Collaborate Disseminate
We are always fascinated when someone can take something and extend it in a clever way without changing the original thing. In the computer world, that’s old hat. New computers …read more Continue reading The Long Strange Trip to US Color TV
In the United States in 1939, television sets still had a long way to go before they pretty much sold themselves. Efforts to do just that are what led to …read more Continue reading RCA’s Clear Plastic TV Wowed Crowds In 1939
For reasons still unclear, [Techmoan] has procured an RCA 8-track changer that holds five tape cartridges in a custom carrier. It somewhat works, but had a bit of mechanical issues …read more Continue reading 50-Year-Old 8-Track Changer Repair and Hack
Teaching people efficiently isn’t limited to transmitting material from one head to another — it’s also about conveying the principles that got us there. [Mara Bos] shows us a toolkit …read more Continue reading Boards For Playful Exploration Of Digital Protocols
Frequenters of arcades back in the golden age of video games will likely recall the mix of sounds coming from a properly full arcade, the kind where you stacked your …read more Continue reading RCA Plug Plays Sixteen-Minute Chiptune Piece, All by Itself
[Mr. Carlson] has a really beautiful old 1949-era radio to restore and you can watch him do it in a comprehensive video, below. We aren’t sure what we were more amused by: the odd speaker that looks like a ceiling air vent or the sticker on the back certifying that …read more
It is easy to find technology success stories: the PC, DVD, and cell phone are all well-documented tales. However, it is a little harder to find the stories behind the things that didn’t quite take off as planned. As the old saying goes, “success has many parents but failure is …read more
It is easy to find technology success stories: the PC, DVD, and cell phone are all well-documented tales. However, it is a little harder to find the stories behind the things that didn’t quite take off as planned. As the old saying goes, “success has many parents but failure is …read more
The parenthood of any invention of consequence is almost never cut and dried. The natural tendency to want a simple story that’s easy to tell — Edison invented the light bulb, Bell invented the telephone — often belies the more complex tale: that most inventions have uncertain origins, and their back stories are often far more interesting as a result.
Inventing is a rough business. It is said that a patent is just a license to get sued, and it’s true that the determination of priority of invention often falls to the courts. Such battles often pit the little guy …read more
Continue reading Philo Farnsworth, RCA, and the Battle for Television
Television has been around for a long time, but what we point to and call a TV these days is a completely different object from what consumers first fell in love with. This video of RCA factory tours from the 1950s drives home how foreign the old designs are to modern eyes.
Right from the start the apparent chaos of the circuitry is mindboggling, with some components on circuit boards but many being wired point-to-point. The narrator even makes comments on the “new technique for making electrical connections” that uses a wire wrapping gun. The claim is that this is …read more
Continue reading Retrotechtacular: 1950s Televisions Were Beasts