String-Can Telephone's topics - tribe.net

How to construct a license-free phone

OtherMichael — Wed, 08 Oct 2003 17:33:37 GMT

This science activity allows you to
"construct a license free 'string telephone' from the provided materials" and strongly encourages you to use Morse Code. ???.

posted in String-Can Telephone - 7 replies

War Games, and the IMSAI 8080

OtherMichael — Wed, 23 Jul 2008 21:00:39 GMT

http://www.wired.com/entertainment/hollywood/magazine/16-08/ff_wargames

http://www.imsai.net/

posted in String-Can Telephone - 1 reply

they're made of wood

OtherMichael — Mon, 28 Jul 2008 19:43:06 GMT

http://www.boingboing.net/2008/07/28/wooden-geared-contra.html

posted in String-Can Telephone - 0 replies

1975: the future is NOW (says IBM)

OtherMichael — Mon, 28 Jul 2008 13:32:17 GMT

in this DOUBLE-PLUS-GOOD really phyical SLIDESHOW: http://www.squareamerica.com/ib.htm

that is to say - no jpegs, no powerpoint, no digital projector

posted in String-Can Telephone - 1 reply

apple one, basically

OtherMichael — Tue, 15 Jul 2008 14:35:09 GMT

http://www.pagetable.com/?p=32

BASIC reconstructed from a tape. boo-ya!

posted in String-Can Telephone - 0 replies

excitement, thrills, adventure!

OtherMichael — Mon, 14 Jul 2008 16:54:17 GMT

http://www.atariarchives.org/adventure/

Creating Adventure Games on your computer, by Tim Hartnell

posted in String-Can Telephone - 1 reply

the orygun cowboys: six-gun simulators with live-ammo

OtherMichael — Fri, 11 Jul 2008 17:19:29 GMT

http://www.webcomicsnation.com/culturepulp/culturepulp/series.php?view=archive&chapter=30921

posted in String-Can Telephone - 0 replies

still crazy after all these years

OtherMichael — Thu, 10 Jul 2008 20:18:00 GMT

http://gadgets.boingboing.net/2008/07/10/the-first-ever-commo.html - C64 LAN PARTY

wooo!

also of interest: http://stringcanphone.tribe.net/thread/26536691-21af-469f-9061-5ce23ae937fe - commodore Pet thread

posted in String-Can Telephone - 0 replies

free as in energy (human-powered)

OtherMichael — Tue, 27 May 2008 20:42:44 GMT

nope, not some sort of perpetual-motion scam, there are calories expended -- human sugar & fat is burned (generally).

these two fourm-threads from OLPC-news go over a bunch of different off-the-grip powere generation methods, primarily humna, but some solar.

http://olpcnews.com/forum/index.php?topic=260.0
http://olpcnews.com/forum/index.php?topic=2654.0

posted in String-Can Telephone - 5 replies

Mechanical Television & the Nipkow Disk

OtherMichael — Tue, 16 Dec 2003 22:15:00 GMT

Mechanical Television: What Was It Like?
Nice down-to-Earth explanation makes it more interesting....
http://my.core.com/~jpressel/mtv_exp/mtv_exp.htm

John Logie Baird, inventor:
http://inventors.about.com/library/inventors/blbaird.htm

some old photos, nice layout:
http://www.mztv.com/mech1.html

"Wacky" pictures of watching early mechanical TV by arc-lamp:
http://www.lateralscience.co.uk/television/mechTV2.html

modern-day "Art" re-creation:
http://www.photonics.com/spectra/applications/XQ/ASP/aoaid.190/QX/read.htm

longish text history:
http://www.vectorsite.net/ttv1.html

Stereoscopic Mechanical TV IN COLOR--hobbyist runs riot:
http://www.radiocraft.co.uk/3dcolour.htm

posted in String-Can Telephone - 2 replies

home taping is... well, earlier than I thought

OtherMichael — Thu, 03 Jul 2008 12:55:07 GMT

http://gadgets.boingboing.net/2008/06/30/cartivision-70s-home.html

posted in String-Can Telephone - 1 reply

the paleo-internet (in Belgium!)

OtherMichael — Tue, 17 Jun 2008 14:53:44 GMT

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/17/science/17mund.html
via http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=219609

The New York Times - June 17, 2008
The Web Time Forgot, By ALEX WRIGHT

MONS, Belgium — On a fog-drizzled Monday afternoon, this fading medieval city feels like a forgotten place. Apart from the obligatory Gothic cathedral, there is not much to see here except for a tiny storefront museum called the Mundaneum, tucked down a narrow street in the northeast corner of town. It feels like a fittingly secluded home for the legacy of one of technology’s lost pioneers: Paul Otlet.

In 1934, Otlet sketched out plans for a global network of computers (or “electric telescopes,” as he called them) that would allow people to search and browse through millions of interlinked documents, images, audio and video files. He described how people would use the devices to send messages to one another, share files and even congregate in online social networks. He called the whole thing a “réseau,” which might be translated as “network” — or arguably, “web.”

Historians typically trace the origins of the World Wide Web through a lineage of Anglo-American inventors like Vannevar Bush, Doug Engelbart and Ted Nelson. But more than half a century before Tim Berners-Lee released the first Web browser in 1991, Otlet (pronounced ot-LAY) described a networked world where “anyone in his armchair would be able to contemplate the whole of creation.”

Although Otlet’s proto-Web relied on a patchwork of analog technologies like index cards and telegraph machines, it nonetheless anticipated the hyperlinked structure of today’s Web. “This was a Steampunk version of hypertext,” said Kevin Kelly, former editor of Wired, who is writing a book about the future of technology.

Otlet’s vision hinged on the idea of a networked machine that joined documents using symbolic links. While that notion may seem obvious today, in 1934 it marked a conceptual breakthrough. “The hyperlink is one of the most underappreciated inventions of the last century,” Mr. Kelly said. “It will go down with radio in the pantheon of great inventions.”

Today, Otlet and his work have been largely forgotten, even in his native Belgium. Although Otlet enjoyed considerable fame during his lifetime, his legacy fell victim to a series of historical misfortunes — not least of which involved the Nazis marching into Belgium and destroying much of his life’s work.

But in recent years, a small group of researchers has begun to resurrect Otlet’s reputation, republishing some of his writing and raising money to establish the museum and archive in Mons.

As the Mundaneum museum prepares to celebrate its 10th anniversary on Thursday, the curators are planning to release part of the original collection onto the present-day Web. That event will not only be a kind of posthumous vindication for Otlet, but it will also provide an opportunity to re-evaluate his place in Web history. Was the Mundaneum (mun-da-NAY-um) just a historical curiosity — a technological road not taken — or can his vision shed useful light on the Web as we know it?

Although Otlet spent his entire working life in the age before computers, he possessed remarkable foresight into the possibilities of electronic media. Paradoxically, his vision of a paperless future stemmed from a lifelong fascination with printed books.

Otlet, born in 1868, did not set foot in a schoolroom until age 12. His mother died when he was 3; his father was a successful entrepreneur who made a fortune selling trams all over the world. The senior Otlet kept his son out of school, out of a conviction that classrooms stifled children’s natural abilities. Left at home with his tutors and with few friends, the young Otlet lived the life of a solitary bookworm.

When he finally entered secondary school, he made straight for the library. “I could lock myself into the library and peruse the catalog, which for me was a miracle,” he later wrote. Soon after entering school, Otlet took on the role of school librarian.

In the years that followed, Otlet never really left the library. Though his father pushed him into law school, he soon left the bar to return to his first love, books. In 1895, he met a kindred spirit in the future Nobel Prize winner Henri La Fontaine, who joined him in planning to create a master bibliography of all the world’s published knowledge.

Even in 1895, such a project marked an act of colossal intellectual hubris. The two men set out to collect data on every book ever published, along with a vast collection of magazine and journal articles, photographs, posters and all kinds of ephemera — like pamphlets — that libraries typically ignored. Using 3 by 5 index cards (then the state of the art in storage technology), they went on to create a vast paper database with more than 12 million individual entries.

Otlet and LaFontaine eventually persuaded the Belgian government to support their project, proposing to build a “city of knowledge” that would bolster the government’s bid to become host of the League of Nations. The government granted them space in a government building, where Otlet expanded the operation. He hired more staff, and established a fee-based research service that allowed anyone in the world to submit a query via mail or telegraph — a kind of analog search engine. Inquiries poured in from all over the world, more than 1,500 a year, on topics as diverse as boomerangs and Bulgarian finance.

