Retro Thing

TV's Dying Gasp

The family television spent decades at the center of many households. It fed us news, sports, entertainment and a seemingly endless stream of commercials (well, unless you were watching the Beeb). Forty years ago, there were only a handful of channels and viewers had their weekly viewing habits mapped out with military precision. Broadcasters could count on millions of eyes, simply because there was little competition. But modern technology is threatening the traditional TV model from all sides, and it's only a matter of time before video streaming becomes the norm.

The television universe slowly began to unravel with the arrival of cable and satellite. Viewers were faced with dozens or even hundreds of choices as boutique channels sprouted like weeds. A sci-fi gardening network? I'm sure someone pitched it at some point in the 1990s.

The emergence of the Internet further muddied things, as pundits argued that the world wide web would supplant TV virtually overnight. It didn't happen, but viewership slid a bit as people turned their attention to web pages dedicated to sci-fi gardening and honed their fragging skills on ever more sophisticated video game consoles.

However, it looks like the writing is finally on the wall in 2010.

The arrival of affordable streaming video services like Netflix and Hulu, along with a plethora of IP-TV devices such as Apple TV, Google TV, Boxee and the Roku player may signal the end, as soon as broadcasters can solve one gnawing issue -- money.

Like it or not, streaming TV is the future. The only issue is who is going to pay for it (hint: you) and how they're going to pay. In the first wave of the streaming revolution, shows piped from Apple or Netflix don't include ads. Instead, these new services choose to dip directly into your pockets, bypassing the Mad Men and the toothpaste companies. To a certain extent, it works.

The problem is that online viewing numbers aren't large enough to fund elaborate shows, so the system is still reliant on traditional broadcasters to provide first run financing. Anyone who watches more than a couple of hours of TV a week is going to balk at the idea of spending 99 cents (or more) per show.

The solution, I fear, will be a hybrid of the old and new broadcast models. Someone's eventually going to realize that streaming video services can pinpoint your location within a block or two based on your IP address. Armed with that information, marketers will be able to target ads to you in a manner that was impossible in the broadcast age -- and you'll be blissfully unaware that you're enduring a different set of commercials than the folks in the fancy houses a quarter mile away.

The big question is whether the traditional networks will be at the helm of this new attack on the living room, or whether it will be the likes of Amazon, Apple, Google and Netflix.

Retro Gifts @ Think Geek

It's time to start thinking of gifts for the holidays, and nothing says "I give a stylish damn" quite like retro stuff. So, without further ado, here's a look at some of the best Retro gift schwag from Think Geek.

First up is a set of five retro video game propaganda posters (above). Weirdly, Soviet-style imagery works well when promoting 8-bit titles like Joust, Donkey Kong, Frogger, Dig Dug and Tron. Each measures 15 x 22 inches and is, uh, printed on paper. $49.99.

The Late 20th Century in 45,000 Photos (and Counting)

Nick DeWolf was an engineer and an entrepreneur who co-founded a technology firm, but he also was a prolific amateur photographer. His son-in-law Steve Lundeen has taken on the job of archivist and has posted 45,000 of DeWolf's photos on Flickr. They are an awe-inspiring and powerful trip through the latter half of the 20th century.

Lundeen, who has been uploading the images since 2006 and adds a few dozen more nearly every day, writes that DeWolf left behind "many thousands of pre-digital images" that date back to the 1950s. "He carried a camera with him at all times, usually a family of cameras. If you knew Nick, you got used to this ... eventually, he'd be pointing his camera at you," Lundeen says.

The photos are a trip through DeWolf's life, passions and side interests. The subjects are all over the place, including the offices of Transitron and Teradyne; early integrated circuits; trips to Cape Cod, Las Vegas, Europe and Hong Kong and places in between; mid-1970s yoga classes; college football and pro hockey games; family life; sailing; a loving pictorial of a 1954 Mercedes Benz 300; bullfighting in Tijuana; and even late-life trips to Burning Man.

