Retro Thing

A stylish renaissance for Morse Code

The US Federal Communications Commission recently eliminated the 5 word-per-minute Morse Code requirement for ham radio licenses. The decision makes sense in many ways, but it also pulls amateur radio operators another step away from their roots.

Paul Saffo at Stanford University comments: "For all appearances, Morse Code is the dead language of the digital age (it was in fact the first digital language) done in by computers, satellites and the Internet. ... the ether still resonates with the conversations of ham operators ditting and dahing over High Frequency airwaves around the planet. Morse has even gained some new converts, including me. ... back in July, with full knowledge of Morse’s obsolescence, I decided to learn it well enough to be able to actually carry on a radio conversation.

To celebrate my modest progress, I ordered a top-line GHD telegraph key (the Rolls-Royce of keys) as an early Christmas present to myself. ... Freed from all pretense of practical relevance in an age of digital communications, Morse will now become the object of loving passion by radioheads, much as another “dead” Language, Latin is kept alive today by Latin-speaking enthusiasts around the world."

Morse Code - Dead Language, Bright Future [via Boing Boing]

Scotch Color Capable Video Tape

Sometimes I feel proud of people.  I think that it's just great that despite all the marketing hype behind high definition DVD, people are waiting out the format war between Blu-Ray and HD-DVD.  Consumers have spoken and they don't want to take part in the contest between two formats that have few features to distinguish them from one another.  I think folks are still smarting from the VHS vs. Beta conflict 20 years ago.  VHS/Beta was one of the great debates in consumer media, but many people don't realize that there were other formats before those.

In the 60's and 70's there were a number of models of open reel video decks that would have used tape like this.  For the most part they were terribly expensive, finding use only in industrial and professional settings.  Some folks could swing the money necessary to take control of their TV habits (any form of proto-Tivo would have been pretty seductive), and eventually some models came down to a more consumer-friendly price.  I even remember a plotline in a "Bob Newhart Show" revolving around one of these miracle devices

The first decks recorded a relatively low quality black and white signal on reels like this one (though this particular reel is a later tape formulation and is color compatible).  Color was a significant improvement in later models, but nothing could compare to the ease of eventually encasing those reels in a much more compact cassette for consumer comfort.

This particular reel came out of a box full of training materials from the phone company, and I assume that this is something shot at the firm.  Unless I find one of these old warhorse machines, I suppose I'll never know what's on it.

Professionals would continue to use open reel formats throughout the 80's for best image quality, but eventually the cassette formats caught up and open reel tapes were relegated to the the history books and the junk heap.

Here is an article we wrote about a reel-to-reel video player

Check out LabGuy's fantastic collection of video recorders

REVIEW: Sega Classics Handheld by Coleco

We've written about Coleco on Retro Thing before; the company brought us some of the first handheld LED games, an awesome 80's video game console, even a series of mini arcade games.  Unbelievable as it may seem, in this post we're looking at something new from Coleco.  They're back with an ambitous variety of electronic games (which we'll review here at Retro Thing), and at the top of the retro heap is a collection of Sega Classics in a tidy handheld.

The game brings together a collection of 20 Sega Game Gear and Master System titles.  Present are  Sega standards like Sonic, Ecco the dolphin, Alex Kidd, and Columns.  There are also some more obscure titles that were never available on a portable.  One special game is "Snail Maze" - if you wonder why you've never heard of it, it's because it was an easter egg in every original Sega Master System console.

I played a lot of these games on the original Sega hardware (I have blurry memories of Sonic on the blurry Game Gear display) back in the day, but the sharp & bright LCD screen on the Coleco handheld makes a considerable difference in bringing these old games to life again.

Handcrafted leather journals

Cheap journals are false economy. Spiral bound pads tend to disintegrate with heavy use and looseleaf often flutters around my house like leaves in the wind. Moleskine books are certainly popular, but everyone seems to have one in their pocket these days. A handmade leather book from Renaissance Art is guaranteed to stand out from the crowd, unless you hang with Druids.

These beautiful books feature 5 ounce soft tempered covers and hand-sewn threading. Arches Text Wove paper is included in all of their writing and sketching journals. It's 100% acid-free cotton rag, so your musing will pass the test of time. Each book is kept closed by a flat hand-braided cord. Prices start at around $20, although you'll pay at least $150 for a large sketchbook or music journal.