As the Mundaneum evolved, it began to choke on the sheer volume of paper. Otlet started sketching ideas for new technologies to manage the information overload. At one point he posited a kind of paper-based computer, rigged with wheels and spokes that would move documents around on the surface of a desk. Eventually, however, Otlet realized the ultimate answer involved scrapping paper altogether.

Since there was no such thing as electronic data storage in the 1920s, Otlet had to invent it. He started writing at length about the possibility of electronic media storage, culminating in a 1934 book, “Monde,” where he laid out his vision of a “mechanical, collective brain” that would house all the world’s information, made readily accessible over a global telecommunications network.

Tragically, just as Otlet’s vision began to crystallize, the Mundaneum fell on hard times. In 1934, the Belgian government lost interest in the project after losing its bid for the League of Nations headquarters. Otlet moved it to a smaller space, and after financial struggles had to close it to the public.

A handful of staff members kept working on the project, but the dream ended when the Nazis marched through Belgium in 1939. The Germans cleared out the original Mundaneum site to make way for an exhibit of Third Reich art, destroying thousands of boxes filled with index cards. Otlet died in 1944, a broken and soon-to-be-forgotten man.

After Otlet’s death, what survived of the original Mundaneum was left to languish in an old anatomy building of the Free University in the Parc Leopold until 1968, when a young graduate student named W. Boyd Rayward picked up the paper trail. Having read some of Otlet’s work, he traveled to the abandoned office in Brussels, where he discovered a mausoleumlike room full of books and mounds of paper covered in cobwebs.

Mr. Rayward has since helped lead a resurgence of interest in Otlet’s work, a movement that eventually fueled enough interest to prompt development of the Mundaneum museum in Mons.

Today, the new Mundaneum reveals tantalizing glimpses of a Web that might have been. Long rows of catalog drawers hold millions of Otlet’s index cards, pointing the way into a back-room archive brimming with books, posters, photos, newspaper clippings and all kinds of other artifacts. A team of full-time archivists have managed to catalog less than 10 percent of the collection.

The archive’s sheer sprawl reveals both the possibilities and the limits of Otlet’s original vision. Otlet envisioned a team of professional catalogers analyzing every piece of incoming information, a philosophy that runs counter to the bottom-up ethos of the Web.

“I think Otlet would have felt lost with the Internet,” said his biographer, Françoise Levie. Even with a small army of professional librarians, the original Mundaneum could never have accommodated the sheer volume of information produced on the Web today.

“I don’t think it could have scaled up,” Mr. Rayward said. “It couldn’t even scale up to meet the demands of the paper-based world he was living in.”

Those limitations notwithstanding, Otlet’s version of hypertext held a few important advantages over today’s Web. For one thing, he saw a smarter kind of hyperlink. Whereas links on the Web today serve as a kind of mute bond between documents, Otlet envisioned links that carried meaning by, for example, annotating if particular documents agreed or disagreed with each other. That facility is notably lacking in the dumb logic of modern hyperlinks.

Otlet also saw the possibilities of social networks, of letting users “participate, applaud, give ovations, sing in the chorus.” While he very likely would have been flummoxed by the anything-goes environment of Facebook or MySpace, Otlet saw some of the more productive aspects of social networking — the ability to trade messages, participate in discussions and work together to collect and organize documents.

Some scholars believe Otlet also foresaw something like the Semantic Web, the emerging framework for subject-centric computing that has been gaining traction among computer scientists like Mr. Berners-Lee. Like the Semantic Web, the Mundaneum aspired not just to draw static links between documents, but also to map out conceptual relationships between facts and ideas. “The Semantic Web is rather Otlet-ish,” said Michael Buckland, a professor at the School of Information at the University of California, Berkeley.

Critics of the Semantic Web say it relies too heavily on expert programmers to create ontologies (formalized descriptions of concepts and relationships) that will let computers exchange data with one another more easily. The Semantic Web “may be useful, but it is bound to fail,” Dr. Buckland said, adding, “It doesn’t scale because nobody will provide enough labor to build it.”

The same criticism could have been leveled against the Mundaneum. Just as Otlet’s vision required a group of trained catalogers to classify the world’s knowledge, so the Semantic Web hinges on an elite class of programmers to formulate descriptions for a potentially vast range of information. For those who advocate such labor-intensive data schemes, the fate of the Mundaneum may offer a cautionary tale.

The curators of today’s Mundaneum hope the museum avoids its predecessor’s fate. Although the museum has consistently managed to secure financing, it struggles to attract visitors.

“The problem is that no one knows the story of the Mundaneum,” said the lead archivist, Stéphanie Manfroid. “People are not necessarily excited to go see an archive. It’s like, would you rather go see the latest ‘Star Wars’ movie, or would you rather go see a giant card catalog?”

Striving to broaden its appeal, the museum stages regular exhibits of posters, photographs and contemporary art. And while only a trickle of tourists make their way to the little museum in Mons, the town may yet find its way onto the technological history map. Later this year, a new corporate citizen plans to open a data center on the edge of town: Google.

posted in String-Can Telephone - 0 replies

SteamBoy (from Ninetendo)

OtherMichael — Tue, 19 Sep 2006 13:06:21 GMT

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HIgsqYJmtJs&eurl=

A 1936-38 Jensen steam engine (flywheels from a later models are used in this video) runs a small generator that puts out the 3VDC needed to run a Gameboy color.

Now all he has to do is replace the chips with tubes, and I'll be happy!

posted in String-Can Telephone - 8 replies

bimbo boxes

OtherMichael — Tue, 10 Jun 2008 18:06:12 GMT

http://www.dinosaursandrobots.com/2008/06/bimbo-box-on-streets-of-cologne-germany.html

my God, it's full of.... MONKEYS?!???

posted in String-Can Telephone - 1 reply

make way for the blimps

OtherMichael — Tue, 10 Jun 2008 18:39:30 GMT

http://blog.wired.com/cars/2008/06/its-not-going-t.html

posted in String-Can Telephone - 0 replies

$100 laptop update thread

OtherMichael — Tue, 25 Jul 2006 15:43:42 GMT

as I see fit to add in....

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%24100_laptop

posted in String-Can Telephone - 7 replies

Victrola Favorites

OtherMichael — Tue, 27 May 2008 17:29:29 GMT

http://www.boingboing.net/2008/05/27/victrola-favorites-d.html

posted in String-Can Telephone - 0 replies

Sandcaster Keyboard

OtherMichael — Mon, 19 Sep 2005 18:47:09 GMT

http://www.dansdata.com/gz049.htm

1) now, the original has lots of linky-linky for the serious old-school real-wood etc. bling-bling

2) interestingly, Sandbenders is real tech jargon: sandbender. [IBM] n. A person involved with silicon lithography and the physical
design of chips

----------

Where, I ask you, are the boutique luxury computers?

William Gibson had the right idea in "Idoru", with his hardware housed by "The Sandbenders" in casings made from coral and turquoise and nut-wood. The stuff inside might be your standard Ono-Sendai cyberdeck, but the exterior should be a joy to behold and to handle. Paint doesn't quite cut it.

I don't know about you, but I spend a large fraction of every day beholding and handling computers, and I could certainly cope with a little coral. Beige plastic and powder-coated steel are cheap and durable, but there's a reason why Rolex don't make any watches out of these materials.

You can get this sort of thing in the car world, you know. Sure, most people settle for normal mainstream reviewed-in-the-newspaper vehicles, for very good reasons, but even then you're not stuck with childproof upholstery and squeaky plastic. You can get walnut and leather if you pay for it. And in the automotive business, there are of course more exotic options.

Spyker in the Netherlands make cars whose interiors look like bordellos for billionaires. Various manufacturers have come up with minimalist open-wheeled road projectiles driven by superbike engines - occasionally two of 'em, sharing a crank. There are jet motorcycles and stretched Humvees and companies that recondition old all-terrain troop transports that can't be killed with a stick. You name it, you can get it, whether you want a road rocket with an upholstered roof or the automotive equivalent of an AK-47.

Sony's "ceramic" PSP, which is actually made from what us materials science professionals call "white plastic", is not exactly what I'm looking for, here.