It's easy to get lost in the images. Perhaps because they are so mundane and shot by an amateur — an extraordinarily talented amateur at that — the photos transport the viewer to a different time and place. By documenting so completely for so long, DeWolf offers windows into not only his life, but fashion, politics and a half century of technological progress.

[Via Flickr blog]

Special Offer: Basic Computer Games & The Bot Folio

As I mentioned several weeks ago, Philip Conrod has reissued David H. Ahl's classic Basic Computer Games book using the new Microsoft Small Basic development environment for kids. He’s offering a $12.50 sale price to Retro Thing readers over the Thanksgiving weekend.

Philip also convinced retired illustrator George Beker to release a new ‘Bot Folio e-book ($8.75) that contains all of his iconic robot illustrations from Basic Computer Games and More Basic Computer Games.

George has added 5 never before seen robot illustrations and the ‘Bot Folio includes Beker's comments on his drawings and technology in general. It's clear that he remains happily stuck in a long-gone, alternate world with absolutely no connection to modern technology.

Hacking The Atari Video Music

The Atari Video Music was styled to resemble a high-end stereo component that produced a kaleidescope of weird video effects that pulsed in time to your favorite Kraftwerk or Pink Floyd LPs. If offered a pair of RCA audio inputs and an RF video output, along with a series of buttons to select several profoundly named effects including Solid, Hole, and Ring. There is also an Auto mode, just in case the unit's owner is unable to escape the giant blue spiders long enough to press another orange button in a timely fashion.

Switched On in Austin has taken the Video Music a step further by offering custom modifications. These include a composite video output, upgraded 1/4" input and thru jacks for both audio inputs, a distortion output, 8 waveform mixers and hue modulation. A pre-modded unit costs $650, but they'll also modify your own box.

Atari Video Music Custom [via Matrixsynth]

The Talking Datsun

Jared Chesson writes, "Every so often, I have a weird obsession with saying 'your door is ajar' in a pleasant and informative feminine voice, which generally makes my wife nervous. It all stems from an infatuation with my father's 5-speed Datsun. As a four year old boy, I was convinced there was a small woman, possibly employed under the same union as Santa's elves, whose sole purpose and reason for living was to inform the passengers of said car that a door could possibly be, in fact, open.

I was heartbroken when they traded the car in for a more family friendly station wagon. She may have been my first love. (Thank goodness Hal 9000 wasn't a Sal). 27 years later, I find out there was no elfish woman speaking to me. It was a small record playing on a portable phonograph.

The only tech coming close to replicating this experience for me was my Garmin. But her voice wasn't compassionate, or reasonable. The Garmin barked orders instead of suggesting. There's a difference, in other words, of saying 'Your door is ajar' vs. 'Take a right.' "

Article from Popular Science, March 1982

Pong Never Looked So Good

Video games were suddenly big business in the late 1970s. While companies like Atari and Intellivision sank millions of dollars into futuristic cartridge-based consoles, most manufacturers built simpler game machines using ready-to-play chipsets. The 1978 Saft Leclanché TV8 Sports was one such beast, built around the General Instruments AY-3-8610 chip.

This curvaceous French console plays 8 different paddle games and each of the puck-like paddles allows both horizontal and vertical player movement. Pretty standard stuff. However, it's the design that sets this unit apart from the competition. In an era when woodgrain and sharp angles were the norm, the TV8 was remarkably sleek and colorful -- more like a clock radio than a game unit.

My one gripe (and it's a serious one) is that the TV8 relied solely on battery power. This made it expensive to use and virtually ensured that many consoles were ruined after being forgotten with dead, corroding batteries inside. This particular unit was recently purchased off eBay by Clairtone enthusiast DC Hillier, but I'm sure there are many more lying forgotten in dusty French cellars. Just remember to take the battery pack out when you're done playing.

Apple 1? Pssh. How About An Old Brand Name?

