Retro Cool Technology

[Notebook]

No, they don't show the traction system. As long as its not caterpillar-tracks, it'll be fine.

N.

 

[bisbeejim]

Retro? Listen sonny, beginning at 4am (local time Arizona) I watched "live" on the old black & white every launch of the Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo missions. It was good o' dependable Walter Cronkite reporting and me watching. I've been told by my elders to never give up my dream, hell, that's nonsense! The truth is your dream will never give up on YOU! (please insert hearing an old man chortle at this point and don't forget the old-man look of being overly pleased with himself at his superiority over the young whipper-snappers that won't stay off the grass!).hthedrama:

 

[Graham2001]

Interesting videos on repairing and modifying a 1940's wireless (eg you used a radio as the speakers...) record player.

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[Notebook]

Been playing with Arduino and Rapberry pi boards, then came across this:

https://www.dfrobot.com/index.php?route=product/product&product_id=738

Always liked Nixie tubes, fascinating things to watch. So bought one of those, and connected it up.

http://s89.photobucket.com/user/Notebook_04/media/20161219_145934_zpswry9qqfn.mp4.html?sort=3&o=0

Dosen't work of course, the neon colons are working ok, the led back-light goes through all the colours, eventually.
Nixie digits all show, sort of, sometimes all at once.
Probably software, which I don't understand.
Did hope it was plug&play, but not.

If sort it out, I'll put up another video.

N.

 

[Graham2001]

A video I just stumbled across showing that the idea of mobile phones goes back much further than you might have expected...

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[Andy44]

How's this for cool retro tech? Long before MIDI, there were paper rolls:

 

[Andy44]

Earlier I posted a vid about the SAGE air defense system of the 1950s-1980s. This guy Bruce Gordon is an old F-106 pilot who actually used SAGE in his job as an interceptor pilot. I highly recommend some of his other videos on his career as a pilot, they are good stories.

 

[Andy44]

Yet another Techmoan gem:

 

[Andy44]

Here's a cool one I don't remember, a toy camcorder that uses audio cassette tapes to record video.

It appears to be a mostly useless piece of junk, but is still a cool oddity.

 

[Urwumpe]

Earlier I posted a vid about the SAGE air defense system of the 1950s-1980s. This guy Bruce Gordon is an old F-106 pilot who actually used SAGE in his job as an interceptor pilot. I highly recommend some of his other videos on his career as a pilot, they are good stories.

SAGE Air Defense - YouTube

I have a very recommendable book about the computers of SAGE, including great explanations of how vacuum tube computers have been designed and modularized.

https://www.amazon.com/FSQ-7-comput...=UTF8&qid=1487582711&sr=8-1&keywords=AN/FSQ-7

The book isn't much cheaper in Germany, its a really academic publisher... but the book is very well researched. Especially the impact of SAGE on the development of the internet is pretty interesting to see from a technical perspective there.

 

[Andy44]

I have to say, all, that this thread is one I often go back through again, one of my favorite threads!

Becoming retro-tech these days: I just started watching the TV show Ash vs. the Evil Dead, with Bruce Campbell reprising his role as Ash in Sam Raimi's Evil Dead franchise, and I noticed his car. Sure enough, this is Sam Raimi's 1973 Oldsmobile Delta 88, which has, according to legend, appeared in every film he has ever made, either in the foreground or hidden in the background somewhere.

Is this retro-tech?

Well, I thought about this. That car has a carbureted engine, probably used to need leaded gasoline, no electronics whatsoever except maybe for the radio. No airbags, of course, none of the stuff you expect standard today. Electronic key fob? Built-in car alarm? GPS navigation? Certainly not!

Probably doesn't even have air conditioning, at least not when it was stock (he's done a LOT of work to it over the years). The radio not only doesn't have Bluetooth, it probably doesn't even have a cassette player.

I bet it's a smooth ride on the freeway, though. Big 1970s cars are like that.