What all of the weird cars have in common is that they're made for a small market. Annual production of the real oddities may not get into double figures - while Toyota makes more than a million Corollas a year.

But in the computer world, everything's mass produced. Everything. Even companies like Alienware that sell spiffy-looking high-spec machines don't fabricate anything themselves; every part is OEMed by someone else, and if there's some particular case design they use that nobody else has, you can bet that it still won't be made out of mahogany.

If money is no object, of course, you can have that keyboard with the genuine narwhal ivory keys of which you've always dreamed. Just as there are customisers that can make you any kind of car you want pretty much from scratch, there's nothing stopping you rounding up some artisans to make computer components the same way.

Except, of course, for the fact that hiring cabinetmakers for a one-off means you'd end up with a computer that cost at least as much as the abovementioned popular Toyota (and even then the result may not be quite so nice up close).

A few fancy-computer companies are trying to find a middle way, almost invariably with wooden PC bits. Some of the stuff they sell looks pretty lame to me - wooden siding on a steel computer case is not what I'm after, here, and techno-widgets iced out with Swarovski crystals are loved by Paris Hilton, which ought to be all you need to know about them. But wood-cased monitors and keyboards and mice are a step in the right direction (wooden mousemats that look like toilet seats, not so much). And the prices can be right - see Swedx, for instance. Or Wood Contour, for the other end of the price spectrum.

The problem, of course, is that computer gear ages fast. A gloriously retro micarta-Bakelite-and-celluloid laptop will be a lot more retro, in a bad way, in a few years - and you won't be able to retrofit it with new hardware.

Some devices, though, are likely to endure. Input devices, in particular. Plenty of heavy typists hammer away on buckling spring keyboards that haven't changed in 20 years (and yes, some of those 'boards are that old and still working), and the all-surface optical mouse seems to have reached the same evolutionary level, now. Build your pinstripe lacquer mouse or keyboard to last and it ought to stay useful until our computers start talking back to us in Majel Barrett's voice.

When you've got a product lifespan like that, there ought to be a market for a ten-times-as-expensive version with burr walnut and engine turned stainless and glove leather and cocobolo-wood buttons. And, of course, quality switchgear that feels good and lasts, which is something that seems to have evaded the wooden-keyboard crowd so far.

The market for such products would, of course, largely be composed of executive oxygen thieves who're attempting to convince themselves that they're men of distinction. But if the status symbol crowd drive sales of things that I want to own for non-poseur reasons, that's fine with me.

Don't get me wrong; I like a great military-industrial case mod as much as the next geek, and typing on plastic isn't exactly killing me. But if people'll spend thousands of dollars to put shiny spinning things on the outside of their wheels, I find it hard to believe that a keyboard that looks like a Bentley dashboard wouldn't find a market.

posted in String-Can Telephone - 3 replies

Mechanical Elephants

OtherMichael — Thu, 22 May 2008 20:33:45 GMT

http://eastcliffrichard.blogspot.com/2008/05/margates-mechanical-elephant.html

posted in String-Can Telephone - 0 replies

vintage tech in use

OtherMichael — Wed, 21 May 2008 14:56:46 GMT

http://gizmodo.com/photogallery/oldtech

sweet.

posted in String-Can Telephone - 0 replies

computers in popular music

OtherMichael — Fri, 02 May 2008 13:11:42 GMT

http://www.monochrom.at/icancounteverystar/

posted in String-Can Telephone - 0 replies

control

OtherMichael — Tue, 29 Apr 2008 15:07:13 GMT

http://www.boingboing.net/2008/04/28/dial-and-wire-overlo.html

posted in String-Can Telephone - 1 reply

heaven, I'm in heaven

OtherMichael — Tue, 29 Apr 2008 20:34:33 GMT

http://www.dinosaursandrobots.com/2008/04/2600-video-game-cartridge-remixes.html

posted in String-Can Telephone - 0 replies

8-bit joy

OtherMichael — Tue, 15 Apr 2008 18:22:43 GMT

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b1WWpKEPdT4

I just can't quit!

posted in String-Can Telephone - 1 reply

forbidden fruit?

OtherMichael — Mon, 14 Apr 2008 20:18:44 GMT

http://www.boingboing.net/2008/04/14/second-life-on-an-ap.html

Second Life, my friends. On an apple ][c

posted in String-Can Telephone - 1 reply

Megnetic Records

OtherMichael — Fri, 11 Apr 2008 19:18:21 GMT

or something like that.

http://musicthing.blogspot.com/2008/01/ebay-of-day-magnetic-record-player.html

posted in String-Can Telephone - 1 reply

Wow: Molten Core

OtherMichael — Mon, 07 Apr 2008 16:45:46 GMT

http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/moltencore/

watch the video, check out the concept vs screenshots

Irvine, Calif. -- April 1, 2008 -- Blizzard Entertainment, Inc. announces its long-awaited return to console gaming with World of Warcraft: The Molten Core™, a spinoff of the 40-person raid dungeon from its award-winning massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG), World of Warcraft®. World of Warcraft: The Molten Core will allow players to experience the excitement of the hit raid dungeon in a completely new format, with new challenges and new rewards.

"Blizzard got its start in console gaming, and we've always been excited about returning to this arena," stated Mike Morhaime, CEO and cofounder of Blizzard Entertainment. "Additionally, we've wanted to reintroduce the 40-player raid dungeon experience for some time. With World of Warcraft: The Molten Core, we're able to do both."

World of Warcraft: The Molten Core will include single-player and multiplayer versions, fully loaded with nine different shapes (and possibly colors) representing the current World of Warcraft character classes. A future expansion will introduce a tenth shape, representing the death knight hero class. Blizzard also plans to include a full-featured voice-chat system, as well as a fully customizable user interface that allows players to personalize their joystick button with several different functions. A free attunement cartridge rounds out the offering, providing instant access to the complete World of Warcraft: The Molten Core entertainment experience.

Blizzard's World of Warcraft: The Molten Core Collector's Edition, also announced today, will include tinted cellophane TV overlays, further increasing the array of colors available to players. Additional Collector's Edition features, as well as details on the upcoming World of Warcraft: The Molten Core beta test, will be revealed closer to release. World of Warcraft: The Molten Core will initially be available for the Atari 2600 platform, with plans for additional console systems to be announced in the near future.

posted in String-Can Telephone - 0 replies

4-4

OtherMichael — Fri, 04 Apr 2008 14:29:24 GMT

a day that will live in... infamy?

http://www.wired.com/science/discoveries/news/2008/04/dayintech_0404

posted in String-Can Telephone - 1 reply

Push the Button

OtherMichael — Fri, 28 Mar 2008 12:40:23 GMT

a user-interface blog: http://www.historyofthebutton.com/

dig through the archives!

http://www.historyofthebutton.com/2006/12/11/1963-pushbutton-telephone/

posted in String-Can Telephone - 1 reply

sisters are spinning it for themselves. and faster, too

OtherMichael — Mon, 24 Mar 2008 14:47:56 GMT

http://www.boingboing.net/2008/03/21/shellac-sisters-djs.html
http://www.shellacsisters.co.uk/

so, yeah, an alternate title was "faster, pussycat" but I just couldn't get it to work.

posted in String-Can Telephone - 1 reply

ASCII-CAM

OtherMichael — Thu, 20 Mar 2008 01:24:09 GMT

http://www.krazydad.com/blog/2008/02/23/instant-ascii-cam/

when you just GOTTA be online, but can't stand them newfangled things

posted in String-Can Telephone - 0 replies

Unplayed by human hands

OtherMichael — Tue, 11 Jan 2005 13:59:22 GMT

http://www.warrenellis.com/index.php?p=116

Warren Ellis helps in the search to track down an elusive record of a computer scientist who, in the early 70s, develped a monster computer system to play a pipe organ.

I add some links in the comments. Anybody out there got any more info?

