Retro Thing

A BiC For The Ages

It's so hard to choose the right color...

CJ writes, "Thought of something recently that I fondly remember from school 30 years ago: the Bic 4 color pen. Did you ever have one of these? I remembered these from when I was a kid; it was an awesome pen! I was surprised to find they still make them.

I found one an a local Office Depot and bought one for my daughter as well. I had one of these 30 years ago in school. They look and work exactly they same as they did back then. Amazon has them as well."

Weirdly, I picked up a box of a dozen Bic Crystal pens -- the ultra-cheap ones -- just before Christmas. I think my subconscious was mulling over the hand cramps I endured while writing college exams at the end of every semester. Either that, or my brain was rebelling against my iPad addiction.

Celebrate 48 Years Of Being Exterminated By The Daleks

This last weekend marks the 48th anniversary of Doctor Who. Eventhe show was rested for a number of years after it's 26 year long run, the blockbuster six year success of the rebooted series shows us there's still life in the old beast yet.

Speaking of beasts, the good Doctor's main beast is just a few weeks from celebrating a birthday. The Daleks premiered in the show's second multi-part story on December 21st, 1963. To be fair, all we got that night was a POV glimpse of it's infamous sink plunger arm. It may sound like a cheap move, but it made for one of the most terrifying cliffhangers in the series' history. Our first proper look at a Dalek would have been December 28th in '63.

When fans first heard of the show's return in 2005, one of he first questions was whether the Daleks were coming back. Behind the scenes the production team was having diffuculty getting the rights to use the classic bad guy. Eventually resolved, the Dalek's comeback was shrouded in secrecy. Despite a leaked cellphone picture of the new prop, seeing the updated Dalek design on TV was no less exciting. At last it looked as badass as we had always imagined it to be.

In recent years, the prop has undergone a more radical design change. The "new paradigm" Daleks are much larger, and come in a whole range of candy colors (inspired perhaps by the gaudy 60's movies?) denoting rank. We still haven't really seen these new guys in action, so I'll reserve judgement for the new Lego look-alikes until we do.

Instead let's consider the little Dalek sculpture made of scrap metal at the start of this post. I always imagined Daleks to be heavy and metallic, and this guy is - even though he's only about 8" tall. I got him off of Ebay years ago from an artist who did a lot of similar sculptures of sci-fi gear and motorcycles. The price was right, but shipping was murder coming from halfway around the world. Still, I've had him guarding my front door for years now. He does make for a dangerous nemesis even at this reduced size. First, you're looking at pretty severe lacerations if it so much as falls on your foot. Second, the sculpture included a stern warning about washing your hands after every handling of it. The "real" Daleks would be proud.

related:
classic chrome remote control dalek
genuine dalek prop found in swamp
scrap metal robot for $20

Chocolate Records That Really Play

Gio writes, "Hand made chocolate records that actually play music! Yummy." This is neither a kind nor high fidelity thing to do to your turntable, but it's clever. [YouTube via DIY Audio Projects]

Your Boat Is Better With A Nice Johnson

As a city boy, I don't get to make recreational boating much of a part of my life. One of my best friends in college came from a rural area that was relatively close by, so we'd drive up to his family's house and bomb around in his boat. It was the first time I'd ever been in a boat with a steering wheel. The only other boating I'd ever really done was canoeing while camping, so the high-tech addition of a 25 year old Johnson outboard motor was a totally new experience for me. It also introduced me to a whole culture of lakeside people who use their motorboats to run errands as often as I might use a car. There was even a bar that you could only access by water, and we spent many a summer evening meeting boat people, downing beers and smelling the rotting bracken.

This old commercial for Johnson motors reminds me of the fun we had in that old boat. It makes me wish that perhaps one of these days life will lead me down a path where I'll be able to get my hands on a little boat of my own, and of course at the same time grab my own Johnson.

related:

An inflatable flying boat
"Tug Boat" board game
German version of classic game "Battleship"

Your Own Dental Office... On A Train

Frank writes, "I came across this auction for an old train that's been converted into an amazing dental office. I think it might actually make me want to go to the dentist."

I concur. This three car train is located on a large commercial lot in Spokane. It has operated as a fully equipped children's dental office for the past 30 years. The front car is set up as a reception area, with 6 dental workstations in the second. The caboose is configured as the doctor's private office with an old railroad wood stove.

