Retro Thing

Forget The Cans & String - Get Stylish With These Toshiba Walkie-Talkies

I remember this distinctly... when I was a kid, I desperately wanted Walkie-Talkies. My neighbor somehow found out, and set me up doing chores around his place so I could earn some scratch and join the wireless communication revolution of the 70s (could a CB radio or shortwave be far behind?). It took forever, but I finally earned enough quarters to get a pair of cool Walkies. I could talk with my friends without having to go in and beg to use the phone! I remember the "serious gear" styling, and the many summer adventures I had, whether I was the Six Million Dollar Man (my value probably rung up around a buck sixty-eight), or Spider-Man. We were spacemen sometimes, but with these amazingly stylish Toshiba Walkies, I think we'd have been from space EVERY time.

Among the walkie-talkie cognoscenti, these are a desirable collectible. Made around 1965, these totally tubular transmitters (and receivers... I know, I know...) are all metal, and even have a battery meter to keep tabs on the wallet-draining six AA batts that power the beast. Initially I wondered whether these were intended for kids because they're so well built, but I'm pretty sure that the single channel nature confines these units to backyard adventuring. Though I suppose there could have been a more "advanced" model with more controls... that probably would have required even more batteries.

These rarely come up on Ebay, and when they do they command real bucks. A single unit (so you have to find a collector friend with another one) finished last month on Ebay for nearly $150. The accompanying video was part of the auction listing, and gives a great look at the details of this magnificent spaced-out communicator. Really nice voice on the narrator there... he's clearly into his walkie talkies. Though I suppose it would have been more authentic to deliver his lines over a scratchy walkie-talkie transmission, with a few inscrutable morse-code beeps added in for good measure.

The iPod Ammo Box

This might sound a bit odd, but when I was about 8 years old my school snack shack started selling old army surplus ammo boxes. These days, that would probably trigger an immediate lock-down. But back in the cold war I simply plunked down most of my meager allowance for a green metal box wrapped in torn brown paper. It was battered and worn, yet perfect for lugging around my most important childhood possessions.

Fast-forward three decades and Thomas Spaans has created the A-BOX, a a high quality portable iPod amplifier integrated into a fifties design M2A1 ammo box.

He says, "The iPod/mp3 player can be connected on the outside of the A-BOX as well as the inside so you can listen to your tunes while running around with the A-BOX for example or just protecting your iPod from bullets and stuff.

the A-BOX comes in 2 models: the light version with 2 x 25 watts rms amplifier and woven glass fiber speakers (carbon color) this model will cost 350 euros. and the heavy version sporting 2 x 70 watts amplifiers and woven kevlar speakers (the yellow material used in bullet proof vests) this version will be selling for 475 euros.

both versions have indication lights in the bass tube which will indicate the status of the battery with white, orange and red colors. the heavy version however has an extra feat, indication lights behind the speakers which will warn against distortion when driven too loud."

Thodio A-BOX Portable iPod Amplifier

Arm Your Lego Minifigs With More Realistic Weapons

For those of us who grew up on Lego, those little minifigs hold a special place in our hearts. When I was populating my stubby plastic towns, there were only a few varieties of the little guys, but since then there's been a plastic population explosion even including licensed properties like Star Wars and Spider Man. I do still buy the occasional Lego set, and have learned that there is a large community of adult collectors, and some have gone so far as to manufacture new Lego compatible parts.

Brickarms has been around for a couple of years, specializing in weapons modeled after the real thing. They are of course stylized to fit the scale of Lego minifigs, but they have an amazing array of realistic and fantasy weapons. They also offer limited edition collectible minifigs. These have beautifully printed label stock applied to look as much like regular production minifigs as possible, but are intended more for display than play. I've got my eye on suave secret agent 007 in his tuxedo and hidden gun in his briefcase.