I reminds me of Tim Hawkin's UberOrgan: http://pennsylvania.tribe.net/thread/4a20d006-240d-468b-a960-5181ce777cf6?tribeid=5a8e2a44-2ecc-4cbb-87e0-8f2e3a6563c4&tribeid=5a8e2a44-2ecc-4cbb-87e0-8f2e3a6563c4&r=10424#0f544488-03a4-4811-819e-db41277bec52

posted in String-Can Telephone - 5 replies

weird music boxes

OtherMichael — Wed, 19 Mar 2008 15:11:18 GMT

http://tribes.tribe.net/weirdmusicboxes

new tribe!

posted in String-Can Telephone - 0 replies

headphone cool

OtherMichael — Fri, 22 Feb 2008 16:01:40 GMT

http://steampunkworkshop.com/g-headphones.shtml

posted in String-Can Telephone - 0 replies

Toasters

southmore — Thu, 05 Feb 2004 22:26:38 GMT

allright, here arte some toasters for your page

http://public.fotki.com/daedsiluap/toastery/

posted in String-Can Telephone - 6 replies

african sugar-yeast generator

OtherMichael — Thu, 24 Jan 2008 21:04:35 GMT

http://gadgets.boingboing.net/2008/01/23/africa-smallscale-ge.html

"The rotor moves slowly most of the times but does pick up at certain intervals. This process continues for many hours. Since the rotor is quite heavy (and hence more inertia) a small geared DC motor can be connected to the rotor to generate power for cell phones, $100 laptops, and other things in Africa. People can leave this thing to charge their phones/$100 laptops overnight."

see also http://stringcanphone.tribe.net/thread/12b42c95-f580-4070-bb79-3b56513e23e4

posted in String-Can Telephone - 0 replies

Vintage Computer Festival

OtherMichael — Fri, 09 Nov 2007 23:00:40 GMT

http://content.techrepublic.com.com/2346-10878_11-174089.html?tag=nl.e138

posted in String-Can Telephone - 0 replies

the soviet jet-train that once was, almost

OtherMichael — Tue, 28 Aug 2007 21:08:02 GMT

http://englishrussia.com/?p=1316

posted in String-Can Telephone - 2 replies

Apple's nPhone

OtherMichael — Thu, 04 Oct 2007 18:37:29 GMT

make an Apple Newton into a (mostly) functioning cell-phone: http://gadgets.boingboing.net/2007/10/03/hacking-the-newton-i.html

posted in String-Can Telephone - 0 replies

hey kids, what time is it?

OtherMichael — Thu, 30 Aug 2007 15:49:59 GMT

well, don't ask me: http://www.boingboing.net/2007/08/29/reflections-on-atts.html

the time-phone is no more.

posted in String-Can Telephone - 0 replies

storage tubes

OtherMichael — Fri, 24 Aug 2007 12:22:01 GMT

http://www.cca.org/vector/

To eliminate flicker, a version of the vector display had a second gun that continuously bathed already-drawn lines, keeping them lit. A side-effect was the inability to erase individual items.

multicolor: http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/Xplore/login.jsp?url=/iel5/16/31554/01472291.pdf?arnumber=1472291

posted in String-Can Telephone - 0 replies

vintage electronic games

OtherMichael — Thu, 16 Aug 2007 02:48:45 GMT

a guide, when they weren't vintage, and you didn't know what that word meant, anyway: http://blogs.sun.com/ChrisM/entry/vintage_guide_to_computer_and

posted in String-Can Telephone - 0 replies

handhelds

OtherMichael — Tue, 24 Jul 2007 20:22:00 GMT

death of the psion: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/06/26/psion_special/

via http://www.thingsmagazine.net/2007_06_01_oldthings.htm#2946617847776122276 (with some more linkages)

posted in String-Can Telephone - 1 reply

wind it up

OtherMichael — Fri, 10 Aug 2007 17:14:32 GMT

http://www.boingboing.net/2007/08/10/windup_mp3video_play.html

hand-crank mp3 player, oh-yeah!

posted in String-Can Telephone - 0 replies

dish

OtherMichael — Tue, 31 Jul 2007 15:49:50 GMT

http://www.darkroastedblend.com/2007/07/fun-with-satellite-dishes.html

posted in String-Can Telephone - 1 reply

Lost City

OtherMichael — Thu, 02 Aug 2007 15:07:22 GMT

no updates in a while (and sporadic before), but good to look at (from one of our own): http://thingsthatwere.blogspot.com/

posted in String-Can Telephone - 0 replies

super heterodyne

OtherMichael — Mon, 30 Jul 2007 20:24:44 GMT

http://www.retrothing.com/2007/07/mercury-super-t.html

posted in String-Can Telephone - 0 replies

what's in there, anyway?

OtherMichael — Wed, 25 Jul 2007 15:34:40 GMT

1990 HP Laser Printer: http://content.techrepublic.com.com/2346-22_11-63115-1.html

posted in String-Can Telephone - 0 replies

Analog Computers

OtherMichael — Mon, 26 Jan 2004 19:45:20 GMT

http://dcoward.best.vwh.net/analog/

posted in String-Can Telephone - 9 replies

ancient robots (recreated)

OtherMichael — Fri, 06 Jul 2007 14:49:24 GMT

http://www.newscientist.com/blog/technology/2007/07/programmable-robot-from-60ad.html

posted in String-Can Telephone - 0 replies

sticks + string = power

OtherMichael — Thu, 05 Jul 2007 19:03:54 GMT

http://williamkamkwamba.typepad.com/williamkamkwamba/2007/06/retrofitting-an.html

homebrew wind power.

posted in String-Can Telephone - 0 replies

sketchy

OtherMichael — Fri, 29 Jun 2007 21:01:03 GMT

http://etchasketchist.blogspot.com/

posted in String-Can Telephone - 1 reply

Backyard Ballistics

Sweet_Flicka — Thu, 10 May 2007 21:01:10 GMT

How to shoot various substances through the air with common household materials. you'll find a variety of spud guns, punkin chunkers, tennis ball cannons, and More.

It's not really obsolete tech but I thought it might appeal to some of you all... especially the little boys out there.

http://users.frii.com/bsimon/backyard.html

posted in String-Can Telephone - 2 replies

the future ain't what i used to be

OtherMichael — Wed, 30 May 2007 03:04:47 GMT

'specially cyberwarfare: http://globalnerdy.com/2007/05/29/cyberwar-aint-what-it-used-to-be/

posted in String-Can Telephone - 0 replies

photos in spaaaaace

OtherMichael — Fri, 04 May 2007 20:24:13 GMT

http://www.airspacemag.com/issues/2007/december-january/FEATURE-FirstPhoto.php?page=1

posted in String-Can Telephone - 0 replies

Doris Norton and her Personal Computer (make blips and bleeps)

OtherMichael — Wed, 25 Apr 2007 21:24:18 GMT

http://mutant-sounds.blogspot.com/2007/04/doris-norton-personal.html
http://mutant-sounds.blogspot.com/2007/04/doris-norton-artificial.html

"Doris is the wife of Antonio Bartoccetti (Antonius Rex and Jacula) and the mother of Anthony Bartoccetti,best known as Rexanthony. During the 80's she was sponsored by Apple Computer,and made a music program for IBM USA.She is the "voice" in Jacula and Antonius Rex LPs.Early experimenta/electro synth pop music all through."

posted in String-Can Telephone - 0 replies

human powered

OtherMichael — Thu, 01 Mar 2007 21:40:47 GMT

http://www.we-make-money-not-art.com/archives/009361.php

posted in String-Can Telephone - 1 reply

C64 & PETs

OtherMichael — Mon, 04 Dec 2006 20:57:22 GMT

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20061202.gtcommodore02/BNStory/Technology/

They adore their 64s
For a fervent crowd of Commodore loyalists, the 1980s computers are as good as new

IAN DAFFERN

Special to The Globe and Mail

In a church basement on a Thursday night, a robust middle-aged fellow with thick glasses hammers the keys of a beige Commodore 64. Tom Luff is showing off a version of Monopoly. "Okay, St. Charles Place," he says, staring at a screen where the game board appears in chunky primary colours. "This will cost me $104. . . . Let's see if it puts it up for auction. Oh, it didn't. Son of a gun!"

The payoff never comes -- but for Mr. Luff's audience of about a dozen men, seeing an unfamiliar game on the 1980s computer is enough of a reward. They're members of the Toronto PET User's Group, a group of Commodore loyalists that have stuck with their favourite computers as they moved from the cutting edge of the 1970s to the dustbin of computer history.

Once a month, the group gathers to swap files, share hacking techniques and troubleshoot several generations of Commodore systems, from the early PET (or Personal Electronic Transactor, a clunky green-screened desktop) to the VIC-20 and the more sophisticated 64 and Amiga. Mr. Luff is the president; it says so on his cards, printed neatly on an archaic dot-matrix printer. "Our main motto is to . . . support and be there for anyone who's new to the market," he says.