You may have seen that Christie's is about to sell an Apple 1, which the famed auction house estimates will go for a whopping $160,300 to $240,450. It's certainly a fascinating bit of history, especially considering it comes with its original packaging, invoice, owner's manual and a typewritten letter from Steve Jobs himself (the return address is his parents' house). But I might humbly suggest that a $150-$200 Briel Replica 1 or even an emulator are more cost-effective ways to compute like it's 1977.

But if you still have the auction itch and want to scratch it, have you thought about bidding on an old brand name?

On Dec. 8 in New York, a firm that has bought up classic trademarks over the years is selling them off to the highest bidder. Up for grabs are names including Braniff International airline, Collier's magazine and Old Nick candy bars. There are names Retro Thing readers might like, including Victrola and Computer City. And there are also some decidedly non-retro names available, including the defunct search engine Infoseek and Allied Signal, a name that only existed for about a decade and a half. There is also Bobby Socks and Hot Pants, terms I had no idea had been trademarked.

The auction sort of exposes what you probably already know: That the trusted brand name you see on the shelf may well have been bought by a startup business.

Among the 150 or so trademarks for sale, some are probably quite valuable (I could totally see Meister Brau becoming the next PBR) and others less obviously so (Relaxacizor? Really?). But the one that really got me thinking was General Cinemas, if only because I have such strong memories of its circa 1980s bumper animation.

I can buy it and start my movie theater empire! (There's money to be made in showing films in theaters, right?)

Your Future Wife

"Your future wife will be a stenographer, blonde, beautiful, and just dumb enough to fall in love with you, but smart enough to keep two jumps ahead of you. She is used to dictation - but not from you. She will willingly exchange her notebook for your bankbook. As she doesn't like changing and also doesn't know anything about washing, you will be kept busy hanging up towels, and changing your four little carbon copies."

related: Toast your new wife with wine drunk from a Hefty cup

Time-Traveling Cell Phone Captured In 1928 Movie?

You may have seen this video making the rounds, claiming to show a "time traveller" filmed in 1928 inadvertently caught using a cell phone. Just think of the roaming charges. I didn't pay much attention as there are innumerable other things that the subject could be doing with her hand cupped to her face; sheilding her eyes from the lights, not wanting to be in the movies, a nasty itch...

I really hadn't thought about it much, but lots of people kept forwarding the video to me, thinking that as a retro fan I might have something to say about it. I did. "Humbug". I guess that wasn't enough for either my friends or the Discovery Channel as interest persisted. Here's the original video clip along with a few explanatory thoughts from James Williams of Discovery News about what might going on in the short movie.

It's not that I don't want to live in a world where time travel exists, after all I've wanted to join Doctor Who on his time traveling adventures all my life. Though these days I would probably ask him to let me stash some stuff in the basement of his TARDIS rather than going back in time as a temporal tourist to carelessly use a cell phone nearly a century ago.

Related:
The big bulky dawn of ancient cell phones
The affordable, transportable cellular telephone

ELP Releases New Laser Turntable

Twenty years after the introduction of the original, ELP has released a new needleless record player. It features a champaigne gold aluminum case and weighs a hefty 23 kg.

The back panel features RCA and XLR analog outputs, while 5 lasers lurk under the hood. Why five? Well, two are used for groove tracking, another two read the left and right stereo sound and the final beam measures the distance between the laser head and the record surface to handle warped discs.You can set the turntable speed in 0.1 RPM increments for LPs and 45s, with 0.2 RPM increments when playing 78s.

The signal path is fully analog; there's no digitization, so what you hear is exactly what's picked up by the laser pickup. And therein lies the problem -- this process is extremely sensitive to dust. It doesn't have the benefit of a mechanical needle to snowplow debris out of the track, so you'll hear every single pop, click and thump if you don't dilligently clean your discs before each play.

Oh, and there's the small matter of price. The LT-2XNP will retail for $19,100 when it's released in March 2011.