Thanks to design and manufacture technology being more accessible to more people, at long last we have a third party producer of specialty Lego compatible accessories out there. The Lego company has always been savagely protective of their trademarks, especially after being threatened by compatible competitors (sometimes of questionable quality) in recent years. It's easy to see that Brickarts is top notch stuff, modeled by people who care about quality and care about Lego. So now your minifig armies can be armed to their plastic teeth while staving off the threat of any Tinkertoy or K'nex nemesis.

Brickarms website

related:
1970's Lego clone that never got it together
Nano Bricks - a mini lego clone that never made it big
The Brick Testament: the Bible told in Lego

Beretta Minx - The Gun That Tucks Into Your Purse

My father wasn't a violent man. Taciturn, unsympathetic, relentlessly Eastern European, but not violent. So it was strange to learn that he carried a gun. Not all the time, and not a big gun, but there were definitely times when my old man was packin' heat. The gun he carried was a tiny thing. I remember finding it among his things after he died, and was astonished at how miniature it was. The 4 inch gun was the beguilingly named Beretta Minx, and given the galling cutesiness of the ad copy above (you've got to take the time to  read it!) it seems like everyone knew what an odd little gun this was.

The mini gun featured sleek macho styling, yet it was about the size of the pearl-handled Derringer tucked into a lady's garter in a cowboy movie. While not especially interested in guns, my father felt it was important to know how to shoot and aim at a target. His rural Czech upbringing in the 20's would have made guns an everyday part of his life. Yet having such a tiny gun still seemed really odd to me.

My father worked in some tough neighborhoods, so he'd keep the little gun in his briefcase or pocket. I suppose that part is easy to imagine, though today a person might carry pepper spray or a taser.  But get this...when he'd travel by plane (mostly in the 60's and 70's), he'd have the little gun in his shirt pocket. Wow. The really crazy advertising copy above for the Beretta is being alarmingly playful about gun ownership, the need that these mini-guns fill is in actuality pretty grim. The small size is for what I've heard termed "concealed carry" for those times when you're desperate to use it for (I hope) self-defense.

A gun aficionado friend of mine pointed out that such a small firearm isn't very effective as the bullets are rather small, and the short barrel reduces accuracy in aiming. That said, you'd still get some bang for your buck at short range, and further afield the loud crack of the shot could be nearly as much of a deterrent as a strike by the bullet itself.

While guns remain a problematic issue, at least we're not tending to pack little ones on vacation with us. For most of us, a gun isn't part of our daily checklist of what to crowd into our pockets. I'd like to think that people have evolved a bit in their attitude toward guns, but whenever I've gone to a target firing range there is always some butthead firing guns sideways gangsta style. It would be difficult to look equally badass packing a pair of these little guns that look like novelty cigarette lighters.

I'll close with the thought that pistols are a reminder of my Czech heritage in a different way. The word "pistol" comes from the Czech word "píšťala" (a flute or pipe). This is yet another significant contribution to the world's lexicon by the Czechs. My forbears also brought the world the word "robot", as well as an endless stream of cakes and pastries. Let's hope that one day we will live in a world where the first of these contributions is only a historic curiosity, and instead we are all happily being fattened up by bakery droids.

addendum:
I can't believe that I've gone this long writing on Retro Thing without even once sharing a joke. Here's a favorite....

A priest is in a rough part of town with arms outstretched telling passersby that they should put their trust in God. A sudden gust of wind blows open the priest's robe, and his audience can see that he has a pistol tucked into his belt.

They ask, "If we're supposed to put our trust in God, what is that gun for?"

The priest answers, "That's to hold 'em off until God gets here..."

related:
Zero M Sonic Blaster - perforating eardrums the fun way for over 40 years
Flintlocks & bayonets
Remarkable Ray Guns

Your Very Own Vintage Rocket Launcher

I'm not really sure what I'd do with a personal rocket launcher (apart from getting arrested), but owning one was definitely a boyhood dream. That dream can now become reality for a mere $199.99.

