BS: Technological Dead-ends

Subject: RE: BS: Technological Dead-ends
From: john f weldon
Date: 01 Nov 07 - 07:44 PM

I have to add here my favourite "bad idea" of recent memory. Edward Land was a genius, and justly made millions from his Polaroid cameras. But he pushed the idea too far, and was producing a polaroid movie camera. You could take home movies (no sound), and they would develop and be playable in mere minutes.   After running them through a chemical bath. And they were only a few minutes long. And cost a lot.   It came out around the time of the first video cameras.

Subject: RE: BS: Technological Dead-ends
From: Bert
Date: 01 Nov 07 - 08:59 PM

The slide rule, although it is much faster than a calculator for many applications.

Subject: RE: BS: Technological Dead-ends
From: bobad
Date: 01 Nov 07 - 09:18 PM

The bustle.

Subject: RE: BS: Technological Dead-ends
From: john f weldon
Date: 01 Nov 07 - 09:38 PM

Ah the bustle. Let's hope the boob-job also meets a speedy end!

Subject: RE: BS: Technological Dead-ends
From: JohnInKansas
Date: 01 Nov 07 - 09:54 PM

Re Jim Dixon's "analog watches;"

It is literally impossible to buy a CHEAP digital watch at the mass market outlets today, unless one wants a three-pound glob of "bling" that supposedly implies to your friends that it must be seen at 30 fathoms in dim light during your regular workday.

(I've also noted that nearly everything available has a "wrist band" that I'd have to wear on my ankle - or maybe around my knee - if I expected it to stay in one place, but that's another issue.)

Fortunately or unfortunately, the "analog display" watches that are available are not analog watches. They use the same digital chips as one with a digital display, but have an analog display. While there may be a few "mechanical" ones out there somewhere, all that I've seen require the same battery and use the same "electronics" as the digital ones. Only the "face" has been changed.

John

Subject: RE: BS: Technological Dead-ends
From: john f weldon
Date: 01 Nov 07 - 10:24 PM

Impossible to buy a cheap digital watch? I got one at the drug-store for 2 bucks that works fine. Has a cute cartoon character on the front.

There are lots of clock-work analog watches for sale but they cost big bucks. Minimum thousands of dollars.

Subject: RE: BS: Technological Dead-ends
From: Jim Dixon
Date: 01 Nov 07 - 11:56 PM

How does $8.45 strike you as a decent price for a watch?
Click here.
No cute cartoon characters, though.

Subject: RE: BS: Technological Dead-ends
From: Lonesome EJ
Date: 01 Nov 07 - 11:57 PM

Well, I like the esthetics of a traditional dial-faced watch myself, and I don't need an array of digital functions to make my life even more interesting.

How about the beeper? Went out the same door the cell phone came in.

Subject: RE: BS: Technological Dead-ends
From: Greg B
Date: 02 Nov 07 - 12:01 AM

Ah, yes. The "Aero-car"

A bad airplane.

A worse car.

At least it wasn't the other way 'round.

Subject: RE: BS: Technological Dead-ends
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 02 Nov 07 - 03:44 AM

I remember canvas water bags. hard to find, but still the most practical thing in the Aussie Outback.

Subject: RE: BS: Technological Dead-ends
From: JohnInKansas
Date: 02 Nov 07 - 04:35 AM

Mostly in my area we used a gallon glass "cider jug" with burlap wrapped and stitched on. You could wet down the burlap and it would cool the water, but if you were gonna be out all day you'd take two jugs. Wet down the first one for the morning, and use the last cup or so from it to wet down the second one for the afternoon. That way you didn't waste water keeping all the water cool all day.

'Course they are a little bit lumpy to pack around if you're walkin' or ridin' the mule, but on the tractor, in the pick'emup truck or on the combine there's plenty of room for one.

I think I still have at least one somewhere around the house, but I did find that it wasn't too good for coolin' the beer, so haven't used it in a while.

