Who loves old tech?  - Page 1
Forum section: electronics / general

author: Lightages
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: May 22, 2015, 06:20:19 am
content: I just watched this video on delay line memory. It is actually electromechanical, not electronic. I have never heard of this one before.

author: RobertoLG
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: May 22, 2015, 06:55:07 am
content: hmmmmmm, cool! thanks for sharing

author: dexters_lab
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: May 22, 2015, 08:10:15 am
content: love seeing old tech like this!was some discussion about these types of devices when TNMOC was rebuilding EDSAC

author: Howardlong
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 22, 2015, 09:06:32 am
content: We had nickel delay delay lines in the Eliott 803 I used back in the 70s. I knew roughly what they did but didn't know how they did it. They were fairly unreliable, or, at least, difficult to fix when they went wrong.It was a 39 bit serial machine, and it stored the accumulator, PC and current instruction in the nickel delay lines. Being serial, they sat in this never ending loop. Being serial it made doing simple arithmentic easy as you only needed 1 or 2 bit ALUs plus any carry.Definitely in voodoo territory when it came to fixing them though.

author: Tandy
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: May 22, 2015, 09:49:52 am
content: You can't beat the occasional nostalgia blast, The BBC recently closed their main studios in London called TV Centre and relocated to what is basically an office building in Manchester.It was fascinating to see the racks of equipment that had been required over the decades to do what can be done with a digital video camera and software. Even the building itself was designed to accommodate huge TV cameras and even had a room where scenes were painted. The BBC used to have quite a large engineering department that developed and built a lot of custom hardware, must of been a very interesting place to work during the early days of video. Was sad to see them selling off all the workshop equipment.

author: smjcuk
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: May 22, 2015, 10:09:51 am
content: Spot on.This is an interesting read about some of the kit used to do idents:http://625.uk.com/tv_logos/bbc1_85.htm

author: Mechanical Menace
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 22, 2015, 11:04:05 am
content: Quote from: smjcuk on May 22, 2015, 10:09:51 amI can just about remember Tomorrow's World showing off a lot of Aunties home grown toys, and setting up the stereo opposite the TV to have a go at the surround sound demonstration lol

author: Seekonk
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 22, 2015, 12:51:19 pm
content: I have one of the first, maybe the first, HP desk calculators that does only simple math, CRT display and a delay line for memory. It has a solenoid that locks the keyboard while doing a calculation.

author: Rigby
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 22, 2015, 12:59:05 pm
content: Quote from: Seekonk on May 22, 2015, 12:51:19 pmpicture request. i want to see that. video request, also. i don't care if you hate your voice or your house/shop is a mess. i really don't care. video. youtube. now. please.

author: TerraHertz
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 22, 2015, 01:37:10 pm
content: Quote from: Rigby on May 22, 2015, 12:59:05 pmI second this command. (He says, who doesn't know how to create videos.)

author: Towger
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 22, 2015, 03:51:53 pm
content: What happened to the doomsday project, which used the large laser disks and BBC Micro? I remember hearing there was a project to try and recover the data, as despite many schools having the disks and equipment no one seemed to have a working system any more.

author: Richard Crowley
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 22, 2015, 04:00:23 pm
content: Who loves old tech? No I, said the duck.We had to use those old fiddly electromagnetostrictive delay-line "memories" when we were attempting some of the first practical graphics terminals back in the 1970s. Give me a nice solid-state RAM any day.Most people who admire those old nostalgic times wouldn't want to actually live there.

author: Rigby
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 22, 2015, 04:24:06 pm
content: Quote from: Richard Crowley on May 22, 2015, 04:00:23 pmAgreed. Old memories (the kind inside your brain) are good, and reminiscing is often a constructive thing to do. Aside from a few video games and other nostalgic things, I am glad we are away from those old, very limited and ultimately very unacceptable by comparison, technologies. They are sometimes EXTREMELY fascinating to see and play with, though.There are some old technologies that should have been developed further. For example, where'd the propane-fueled refrigerator go? In the 50s they were far more efficient than the electric variety of the day, and they didn't let all of your food rot during a power outage, which are still quite common in some areas of the US, and, of course, the world.There are some old technologies that could have made things better had they not been killed by the free market, but like Richard, I'm very glad that most of them are gone.