The train is available for lease at $2500 per month, or purchase outright on eBay for $375,000. I wonder how I can squeeze in the time between posts to attend dental school?

Dental office and land! Complete three car train [eBay]

Robot Readamatic Helps Slow Readers Pick Up The Pace

 
It may be cliche, but whenever I see a device like this, I feel certain dystopian willies. Maybe it's too much post-apocalyptic scifi, or perhaps one too many viewings of "Brazil", but heavy and unsympathetic learning aides leave me wondering when the robotic tutorial overlords are getting here.

This device hails from a pre-apocalyptic 1963. The Readamatic Pacer is designed to increase reading speed. Twirl the knob to the number of words per minute you want to read, and the mechanical arm reveals a line at a time. I'm a pretty fast reader, so I tried the old boy out. I was able to keep up with its top speed I'm proud to say, but the whirring of the Readamatic was distracting. Perhaps its due to age, but even in top form I've got to think that the screw drive and metal slat scraping across the page might be more than just a bit off-putting.

 
Interesting detail is that there are three scales on the speed dial. These are to accommodate different sizes of books (smaller book = fewer words per page). According to the manual, it's designed to speed up the rate of slow or lazy readers, or can also be used as a way to retrain readers to slow down if they are breezing too fast and have poor comprehension. Makes sense, though perhaps the fact I've never seen one of these before might be testimony to its not having been a great answer. Decades later, we still don't employ speed-reading robot tutors as far as I know. Or perhaps there's some robo-speedreader e-book app I don't know about?

related:

My newspaper doesn't want me
NASA unveils free e-book series
Extremely odd book titles

The Grid Beam Building System

Imagine if real world objects were like Meccano sets -- standardized bolt-together components that made it quick and easy to design, share and build everything from furniture to vehicles. That's the idea behind the Grid Beam system, which has been around since the mid-1970s.

Phil Jergenson, one of the founders of the system, says, "It has all the advantages of an industrial building system: standard, modular sizes; uniform materials; and interchangeable parts. Projects knock flat and are easy to transport. Since the pieces can be used over and over again, grid beam is easy both on your wallet and on the environment -- we have been using some of our components for over thirty years."

Jergenson's book, How to Build with Grid Beam, includes hundreds of photos of real projects built over a sixty-year period, showing the many uses of grid beam, from shelves for college students to projects involving alternative energy.

Grid Beam Building System

Happy New Year With A Lucky Pig For Your Model Railroad

 
Happy New Year from all of us at Retro Thing! Thanks for another great year, everybody. If we could give each of you a present, it would be wonderful to follow the old German custom of giving a pig-shaped marzipan candy (if you haven't had marzipan you're missing out, I grew up on the stuff) called a Glückschwein, or "lucky pig". If we started right now, it would take a year to give all of our readers a bite of lucky pig, so instead we're sharing this mechanical version made by Märklin.

You may recall my fondness for Märklin Mini-Club trains, better known as Z-scale. Marklin has produced many limited edition collectible trains, but few as novel (and downright odd) as this one. Even at barely over an inch long, this lucky pig is a plucky motorized model train engine. It even has couplers so it can pull freight along the pike (alarming all those centimeter high people who live in your plastic town). It goes without saying that it's not based on any actual prototype of a pig-shaped train, but is an endearing little model nonetheless.

So if you were here right now, I'd give you a bit of marzipan and let you have a turn running this little model pig engine. Until then James & I wish you the best for the coming year, and our profound thanks for joining us on the adventure that is Retro Thing. Stay tuned for lots more great things to come in 2010! Oink!

Introducing The Ace Typewriter & Equipment Co.

Thom Nevarez writes, "Ace Typewriter & Equipment Company has been the typewriter repair shop in Portland, Oregon for approximately fifty years and may be the only repair shop on the West Coast."

Thom plans to offer an extensive gallery of typewriter images for casual visitors on the Ace website, but their main business is equipment sales, replacement ribbons and a repair service to keep these beautiful vintage machines clacking along happily for years to come.

Ace proudly proclaims, "You’ll have to come into our shop to see our grand selection of manual machines, rare machines, display-only machines, and even the best selection of R.C Allen adding machines." And in a nod to the way things used to be, they only accept cash and local checks.