Renaissance Art handcrafted leather books [via Honky-Tonk Dragon]

BOWLO - The Card Bowling Game

I don’t mean to seem indignant, but isn’t bowling already a rather sedentary sport? You have to concentrate while at the top of the alley surveying your ten pin quarry, putting just the right spin on the ball takes focus - but you get a chance to catch your breath in between throws, right? That’s what makes Bowling a great casual sport. Even in full game mode there’s still time to have a few beers and chill.

So why remove the one sports-like aspect of bowling and reduce it to a card game? Bowlo is a 1957 card game from the height of the bowling fad that “has all the score-thrills of bowling”. And here I was naive enough to think that score keeping is the least thrilling aspect of bowling.

Here’s how the game works. In each hand you recieve five cards, each with a few pins pictured on them. You want the cards to total ten pins so you can mark off a "strike" on the score sheet (you can use conventional scoring sheets to play Bowlo). Different hands represent your virtual “throws” in a regular 10 frame game.

On first blush, this game struck me as a bit silly since it does away with the physical aspect of the game - but it does retain the social aspect of the game which for me at least is a big part of the fun. The box graphics point out another benefit since Bowlo is “the strikes and spares game - play it anywhere”. if you’re nuts about bowling, then you’ll be glad of capturing at least part of the fun when you’re not near the lanes.

REVIEW: Paint By Numbers Software

A while back we wrote about the phenomenon of Paint By Number sets - kits that permitted even the non-artist to create a facsimile of some famous piece of art.  In the 1950's Paint By Numbers were a tremendous fad, and you can still get the sets today.  Back in their heyday, one firm allowed you to mail in a photo and they would create a custom PBN kit for you, but the product was far too labor intensive to create and was quickly discontinued.

Well it may have taken forty years, but Paint By Numbers 2005 finally makes it possible for you to create your own Paint By Number using your PC.  You load in a 1 megapixel or greater photo, and tweak the level of detail you want in the finished painting.  Higher levels of detail mean that you'll have smaller areas to paint, and ultimately need more custom-mixed paint.

Film Industry Holiday Promo Gifts

'Tis the season for free giveaway junk.  Looking around at the countless stacks of calendars from my insurance guy, I got to thinking about the sorts of promotional freebies that ring in the holidays.  The things consumers get are usually pretty cheap, but here are a couple of sort of classy business-to-business gifts from members of the film industry.

This holiday, give the gift of smoking!  I've joked in past posts that our moonshot was more or less tobacco powered, and you can say the same about the film industry even today.  Every film shoot I've ever been on (including a commercial shoot for one of Truth.org's anti-smoking campaigns) has had a high percentage of smokers, so it makes perfect sense that back in the 60's a film supply company would give away fancy ashtrays.  You can see the logo for the SOS Cinema Supply company in this rather ornate ashtray made in (you'll never guess...) Holland.

Pictured at the top of this post is a tidy little desk set from our friends at the imaginatively named Plastic Reel Corporation of America.  This 1963 bit of convergence (ha!), has a notepad, uses 8mm reels to support the penholder, but the main feature is an odd-looking Santa face made out of a film reel.  This desk set originally came gift boxed!

These items both came from a recently demolished warehouse for the company Auricon.  Their claim to fame was a camera that could shoot optical sound right onto 16mm film as you were shooting it.  It was a great camera for sports & news.  Auricon's camera were pretty expensive, but you wouldn't be able to tell that from their exceptionally cheap pens pictured below.  After the swanky ashtray, and the neat desk set, the lousy pens make Auricon look like a bunch of pikers, don't they?

The Tinkertoy Computer

This brilliant Tinkertoy digital computer was built by a team of students at MIT in the 1980s. It's a marvel of mechanical design that apparently plays a "mean game of tic-tac-toe." The idea was born in 1975, when two Sophomores worked on a class project to build something digital from Tinkertoys.  It took another few years before they collaborated over the phone to design a working machine for the Mid-America Science Museum:

"A Tinkertoy framework called the read head clicks and clacks its way down the front of the monolith At some point the clicking mysteriously stops; a "core piece" within the framework spins and then with a satisfying "'kathunk' indirectly kicks an 'output duck,' a bird-shaped construction. The output duck swings down from its perch so that its beak points at a number- which identifies the computer's next move in a game of tic-tac-toe."

