Retro Thing

Dormiphone: The Tape Machine For Your Subliminal/ESP Needs

CassetteMaster is a frequent YouTube poster, sharing his many analog tape machine finds. He's adept at getting them working, and equally adept at finding some rather obscure machinery. This video shows off the Dormiphone, an early endless loop tape machine (similar to the later 8 track format). There's a clock on the face of the Dormiphone with lots of switches. This was to set the timings of automated playback throughout the day, much like an appliance timer that turns lights on and off when you go on vacation.

He says the machine is likely from the 50's, and was probably intended to loop short phrases for the subject to memorize while they sleep. In a fascinating footbote, there is also some evidence that machines like these were used for ESP and mental telepathy research. In the video he plays back an original tape that he found with the machine. The delivery of the person testing out the recorder so many years ago is quite stilted, amazed at the capabilities of this new dcevice. Though to me it sounds a bit like one of many ghosts captured by this machine.

related:

Somnus 5 Sleep System mystery
Magic Fingers vibrating bed
Get some sleep in a hostel made from a real 747

AT&T Seeks to Phase Out Landlines

AT&T recently informed the FCC that they consider traditional landline telephones to be "relics of a by-gone era." It's a sad moment, because it comes as official acknowledgment that Alexander Graham Bell's quaint analog system is now outdated enough to be a corporate nuisance.

However, the truth is that the plain old telephone service (POTS) has been mostly digital for years. The only analog part of the system is the final run to your house. So, while internet-based Voice Over IP (VoIP) service would be easier to deploy and maintain, those who insist on having a fixed home line won't see a dramatic difference.

I'm mildly concerned by AT&T's assertion that, "It makes no sense to require service providers to operate and maintain two distinct networks when technology and consumer preferences have made one of them increasingly obsolete." Surely they're intimately aware that the mobile phone network is considerably more profitable than the landline side of the business. Cellular service requires personal handsets, each with its own (often steep) fees and data surcharges. After all, few people replace their landline handsets every 18 months, and texting is out of the question on a rotary phone.

Instead of that quaint shared home phone, AT&T looks forward to the day when sharing a phone number is a bizarre thing of the past. Of course, most of us have already gobbled up one of their shiny pocket-sized carrots. For instance, my wife and I have two cell numbers, a VoIP line and a Google Voice account in addition to our good old landline (which my wife uses for multi-hour catch-up calls with friends).

Still, the major thing that worries me about an all-digital future is that the POTS system usually works during power failures and severe weather. Calling 911 during a power failure is out of the question on an internet-based or cellular phone system. That issue alone may delay the analog phase-out by years.

Star Trek Action Marbles

Thanks to Chicago's retro TV station Me-TV, I'm getting caught up in Star Trek The Next Generation again. I haven't seen much of the series since it aired, but I'm reminded of how great it really was. Though it's heresy to say so, I think that TNG was far more consistent with good acting and storytelling than the original series. So far these episodes really stand up even 20 years after their original broadcast.

The show did bring with it a ton of merchandise, and not just for hardened Trekkies. Since TNG was successful reaching the whole family, not just science fiction fans, the merch reflects that. Of couse after a few years when the show was a big hit in the new frontier of first-run syndication, there was even more mass market junk to bear the name of the new Trek.

Even accepting all of that, I was still surprised to find these marbles with faces of the cast buried inside. It's a strange choice for merchandise since few kids kid have played with marbles in decades, not even ones labeled "Collectable (sic) Action Marbles". The marbles appear to be from 1993 (an era that I'm sure had spellcheck), from a company called Spectra Star who also made a set for the characters from Deep Space Nine. They are still around, specializing mostly in yo-yo's and kites. I wonder if they still have their marble making machine? How about a set of Action Marbles featuring the cast of "24" or "American Idol". Nah... those shows lost their marbles years ago.

related:

Help your marble escape from Fireball Island
Shoot-a-Loop: fun with marbles and tin
Kenwood turntable made out of that other kind of "marble"

The Living Sound of Cleveland - Free MP3!

  
Here's an MP3 from a promotional 7" record extolling the virtues of Cleveland Ohio. WJW was a radio station in Cleveland until 1985, but the call letters live on today as the city's Fox TV affiliate. I'm not sure whom this record was intended for, possibly potential advertisers who don't know how great Cleveland is? The record doesn't bear a year, but my guess is that this is from some time in the 60's when the "beautiful music" format first slithered onto our radio dials.

The song does chose some queer aspects of Cleveland to celebrate (the lyrics lilt about "The barges on the canal"?), but is a great example of radio jingle production. Ignore the claw-like hand of the label art, and download the free MP3 and see if you agree. Extra points if you actually remember the station!

link:

Download an MP3 of "The Living Sound Of Cleveland"

Russian Handheld Game Emulator

Back in the 1980s -- when Nintendo's Game & Watch series was all the rage in the West -- there were similar LCD devices floating around the USSR.