author: Mechanical Menace
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 22, 2015, 04:35:41 pm
content: Quote from: Towger on May 22, 2015, 03:51:53 pmA team from Leeds Uni and somewhere in the US made an emulator for it, but due to copyright it's not really legal until next century.EDIT: Or more probably given the last 100 years record of constantly extending terms, sometime after the heat death of the universe.

author: nanofrog
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 22, 2015, 05:12:47 pm
content: Quote from: Rigby on May 22, 2015, 04:24:06 pmThey're still around it seems (examplefor home use). Even saw one offered with a Kerosene option.Prior to this ^, I was only aware of them for the RV market (electric + propane units).Learned something new today.

author: CatalinaWOW
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 22, 2015, 06:57:43 pm
content: I'm with the others on not wanting to go back. The reason those technologies have been abandoned is because they were replaced by something that not only worked better, it was cheaper. In the rare cases where there is an advantage to the older tech (non-volatility in core memories for example), the disadvantages far outweigh the advantages.An example of how clunky some of those technologies were. At university there was a research computer that used a custom crt for it's fast local memory. Quite the thing in its time it stored maybe a thousand bits per tube by charging spots on the screen with current pulses as it scanned a rectangular array of bit locations, and sensed the state of the bits by sensing the current deflected by the charge on those spots. (Somewhat similar to the way image orthicons worked). Access times in the milliseconds. All of the reliability of a vacuum tube. And free room heating thrown in. The same machine had an experimental ink spraying printer. I've forgotten how it generated ink drops, but it generated a continuous stream of the them. They were charged and launch toward the paper. A pair of charged plates then selected which drops made it through an aperture. That whole thing then scanned row by row to created the output.The whole system couldn't out compute a low end cell phone when it was working, and up time was not assured in any way.

author: nanofrog
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 22, 2015, 07:21:57 pm
content: Quote from: CatalinaWOW on May 22, 2015, 06:57:43 pmInteresting.Did it require a swift kick in the right spot to get it to start up? Or did it go further, such as chicken sacrifices, wait for the right celestial event and so on?

author: Lightages
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: May 22, 2015, 08:18:43 pm
content: I am not saying that I would want to live with the old technology, but the principle of operation and physics of these things were very interesting.

author: Tandy
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: May 22, 2015, 08:21:41 pm
content: Quote from: Towger on May 22, 2015, 03:51:53 pmThe community part of the domesday project is on-line athttp://www.bbc.co.uk/history/domesdayIf you go to the National Museum of Computing at Bletchley you will find a version including the video clips on a interactive touchscreen.Funnily enough being involved in the project to convert the data is the reason I found myself at the BBC and taking an interest in all that old kit, just before they moved.

author: free_electron
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 22, 2015, 08:44:12 pm
content: i love old techi can watch it for hours being hammered to bits, sent through the shredder, being melted down. Cause it makes way for newer, faster, better.

author: firehopper
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: May 22, 2015, 11:00:11 pm
content: Quote from: Rigby on May 22, 2015, 04:24:06 pmthose propane fridges are still around, used in campers now adays. theres one in my camper, runs of AC or propane.

author: Rick Law
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 23, 2015, 06:23:25 am
content: Loving old tech is not the same with living with it however.I like some of the old technologies' innovation. But would I want to live with it? Probably not - with the exception of SmartPhone, PC, Web and similar. Too many "changes" with PC/Laptop/Windows/etc are not improvements but changes merely to create new market - to make people re-buy the things they already got with limited improvement. That part I hate.When Microsoft moved from Windows 3.x over to Windows 95, they were imitating the car industry. That was the symptom of the trend. Gee, you had a 2011 car? It is too old, time to get a new one... Similar to household appliances changing color scheme just so (and this is a quote, if only I can find the article) "the customer can 'date' their kitchen". That kind of a mindset - so everyone dump their "stainless steel look" and go for the "cool white" to look up-to-date. That kind of mindset I don't care for.I actually quite miss the web as it was in 2000-2010. It was far more user-friendly then with by-and-large the same reach as today. But today it is now too loaded with junk. You need to purchase a lot more horse power just so they can show you their animated advertisements or video advertisements. Web browsing is becoming more and more a pain.