At this meeting, one such young man, Kirk Zathey, 15, sits to the side listening keenly in a black leather jacket. Then there's Leif Bloomquist, a neatly assembled thirtysomething. "I'm an engineer, and I've got a strong sense of wanting to tinker with stuff," Mr. Bloomquist says. "The old computers are a fun and cheap way to tinker with things. And if you blow it up, you can find a replacement on eBay for like five bucks."

But while there's a trickle of new members, the group on the whole is in a slow decline. TPUG was founded in 1979, and at its height in the mid-eighties, Mr. Luff says, it had more than 20,000 members. Its convention, the World of Commodore, was held in the International Centre. At this year's convention, taking place this weekend at Alderwood United Church in Etobicoke, they don't expect to see more than 100 attendees. (And tonight they have to be out in time to clean up for a Sunday-school class.)

It's a strange fate for a computer that in the eighties was nearly ubiquitous. Commodore's PCs were hugely successful, affordably priced at around $600 and popular for games and business use. The 64 still holds the Guinness World Record for sales of a personal computer: 17 million units in its long lifespan from 1982 to 1994. The original World of Commodore convention was run by the company, until bad business moves and the onslaught of affordable IBM PCs sent it into bankruptcy. But three years ago, the members of TPUG decided to revive the convention -- albeit on a smaller scale.

Many are long-standing Commodore enthusiasts, dedicated members from the past who are still seeking new applications for their archaic computers. Nostalgia and a sense of computer-whiz community has kept them going for nearly 30 years. There's a friendly atmosphere to the meeting, as members crack jokes decipherable only to the true 8-bit fans.

"It's obviously a lot of camaraderie," Mr. Bloomquist says. He hadn't heard of TPUG before 2003, but his own tinkering earned him not only a welcome to the group but the title of webmaster. "One thing I always wanted to do was hook my 64 up to the Internet," he explains, "and now I actually have the design and engineering background to do it. So I did it." And he found he wasn't the only one; soon, an army of other Commodore 64s made contact with his special Web server. "Within a week, I had 2,000 callers," he says.

Going online with a decades-old computer -- today's $600 desktops are thousands of times more powerful -- is no small feat, and the motivation for Mr. Bloomquist and others is a mix of novelty and nostalgia. Computer fans are enjoying the eighties revival as much as anybody. For the generation born in the seventies, computers and gaming are culture. Machines like the C64, which had one of the largest game catalogues of the decade, are a big part of their past, and now they want to reclaim it.

Many use emulator programs, software that can translate the original code of beloved titles into versions they can play on a current PC. But for others, there's nothing like the tactile experience of an original machine. If they're lucky, it means dusting off the old machine from their basement; others seek them out from garage sales or on eBay.

After the meeting, as a howling Boy Scout troop clears out of the church's gymnasium, member John Easton describes the upcoming show. He imagines it filled with tables, vendors, and televisions airing programs like Bits and Bytes, an eighties computer show on TVOntario that was hosted by Luba Goy. As well as being a volunteer at the church where they meet, Mr. Easton is one of TPUG's original members and, at a sprightly 74, also one of the oldest. He first got started on the monochromatic green screen of the Commodore Pet through his work at the Ministry of Education.

"So we've still got a PET library, although very few people are looking for things like that any more," he says. "But the PETs did wonderful things. This whole church ran on PETs for years."

Back in the meeting room, members are still chatting and arguing over decades-old lines of code. Mr. Easton shakes his head. "This always happens. I have to kick them out now, and then they'll go and talk in the parking lot for an hour!"

posted in String-Can Telephone - 3 replies

long game time

OtherMichael — Tue, 13 Feb 2007 18:25:13 GMT

http://www.rosemariefiore.com/pages.php?content=gallery.php&navGallID=12

posted in String-Can Telephone - 1 reply

Other tribes

OtherMichael — Mon, 05 Feb 2007 14:22:46 GMT

http://amiga.tribe.net/ - For all fans and users of Commodore-Amiga computers. dead is an accurate term.
http://apple2.tribe.net/ - Current and former Apple II microcomputer owners. had a post yesterday; first one in over a year.
http://atari.tribe.net/ - a tribe for all things atari... dead.
http://bbs.tribe.net/ - A tribe for all of us to remember the good old days of the single modem BBS. not active.

well, it's a start.

posted in String-Can Telephone - 4 replies

4-bit computer

OtherMichael — Tue, 27 Mar 2007 15:19:18 GMT

http://www.vttoth.com/vicproc.htm

posted in String-Can Telephone - 0 replies

hi/lo-tech e-paper???

OtherMichael — Sat, 17 Mar 2007 19:43:46 GMT

http://www.evilmadscientist.com/article.php/plotbot

What do you get when you mix a 1970's style analog chart recorder, an 8-bit microcontroller, and a Fisher-Price Doodle Pro? A truly 21st century toy: An analog PlotBot with e-paper display technology!

posted in String-Can Telephone - 0 replies

what StringCanPhone is reading

OtherMichael — Thu, 01 Mar 2007 21:55:52 GMT

a link to blogs that Make Our Day

posted in String-Can Telephone - 2 replies

Desolation Row

OtherMichael — Mon, 19 Feb 2007 16:21:46 GMT

http://paleo-future.blogspot.com/2007/02/desolation-row.html

well, I think it belongs in here, somewhow.

posted in String-Can Telephone - 1 reply

chipmusic for kraftwerk

OtherMichael — Tue, 20 Feb 2007 20:44:18 GMT

http://www.retrothing.com/2007/02/review_8bit_ope.html

posted in String-Can Telephone - 0 replies

At last!

ShannonQ — Thu, 15 Feb 2007 22:55:50 GMT

http://www.dvdrewinder.com/index.php?main_page=product_reviews_info&products_id=1&reviews_id=9&zenid=0876278cefe81c7fa7f754cd4568b416

posted in String-Can Telephone - 2 replies

Batari

OtherMichael — Thu, 15 Sep 2005 16:29:25 GMT

BASIC, for the Atari 2600: http://alienbill.com/2600/basic/

Atari 2600 BASIC is intended as a beginner's platform so that one may become accustomed to the intricacies of the system. Although Atari 2600 BASIC is a viable development platform on its own, its real purpose is as a stepping stone toward 2600 programming using assembly language.

---------------

Praise Jesus, I'm goin' home!!! for surely, that is the sound of Angelic hosts I hear....

posted in String-Can Telephone - 2 replies

hoax devices

OtherMichael — Mon, 05 Feb 2007 03:39:15 GMT

http://hoaxdevices.uing.net/13138/catalogue.html?m_op=13138&m_is=1

hrm.....

posted in String-Can Telephone - 0 replies

Speech Synthesis

OtherMichael — Thu, 25 Jan 2007 15:56:55 GMT

http://inbetweennoise.blogspot.com/2007/01/h-ee-s-aw-dhuh-kaet.html

posted in String-Can Telephone - 1 reply

Drafting and measuring

Sweet_Flicka — Thu, 18 Jan 2007 22:28:08 GMT

Not quite obsolete according to the golf course designers I met last week...

http://whistleralley.com/planimeter/planimeter.htm

posted in String-Can Telephone - 4 replies

another cool building tool

Sweet_Flicka — Fri, 19 Jan 2007 20:28:00 GMT

http://www.factsfacts.com/MyHomeRepair/WaterLevel.htm

posted in String-Can Telephone - 0 replies

persistance

OtherMichael — Thu, 18 Jan 2007 14:13:31 GMT

http://www.flickr.com/photos/jwhilde/sets/72157594378057889/comments/

posted in String-Can Telephone - 0 replies

BEAM robots

OtherMichael — Wed, 23 Jun 2004 21:39:54 GMT

http://grant.solarbotics.net/index.htm

"BEAM is a design philosophy that emphasizes minimalist and robust solutions to building robots. As BEAM founder Mark Tilden has often shown it doesn't take much of a brain to make a capable robot.

The most common BEAM acronym stands for:

Biology
Electronics
Aesthetics
Mechanics"

There is a LOT more at http://www.solarbotics.com/, the company founded by the "founder" of the "movement", but the one I linked to above is well-layed out, sexy, and features good photos of well-made devices

Grant's BEAM-bots may have extremely few and surprisingly simplistic parts.