Handheld Quake is a PC-based simulator that lets you try these brilliantly odd games without having to scour the grimy nether regions of eBay. It comes with 11 Russian titles including Explorers of Space and Merry Arithmetics (both would make great band names).

Five classic Nintendo games are also included, allowing you to cross the Iron Curtain with a simple click of the mouse. Available for Windows 95/98/NT/ME/2000/XP, and I wouldn't be surprised if it runs perfectly under Win 7 -- let me know.

Handheld Quake - Simulator of Soviet, Russian & Foreign Games [thanks, Ondrej!]

Victorian Photography In The 21st Century

Duncan Waldron recently resurrected a Victorian-era camera, with haunting results.

He says, "This image was taken with an old wooden camera that I found in an antique shop in Edinburgh. I decided recently to see how it performed, and so loaded it with a sheet of BW printing paper. The paper, at approximately ISO3 (yes, three), is probably similar in speed to the glass plates that would have been in use at the time (around 1870s); the exposure here was 45 seconds at about f/14 (double that would have been better). The focal length of the lens is around 145mm, and the focusing adjustment was extended to its maximum, which was presumably the setting for a group portrait.

For this ‘resurrection’ of a lovely old camera, I decided to take the photograph in an antique shop. It seemed more appropriate than the Coffs Jetty! My thanks to David Mann at Olde Memories & Treasures, who patiently sat for me today – without the aid of a Victorian neck support! Incidentally, David is reading a copy of The Age from 1854 – Vol. 1 No. 1."

A print of this image can be yours for $19.95, and Duncan's more modern photography is definitely worth a look as well.

A Victorian camera lives again

Download Cinematic Titanic For A Great Last Minute Gift

We've written about Cinematic Titanic before, a group of alums of the fabulous movie-mocking show Mystery Science Theater 3000 who have taken their show on the road. You can see Joel & the rest of the gang take on more strange movies live in a theatrical setting. If you haven't made it out to one of the shows, or bought one of the DVD's, you can get the best of both worlds and still fit it under the tree in time for Christmas.

If you visit cinematictitanic.com, you'll find that their DVD titles are also available as a download that you can burn to a DVD. There is an updated lampooning of the godawful "Santa Claus Conquers the Martians" (they riffed the film on MST3K, but this is an all-new version), perfect for holiday-time wincing. I'm even more excited about the latest title "East Meets Watts", a combination karate & black exploitation film. I just watched this disc a few days ago, and it may be their best yet. You get to see the performers on stage with a real audience reacting, which is really THE way to experience Cinematic Titanic.

At under $10 US, the downloads are an affordable and unique gift that's only a few clicks away. Great if you've had your fill of shopping, and still want to add a little zing to someone's stocking.

Burn your Cinematic Titanic download to DVD now

The Last Lab

Dwayne's Photo, the last Kodachrome lab in the world, profiled on NBC's Today Show.

Watch the video [via onSuper8]

Building A Decatron Clock

E. Barbour writes, "Former Philips engineer Ronald Dekker is famous for his website full of unusual construction projects. He now has built a digital clock that uses Dekatron (or decatron) tubes as displays."

Decatrons feature a ring of cathodes driven by a control voltage. They were first introduced in 1950, and this is the first I've heard of them.

They're the forefather of Nixie tubes, which usually contain ten cathodes in the shape of the numbers 0 through 9, and a wire mesh anode. When electricity is passed between one of the cathodes and the anode, the corresponding number shines with an endearing orangey-red glow. In contrast, the decatron is only capable of producing an array of glowing dots.

Dekker decided to build a decatron clock controlled by a modern PIC microcontroller.

He explains, "Surfing the web, the most popular thing to make with a decatron seems to be a spinner. Looking at these spinners I thought it would be a nice idea to make a clock with six (or perhaps even seven) decatrons in a row, with the decatrons showing all kinds of display effects. Instead of simply incrementing the time every new second, it would be great to have a display of forward- and backward-spinning digits, slowly rolling-out to the new time, a little bit like the reels of a slot machine."

The circuit and software is now complete, and the only thing remaining is the case. Dekker has decided to use a mirror mounted at a 45 degree angle to allow reading the digits while the tubes are mounted in a vertical position. The final result should be a unique modern timepiece that brilliantly integrates forgotten technology from the 1950s.

