Retro Thing

R.I.P. Mr. Wizard - Don Herbert 1917-2007

Don Herbert was a pioneering figure in educational television in the U.S. Starting off in 1951, the era of live TV, his show would demonstrate what looked like complicated magic. After an explanation of the science involved to his young on-screen assistants, kids at home could reproduce these experiments with household materials. 

Children of the 80's may also remember Herbert's return to TV on Nickelodeon's Mr. Wizard's World. The faster paced program also explained science in a hands-on way. The signature of both programs is that they explored scientific principals in a fun and accessible way without resorting to kooky costumed characters, booger-ology, or similar distractions. The approach clearly worked, as Herbert's 1953 Peabody Award and his 60 year education career attest.

Don Herbert had an important non-TV impact on my life. As a boy I had one of Mr. Wizard's books of experiments. I spent a whole summer doing every experiment in the thick book, and in school when these scientific principals came up again I already had practical knowledge under my belt. 

Herbert enjoyed an extraordinarily long career of making science easier to understand for so many of us. You can find his shows on DVD so that you can share the world of science with any little wizards in your life.

DVD box sets of Mr. Wizard's shows

Article from the Museum of Broadcast Communications

NAD Unveils A Classically Styled Budget Amplifier

NAD recently slipped a budget model into their 'Classic' amplifier lineup. The C315BEE stereo integrated amplifier is conservatively rated at 40W per channel, with a street price of under € 300 in Europe. This amp is a direct descendent of NAD's famed model 3020, which became well known in the late 1970s as a bargain-priced entry into the world of audiophile sound.

I've always been a huge fan of NAD's low-end amplifiers, because they offer solid sound at a reasonable price, without any complicated DSP, surround sound processing or confusing controls. In fact, there are only four knobs on the sparse front panel: volume, bass, treble and balance. There's also a convenient EQ bypass switch and buttons to select from six line-level inputs, plus a front-panel 1/8-inch mini-jack for plugging in a portable MP3 player. There's a headphone jack and tape loop, but no phono input and only a single pair of 2-8 ohm speaker outputs. And, unlike my old NAD 314, this model has a remote control.

The NAD site explains the philosophy behind the new design: "The NAD Design Team faced a difficult challenge: to maintain the same performance specification as our more expensive amplifiers while removing cost. All the hallmarks of NAD technology are present, from the generously sized toroidal power transformer and low ESR smoothing capacitors, to the multiple regulated secondary supplies, to the heavy duty discrete output transistors, the C315BEE is every bit as refined and sophisticated as other NAD amplifiers."

I'm looking forward to spending some time with one of these little amps, and I sincerely hope it lives up to its pedigree.

NAD C315BEE Stereo Integrated Amplifier

The Vintage Knob

Alan Franklin recently drew our attention to The Vintage Knob. The site is chock-full of beautiful vintage hi-fi photos and commentary. He remarks, "This may be a bit too geeky for you guys, but as an avid collector of vintage audio gear I adore it. It's probably the best of it's kind on the web. Check out 'The Vault' and 'Invisibilia' for rare prototypes and dead/forgotten formats."

There are literally hundreds of classic tuners, turntables, receivers, CD players and tape decks waiting to be discovered, including gems such as the Sony CDP-101 first-generation CD player, an absolutely massive Hitachi LCD TV from 1977, an ill-fated 1980 Sanyo ELCASET-based digital cassette recorder, and mainstream classics such as the L-570, Luxman's last really successful integrated amplifier. There's even a Pinup of the Month section to get your transistors pumping.

The Vintage Knob: vintage audio museum

Core Memory: A high rez look at some classic computers

The Internet is wonderful for what it is, but there are many times I wish it was a truly high resolution medium. Perhaps that's why I still covet glossy magazines and books -- I'm addicted to pretty pictures.

John Alderman (author) and Mark Richards (photographer) share my love of stunning imagery and intelligent prose. Their new book, Core Memory: A Visual Survey of Vintage Computers, is a beautiful ode to 35 vintage computers that shaped the world. The featured machines are part of the world's most renowned computer collection, The Computer History Museum in Mountain View, California.

Over 100 full color photographs (frequently two page spreads) are the next best thing to being able to reach out and touch Eniac, a Cray supercomputer, an old French Minitel network terminal, an Osborne I portable or the incredibly quaint Apple I. Each set of images is accompanied by thoughtful text which offers insight into each machine's unique capabilities and eccentricities.

Core Memory: A Visual Survey of Vintage Computers [Amazon product page]

Sniping: How To Win On eBay

People often ask us where to find vintage gadgets, and we usually point them to eBay. It can be a great place to shop, as long as you're not after something very rare or expensive. You can easily set up automated searches that let you know when something you're interested in is listed, and custom watch lists make it easy to track multiple items.

Winning an auction can be much more difficult.

Many bidders spend days watching an item, only to be thwarted when a mysterious buyer swoops in and places the winning bid with only seconds to spare. Bidding at the last moment is known as Sniping. It's a good way to avoid unnecessarily bidding on an item and keeps others from knowing you're interested until it's too late. Of course, hanging around your machine at all times of the day and night to place a last-moment bid is rarely possible.