Tech has come a long way, even in cars.

 

[Urwumpe]

Well, should it be retro and cool, I would cite this one from a German perspective, the NSU Ro 80, a Wankel engine limousine.

It already looked way more modern than other contemporary cars of the late 1960s (In fact, it took 15 years until the Audi 100 appeared with a similar design), also the 115 hp had been pretty good for that class and later the company offered a 165 hp engine as upgrade. But its early Wankel engine was very unreliable and required expensive maintenance, until better seals had been invented. Also it consumed a lot of gas, no deal in 1967, but we all know what happened later. One big source of problems was also the transmission, it had a torque converter and no RPM limiter, which easily killed the engine when the driver was a bit too strong on the pedal (so turbine wheel collided with the casing). The torque converter was also part of a trick to gently teach German drivers to constantly check oil and refill it: When the car runs out of oil, the torque converter runs out of oil first, making the car stop, before the engine gets damaged. It had a dual-carburetor by Solex and used CDI spark igniters later (after starting with dual spark igniters). The engine problems really killed NSU - it was bought by Volkswagen later and was used with the other companies of the Horch family (Auto Union, DKW, Horch) to restore the Audi brand.

But the Mazda company build their Wankel engines on the experiences gathered with this car, it is still a popular oldtimer here, especially the way more robust later revisions of the car. There are still 679 NSU Ro 80 registered and driving in Germany.

 

[Notebook]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-38677721

Grace Hopper's compiler: Computing's hidden hero

 

[Urwumpe]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-38677721

Grace had her own views of why colleagues had been initially resistant: not because they cared about making programs run more quickly, but because they enjoyed the prestige of being the only ones who could communicate with the godlike computer.
The "high priests", Grace called them.

Oh, how I start to see familiar faces when I read this description...

 

[Andy44]

Grace had her own views of why colleagues had been initially resistant: not because they cared about making programs run more quickly, but because they enjoyed the prestige of being the only ones who could communicate with the godlike computer.
The "high priests", Grace called them.

Oh, how I start to see familiar faces when I read this description...

"We are the priests of the Temples of Syrinx, our great computers fill these hallowed halls"

~ Rush: 2112

:RnR1:

 

[Urwumpe]

Something way more retro: A Roman pram, a kind of sail boat, was already capable of transporting 12 tons of cargo over the rivers in Europe around zero AD. That is already half as much as a modern truck transports. That is what archeologists and civil engineers in Germany found out on the river Mosel with a 1:2 scale model of a pram dug out in Switzerland. They tested its sailing performance, which was impressively good (they started with floats for stabilization, but quickly found out they never needed them) and a measured how much force was needed for moving the boat by punting or towing it, which was both easily possible for a single person (though towing proved the easier solution, the towpaths at the side of the rivers did not exist in Roman times)

So, looks like the Roman Empire had really some great logistics during its better times. This kind of transportation capability was not reached again in Europe before Napolean times.

 

[4throck]

The best book I've read about Rome is "The Navies of Rome".

We tend to see the Romans as a land empire, but their power came from control of the waters. That allowed for larger cargo and faster movement.

And they did move a lot of stuff around, like those official emperor statues that got periodically distributed to all of the cities :lol:

 

[Notebook]

This may be the best thread to put this?

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-39471567

The music world is mourning the loss of Roland founder and electronic instrument pioneer Ikutaro Kakehashi, who has died aged 87.
The Japanese engineer created many popular drum machines, including the iconic TR-808.
Its sound is a staple of hip-hop and electronic music, used by everyone from Kanye West to Marvin Gaye.

 

[Andy44]

This may be the best thread to put this?

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-39471567

Sad news indeed. I saw a documentary about the Japanese electronics industry a while back and they interviewed him at length in it.

 

[Notebook]

Looking back, didn't know this man had gone or his ability.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don_Buchla

Do love his "Arbitrary Function Generator Module". That's what I call a proper panel.

N.