.
Small rural town.

 

[Pyan]

The great-great grandparent of the Kindle: the Fiske Reading Machine.

 

[psikeyhackr]

The great-great grandparent of the Kindle: the Fiske Reading Machine.

View attachment 107445​

What!? No text to speech?

 

[dask]

 

[Alex The G and T]

Clearly, a most joyful experience.

 

[dask]

I hope this is old tech:

 

[Pyan]

 

[Ursa major]

I like the "Your courtesy in mentioning the Magazine when writing will be appreciated".

 

[Pyan]

The first carphone...

From an article in the March 21, 1920 Sandusky Register

A man with a box slung over his shoulder and holding in one hand three pieces of stove pipe placed side by side on a board climbed into an automobile on East Country Road, Elkins Park, Pa.
As he settled in the machine he picked up a telephone transmitter, set on a short handle, and said:
“We are going to run down the road. Can you hear me?”
Other passengers in the automobile, all wearing telephone receivers, heard a woman’s voice answering: “Yes, perfectly. Where are you?”
By this time the machine was several hundred yards down the road and the voice in the garage was distinctly heard.

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/the-worlds-first-carphone-24664499/

 

[Alex The G and T]

Can you hear me now?