The top entry on the Photovore page, http://grant.solarbotics.net/Photovores.htm, is "A quick little bot to test out an idea for an ultra simple light seeker, the circuit consists of a pair of photodiodes, 74AC245 chip a couple motors, battery and a switch."

-----

Now, what does this have to do with the String Can Telephone ideal?

BEAM-bots builders, in their extreme-form as shown above, find new and complicated uses (& behaviors) from simpler materials. That don't presume that--just becuase a cheap-as-junk $5 microcontroller is available at the corner store--more powerful is better.

Check out the aesthetics of this one (bottom of photovore page):http://grant.solarbotics.net/images/Photovores/First_Herbie-IMG_2882.jpg

Count the number of parts.

posted in String-Can Telephone - 1 reply

atomic comic s

OtherMichael — Sun, 14 Jan 2007 18:04:36 GMT

http://www.authentichistory.com/images/1950s/atomic_comics/atomiccomics01.html

posted in String-Can Telephone - 0 replies

Where records were made... in Japan

OtherMichael — Thu, 11 Jan 2007 21:43:17 GMT

http://inbetweennoise.blogspot.com/2007/01/where-records-were-made.html

posted in String-Can Telephone - 0 replies

Time to eat

OtherMichael — Thu, 04 Jan 2007 19:41:26 GMT

http://americanhistory.si.edu/archives/d8069d.htm

ome years ago, (1884) on New Year's eve, an entertainment was given at the home of Mr. William J. Hammer, in Newark, N.J., which, for the display of the powers of electricity has seldom, if ever, been equaled. Mr. Hammer, who has for years been associated with Mr. Edison, both in this country and in Europe, desiring to give his old classmates, the "Society of Seventy-Seven," a lively and interesting time, invited them to "an electrical dinner" at his home.

The invitations which were sent out were written upon Western Union telegram blanks with an Edison electric pen. When the guests arrived and entered the gate, the house appeared dark, but as they placed foot upon the lower step of the veranda a row of tiny electric lights over the door blazed out, and the number of the house appeared in bright relief. The next step taken rang the front door bell automatically, the third threw open the door, and at the same time made a connection which lit the gas in the hall by electricity.

Upon entering the house the visitor was invited to divest himself of his coat and hat, and by placing his foot upon an odd little foot-rest near the door, and pressing a pear-shaped pendant hanging from the wall by a silken cord, revolving brushes attached to an electric motor brushed the mud and snow from his shoes and polished them by electricity. As he was about to let go of the switch or button, a contact in it connected with a shocking coil, caused him to drop it like a hot potato. Up-stairs was a bedroom which would be a fortune to a lazy man; he had only to step on the door sill and the gas was instantly lighted. The ceiling was found to be covered with luminous stars, arranged to represent the principal constellations in the heavens-while comets, moons, etc., shone beautifully in the dark. By placing one's head on the pillow, the gas, fifteen feet away, would be extinguished and the phosphorescent stars on the ceiling would shine forth weirdly, and a phosphorescent moon rose from behind a cloud over the mantel and slowly describing a huge arch disappeared behind a bank of phosphorescent clouds on the other side of the room; by pressing the toe to the foot-board of the bed the gas could again be relit.

Pouring a teacup of water into the water clock on the mantel and setting the indicator would assure the awakening of the sleeper at whatever hour he might desire. There was also in the hall outside the room a large drum, which could be set to beat by electricity at the hour when the family wished to arise. The whole house was fitted throughout with electric bells, burglar alarms, fire alarms, telephones, electric cigar lighters, medical coils, phonographs, electric fans, thermostats, heat regulating devices, some seven musical instruments, operated by electricity, etc.

Upon the evening referred to nearly every. piece of furniture in the parlor was arranged to play its part. Sit on one chair and out went the gas, take another seat and it would light again; sitting on an ottoman produced a mysterious rapping under the floor; pressure on some chairs started off drums, triangles, tambourines, cymbals, chimes and other musical instruments; in fact, it seemed unsafe to sit down anywhere. The quests stood about in groups and whispered, each hoping to see his neighbor or a new comer caught napping.

One visitor (Brown) secured an apparently safe seat, and was telling a funny story--he had left electricity far behind--but just as he reached the climax, a pretty funnel-shaped Japanese affair like a big dunce cap, that seemed but a ceiling ornament which was held in place by an electromagnet, dropped from overhead and quietly covered him up, thus silently extinguishing the story and the story-teller.

A big easy chair placed invitingly between the folding doors joining the double, parlors sent the unwary sitter flying out of its recesses by the sudden deafening clamor of twenty-one electric bells hidden in the folds of the draperies hanging in the doorway. In a convenient position stood the silver lemonade pitcher and cup, the former was filled with the tempting beverage, but no matter how much a guest might desire to imbibe one touch convinced him that the pitcher and cup were so heavily charged with electricity as to render it impossible for him to pour out a drink or even to let go until the electricity was switched off from the hidden induction coil.

Some one proposed music, and half a selection had been enjoyed when something seemed to give way inside the piano, and suddenly there emanated from that bewitched instrument a conglomeration of sounds that drowned the voices of the singers, and the keys seemed to beat upon a horrible jangle of drums, gongs and various noise-producing implements which were fastened inside of and underneath the piano.

After the guest were treated to a beautiful display of electrical experiments, under the direction of Mr. Hammer, and Professor George C. Sonn, they were escorted to the dining-room, where an electrical dinner had been prepared and was presided over by 'Jupiter," who was in full dress, and sat at the head of the table, where by means of a small phonograph inside of his anatomy he shouted, "Welcome, society of Seventy-Seven and their friends to Jove's festive board." The menu was as follows: "Electric Toast," "Wizard Pie," "Sheol Pudding," "Magnetic Cake," "Telegraph Cake," "Telephone Pie," "Ohm-made Electric Current Pie," "Menlo Park Fruit," "Incandescent Lemonade," "'Electric Coffee" and "Cigars," etc., and music by Prof. Mephistopheles' Electric Orchestra.

About the table were pretty bouquets, and among the flowers shone tiny incandescent lamps, while near the center of the table was placed an electric fan which kept the air cool and pure, and at each end was a tiny Christmas tree lighted with small incandescent lamps, planted in a huge dish of assorted nuts and raisins. Each lamp had a dainty piece of ribbon attached to it upon which the initials of the Society and the date were printed, and each guest received a lamp to take away with him as a souvenir of the occasion. Plates of iced cakes made in the form of telephones, switches, bells, electric lamps, batteries, etc., stood on each side of the center piece.

Promptly at 12 o'clock, as the chimes of the distant churches came softly to the ears of the assembled quests, pandemonium seemed to change places with the modest dining-room. A cannon on the porch, just outside the door, and another inside the chimney, were unexpectedly discharged; and at this sudden roar, every man sprang back from the table; the lights disappeared; huge fire-gongs, under each chair beat a tattoo. The concussion produced by the cannon in the fireplace caused several bricks to come crashing down the chimney, and as the year of 1884 faded away, the table seemed bewitched. The "Sheol Pudding" blazed forth green and red flames illuminating the room, tiny tin boxes containing 'Greek" fire which had been placed over each window and door were electrically ignited by spirals of platinum iridium wire heated by a storage battery and blazed up suddenly; the "Telegraph Cake" clicked forth messages said to be press reports of the proceedings (it was also utilized to count the guests and click off the answers to various questions put to it); bells rang inside the pastry; incandescent lamps burned underneath the colored lemonade; the thunderbolt pudding discharged its long black bolts all over the room (long steel spiral springs covered with black cloth) and loud spirit rapping occurred under the table. The silver knives, forks and spoons were charged with electricity from a shocking coil and could not be touched, while the coffee and toast (made by electricity) were made rapidly absorbed; the "Magnetic Cake' disappeared; the "Wizard" and "Current Pies' vanished, and 'Jupiter" raising a glass to his lips began to imbibe.

The effect was astonishing! The gas instantly went out, a gigantic skeleton painted with luminous paint appeared and paraded about the room, while Jupiter's nose assumed the color of a genuine toper! His green eyes twinkled, the electric diamonds in his shirt front (tiny lamps) blazed forth and twinkled like stars, as he phonographically shouted "Happy New Year'. Happy New Year!" This "Master of Cererionies' now becoming more gentle, the guests turned their attention to the beautiful fruit piece, over four feet high, that stood in the center of the table. From the fruit hung tiny electric lamps, and the whole was surmounted by a bronze figure of Bartholdils "Statue of Liberty;" uplifted in "Miss Liberty's" right hand burned an Edison lamp no larger than a bean.