author: Richard Crowley
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 23, 2015, 12:03:44 pm
content: Quote from: Rick Law on May 23, 2015, 06:23:25 amWell, actually I have a "virtual museum" with a couple of "primary exhibits".First, the Mergenthaler Linotype machine which was an amazing giant behemoth with a cauldron of molten lead and thousands of moving parts. Developed in the 1880s and in use for nearly 100 years, until replaced by phototypesetting in the early computer age.And then my other "main attraction" would be an Ampex VR-1000, the first commercial video recorder. Developed in the 1950s, and with a useful life-cycle of a bit over 50 years. With a mechanical transport deck somewhat bigger than your washer and dryer, and electronic circuits in two 3 m tall racks bristling with 100s of firebottles. In order to get the very high tape-head speed, they had to put the heads on a wheel spinning at 15000 RPM (for PAL).

author: mikeselectricstuff
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 23, 2015, 12:11:51 pm
content: Just been watching thisA few other vids on obsolete audio tech on that channel as well.

author: SeanB
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 23, 2015, 12:33:48 pm
content: Thanks Mike, another channel added, and now to spend load shedding time watching through them.

author: mikeselectricstuff
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 23, 2015, 12:59:50 pm
content: Quote from: Richard Crowley on May 23, 2015, 12:03:44 pmI love old tech like that - immensely complicated, to the point of near-ridiculousness. Quite a few YT vids about it.Apparently they've made a film about it :Another favorite of mine is the Eidophor - an early video projection technology that dominated the market for decades before other large-screens and then DLP replaced it.http://www.earlytelevision.org/yanczer_eidophor.htmlNot a huge amount online but I have a couple of books on it.

author: PeterFW
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: May 23, 2015, 01:37:04 pm
content: Quote from: mikeselectricstuff on May 23, 2015, 12:11:51 pmAt first i thought James May could hire him as a stand in for voice over work and a good deal of people would not notice the switch...Nice video, thanks!

author: RobertoLG
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: May 23, 2015, 10:31:11 pm
content: This video may be of interest too, ECME - electronics automated production 1940's stylehttps://youtu.be/3QHizDkrFqg

author: Richard Crowley
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 23, 2015, 11:39:35 pm
content: Quote from: RobertoLG on May 23, 2015, 10:31:11 pmWow, there are several features that are the progenitors of technology used in modern wafer-fab cleanrooms like the one that made the CPU you are using to read this! That was pretty impressive! Thanks for sharing it.

author: RobertoLG
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: May 24, 2015, 02:10:31 am
content: Quote from: joeqsmith on May 24, 2015, 12:01:15 amwell, I found some more info about it here:http://www.sciencemuseum.org.uk/onlinestuff/stories/robots_make_radios.aspx

author: VK3DRB
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 24, 2015, 02:25:16 am
content: Quote from: evb149 on May 22, 2015, 07:28:47 amIn Australia we used the superior PAL (Phase Alternating Line) system of colour decoding. It used a 64us delay line, which was in some cases just a loop of wire in 1970's sets. This delay line "memory" was used for correction. The only problem was when someone wore a tweed jacket or horizontally striped shirt, the phase correction would not work, resulting in a herring bone red/green pattern over the jacket. The reason we got it so good was we waited until 1975 to get colour TV, so we chose the best system available at the time. It left the US system (NTSC) for dead.PAL = Perfect And LovelyNTSC = Never Twice the Same ColourSECAM = See Every Colour As MuckSlightly off topic...The test pattern colour bars (White, Yellow, Cyan, Green, Magenta, Red Blue Black) acrostic:The Flintstones Formula... When You Colours Get Mixed Remember Barney's BasicsThere are others which we won't mention here.

author: Richard Crowley
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 24, 2015, 02:47:01 am
content: Quote from: VK3DRB on May 24, 2015, 02:25:16 amYeah, that is always the case. The kid who always gets the toys first always has the oldest toys.