Link: Ace Typewriter & Equipment Company

Smallest Model Railroad In The Whole Great Big World

When I was an active model railroader, I used to scratchbuild structures in Z scale - 1/220 the size of real life (and until recently, the smallest commercially produced gauge of model trains). It was a real test to see how small I could build something out of wood and strips of styrene. It's been a while, but I still like to keep an eye on what's going on in Z. It's so tiny that it used to take real specialist knowledge (and really good eyes) to produce models at so diminutive a size. In these boom days of miniaturization, there's more going on than ever in this tiny little world despite the bankruptcy of the scale's original inventors and largest Z manufacturer.

The Z community isn't standing still. Here is an eye popping project that has got to be the smallest model railroad in all the world. The text accompanying the YouTube post is easy to misinterpret, so here's how small we're talking. Imagine you're a Z scale person - around a centimeter in height. Now with your tiny hands you build your own working model train. That's how small we're talking - a scale of 1/35,200. This is a tremendously clever feat, and while it's a bit of a gimmick, it's a darned fine one.

This astonishing accomplishment makes my Z scale collection seem gigantic and clumsy in comparison. Magnificent work like this shows that there is still plenty of inspiration and cleverness left in the world.

Video of the miniscule model in action
Model build details

related:
Marklin declares bankruptcy after 150 years

1943: The Romance Of Steam?

"A general view in the Atchison, Topeka, and Santa Fe Railroad locomotive shops." [click to enlarge]

Medium-format nitrate negative by Jack Delano for the Farm Security Administration. March 1943, San Bernardino, California. From the Library of Congress archives, via Shorpy.

Cypherpunk: Tatjana van Vark's Coding Machine

Inspired by the legendary Enigma encryption machine, The Coding Machine [2003] is a perplexingly beautiful combination of art and science. Each coding wheel consists of 509 precisely machined parts. Mischievously, she refuses to publish details of the rotor wiring until someone decrypts the haiku published on her site.

Follow the jump for more photos.

Terrific Typewriter Titillation

Instructions: Insert paper. Press key with moderate force. Giggle with glee as letter magically appears. Repeat. Try pressing several keys simultaneously. Pry apart jammed type bars while muttering quietly. Repeat ad nauseam.

The biggest challenge, of course, is selecting the perfect typewriter. The Vintage Typewriter Shoppe offers dozens of beautifully restored machines. Prices start at a modest $250, but expect to pay two or three times that for a really nice machine.

Vintage Portable Typewriters

Märklin Filing Bankruptcy After 150 Years Of Making Models & Toys

Many North Americans probably don't know the name of the German firm Märklin, but they are known the world over for producing fine quality model trains. Many hobby shop shelves in the U.S. are filled with cheap mass-market junk, so it may be hard to find (or justify) the expensive models that Märklin offers. Märklin has made a name for themselves by making high quality trains and other toys for more than 150 years, so their declaration of bankruptcy on February 4th came as a bit of a shock.

There are few things I actively collect (from what we've seen on Retro Thing, I'm sure that's hard for you to believe), but I've been a longtime aficionado of Märklin's Z-scale - the smallest commercially available model railroad gauge. At 1:220 scale, it's an amazing achievement especially considering that the line was rolled out in 1972. Sophisticated miniaturization may not be the big deal today that it once was, but it's still breathtaking to see a working model steam locomotive that fits inside a walnut.

Impossibly Cool Gakken Stirling Engine

Gakken's Stirling Engine kit is a deranged mechanical wonder. While most Stirling engines just sit on a desk and spin purposelessly, this one has wheels and a propeller and looks utterly fantastic.

Reviewer Bruce Rowe says, "I saw this and immediately wanted it.I couldn't justify spending the money on myself. So I bought it for my son. He is 19 years old and is very mechanical. Christmas morning, he opened it. 8 hours later, he had it running.

The kit has nice components. The instructions are complete (24 pages in Japanese). And, there are a whole bunch of tiny details to get lost in. The cylinder mount and the gears need to be carefully aligned. This is one of the trickier parts. If you have it misaligned, there will be too much friction for the engine to run. A gauge is supplied to make this step easier.

On the downside, this is not an easy kit. They are not kidding when they say it is for adults. You need to look at the pictures very carefully."

It's available in the USA from the Maker Shed for $119.99, and they offer an English manual [warning: pdf] if you'd like a glimpse of what you could be getting yourself into.

Link: Gakken Stirling Engine Kit