The dinner finished, and there was much that was good to eat, notwithstanding the "magical" dishes which they were first invited to partake of, speeches were delivered by Messrs. Hammer, Rutan, McDougall, 'Brown, Duneka, and Dawson, and an original poem was read by Mr. Van Wyck. Upon repairing to the parlors the guest saw Mr. Hammer's little sister, May, dressed in white and mounted upon a pedestal, representing the "Goddess of Electricity:" tiny electric lamps hung in her hair, and were also suspended as earrings, while she held a wand surmounted by a star, and containing a very small electric lamp.

Not the least interesting display of electricity took place in front of the house, where a fine display of bombs, rockets, Roman candles, Greek fire and other fireworks were set off by electricity, which was by the way, the first time this had been accomplished. The guests were requested to press button switches ranged along the front veranda railing thus causing electricity from a storage battery to heat to a red heat tiny platinum iridium spirals attached to each fuse of the various pieces of fireworks thus sending up rocket after rocket, as well as igniting the other pieces which had been placed in the roadway in front of the house.

An attempt was made to send up a large hot air balloon to which was attached a tiny storage battery and an incandescent signal lamp but a sudden gust of wind caused the ballon to take fire as it rose fr(xn the ground. This constituted the only experiment made during the evening which was not an unqualified success. The innumerable electrical devices shown during the progress of the dinner were all operated by Mr. Hammer, who controlled various switches fastened to the under side of the table and attached to a switchboard, which rested on his lap, while the two cannons were fired by lever switches on the floor, which he operated by the pressure of the foot. Electricity was supplied by primary and storage batteries placed under the table. After an exhibition of electrical apparatus and experiments with a large phonograph, the guests departed with a bewildered feeling that somehow they had been living half a century ahead of the new year."

posted in String-Can Telephone - 0 replies

vs. cellphones

OtherMichael — Tue, 13 Apr 2004 13:21:01 GMT

You might never have guessed, but I'm not the biggest fan of cellphones. And I'm particaly NOT a fan of people who shrilly insist upon their right to use their cellphone anywhere and anytime*.

The beginnings of a little flame-war over on the BoingBoing tribe.... http://cluster.tribe.net/tribe/servlet/template/pub%2Ctribes%2CViewThread.vm?threadid=88e7f53d-c881-4955-a2df-779e23cde190&tribeid=80e04997-fa46-4545-a1cd-e826137ba3c8

*I tend to lump them in with people who shrilly insist upon anything.

posted in String-Can Telephone - 9 replies

Classic Case-Mods

OtherMichael — Thu, 20 Apr 2006 14:38:51 GMT

http://www.boingboing.net/2006/04/19/modern_pc_built_into.html

posted in String-Can Telephone - 1 reply

8mm-films and slides game arcade

OtherMichael — Tue, 02 Jan 2007 19:39:51 GMT

http://www.we-make-money-not-art.com/archives/009238.php

The Game Arcade is a set of machines which resemble '80s style video games.

Still there is a big difference with video or compuer games as our machines work without any digital technology at all. What can be seen on the screens are slide and super8 projections. But the Games the machines represent can actually be played. There is a racing game (Racer), a shooting game (8-Box/Shoot the Monster), a slot machine (Pixel Slot) and a game in the style of the LCD handheld games from the '80s (before Game Boy), the Pixelblaster. The technology to drive the games are sensor driven relais, some timer switches and mechanically changed Super8 and slide projectors.

All the exterior casing is made of cardboard.

How do Racer and PIXELBLASTER work exactly?

The Racer is a classic car racing game where you sit on a seat and use a small wheel to drive a car through landscape whithout getting off the track. If you get off the road whith just one wheel an alarm sound rings, if you go off the road completely you crash and the game stops. The car is made from cardboard and driven mechanically by the wheel. It lies above a screen where the road appears as a back projection from a Super8 projector playing the "road film" in a loop. The speed of the projectors motor and thus the speed of the game can be changed. Light sensors fixed underneath the car detect if the car is on or off the road.

The Pixelblaster is a skill game. The player is a figure which can be moved horizontally between four differennt positions by a hand control unit. Above the figure is a panel of 4x6 "pixels". The panel is made from cardboard boxes with cut out shapes which are lit from the inside. This panel shows objects falling down towards the figure below. The player has to jump away so he will not be hit by the falling objects/lights. The figure of the player is a side projection onto the lower part of the screen. The system will recognise if the figure is hit by a faling light.

The "brain" of the machine which drives the lights on the panel is a Super8 projector which projects onto a small screen equipped with light sensors. The film projected is an animation film with black squares moving around. The light sensors detect the dark and light areas being projected and will switch the lights of the panel on or off accordingly.

Consequently the way the lights fall down is driven by the film which is projected. The Super8 projector used is a loop cartridge projector. Like this it is possible to exchange cartridges and have a different game each time (game cartridges). The projected Super8 image itself is not seen by the player it just serves to transmit the information for the screen. Super8 as a punchcard type data storage.

posted in String-Can Telephone - 0 replies

first light-gun game

OtherMichael — Thu, 28 Dec 2006 16:01:23 GMT

http://marvin3m.com/arcade/rayolit.htm

Description: Ray-O-Lite Rifle, Seeburg, 1/36, a duck shoot game, this rayolite gun game is the first light activated gun games. Seeburg was a company with an engineering departments focused on the design of vacuum tube amplifiers and gearing systems for jukeboxes. It was no surprise then that when the electric eye light sensing vacuum tube was introduced in the early 1930s that the Seeburg design teams would introduce a light ray game. In January of 1936 Seeburg was the first out with the Ray O Lite. This game featured a flying duck with a light sensing tube that would drop the duck when you shot it with the rifle, which produced a beam of light when the trigger was pulled. After years of making Jukeboxes, Seeburg knew how to build a quality veneer wood cabinet.

--------

here are some nearly-as-old from Bally: http://marvin3m.com/arcade/midgun.htm

----

long page from a Buyer that includes some good scans & info on electronic-light--gun games: http://marvin3m.com/arcade/

---

oh, they're both from the same place!

posted in String-Can Telephone - 0 replies

all i want for xmas is....

OtherMichael — Mon, 18 Dec 2006 17:27:57 GMT

http://www.radarmagazine.com/features/2006/12/gilbert_u238_atomic_energy_lab.php

posted in String-Can Telephone - 0 replies

slinky remotes

OtherMichael — Fri, 15 Dec 2006 14:06:33 GMT

http://www.straightdope.com/classics/a3_270.html

posted in String-Can Telephone - 0 replies

cosmic chip slop

OtherMichael — Thu, 14 Dec 2006 19:36:18 GMT

http://cakeandpolka.blogspot.com/2006/11/noisy-commodore-64-slop-heap.html

posted in String-Can Telephone - 0 replies

do you have ice hockey by activision?

OtherMichael — Fri, 01 Dec 2006 03:01:49 GMT

http://www.fazed.net/video/?id=522

posted in String-Can Telephone - 2 replies

harmonic convergence

OtherMichael — Fri, 01 Dec 2006 18:09:32 GMT

http://www.tatjavanvark.nl/harmonium/

posted in String-Can Telephone - 1 reply

everything old is new again

OtherMichael — Wed, 08 Nov 2006 21:51:06 GMT

http://www.gizmodo.com/gadgets/gadgets/vacuum-tube-radio-relive-the-good-ol-days-212324.php

posted in String-Can Telephone - 1 reply

robots

OtherMichael — Thu, 16 Nov 2006 13:57:59 GMT

http://www.burrowburrow.com/robots.html

posted in String-Can Telephone - 0 replies

Wood Case

OtherMichael — Mon, 25 Jul 2005 21:11:15 GMT

Not strictly SCP, but what the heck: http://www.swedx.com/

I have been dreaming of living in a log-cabin with wood-cased computers since the mid-1980s. Current business-models indicate that if I had patented my dream I'd be rolling in dough, now.

posted in String-Can Telephone - 1 reply

fruity electricity

OtherMichael — Wed, 08 Nov 2006 18:42:46 GMT

http://www.we-make-money-not-art.com/archives/009091.php

For Enough Rope, by Jo Coupe, a pile of fruit is left to rot on an ornate round table. Studded with electrodes, the fruit is generating its own electricity. The artist makes use of the phenomenon of fruity electricity. The fruit create a charge, this in turn little powers motors strapped to the table legs. Each motor has a blade that slowly cuts into the leg of the table supporting the fruit.