The Tinkertoy Computer is now on display at the Museum of Science in Boston, where it will undoubtedly inspire legions of future Tinkertoy scientists. Here's a link to a behind-the-scenes article from the October 1989 issue of Scientific American.

A Tinkertoy computer that plays tic-tac-toe

related:
Build Your Own Digicomp Mechanical Computer

The National Toy Hall of Fame

Few of us ever stop to consider what makes a toy truly great, yet we know it the moment we see it. The National Toy Hall of Fame currently includes 36 toys that have reached iconic status. To be included, a toy must be widely known, more than a passing fad and promote discovery and innovation.

Interestingly, only one of the inductees is electric and none are battery-powered, although items like the View-Master and Etch A Sketch feature ingenious mechanical design. The museum also honors the role of packaging, in the form of a generic cardboard box. I won't spoil your fun by writing up the full list; go check it out and let everyone know what your favorites are in the comments. By the way, if you're itching for a bit of afternoon fun, try out the Ohio Art Company's online Etch A Sketch.

National Toy Hall of Fame

Some of my favorite Mini-ITX retro case mods

The coolest thing about modern Mini-ITX motherboards is that fully-functional computers can be crammed into previously unimaginable spaces. Mini-ITX boards measure only 170mm x 170mm. Thanks to a low-power processor design, they can be passively cooled, eliminating the noise and bulk of whirling fan blades.

While originally intended for the embedded device market, hobbyists soon took note of the tiny form factor and they started popping up in the craziest places.

One of my favorite mods is the Atari 800 ITX by Andy Hutson. I was somewhat disappointed that the keyboard is non-functional (it's actually pulled from a slimmer Atari XL machine), but it's so cool to see a Samsung CDRW/DVD drive peeking out from the bottom of the case.

Iain Sharp's Mac-ITX deserves special mention for preserving the look and feel of the original device. Unlike most all-in-one Mac mods that incorporate 9 inch LCD panels, this Mac SE/30 redesign includes a re-purposed curve-tube CRT (the original displayed only black and white - hardly suitable for a modern Windows PC). The aesthetics are wonderful, and the slot-load DVD drive is almost unnoticeable on the front of the final unit. And lest Mac enthusiasts get wound up over the idea of cramming PC brains into an Apple case, the author runs the Basilisk II emulator to execute 68K Mac programs 15X faster than the original.

Retro Thing author Bohus Blahut is a TOMY Omnibot fan, so this next one is probably going to cause his blood pressure to skyrocket - It's Mr. Omni by Donald Thompson, built into the case of a terminally ill Omnibot. Most of the mechanicals were removed and the front panel cassette player was replaced by a slimline CDRW-DVD drive. I suspect this is the only Omnibot on the planet with 1GB or RAM and Windows XP Pro.

Typewriter fans will find Joel Zahn's Underwood No. 5 (top) irresistible.  It was built in 1924, only to find itself ripped apart 80 years later with nefarious intent. The key mechanism was replaced by a miniature 77 key USB keyboard, and the motherboard and power supply fit tightly into the original No. 5 baseplate. The old glass-topped keys were hacksawed from the type bars and affixed onto the modern keyboard to ensure an authentic steampunk look underneath the original typewriter carriage and fascia.

These and other fantastic Mini-ITX hacks can be found at mini-itx.com.

To boldly go where no lamp has gone before...

UK-based woodsmith Martin Legg creates hauntingly beautiful hardwood furniture with a decidedly sci-fi theme. He uses only hand tools and "the aid of a few electrical appliances" to craft his masterpieces. He seems particularly enamored with the Starship Enterprise and makes it his mission to boldly craft replica lamps from solid oak. Each  66 cm long lamp is made to order, so you can request customizations. Legg's creations also include a surprisingly elegant Enterprise coffee table. I wonder if he'd make me a matching Romulan Bird of Prey?