ELP Laser Turntable, Part II

Introducing MeeBlip, The Hackable Digital Synthesizer

I've been busy lately working on the launch of MeeBlip, a hackable music synthesizer that has lots in common with vintage monosynths from the 1970s. The front panel is full of knobs and switches, and there's only a single status LED.

Under the hood, MeeBlip is powered by an 8-bit Atmel AVR microcontroller that comes programmed as a virtual analog synthesizer, but we provide the source code so you can remap the controls and redefine the instrument's architecture. It's an open source design and I'm hoping that a community of inquisitive and creative MeeBlippers adopts it as their own.

Visit the MeeBlip site on Noisepages for all the details.

A Toy Record Player That Doesn't Need Records

Paging through the Sunday ad circulars recently, I was stunned to see Target selling a brand-new Fisher Price Music Box Record Player. (You can also get it at Urban Outfitters, natch.) Most of today's kids are unlikely to understand the concept of music being purchased on physical media — let alone the concept of vinyl records. Nonetheless, it seemed like a potentially cool gift for someone who doesn't want to go trolling through flea markets or online auction sites for an original.

Alas, today's model is not the analog marvel of the old one. The original had you cranking up the record to play notes on a music box that was crammed into the "tone arm."

The new version requires batteries. The new records don't have the nubs to activate the notes, they have smooth rings around the whole disc. (Target's own product shots actually show both the "old" and "new" style records, confusingly enough. The Christmas toy catalog stuffed in my Sunday paper, however, clearly shows the new style.) A helpful Amazon commenter named iSkyscraper explains why the records look different:

Evidently someone realized that it was far less expensive to use a 25 cent memory chip and a speaker instead of all those mechanical parts (sturdy though they were), so the new player works as follows:

The record head has four pressable buttons which line up with four ridge positions on the discs. Each disc no longer has "bumps" for notes, but instead simply has a combination of four continuous ridges. The memory chip identifies which disc is being played by the ridges depressing the buttons. The wind-up still turns the disc manually, but all it does is tell the speaker to play while turning. ... You don't really need the disc at alls - just wind it up (so the chip knows the music is "on"), and press the buttons under the head with your fingers to activate different songs.

The phrase "you don't really need the disc at all" is what really struck me. This new record player is merely an illusion.

The original Fisher Price Music Box was artificial, sure, but it at least was a sensible abstraction of a real LP. Its modern namesake isn't an abstraction at all. It's a push-button music toy with a slightly more complicated button scheme. It's a record player in which you don't really need the record at all.

A Pen to Fight the Moon?

If a Bic or Papermate is too low-brow for you, consider writing your angry letters to eBay monolithic corporations with a fountain pen made with alloys containing honest-to-goodness moon dust and melted-down fragments from an Apollo spacecraft.

The Romain Jerome MoonFighter comes with snazzy space fighter styling, thanks to its winged "docking station." As the somewhat stilted press release explains:

The curved, streamlined barrel of the MoonFighter is studded with 48 hand-fixed rivets and extends an irresistible invitation to savour the pleasure of writing. Conveying a blend of aesthetic perfection and historical inspiration, MoonFighter features a forward-jutting profile with toothed plates like the ventilation apertures on an aircraft fuselage. The pen is topped by a cap equipped with three small blades, engraved with the initials RJ and tipped with a titanium point endowing the MoonFighter with an airy feel and user-friendliness that make light of gravity.

It's unclear exactly how much moondust and Apollo metal is in each pen. Also, there's no price listed. I imagine it will be higher than the moon. (Rimshot!) Perhaps the fine folks at Romain Jerome can use the proceeds to hire a Photoshop expert to help them with the clipping of their product shots.

Pinheads: The Story of the Pacific Pinball Museum

"... one group of dedicated men and women have decided to right the ship and save Pinball from extinction. Their goal is to preserve Pinball for what it really is: a national treasure of pure American engineering, art, and design."

Visit 30 LBS Skunk Productions for more