In return for  your hard-earned cash, Centerfire Systems will send you a battered and dented Spanish rocket launcher manufactured in the 1960s or 1970s. It measures 70" and includes the original optical sight, eyecup, shield and bipod stand.

Sadly, it's been deactivated to BATF specs so you won't be able to enjoy the delights of drunken cow hunting.

Spanish Bazooka with Shield [via @mrbill]

Soviet Nuclear Submarine 8-Day Springwound Clock

In the early 90's, I remember chic mail order catalogs started offering ex-Soviet military gear as a way to dress up your home with the booty from a fallen political system. It had long been forbidden to export any sort of Soviet military hardware, but style-conscious collectors know no borders. There have many times in history where the hard won gear of war become the trite souvenirs of the victors, but it seems a bit on the nose to offer then recent militariana in glossy gift catalogs.

That aside, a favorite of these catalogs was the authentic Soviet nuclear submarine 8 day springwound clock. The clock looks and feels combat ready. That means it's heavy, stocky, and made to take whatever goulash you can dish out, comrade. Back then, the clock you received may have had some battle scars since many were actually taken off of submarines. Others might have come from a lonely stockpile, and so saw no battle action.

The supply of submarine clocks eventually ran out, thanks to healthy demand. A few years ago the clock's original manufacturer, Vostok, started making them again. Vostok made the clock available in a number of styles – flavors that didn't look quite so formidable and military (which leaves me questioning the point of the whole exercise) – and supplies of these too have run low. Some online stores are charging in excess of $200 for these timepieces.

Fortunately there is still Ebay, and these clocks seem readily available for around $60 – a great deal for an 8 day clock that keeps very good time. That's a good thing since these clocks had to operate within pretty demanding conditions. The winding key also unlatches the heavy frame holding the crystal, and there at the 6 o'clock mark is the hole for winding. Once you pop the cover back on, the clock runs very quietly – crucial if all of those tense “silent running” movie scenes have taught me anything.

I was fortunate enough to find my clock at a thrift store for a few dollars. If you don't have that sort of fortune, tovarishch, here is a link to that exponent of capitalism, Ebay.

Soviet submarine clocks on Ebay

related:
Eye candy: Soviet watches
The pocket watch goes to war

The World of Trench Warfare in Color

Spiegel Online has a fascinating collection of German and French color photos from the trenches of WWI:

"Although color photography has existed since at least 1879, it didn't become popular until many decades later. The overwhelming majority of photos taken during World War I were black and white, lending the conflict a stark aesthetic which dominates our visual memory of the war.

Hans Hildenbrand, one of nineteen photographers employed by the Kaiser to document the war, was the only German to take photos of the war in color. Hildenbrand, who first started experimenting with the "Autochrome" color technique in 1909, founded a society for color photography in 1911 his native Stuttgart.

His scenes are all posed, not for reasons of propaganda, but rather because the film he was working with wasn't sensitive enough to capture movement."

I didn't realize how much I was impacted by the B&W aesthetic of old war photos. Seeing these poor souls in color quite literally shines new light on their world.

The World of Trench Warfare in Color

Benchmade: Innovative Blades

When I was a kid in the late 1970s it was normal to carry a tiny Swiss Army knife in my pocket. I vividly remember sitting on the school playground, carving little sticks with my friends after school. Such deviant behavior would probably warrant a police investigation and a flurry of counseling sessions these days. Luckily, us 'big kids' still admire a well-made knife and haven't forgotten the fun we had.

The Benchmade Knife Company was founded in California in 1988 and now occupies a 35,000 sq. ft. facility in Clackamas, Oregon. They've become known for innovative and attractive blades, including custom branded Harley-Davidson and HK Knives.

The company stands apart, thanks to their state of the art manufacturing equipment and craftsmenship. They explain, "The Benchmade manufacturing arsenal contains ultra-modern laser cutters and machining centers dialed in for spot-on tolerances of 0.0005” on command. Our computerized machining centers offer the precision and control usually found only in the aerospace industry. Most of our products are hand assembled for a “go together” fit and finish typically seen only in a custom knife."

