Retro Cool Technology

Andy44

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Years ago I was in the Smithsonian American History Museum in DC, looking through the computer tech display, and there was an exhibit about something called "SAGE" or "Semi-Automatic Ground Environment". This was the massive integrated air defense system for North America, which involved the use of gigantic IBM AN/FSQ-7 computers to process data from radar sites and direct fighters and surface-to-air weapons in the event of a Soviet bomber attack. The computers used thousands of vacuum tubes and there were dedicated cooling towers to keep the processors cool. These machines were all networked via hundreds of phone lines and modems. And this was in the 1950s!

I am no warmonger, but I love this old technology, and the audacity to think such a thing could be accomplished when nothing like it had ever been dreamed of before. Was the system effective? We'll never know, thankfully. Other nations' later attempts at integrated air defense met with mixed results (eg. North Vietnam, Egypt, ect.). But this was built from scratch and represents a landmark in systems engineering history.

 

C3PO

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It isn't really retro, but I thought it was cool.
 

streb2001

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At least it gave its life for the benefit of science.

I must say, I have never heard of that ingenious capacitive video disc.
 

Artlav

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Maybe not exactly retro yet, since they are still used...
But cool enough. :)

Some time ago i came across a Xenon Short Arc lamp from a movie projector.
2.5KW, or 100000 lumen.
I wanted it to shine...
And shone it did.


The lamp is Tungsram XHP 2500/2, made in 1969.
BlzwqxA.jpg


Was said to be new old stock, appears to be somewhat used.
It21MDz.jpg


I made a box for it.
The driver is underneath, the lamp goes into a plexiglass enclosure.
The plastic is dispersive, UV absorbing and hopefully thick enough to absorb the shrapnel from the lamp bursting (60 atm of xenon gas inside, anxious to get out).
ekej8YL.jpg


Underneath the lamp is a fan.
It keeps it cool, but i still don't know if it's a good idea to let it blow at the lamp like this.
It's surprisingly difficult to find any detailed design guidelines on making enclosures for such lamps.
They would say to provide 6 m/s of cooling airflow, and on the next line say not to blow air onto the lamp...
2io0Bd4.jpg


But it seem to work so far.
Z5z8IIC.jpg


It's quite bright in the lab just before ignition.
18rxlfE.jpg


But it gets so much brighter after.
None of the original lights were turned off - next to the big one they are as good as not there.
I measured 15000 lux, 2 metres away perpendicular to the box.
NVrnYfD.jpg


The power of the sun...
zEkAWdR.jpg


...on the top of your desk. :cool:
ASLZAlS.jpg


And that's how a box of sunshine was made.

I have no idea what to use this for.
Mood recovery during polar nights?
Sunbathing on a rainy day?
Make some sort of an art installation (aka a lighthouse) on the roof of the building?
 

Urwumpe

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They would say to provide 6 m/s of cooling airflow, and on the next line say not to blow air onto the lamp...


That's right - if you blow the air directly against the lamp, you could cause uneven temperatures and thermal stress, that could make the lamp burst.

In your case though, the lamp is in a more evenly distributed airflow and hot and cold spots would be prevented.
 

MaverickSawyer

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I have no idea what to use this for.
Mood recovery during polar nights?
Sunbathing on a rainy day?
Make some sort of an art installation (aka a lighthouse) on the roof of the building?

Does it have to have a use? It's awesome... 'nuff said.:lol:
 

Andy44

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I have no idea what to use this for.
Mood recovery during polar nights?
Sunbathing on a rainy day?
Make some sort of an art installation (aka a lighthouse) on the roof of the building?

Navigation beacon for astronauts?

Revenge machine for people who don't dim their headlights?
 

Andy44

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I bought a reel-to-reel tape deck at an antique shop the other day. Was planning to use it for some sort of musical experiments, but had to take it back when I found out the capstan motor wasn't working right...when I was a little kid my dad had an awesome Sony r2r tape machine. Wish he had kept it.
 

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This thread is simply outstanding! Never thought that there could be so many retro gear aficionados (as I am).
I have a lot of (still working) old stuff, somtimes even too old stuff; I have also some old synth that I refreshed recently, though I'm using much virtual stuff today.

