As vacuum tubes softly glow... and my guitar gently weeps
Since we started our Coolest Retro Devices series, we've been receiving many tips and info about bizarre devices from the last century, and even into the 1800s. It's a great subject; there is something passionate in contemplating retro technology - a strong nostalgia factor, of course, but also a "freedom of design" factor: there were no cast-in-stone design rules yet, and consumer electronics could be as wild and woolly, as consumers wanted them to be:
The Twin-Gramophone set-up, with a valve in the middle, allowing for the groovy cross-fades between the two: early DJ technology?
The Gaumont Chronophone: 1910 - photos by Douglas Self
Japanese consumer electronics catalog from the early 1970s:
Portable LP, combined with solid-state radio (when you need to listen to your records ALL the time), and a 1975 prototype Hi-Fi Sphere (probably should be called "HyFy" nowadays, in light of the recent developments)
1968 Control Center of the JINR's (Joint Institute of Nuclear Research) synchrophasotron in Dubna, Russia (I'd say, they had ladders to access the central panel, or maybe they just levitated up and down on excited electrons)
More conventional Soviet nuclear plant control center, from the 1950s -
Scientific experiments in Russia, "Tekhnika Molodezhi", 1974
Left image is from the American 1950s pulp magazine. Right image - a real Soviet laboratory (of the kind described here) from the 1960s, complete with larger-than-life Faraday Spheres. Fantasy and reality go hand-in-hand here:
Dry cleaning? (well, then, why not get inside the machine yourself) -
(original unknown)
Multi-processor computing in 1924:
Washington, D.C. "Bonus Bureau, Computing Division", image via Shorpy
One could even send "kisses" by fax - just leave a lipstick impression on a telegram blank - info from 1938.
Speaking about clunky, over-sized devices... the evolution of Soviet mobile phones is also something to behold: here is the late 1960s mobile phone "Altai", used by Communist Party elite -
Behold, an iron with the optical gunsight! (left image) Right image - underneath a big iron there is a microscopic one (made by some skilled master from Tula) designed to iron... shoelaces!
What are they doing? Apparently, the girl on the left is choosing a modern-styled lamp, and the couple on the right is preparing to drill things (and can barely contain the excitement):
World War One, France: a radiographer wearing protective clothing and headpiece. Photograph by H. J. Hickman, ca. 1918. Credit: Wellcome Library, London
Paul: the "radiofrigo" is a keeper. Gorgeous; merci.
I always forget, somehow, that you younger guys missed out on so much cool stuff. The '60s and early '70s were amazing in terms of sound equipment. In the '50s the hippest thing going were tiny "portable hi-fi's" that only played 45 rpm discs, which had a 2-inch hole in the center. There were competing ideas about whether it was better to have an enormous spindle or just little plastic (or much hipper, metal) inserts that snapped in and had a standard spindle-sized hole in the center.
In the '60s you could get STEREO!! players that had 45, 33, and 78 rpm speed choices, and some even had 16 rpm gearing as an option. This meant you could play standard 33 1/3 rpm albums at 78 and produce chipmunk noises, or play them at 16 for the Quaalude effect. Hours of fun.
And I well remember discovering "massagers" in about '68 or so, to my wife's delight.
I think part of our modern problems stem from the unfulfilled promises of mid-century design. The World's Fair imagery was so wonderful, yet so far from what could really be engineered for consumers, that the gap between marketing and product grew too wide for trust.
The zoomy 60's "telecom room" -- what was with the "Time Tunnel" aesthetic? (groovy rounded control panels set in a cavernous darkness)
The Soviet phones -- Yum! "Da, tovarich! - The Party will reach out and touch you!"
Soviet stuff is so cool because of the USSR's Russian heritage and closed system - giantism and science joined to weird copycat and original engineering.
I wonder if you have ever come across a radial layout on an instrument panel? It seems that grid layout rules even in times when other geometric or unusual layouts would fit the style. I would love to see some examples of radial or other exotic layouts. got any?