It's been a long time. I wonder if I still remember how to carve wood?

Benchmade Knife Company

University Student Builds Tiger Tank, Lands Co-Op Job

Engineering student Will Foster loved to build models as a kid. He's now working on an engineering degree at Kettering University in Flint, Michigan and his latest model is a 1/2 scale replica of a WWII German Tiger Mark I tank. It's powered by an old 3 cylinder diesel engine rescued from a generator manufacturer where he worked as a co-op student. The vehicle has a top speed of 20 mph and the gun is capable of shooting a variety of projectiles using compressed air from an old scuba tank.

The project came about after Foster saw paintball "tanks" based on golf carts at a paintball operation in Southern Michigan. He decided he could do better by crafting a real paintball armored vehicle for his next visit. So far, the project has cost around $10,000. It might seem like a lot, but listing the tank on his resume led to a co-op job at armored vehicle manufacturer Force Protection Inc. this summer.

It's even street legal. "All you need is a slow moving vehicle sign, apparently, and it's technically a tractor. If you put an orange triangle on there, you can drive it on the road," explains Foster with amusement.

Kettering University student builds fully operational half-size Panzer tank [via Slashdot]

43 Years Ago Today: The SR-71 Blackbird Takes Flight

The inaugural flight of the SR-71 took place on December 22, 1964, becoming the most impressive Christmas present ever to slip out of Lockheed's Skunk Works facility at Burbank airport. Amazingly, the SR-71 took to the air less than 17 years after Chuck Yeager first broke the sound barrier.

On paper, this titanium-skinned monster was capable of Mach 3.2, although pilot Brian Shul has since admitted that he once pushed a Blackbird to Mach 3.4 in his haste to leave Libyan airspace well in advance of looming surface-to-air missiles. He reported that the aircraft seemed to fly smoother than ever at those unbelievable speeds, cruising at well over 80,000 ft.

Propulsion came from a pair of Pratt & Whitney J58-P4 engines that produced a total of 65,000 lbf of static thrust and operated on afterburner at all times. The Sunkworks team had initially played with the idea of using liquid hydrogen for propulsion, but were unable to figure out how to cram the storage tanks into the airframe. They settled upon a much safer fuel known as Jet Propellant 7, which featured a high flash point of 60 C that reportedly couldn't be lit with a match (convenient, since the SR-71 leaked fuel like a sieve while on the ground ).

The SR-71's skin was subjected to extreme heat due to the friction generated by flying at Mach 3+ for extended periods of time. The designers settled on a Titanium-composite alloy that revolutionized high-speed design. The shadowy monster flew her first operation sortie in early 1968, and a total of 32 aircraft were built before the tooling was ordered destroyed. They remained in and out of operation with the USAF until the last three aircraft were formally retired from military use in 1998, although several SR-71s were flown by NASA until the final flight of the SR-71 on October 9, 1999.

Almost a decade later the Blackbird remains the stuff of legends. No other aircraft embodies the essence of raw speed and technological might to such an impressive degree. Unfortunately, modern advances in digital satellite imaging have probably ensured that the United States Air Force will never again be able to unleash such an impressive and untouchable reconnaissance vehicle.

related
The Lockheed Martin Skunk Works and Kelly Johnson's rules
The SR-71 Flight Manual

Titan Missile Complex Available On Ebay

There's a documentary called Home Movie that features people who reside in unconventional domiciles.  One of the featured families live in an old missile silo.  Seems nice... lots of solitude, consistent year-round temperature, safe location, and all the bramble and tumbleweeds anyone could ask for.  Oh, and if you're a guitarist you'd have the most bitchin' echo chamber evarrrr.