Martin Legg's UFO furniture site [via Funfurde]

related:
Space Age furniture for the new millennium
Friday afternoon furniture

Altair 8800 reproduction joins a growing trend

Word recently hit the Net that a lovingly crafted remake of the classic Altair 8800 microcomputer is now on the market. The MITS Altair was the first truly successful home computer, introduced in 1975. Its Intel 8080A microprocessor was intended as an industrial controller for elevators and traffic lights but proved ideal as the brains for a home machine.

Grant Stockly's new kit remains true to the original: he didn't substitute any chips for easier-to-find equivalents and reports that the only changes were made for "quality and safety purposes." Each kit retails for under $1700 and includes a genuine Optima enclosure with beautiful silkscreened panel, along with the CPU board, S-100 Motherboard, Display/Control board and a 1K SRAM board. That's right - a mere 1024 bytes of memory.

These are exciting times for replica aficionados: it's now possible to build updated versions of the Altair's fiercest competitor - the IMSAI 8080 - as well as the Apple I, Digital Equipment Corporation's PDP-8, and the RCA Cosmac ELF. I have an almost unquenchable thirst to collect the entire set.

The new Altair 8800 Microcomputer [thanks, Andy!]

Cozi: Sidecars for scooters

Scooterworks USA offers two bullet-style Cozi sidecars for scooters with 8" or 10" wheels. This is hardly something I'd suggest as an accessory for your 49cc ride, but it might make sense if you own a machine with a larger displacement engine.

One thing I can guarantee is that you'll get tons of attention. Both models retail for $1744 and include a windscreen, lockable glovebox and even a rain hood for those times you get caught in a monsoon induced by global warming. A word of warning: these are popular, so expect to wait a month or two to get your hands on one. 

Cozi Scooter Sidecars

kinda related:
Russian Motorcycles (with sidecars, dig?)

The style of things to come: Onkyo retro amplifiers

Onkyo is a company one doesn't usually associate with cutting-edge style. They're obviously out to change that perception. The A-933 integrated digital amplifier offers 80W (8 Ohms) per channel from its 'Vector Linear' circuitry. It is multi-room compatible, offering two sets of speaker posts.

The unit is equipped with Onkyo's Remote Interactive system, compatible with the components such as the matching C-733 CD player and T-433 AM/FM tuner. The amplifier is also equipped with Onkyo's Remote Interactive (RI) system. As well as allowing other RI-equipped components to be controlled via the remote control, that also means it's is compatible with the optional Onkyo DS-A1 iPod dock.

Onkyo has also made some tweaks that should benefit vinyl fans: "Turntable fans are in for a treat too. These days most RIAA phono equalizers use NFB (Negative Feedback) to get a good signal-to-noise ratio and dynamic range. However such stages are less stable at higher frequencies - higher levels of NFB lead to higher impedance and eventually a 'harder' treble sound.

So to counteract that effect, Onkyo has opted for a Discrete CR-type Phono Equalizer in these new amps. This keeps NFB uniform across the whole frequency range, resulting in a sweeter, more dynamic sound that still benefits from a fast transient response."

The £499.95 Onkyo A-933 is available in silver or black at a hi-fi emporium near you - as long as you're shopping somewhere in Europe. If you're after more power, Onkyo recently added the new A-9755 (150W) and A-9555 (100W) digital amps to their lineup. The entire range offer 'hi-fi' sound and full integration with your iPod, so you can enjoy all the horrible artifacts of 128kpbs mp3 compression in glorious hi-fi.

Onkyo A-933 Integrated Digital Amplifier

Using classic NES controllers with the Wii

Nintendo's new Wii console is a daring and calculated risk. The company doesn't have the technological might to out-spec Microsoft and Sony, so they unveiled a revolutionary new motion-sensor technology that promises more immersive gameplay. The new motion controllers aren't suitable for some titles, especially vintage NES and SNES games played through the Wii's Virtual Console download service. Nintendo realized that and released the Wii Classic Controller, but its iPoddish contour is nothing like the blocky originals.

RetroZone is taking pre-orders on a pair of affordable NES and SNES controller adapters for the Wii. These $19 dongles plug directly into the Wii's GameCube ports and let you guide GameCube or Virtual Console titles with your familiar old controllers.

And, if you don't happen have a set of classic NES pads lying around, Messiah Entertainment offers a line of nifty NES and SNES accessories

NES and SNES Controller Adapters for Nintendo Wii [via Gizmodo]