Man I miss the hell out of Tokyo. Got to spend three amazing months living there - want to go back so badly. I love where I'm living now, but it's still not Tokyo.
I know five or six people who lived in Japan short term and long term. All had "futuristic" visions of Japan before coming and none of them were excited after they left. On the contrary. The common (and informed) opinion is that Japan is not fit for Westerners to live in, except perhaps for people running from something, or those just plain weird. This is substantiated by many people, including Japanese expats.
One exception was an American friend who was part of a popular band and spent seven years in Tokyo. Though the rich can have a great time anywhere.
The opinions of short term visitors are mostly irrelevant as to the reality of the place visited, and unlike many longer term visitors who stay in Japan to teach English and have other adventures, a veritable "Japanophile" friend of mine finally moved to Tokyo some years ago. Everything had to be Japanese, including wife and children.
It took a couple of months for reality to sink in, working at a high position in a Japanese company in Tokyo. He comes back a couple of times a year and at first we thought he was exaggerating out of disillusionment but now, we believe him as many people who lived there long term, including Japanese, substantiate his claims.
Can't go into details because he does business there (though Japanese business partners agree with his assessment, another Asian company told him he will destroy his life living in Japan) but he's writing a book about his experiences, substantiated by MANY people. As most people are averse to negativity and might not buy the book it might be turned into a website for all to access. I'll post whenever a book or site comes out
Hey these are some seriously pro shots you got in Tokyo. I was wondering if you could help me out a bit: I will be going to Tokyo this summer for over two weeks as the designated trip photographer (with a group of six). Any pointers you could give me on shooting in Japan? Especially on night photo's that would be great. Thanks!
Dang! Those are some really incredible shots! Great stuff, very beautiful, very Blade Runner. I'm definitely going to have to get out to Tokyo at some point to check it all out first hand!
Hi all, I am the photographer, thanks for all the positive comments, I am so glad that other people like my viewpoints too!
@Anonymous - an analog large format camera, a Sinar P2 8x10
@Anonymous - I find your observations interesting, but I think: I am disillusioned by my moneyjob as well sometime, it doesn't matter what country you're in, right? What I found most fascinating about Tokyo was, that there where more than 30 Million People literally stacked upon each other, but still everything worked smooth. You have a very efficient public transport, millions of opportunities to choose from in terms of leisure time amusements and you always felt save, in every part of the town! That for me is a role model for the future of urbanisation!
@Natan: Tokyo has a very short blue hour, I could only get 2-4 shots a night. But the light you get between sunset and total darkness is a total blast. You definetely have to bring a tripod, since long exposures need a steady foundation. Check the thousands of observation decks. Some have open Air, so you don't need to shoot through glass. For example the mori tower, which despite the 1000yen charge should not be missed! And always know in advance where to shot in the evening or at night, by intensive scouting. Have fun!
>@Anonymous - I find your >observations interesting, but I >think: I am disillusioned by my >moneyjob as well sometime, it >doesn't matter what country >you're in, right?
Wrong. Do some research on corporate life in a large Japanese company. And I don't mean Toyota or Honda.
When womens' opinions are ignored because of their sex or when a person's opinion is ignored because the other person is older by a couple of months that's a sign of a rotten culture. These are just two small examples.
>What I found most fascinating >about Tokyo was, that there where >ore than 30 Million People >literally stacked upon each >other, but still everything >worked smooth.
Yes, but definitely not everything. Have you taken a look at their food supply? That's just one example.
>You have a very efficient public >transport, millions of
Yes.
>opportunities to choose from in >terms of leisure time amusements >and you always felt save, in >every part of the town!
"Leisure", from dreary, depressing and suppressed lives, with spouses living in different cities.
>That for me is a role model for >the future of urbanisation!
Aspects of it, yes.