It's a 57 acre complex including three missile silos for sale on Ebay for a cool one and a half million.  Even though I could definitely use the space, I'm looking for a missile silo closer to home, so I'm letting all of our readers know.  Maybe a couple of you could pitch in and create a retro complex outfitted with a full arcade (you'll want lots of Battlezone & Missile Command cabinets), perhaps a merry-go-round, discotec, and heliport.

It would be stunning just to take a tour of the facility, to see what it looks like when so many tax dollars end up getting built into the ground.  The imagination just reels with what one could do with all that space.  My problem is that after a couple trips to the thrift store, I'm afraid that the complex would end up being just as full as my apartment is now.

Home Movie documentary featuring the weirdest houses you've ever seen.

Wooden War Engine Kits

There aren't enough trebuchets and catapults in suburbia. Just imagine the fun you could have at a Friday night BBQ with a decent trebuchet. After all, nothing says, "I despise the half dozen rusting cars in your driveway" quite like a flaming rotten sheep arcing over the back fence. Or so I'm told.

To get your feet wet, try building one of these wooden war engine kits from ThinkGeek. The $19.99 catapult has a 10-foot range and measures 12"L X 5.5"W X 5"H. It's made from precut and pre-drilled basswood with spruce/pine/fir main beams. The $34.99 trebuchet has twice the range and measures 18.5"L X 11"W X 13"H, making it slightly harder to hide in your cubicle. You'll need some pliers, wood glue and manual dexterity to complete your mechanical marauding masterpiece.

Wooden War Engine Kits [ThinkGeek]

AK-47 assault rifle celebrates 60th birthday, eligible for senior's discount...

The notorious Soviet AK-47 assault rifle very nearly didn't happen. It was the brainchild of self-taught designer Mikhail Kalashnikov. He was a promising young apprentice railway engineer when called up for military service in 1938. While in the Red Army, he created several useful mechanical devices including a shell counter for tank cannons.

His counting device led to a fateful encounter with the German Army that almost killed him.

On eBay: German WWII Enigma Cypher Machine

There's a museum quality Enigma cypher machine on eBay with a "buy it now" price of $100,000.

The German military used the infamous Enigma cypher machine to encode some of their communication during WWII. The machine triggered a game of cat and mouse, as a team of British code breakers and Polish mathematicians at Bletchley Park rushed to crack the code. They kept their breakthrough an absolute secret for decades, perhaps because the USSR used similar technology during the early part of the cold war.

If $100K is a tad over your Visa limit, check out the modern Enigma-E electronic version, available from the Bletchley Park shop for £119.99 + postage.

eBay: Legendary German WWII Enigma Cypher Machine

Lockheed-Martin Skunk Works

In my career I can't say that I've worked on anything as crucial as a military jet or anything else typical of the Lockheed-Martin Corporation, but I have been on teams sometimes referred to as a "skunk works".  I knew that this meant we were working on a project that was secret from the rest of the company (mostly to keep our work from the prying eyes of the marketing guys looking for something new to sell), but I never knew the true origin of the term.

The nickname "skunk works" came from the Li'l Abner comic strip, referring to a secret still churning out moonshine whose chief ingredients were ground up boots and dead skunks.  The staff at Lockheed-Martin must have felt kinship with the bootleggers of this roadkill-based homebrew, and adopted the name for their unconventional secret projects within the firm.

Back in the 40's Lockheed-Martin had a design group that were autonomous within the company.  They had control over their own budgets, staff, procedure, and were able to jet through the bureaucracy that plagues any large organization.  Through this radical approach, this secret group within Lockheed-Martin was able to deliver essential technology faster than ever.  They continue to operate to this day.

We've all had to deal with the rules and regs of a large organization.  My experience has usually been that these often random edicts throw more roadblocks before the creative process than the actual challenge of the project itself.  It's an enlightened company that shakes things up by creating a radical splinter group within the enterprise charged with actually getting work done.

Over time, Lockheed-Martin's Skunk Works established some great rules for how to run a project, and many of them are still useful today.  See if you agree by reading the rules after the jump.