I' taking some time to read all posts, many comments are coming.
 

Notebook

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An old synth...what model do you have Orbekler, I have an interest in old synths(can't play anything, but that's not the point is it).

N.
 

orbekler

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Well, during the 80's I put my hands on many keyboards like OB-Xa, Prophet 5, Minimoog, but I never had the plasure to try modular synths, like the replica seen in this thread.

Now I just have a common SH-101, its brother MC-202 (never used, still in its original package), plus several expanders from the early 90's (E-mu UltraProteus, Vintage keys, that I don't use anymore).

I currently play a wonderful Yamaha SY99 as master keyboard, connected to a PC full of virtual stuff.
 

Notebook

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Sounds good.
I built two when I was really into electronics as a hobby. One disappeared, can't remember what I did with it.
The other one was a more serious kit, see #55 above for pics.
Hope to have some time later in the year to get it working again, just have to find my soldering iron...

N
 

Urwumpe

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Sweet... I played on a SY99 in school, AFAIR.
 

orbekler

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When I got my Sinclair, a buddy of mine at school got one these TI-99s. Really cool machine from the days when Texas Instruments was near the top of the heap.

I have my dad's old Garrard record changer. He got this in the 60s or early 70s, and when I was a teenager he got a Technics and the Gerrard became mine. It works fine in manual mode, but the changer function doesn't work anymore. There is a repairman around here I plan on taking it to. You want to see cool retro-tech, you chould see the workshop that guy has!

picture.php

I have also a similar stereo equipment from the early 70's, a Grundig - Philips equipped with radio and automatic disc changer + external tape recorder. I'll try to reach it where it is stored to get the exact model number.

---------- Post added at 21:21 ---------- Previous post was at 19:20 ----------


Awesome! Then what happened? Did you ever use it?
 

Thunder Chicken

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Maybe a bit off topic, but my father used to be NCOIC of an Air Force wing back in the 70s and 80s, and I spent a lot of my childhood running around the base. I remember the command post vividly; no windows, a safe with the secrets, old rotary phones, steel desks, ashtrays on every table, and NO computers whatsoever. The only computer in the CP was my father's brain and the only output was his grease pencil on the daily flight schedule.

I remember there was a peculiar telewriter machine for getting the flight weather reports - it had a scroll of paper, and a mechanical stylus that wrote letters and numbers on the paper. I believe it was actually transcribing someone's handwriting from another location - it wasn't dot matrix or printed text, the stylus actually was writing. They used the old METAR format at I was proud that I could actually decipher what the weather report meant.

I think we collectively lost something when computers came around. There was a lot of really cool mechanical / analog stuff before computers came around that worked in very clever ways.
 

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Speaking of retro tech, many of you've probably heard of the Mellotron, a keyboard instrument from the 60s that uses sound samples on 8-second stretches of magnetic tape. It has been used by many famous acts, including the Beatles and Pink Floyd, and is still in production today. The Mellotron itself is retro-tech; for some reason musicians tend to be very conservative about technology, often preferring old-school instruments and amplifiers to newer ones. There is a modern compact keyboard Mellotron which uses digital samples, but for just under $8k you can still buy a tape unit complete with 60s-looking wooden construction.

101-0120x_IMG.jpg


Not only are their instruments retro tech, but Mellotron's website looks like a throwback to the early happy days of the 1990s internet!

http://www.mellotron.com/

All they need is an awful midi sound file that starts up when you visit the site and won't shut up, and maybe a few cheesy animated gifs!

Paul McCartney explains the Mellotron:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m0S1-Y9TsyY

But more interesting than Mellotron is the Birotron, one of the most rare instruments in the world.

In this blog I gathered some infos about it along other mysterious synths:
https://obscuresynths.wordpress.com/

---------- Post added at 22:18 ---------- Previous post was at 22:14 ----------

We had a Mellotron in a sound-dubbing area, wasn't a musical one. Looked like a normal upright piano. It was filled with sound-effects, all the worlds birds, and creaky floorboards, spooky footsteps, gunshots, etc. Great fun to play with, hardly used in anger.

Sadly went in the skip, shocking.

N.

It was probably Mellotron Mark II, while the most used on stage was (is) the M400.
 
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