It's the non-Japanese that have lived there for many years that have the informed opinion, that's for sure.
Every person fawning over what a wonderful country Japan is has no idea what they are talking about. There's much more to Japan than the shining lights of a small part of Tokyo.
This is from someone who has a long held interest in Japan and knows various people who have spent years living in Japan, and whose claims are corroborated by many informed others.
Though it's good people are open minded enough to appreciate other cultures. However, a critical eye is necessary.
I can also back up a few of your claims about life in Japan. It's not all shiny-shiny as people make it out to be. I've been over there twice and have a friend who's been living there for some time.
I think you're playing up a few things to be a bit more centralized to a specific person's environment in some regards, but it's the culture shock more than it is the actual issue.
I think the biggest social issues Japan still hasn't worked out are women and the elderly in modern society. But it's up to those people feeling neglected to actually do something with their lives rather than complain. They may be spurned from their jobs with nothing to do, but that shouldn't stop them from NOT doing anything at all with their lives.
I won't speak on behalf of Japanese women, but the Japanese elderly are viewed in such a negative light, possibly, due to generational guilt over WWII.
If they're feeling stepped on by "The Man", they need to learn some self-initiative and get out there and do it themselves.
As to "food supply" I don't know what you're referring to. I found the food to be pretty dang precise and well prepared at all times I went out to eat. I mean, this is a whole culture that prides itself enough on it's own food to have TV shows of people eating their food. Where fish is thrown out when it's a day old.
Some of the better dishes I've had were ones prepared in small dining establishments where the only "name" was the lead menu item. I had a fantastic tempura udon in a small village in Akita in the back end of a grocery store.
I do agree that Japan is so much more than what people see in Tokyo. I don't recommend it as a long term destination for many of the above suggested reasons, and additionally, I have seen this "burnout" take it's toll on my expat friend who was very much a Japanophile in college.
For him the burnout was more of a sociological one than it was a business world one.
i get shades of that myself sometimes. Japan exists in many ways, as a hyper-over-exaggerated version of the US life in my eyes. It's like America, but not, and the ways that it is, are so grossly over-exaggerated from what we have in the US.
Osaka is more Blade Runner - a mix of future and grit. Tokyo is hypermodern - It feels ot me like information has taken shape an is flowing everywhere.
I have been living in Seoul South Korea for a few months now and I have had several "Blade Runner" city moments. It is especially so when it is raining in the evening while walking through crowded neon lit streets.
Wow.. Amazing photos. They represent exactly what I love about Tokyo... Good job. I also love the quote... The future began in Japan a long time ago... . will
A brilliant series of photos. You large format landscapes of Tokyo really are excellent. One of my friends who used to live here in Tokyo shot a lot of large format at night and had amazing results. I only shoot up to medium format when I use film, but seeing your photos tempts me to dabble in large format.
I hate to say this, but the Hotelicopter has to be a fake. The main basis for this is that the 'photos' in the 'photo gallery' aren't photos at all, they're CGI pictures. Look at the lack of texture. If they'd have called them CGI 'artists' impressions', then there might be some credence in the story (though it still seems kinda impossible), but calling computer generated pictures 'photos of a successful test flight' really jumps the shark for me.
When I was growing up in the 70's, our nearby park near Los Angeles installed the "Giganta" robot slide. Very popular; it wasn't just fun to climb inside of...many an intrepid explorer climbed up the outside as well and would slide down the tops of the arms (very safe!)