In another of Coupe's works, Give and Take, roses are placed in tanks of copper solution. A current passing through the tank means the flowers are slowly electroplated. This principle – electroplating – is common in the creation of cutlery and coinage. In Give and Take copper pipes are placed in the solution with a positive charge while the roses are placed in with a negative charge. As the copper solution begins to settle on the roses they are slowly entombed in a growing accumulation of copper.

-----------------------

like the PotatoBattery http://www.unit5.org/christjs/Potato%20Battery.htm

the last piece reminds me of James Acord's atomic pile-in-a-fishtank http://www.orau.org/ptp/articlesstories/acord.htm

Prompted to find other uses for his remaining stockpile of Fiestaware, Acord created the “Atomic Fiesta Plasma Reactor.” The reactor consists of stacked Fiesta Red dinnerware submerged in a 30 gallon fish tank and it takes advantage of the differing vapor pressures of ordinary and heavy water. By continuously bubbling air through the tank, the light water is preferentially evaporated while the naturally-occurring heavy water is concentrated. Acord calculates that in several thousand years the heavy water content will be sufficient for the reactor to achieve criticality. The precise moment will be identified by the sudden appearance of floating fish - fried, ready to eat.

http://www.ans.org/pubs/magazines/nn/docs/2002-11-3.pdf

posted in String-Can Telephone - 0 replies

The Cup Communicator

OtherMichael — Wed, 08 Nov 2006 18:37:33 GMT

http://www.we-make-money-not-art.com/archives/009086.php

I saw The Cup Communicator a few months ago at the RCA show. There wasn't much explanation about it. So i wrote Duncan Wilson to get some details.

"The Cup Communicator is the final outcome of a series of three projects concerned with our relationship with mobile communication devices," explains the designer. "The original inspiration for the work came from a scene in Wim Wenders’ Paris, Texas when Travis and Hunter engage is a dialog involving walkie-talkies when attempting to find their estranged wife/mother, using the device as a platform for finding partnership, co-operation and developing a relationship between the two characters."

Can you thell us something about the technology you used? How does it work?

"The technology used is very simple but it is the method of integrating the technology into the device that makes the product. The Cup Communicator works using 2 way radio technology (walkie-talkies). Actually, I bought the smallest and most simple walkie-talkies I could find and adapted them to my needs by disabling certain functions, attaching self-built switches and controls, reducing the battery size and changing the configuration of the mic, speaker, antenna, etc."

"The Cup Communicator consists of a rigid internal casing (containing all electronics) and a soft polyurethane outer sleeve. Midway down the body of the device the internal casing becomes concaved creating a void between these two parts, allowing for a soft, squeezable waist. Conductive thread, sewn into the interior of the soft polyurethane sleeve makes contact with fine copper filament wound around the rigid casing when the device is squeezed. This becomes a ‘button’ completely around the body which activates the ‘push-to-talk’ function. The cord is attached to a spring loaded lever switch controlling the on/off function but also contains the antenna and a red-LED that illuminates when the speaker is activated i.e. the light flickers when someone in talking. This LED indicates when the cup communicator is receiving a signal when in is placed ‘speaker down’ on a table."

"The Cup Communicator allows ‘live’ communication in the same way as a 2 way radio does but it is no longer a mobile device like a walkie talkie. The product would be used in the home, on your desk at the office, in schools or colleges, in villages or apartment blocks to link together social groups."

posted in String-Can Telephone - 0 replies

Adventureland

OtherMichael — Mon, 06 Nov 2006 20:39:55 GMT

http://www.lysator.liu.se/adventure/index.html

'This site tries to list all adventure games (interactive fiction) produced over the years. When I say "adventure", I mean text adventures and their graphical decendants, but I don't include RPGs.'

posted in String-Can Telephone - 0 replies

1x2=3(d)

OtherMichael — Mon, 30 Oct 2006 18:34:32 GMT

http://content.cdlib.org/view?docId=tf6r29p281&doc.view=items

posted in String-Can Telephone - 0 replies

we like (to) watch

OtherMichael — Mon, 16 Oct 2006 16:24:23 GMT

http://zorigami.free.fr/odd_watches/

odd

posted in String-Can Telephone - 0 replies

the Digital Donkey

OtherMichael — Mon, 16 Oct 2006 14:31:56 GMT

from the final installment in a Daily-WTF series, http://thedailywtf.com/forums/thread/96006.aspx . WTF entires are anonymized examples of poor code or business-practices relating to computing technologies. In this case, after three articles on an improbable piece of software and poor business model, the crazed company attempted to profit from the third-world market.

With Donkeys.

and the WTF Gang thought they were getting a April Fool's Day prank a few months late.

not so, revealed an update -- the doney wasn't a joke. it was the business model: http://www.ifla.org/V/press/pr0225-02.htm

"The mobile units are Donkey Drawn Electro-Communication Library Carts. Besides functioning as a mobile library with a collection of books and other printed works, it works as a centre for electric and electronic communication: radio, telephone, fax, e-mail, Internet.

"Each cart is provided with a solar unit installed on the roof; a battery charged by this solar energy supplies the electric power. Audio-visual apparatus is installed in a cabinet at the back of the cart and electronic data equipment and storage facilities for battery, inverter, distilled water (for tte batteries), books, music disks and records, video cassettes, etc. are installed on cabinets at both sides of the cart. The unit can also be provided with an aerial or a satellite dish.

"To date, four of these donkey mobile libraries are operational in Nkayi District. Their services have proved a strong networking exercise since they afford the participating static libraries a unique experience of offering library and information services to remote communities or areas that are inaccessible due to poor road infrastructure."

Donkeys and technology are not new.

Somewhere, I've seen pedal-cab cell-phone stations, but can't find anything. More, later....

posted in String-Can Telephone - 0 replies

Fashioning the Future

OtherMichael — Fri, 13 Oct 2006 15:31:16 GMT

http://www.we-make-money-not-art.com/archives/009024.php

"For example, the book explains how the use of light in clothing and jewellery is nothing new. Battery-powered illuminated brooches and diadems became a fashion fad in France and England in the 18870s and 1880s. Then in the 60s Diana Dew created electric costumes for musicians and battery-operated garments with inserted panels of electroluminescent films that flash rythmically in time with the music in nighclubs."

posted in String-Can Telephone - 0 replies

typewriter laptop steampunk yadda yadda

OtherMichael — Thu, 12 Oct 2006 13:02:30 GMT

http://ironwork.jp/monkey_farm/computer/pc2.html

in japanese

posted in String-Can Telephone - 0 replies

you got served! (by a Newton)

OtherMichael — Wed, 11 Oct 2006 14:58:33 GMT

http://www.streettech.com/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=1444

posted in String-Can Telephone - 0 replies

the world's first digital camera

OtherMichael — Mon, 09 Oct 2006 17:45:10 GMT

http://www.gizmag.com/go/4717/gallery/
http://www.gizmag.com/linktous/4717/

October 7, 2005 2005 marks the 30th anniversary of the one of the hottest consumer electronic products in the world today – the digital camera. In 1975, the world’s first digital photograph was taken at a Kodak lab in Rochester, NY, USA, in an event that preceded the Compact Disc, the Personal Computer and the Internet. In 1974 Steven Sasson, an engineer at Kodak’s Applied Electronics Research Centre, was tasked with devising an “electronic handheld still camera”. The following year his first working prototype – weighing 8.5 pounds, powered by 16 AA batteries and recording images on a cassette – took the first ever digital still camera photograph.

posted in String-Can Telephone - 0 replies

"phone-home" steamer-strainer WF extender

OtherMichael — Tue, 25 Jul 2006 15:33:56 GMT

http://www.instructables.com/id/EQARE4I72GEPUCHTHU/?ALLSTEPS

posted in String-Can Telephone - 1 reply

it's time to swear like it's 1849

OtherMichael — Wed, 20 Sep 2006 17:35:09 GMT

http://www.mentalfloss.com/blogs/archives/1823

posted in String-Can Telephone - 2 replies