Decatron Clock Project

Hundreds Of Online NES Games

Nintendo8.com offers a heap of NES titles that run within a web browser. Each takes only seconds to load, although the vNES emulator requires Java. This is your chance to experience all the NES games you could never afford as a kid, including the entire Super Mario series, Alex Kidd and Bubble Bobble. I was surprised to discover that the NES port of Galaga is actually quite good.

nintendo8.com - classic Nintendo 8-bit games online

Funambol: Open source push email

Funambol is an open source email app for mobile phones. It supports push email, just like Blackberry Mail. It works on hundreds of phones (including Android, iPhone and Blackberries) and automatically syncs to your computer using a "mobile cloud" address book. The big difference is that you don't have to pay a subscription fee every month.

I use Funambol in conjunction with a Blackberry and a dirt cheap unlimited browsing data plan to save hundreds of dollars per year.

To try Funambol, set up a 90-day trial account on the myFunambol portal. It will prompt you to download an app for your phone (hundreds of handsets are supported) and guides you through the process of syncing your contacts and calendar details.

After the 90-day trial expires, Funambol usually directs you to one of their partners to extend the service.

However, Funambol has offered 10 free unlimited myFunambol accounts to Retro Thing readers [update: they're all gone. Thanks for supporting a worthwhile open source project.]

myFUNAMBOL, the free open source mobile cloud sync demo service

Retro Thing Limited Edition Pixel T-Shirts Are On Their Way!

 
A wonderful sight awaited me as I entered the Retro Thing office today - several boxes containing tons of T-shirts! Either that means that our 8-bit inspired T-shirts are ready to ship to our readers who ordered one, or it means that I haven't done laundry in a very long time. Good news - it's the 8-bit T-shirts.

Thanks to those of you who ordered your T-shirt. You're directly supporting Retro Thing, and James and I are both very grateful. We're also grateful for your patience. We were hoping to have these under your Christmas trees, but the elves were clearly hitting the nog a little early this year. But have no fear, we'll ship them out as quickly as possible.

We produced only as many shirts as were ordered, so there aren't any extras if you missed your chance to get one the first time around... but don't fret. The good news is that this project went so well that we plan on bringing our readers other limited edition retro shirts in the near future. Keep reading Retro Thing so you won't miss your next chance.

San Francisco 1958 Home Movies

Jeff Altman is an aspiring feature film colorist and amateur photographer from Chicago. These scenes of San Francisco were shot by his grandfather in 1958.

He says, "It was edited by hand some 50 years ago by my grandfather shortly after shooting it. Judging by the 3 minute length, I would say its safe to assume you're seeing all the footage he shot. 100 foot rolls of 16mm are of about 3 minutes in length. The order of the shots were probably changed, as well as removal of flash frames and other junk.

Keep in mind that these are home movies. He would make popcorn and show these to his family as a Friday night activity. Editing was part of the spectacle. I can't imagine there was very much thought put into preserving the raw footage as a historical record. He wasn't a professional; just a hobbyist."

San Francisco 1958 [via Laughing Squid]

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Reimagining The Sound Of 'Sherlock Holmes'

Sherlock Holmes is back, although not quite the way you remember him. Gone are the horrendous deerstalker caps and "Elementary, my dear Watson" nonsense. In their place, director Guy Ritchie gives us bare-chested fistfights, vertigo-inducing carriage chases and explosions galore. Not the sort of thing you'd usually expect from our Victorian hero. Somehow, it all works. Robert Downey Jr's neurotic action-hero version of Holmes with Jude Law as his sidekick Watson gives the franchise a much-needed kick in the woolen trousers.

It's not just the look that has been reinvented. Composer Hans Zimmer leaned on the unique talents of our old friend Diego Stocco, who once destroyed a piano with a blowtorch and has been known to make music with live trees.

Stocco's latest Frankeninstrument is the Experibass -- a multi-headed beast which incorporates bits and pieces of violin, viola and cello amplified through the body of a double bass (don't worry, luthier John Wu graciously provided parts from mortally wounded instruments to create this unique musical monster).

In Diego's capable hands, the instrument is breathtakingly energetic. It offers up a unique palette of ethereal screeches, mournful drones and relentless resonant percussion. Zimmer encouraged him to explore the edges of the instrument's sonic capabilities. Stocco told me, "It's actually very exposed in the mix, if you take a listen to the previews of tracks 1, 7 and 12 [on the soundtrack CD] you can hear the grooves played with drum sticks and hands, the heavy bowed basses and lots of other colors."

Love it or loathe it, Sherlock Holmes has been dragged into the 21st Century with Guy Ritchie's frenetic directorial style, Hans Zimmer's organic score and Diego Stocco's magnificently mangled instrument.

The new Sherlock Holmes debuts on Christmas Day unless you're in the UK, where it inexplicably arrives 24 hours later. For more about the Experibass, check out Diego Stocco's portfolio on Behance.