"24. Wolf, threatening to sing (don't let him!) in playground in Tomsk"
It is not so much a playground element, but rather a statue to a cartoon character. In the cartoon, the wolf was led covertly to a house to eat and drink, as a return gesture for the wolves previous actiones which led to the dog's being accepted back to the household after it had been kicked out for gross negligence.
having eaten and drunk a lot, whiule hidden under the table at a marriage party, the wolf said "And now I shall sing", and thus revealed its presence, to the dismay of the dog and those in the room.
there was one of those big robot things in my local playground. wonderful structure, but they boarded up the head bit when i was young to keep kids from getting stuck/doing drugs up there and eventually tore the whole thing down. now the park is "safe," and i have to say, much less awesome.
umm...you cant actually train fleas. they are all GLUED to said chariots and such. QI recently covered this topic on BBC one and its torture from the fleas point of view. so yeah, flea circus = glued fleas
OTOH, fleas lack both a central nervous system and sentience, and are thus unable to feel pain or suffer. It's like arguing that a bacteria suffers when we take an antibiotic...
Going through your fascinating post I couldn't help but think of the movie "Jurassic Park" and the scene in which park developer, John Hammond, played by Richard Attenborough, decries the breakdown of the park, dinosaurs running amok, his grandchildren unaccounted for, his incredulity at why things were going so bad, when it was after all only a giant flea circus like the one he had as a boy.
Wonderful article! I was fortunate to see the Flea Circus at the Tivoli Gardens in 1962. The fleas lived in a box and were brought out for the show. They were then attached to the little vehicles during the show. We could not see the fleas, only the little vehicles which magically moved along on the platform.
The wife presented the show to the audience, while the husband would go out to neighboring farms to find the fleas. He would feed them by rolling up his sleeve and give them a meal on his arm!
After they divorced, the wife no longer continued the flea circus. She converted the performing space at the Tivoli to a "Mouse House" which consisted of a small village of buildings such as a school, several stores, homes and police station, etc. which were empty and the mice ran around, in and out of these small buildings.
I brought my family to the Tivoli in 1978 and found the Mouse House after looking for the flea circus which was no more. There was a small set of bleachers where the audience could sit and watch this performance. It was a hilarious show watching the constant scouring around of the little mice., in and out of the buildings. I and my children were rolling with laughter.
Wow! These are funny and would certainly seem a challenge! Although the majority of them are not really designed for serious performance, one that is (and has been performed) is Stockhausen's Helicopter String Quartet, from the first series. It's actually a part of an opera 'Wednesday from Light'. See here:
http://www.stockhausen.org/helicopter_intro.html
for an explanation by the composer himself, and here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=13D1YY_BvWU
for part of the first performance.
I watched a fascinating documentary of the rehearsals and first performance. Classical music now officially has no bounds!
Some of this notations- Yoko Ono's "Voice Piece for Soprano", a note for percussion, Takehisa Kosugi "+ -" - were performed by Sonic Youth on their SYR4 "Goodbye XX Century" album
There is actually a totally restored tu-144 in the Sinsheim Auto & Technik Museum in germany, still a shame that the one in the article is just left there to decay.
A french kiss is just called un baiser in french, or possibly un patin.
Also, Hitler wasn't a vegetarian, that was just propaganda put about by Goebbels. This from the same site: http://everything2.com/title/Hitler%2520Was%2520A%2520Vegetarian
The longest autorotation in history was performed by Jean Boulet in 1972 when he reached a record altitude of 12,440m (40,814 ft) in an Aérospatiale Lama. Because of a -63°C temperature at that altitude, the engine flamed out and could not be restarted as soon as he reduced power. By using autorotation he was able to land the aircraft safely to the ground.[citation needed]
Just as a note, the CH-47 is actually classified as a Medium Lift Helicopter, as was the Sky Crane. The military did develop one Heavy Lift helicopter, but I don't believe it went into production: The XCH-62. It looked like the child of a Chinook and a Skycrane. You can find info on it at: http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/systems/aircraft/h-62-pics.htm
Yet another side note: Another interesting Big Helicopter was the AH-47, an attack version of the CH-47 which was loaded with more firepower than any one chopper should have. Check it out at:
The carter copter is in fact a gyrocopter with variable pitch blades. Gyrocopters differ from helicopters since the rotors are always in auto-rotation making them safer in an engine-out situation.