author: N2IXK
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: May 24, 2015, 03:05:08 am
content: Quote from: mikeselectricstuff on May 23, 2015, 12:59:50 pmHaven't actually seen an Eidophor, but have worked on a couple of the GE "Talaria" projectors, which worked on much the same principle with the oil film light valve and Schlieren optics. They sure made some impressive video when properly set up.I have a real fondness for the older gear, to the point where many of my hobby pursuits involve restoring older test gear and various bits of valve-based electronics. A nice break from my day job working with modern solid state surface mount stuff.

author: mikeselectricstuff
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 31, 2015, 09:55:42 pm
content: Quote from: mikeselectricstuff on May 23, 2015, 12:59:50 pmJust finished watching the Linotype film - highly recommended.http://www.linotypefilm.com/

author: Dave Turner
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: May 31, 2015, 10:11:54 pm
content: I have a dim recollection of a mainframe based multichannel mechanical delay line consisting of a spinning cylinder coated with ferromagnetic tape and multiple read write heads probably 50's/60's era. Burroughs possibly? Can't recall further details.

author: timofonic
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: May 31, 2015, 10:43:17 pm
content: You are too much into hardcore old school! I just have a small collection of 8bit and 16bit systems. C64, ZX Spectrum, MSX, Atari XL, Amstrad CPC...And if I find an old CPU or microcontroller or ICs, I get it. I have some Z80, 68020RC, 80C31, D82530-6, 8085, Z8530, P8035... whatever

author: Howardlong
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 31, 2015, 11:11:56 pm
content: Quote from: Dave Turner on May 31, 2015, 10:11:54 pmBurroughs used to have a smart terminal thingy for MICR cheque writing and balancing that were installed in the back office of bank branches that was 64 bit and used a spinning magnetic cylinder for its primary storage, ISTR it was a B80, or maybe that was the successor. I'd say that one was 70's, introduced after decimalisation in the UK, it was like a teletype on acid.

author: Richard Crowley
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 31, 2015, 11:54:06 pm
content: Quote from: Dave Turner on May 31, 2015, 10:11:54 pmYes, magnetic drum memory was early in the history of computer memory development. But rather earlier on the timeline.Invented in the 1930s and used maybe into the early 1950s before widespread adoption of magnetic core.http://www.zetta.net/history-of-computer-storage/

author: bills
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: June 01, 2015, 12:48:19 am
content: Quote from: joeqsmith on May 24, 2015, 12:01:15 amThat might be difficult as there are only 3 known to exist.http://www.vintage-radio.net/forum/showthread.php?t=88980http://www.powerhousemuseum.com/collection/database/?irn=206893&search=sargrove&images=&c=&s=http://www.britishpathe.com/video/robot-radios

author: TimFox
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 01, 2015, 12:21:31 pm
content: Quote from: Richard Crowley on May 31, 2015, 11:54:06 pmHowever, the floppy drum never caught on.

author: Dave Turner
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: June 05, 2015, 09:40:00 pm
content: To go back a bit further - prior to ferro-magnetic tape there was magnetic wire recording.

author: Richard Crowley
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 05, 2015, 10:31:39 pm
content: Does "100,000 year old rock" count as "old tech"?http://www.adguk-blog.com/2014/01/100000-year-old-three-pronged-plug.html

author: Deathwish
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: June 05, 2015, 10:52:56 pm
content: I keep meaning to get around to fixing it, it is currently in a cupboard. Oh well one day

author: timofonic
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: June 06, 2015, 02:23:39 pm
content: Quote from: Richard Crowley on June 05, 2015, 10:31:39 pmBob Pease and Wildar were ancient aliens. The ancient aliens got bored by our slow evolution and fast forwarded it. The previous conversation was:- "Those stupid monkeys act like idiots all time."- "Let's teach them some science. I have some basic opamps and transistors for my Electronics 101 class for our 3 yo kindergarten, I can teach them how to use and manufacture it."- "Step by step! Please don't act like one of these boring academics of the past. They don't know how to make a fucking fire. Let's teach them the basics of civilization."So they started with fire, wheels and such. And they accidentally forgot some of their basic devices there, because the discussion between them.They got bored and traveled to the future a few more times, they were bored by our slow progres. And they finally funded the pioneer electronics companies because we still were acting like idiots.