The solution is online 'Sniping' software. You enter a maximum bid for an item days or hours before the auction ends, and the software waits until the last few seconds before placing a bid for you. I use Snipe Swipe (which offers unlimited automated bidding for $5/month) but there are dozens of competing systems. If you have to pay a per-transaction fee, it doesn't make sense to Snipe common items like fairly recent DVDs or CDs, since they don't usually attract much competition. Save your snipe for something a bit less common.

eBay users are firmly divided on the subject of Sniping. Some find it an excellent way to purchase items at a lower cost, while others see the practice as grossly unfair because it seems underhanded and puts non-sniping users at a disadvantage. Personally, I'm solidly in favor of the practice because it avoids unnecessary bidding wars and forces me to assign a maximum price to an item days in advance of its close -- if my Snipe price is exceeded in the last few minutes, I don't find myself upping my bid in an emotional quest to win at any price.

Visit eBay through this link and support Retro Thing [affiliate link]
On eBay, it pays to snipe [USA Today]
Snipe Swipe Automatic eBay Bid Sniper Service

Vintage Video Games from the USSR

Wired is running a short piece on a group of students from Moscow State Technical University who are on a quest to restore Soviet-era arcade consoles. The piece is frustratingly short on details, but the photo gallery is worth a look. In many ways, the games are crude variants of Western concepts: side-scrolling adventure games, driving games (no brakes, though), and so on.

Approximately 70 different titles were produced between the 1970s and the fall of the Soviet Union, intended for "entertainment and active leisure, as well as the development of visual-estimation abilities." Oddly enough, they lacked high-score tables because that sort of competition was discouraged. I suspect that high scores were removed to discourage gambling, however. Many of the games focused on earning enough points to win a free play. While we're on the subject, how come Pac-Man or Galaxians never offered a free pay option? Hmm. Now I'm feeling ripped-off.

Soviet-Era Arcade Games Crawl Out of Their Cold War Graves

Related:
Soviet Mice

The VW Beetle's Sinister Beginnings

Driving a vintage VW Beetle is guaranteed to put a smile on your face. Perhaps it's the strangely angled steering wheel that recalls driving a delivery wagon, or the distinctive "putt-putt" sound of the rear-mounted air cooled engine. Everything about them was designed to be as simple as possible. The first post-war Beetles were made near Wolfsburg in 1945, and by 1971 over 1.3 million of the happy-looking little cars were being churned out each year. German production ceased in 1978 (supplanted by the Golf), but the original Beetle was manufactured in Mexico until 2003 - a stunning 58 year run.

What many people don't realize is that this charismatic little car has a decidedly sinister history.

Wristlets: The Pocket Watch Goes To War

War is hell, but wartime also breeds radical innovation. One interesting example is the lowly wristwatch, first adopted by military officers in the 1880s to replace awkward pocket watches.

Michael Friedberg explains further at timezone.com: "Girard-Perregaux by 1880 supplied wristwatches to the German Imperial Navy. Reportedly, an artillery officer complained that it was inconvenient for him to be operating a pocket watch –an act requiring two hands— while timing a bombardment. He strapped a pocket watch to his wrist and reported his solution to his superiors. They liked the idea so much that watchmakers in La Chaux-de-Fonds were asked to travel to Berlin to discuss series production of small gold watches attached to wrist bracelets."

These early watches, dubbed 'wristlets,' were often based upon compact ladies pocket watch mechanisms. At the outbreak of World War I these timepieces were seen as too fragile and feminine for combat, but soldiers adopted wristlets because of their convenience. In fact, it was common for infantrymen to purchase their own watches during the Great War. Watches soon appeared with metal lids, mesh guards known as trench grills and various other add-ons intended to make them more robust.

The war saw millions of young men adopt the wristlet, which soon became a must-have accessory for men and women alike. Though its popularity grew by leaps and bounds, the name gradually fell out of favor and nearly every manufacturer referred to their timepieces as wristwatches by the mid-1920s.

Wristlets: Early Wristwatches and Coming of an Age in World War I [Michael Friedburg]

Apple II Turns 30 Years Old

June 5th will mark the 30th birthday of the Apple II computer. There were other affordable hobbyist computer kits available before, but the Apple II was one of the first computers that was ready to run out of the box [the Apple II wasn't the first prebuilt home computer, but it was the first mega-seller with over 750,000 units shipped by 1982, mostly because VisiCalc was so incredibly useful - james]. It's not surprising that an Apple II was the first computer that I used in elementary school since Apple made inroads with the U.S. educational system from their earliest offerings. What may be a surprise is that the Apple II was manufactured up until 1993 (with some redesigns and cost-reduced versions), with many still in operation today. Between five and six million of the putty colored machines were sold, (which still isn't close to the Commodore 64's record of 17 million!).

The Apple II was a versatile machine, serving markets from classrooms to businesses.  Further demonstrating it's strength the Apple II remained a strong seller while the company shifted to the Macintosh line. The Mac was an expensive and unproven machine, so it was a good idea to keep the Apple II around as a reliable source of income.

I admire the Apple II's continued availability well after its technology was far from cutting edge. I'm sure that continued income was chief in keeping a 1970's era design around until the 90's - a preposterous idea these days - but there was still life in the old platform yet.

I've always thought that the computer industry has lost touch with the idea of providing people with "just enough" computer. Does your grandma really need a multi-gigahertz PC to send simple emails or read the web? I guess that role was meant to be filled by Palm computers and the many failed internet appliances of the early 2000's.

So we've established that the Apple II is a long lived and well-known commodity. There's still one question no Apple fan has ever been able to answer for me: Why in the hell does that green power light get so hot?  Ouch!

Read more about the Apple II

Modern clone of Apple I

Apple Computer, Inc. turns 30