While the Mi-12 is indeed cool (it's essentially two Mi-6 power units with a new fuselage) it had some pretty severe "ground resonance" problems -- vibrations due to the downwash were so severe they caused structural damage.
As far as the Mi-26 is concerned, another way to visualize the size is this: the cargo bay of the "Halo" is the same size as that of the C-130 Hercules transport.
Lastly, while you did include the Chinook, the Sikorsky CH-53E Super Stallion/MH-53E Sea Dragon (Sikorsky S-80) has a higher payload, both slung or internal, and a higher top speed than the Chinook: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CH-53E_Super_Stallion
Agreed though, Frank Piasecki, who probably knows more about multiple-rotor helicopters than anyone really should have known better than to come up with something like the Helistat.
Why build BIGGER. The CH-47 can pretty much carry most anything the U.S. Army needs for field ops. The CH-47 airframe as been around now for forty plus years. Which might lend it to be one of the best designed rotor wing ships in the world. Nothing can do what it does better! Few can fly faster or higher. I am talking 14.000,00 Ft. mountain rescues. The Chinook can do that and more.
The office I work in has certification oversight of Columbia Helicopters and a couple other big players in the heavy lift market. We had a poster size print of the Columbia helicopter pulling the barge in the office, amazing to see.
If you're going to mention Soviet stealth choppers, you should at least mention the Comanche on the U.S. side. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RAH-66_Comanche
The Ka-58 listed in your post was a fake. The original was a scale model created by Italeri in the 1980s. The molds were later acquired by the Russian manufacturer Zvezda. The design has since appeared in various computer games, and the Kamov bureau added it to their products page as a joke.
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Wow, amazing pictures
nice. last one must be from world war one.
did you know this one ?
http://hippopotable.blogspot.com/2006/03/lhippopotable-conseille_09.html
Uh, those "personal massage devices" were not just for "scalp and foot massages". That's just how they had to advertise them.
Hey, that "mystery image" on the right? That's the female robot for the new Transformers movie, right?
World War One, France: a radiographer wearing protective clothing and headpiece. Photograph by H. J. Hickman, ca. 1918. Credit: Wellcome Library, London
Paul: the "radiofrigo" is a keeper. Gorgeous; merci.
I always forget, somehow, that you younger guys missed out on so much cool stuff. The '60s and early '70s were amazing in terms of sound equipment. In the '50s the hippest thing going were tiny "portable hi-fi's" that only played 45 rpm discs, which had a 2-inch hole in the center. There were competing ideas about whether it was better to have an enormous spindle or just little plastic (or much hipper, metal) inserts that snapped in and had a standard spindle-sized hole in the center.
In the '60s you could get STEREO!! players that had 45, 33, and 78 rpm speed choices, and some even had 16 rpm gearing as an option. This meant you could play standard 33 1/3 rpm albums at 78 and produce chipmunk noises, or play them at 16 for the Quaalude effect. Hours of fun.
And I well remember discovering "massagers" in about '68 or so, to my wife's delight.
Zoooom! Whoosh!
I think part of our modern problems stem from the unfulfilled promises of mid-century design. The World's Fair imagery was so wonderful, yet so far from what could really be engineered for consumers, that the gap between marketing and product grew too wide for trust.
The zoomy 60's "telecom room" -- what was with the "Time Tunnel" aesthetic? (groovy rounded control panels set in a cavernous darkness)
The Soviet phones -- Yum!
"Da, tovarich! - The Party will reach out and touch you!"
Soviet stuff is so cool because of the USSR's Russian heritage and closed system - giantism and science joined to weird copycat and original engineering.
I actually have the drill, as advertised by the DIY super smiley couple, I had no idea it was that old.
I wonder if you have ever come across a radial layout on an instrument panel? It seems that grid layout rules even in times when other geometric or unusual layouts would fit the style. I would love to see some examples of radial or other exotic layouts. got any?
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