Retro Cool Technology

[Artlav]

Another fairly retro device is a CRT.
The round one, used in old oscilloscopes.
Seeing one makes me want to make a clock out of it...

Another example of a fusion between the modern components and an old device, with the latter being used in a sacrilegious fashion.

There is still some hardware kinks to iron out, and the software to write:

Oh, and a steampunk case to design...

 

[Notebook]

Yea, Old Silly Scopes!
Here's one I bought years ago:

http://i89.photobucket.com/albums/k207/Notebook_04/Scope_1_Android_zps4c2646b3.jpg

All valve scope, weighed a ton, sadly had to go in the skip. the firm that made it are only a few miles from where I live. Probably defunct.

N.

 

[AssemblyLanguage]

I once worked with a paper tape punch that would punch up to 100 frames per second. With the overtones, it sounded like a distorted musical note. So, we wrote a program to read music notation from a text file and punch tape at the speed to produce the note. We played a couple songs and then we had to dispose of all that punched paper tape.

 

[Fabri91]

Which reminds me of this youtube channel.

 

[Andy44]

I once worked with a paper tape punch that would punch up to 100 frames per second. With the overtones, it sounded like a distorted musical note. So, we wrote a program to read music notation from a text file and punch tape at the speed to produce the note. We played a couple songs and then we had to dispose of all that punched paper tape.

That's kind of like the way you trick computers into playing music, by hooking a speaker up to a data line and running nonsense bits (to the computer) through it in such a fashion as to play notes.

The Icelandic composer Johann Johannsson did this with an old 60's era IBM 1401 computer like the one his dad worked on. It almost sounds like the computer is crying. I may have posted this before:

---------- Post added at 11:05 PM ---------- Previous post was at 02:17 AM ----------

Which reminds me of this youtube channel.

Wow that was awesome, look up his version of the Star Wars Imperial March!

 

[Andy44]

The random comments thread reminded me of a show I used to watch with my dad called "The Secret Life of Machines". It's a British series from the 80s that got replayed in the US in the 90s and it has a lot of great retro tech. Tim and Rex explain how common appliances work, what the history is, and they also tinker with them and build their own gadgets for demonstration purposes or fun. I can watch these over and over:

The fax machine one is one of my favorites. The early design from the 1800s is fascinating.

[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IaCfs5Xb-EI"]Secret Life Of Machines - The Fax Matchine (Full Length) - YouTube[/ame]

 

[Andy44]

With the new movie about Turing coming out I was discussing computer technology at work and the subject of Charles Babbage and his mechanical computer came up.

Turns out someone is finally going to build a finished example:

When I was in college and learned how computers work I quickly realized that you could build one using solenoids, or do without electricity all together and use steam or air valves. You would. of course, need a very large array of machinery and a large power source, be it electrical or steam or an air compressor, but there's no reason it wouldn't work.

Then I read that Babbage had almost done exactly that, but never got around to finishing it.

And of course, William Gibson wrote an alt history sci fi novel about a 19th century computer as well.

If I had lots of space and time and was an eccentric rich guy I would absolutely build one, this thing is super cool.

 

[Andy44]

This is really cool, a guy makes his own "mercury arc rectifier" tube (except he uses argon). Blows the glass himself as well as builds the circuit!

Although I'm not quite sure what this circuit is actually doing; it's not clear to me from the video.

 

[Artlav]

Speaking of retro-cool, guess what is this thing i saved from a dumpster?

Although I'm not quite sure what this circuit is actually doing; it's not clear to me from the video.

That is cool. He also made a nixie tube and an X-ray tube.

This is not a real MAR, just a glow tube shaped to look and light like one.
He didn't want to have a kilo of mercury in house, or something.

 

[Andy44]

Speaking of retro-cool, guess what is this thing i saved from a dumpster?

That is cool. He also made a nixie tube and an X-ray tube.

Is that an adding machine of some sort? Or some kind of counter?

This is not a real MAR, just a glow tube shaped to look and light like one.
He didn't want to have a kilo of mercury in house, or something.

Yeah, he says that, but it still does something, right? Or is it basically just a fancy neon light?

 

[Artlav]

Is that an adding machine of some sort? Or some kind of counter?

It's an arithmometer - a mechanical calculator from before the age of electronics.
Addition, subtraction, multiplication, division.
All with cogs and gears.

Fully functional too, despite being somewhat crusty and scratched.

Yeah, he says that, but it still does something, right? Or is it basically just a fancy neon light?

AFAIK it just glows and does nothing else.

 

[Fabri91]

Reading about the arithmometer this YouTube playlist about a Fourier analysis machine came to mind.

 

[Andy44]

A piece of cool retrotech we still see daily but don't think about much, but the engineering behind it is quite interesting:

 

[Andy44]

Apparently, analog synthesizers are the "in" thing these days:

http://www.retrothing.com/2015/01/vintage-synthesizer-reissues-invade-namm-2015.html

 

[Notebook]

Does this mean I'm back in fashion? (#55 above)

N.

 

[Andy44]

Does this mean I'm back in fashion? (#55 above)

N.

LOL what's old is new!

Thing about a lot of these newer analog synths is that they use the analog circuits for that great sound but they use microchips and firmware to make the units smaller and more versatile, with USB connections and so forth. A good blend of old and new. Even the reissues like the new ARP Odyssey have these features.

Not the Moog System 55 pictured above, of course, it's basically a wire-by-wire reconstruction of the original, and it's made for the purist. Also, it's $35,000! And they are only building 55 of them, all hand made.

While that's cool and all, it'd be nice if Moog would make a modular which was compatible with current ones, like the Eurorack and so forth.

 

[Notebook]

Last time I looked, the ETI 4600 synth had a fair community going. All the i/c were in sockets, and of course its all mid 70's design, no dsp or similar. It did have specialised i/c and these are difficult to get.
I really did it as a long term project, my soldering got better and it was before cable-ties, so we were taught cable-looming at college.
Should get around to finishing it off, but...

N.

 

[Ravenous]

Speaking of synths and shepard tones, I once spent ages trying to do a shepard tone based on clavia's Nord Modular G2 demo software. (Allows you to set up oscillators, filters, etc. - worth a play by the way.)

Never got it to sound quite convincing - I could still hear the notes start at the beginning of the range, and fade out at the end. Oh well!

 

[TachyonDriver]

Pocket calculator - Curt Herzstark style:

The CURTA
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OynMJB-2J1o

I'd love to own one of these! Sadly they go for rather a lot of money..
However there's a flash emulator so you can play at crunching numbers.

http://www.vcalc.net/curta_simulator_en.htm

 

[Ripley]

About Curta:

http://www.darkroastedblend.com/2008/09/stunningly-intricate-curta-mechanical.html
http://www.numberphile.com/videos/curta_calculator.html

I think I found these links starting from YT Vi Heart's channel...