John

Subject: RE: BS: Technological Dead-ends
From: GUEST,Dáithí
Date: 02 Nov 07 - 05:26 AM

"Clockwork was a miracle in its day. It's dead now, and should be buried"

Well, for watches perhaps so..but the clockwork radio and torch has been a massive hit in Africa and developing world countries.

A friend of mine has one too..very useful, and you get a good power-to-wind ratio!!
D

Subject: RE: BS: Technological Dead-ends
From: john f weldon
Date: 02 Nov 07 - 07:47 AM

If by clockwork, you mean a simple wind-up spring, I agree. If you mean an elaborate device that requires dozens of tiny spinning wheels on diamond hubs, thus costing thousands, when more accurate digital time-keeping chips are available for pennies, the clockwork is simply a waste of human time and money.
Like the sedan chair.

Subject: RE: BS: Technological Dead-ends
From: GUEST,strad
Date: 02 Nov 07 - 08:49 AM

I use a watch with an analogue face 'cos that way I can tell the time without putting on my specs to read it. A digital display big enough for me to read is just too big for my wrist, so there!

Clockwork oranges are good too!

Subject: RE: BS: Technological Dead-ends
From: Rapparee
Date: 02 Nov 07 - 09:33 AM

You can also use an analog watch face as a compass.

And don't for a minute think a compass is an example! GPS is alright as far as it goes, but when you run out of batteries it's just extra weight.

Consider, too, the long slow "death" of the book. Consider the implications of reading an e-book which soaking in a nice hot tub...and dropping it. Consider being out camping, e-book in hand, and running out of toilet paper...or needing tinder to light a fire. (I am, of course, being facetious here. But books -- words printed on paper -- will be around long, long after you and I are dust.)

Subject: RE: BS: Technological Dead-ends
From: Donuel
Date: 02 Nov 07 - 09:56 AM

laser fusion power generators.

Subject: RE: BS: Technological Dead-ends
From: john f weldon
Date: 02 Nov 07 - 12:26 PM

Books are still good, and will be for for a long time. If taken care of the last longer than some of the modern media. Burned CD - 10 years ave. Burned DVD - 5 yrs average.
Dead Sea Scrolls? 2000+ years?

Analog watches with digital innards, fine.
Old timex wind-ups (are any still working?) for the terminally future-challenged.
Rolexes for the obscenely rich & stupid.
Fake Rolexes for the gullible.
You know what you can use for a compass? A compass! They're still cheap!

Subject: RE: BS: Technological Dead-ends
From: Rapparee
Date: 02 Nov 07 - 12:32 PM

Yup. I have several compasses: map, lensatic, pin-on. And I know how to use 'em, with and without a map, too. (I can also find direction by various other, non-compass, methods. Always handy to know, because compasses can be broken.)

Subject: RE: BS: Technological Dead-ends
From: john f weldon
Date: 02 Nov 07 - 01:10 PM

I hope the human brain will be around for a while. It's nice to keep in mind some idea of the phase of the moon, position of the stars, a few general tricks that can keep you "located". Shadows! Triangulation! Some of that Boy Scout stuff still comes in handy!

Subject: RE: BS: Technological Dead-ends
From: Rapparee
Date: 02 Nov 07 - 01:48 PM

Know how to estimate the width of a river if you only know the length of your pace (and you can't walk on water)?

Subject: RE: BS: Technological Dead-ends
From: john f weldon
Date: 02 Nov 07 - 03:45 PM

Reminds me of the old test question; how do you tell the height of a building using a barometer?

Answer: Drop the barometer from the top and count off seconds till you hear the crash...

Uh... ...If I see a tree on the other side and walk along side till the tree seems about a 45 degree angle?

Subject: RE: BS: Technological Dead-ends
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 02 Nov 07 - 04:00 PM

I recall with pleasure that Timex advert whwere they used to tie the Timex watch to a horse's hoof, and send it over the jumps, and then they directed a hose pipe on it to wash off the mud, andsure enough the the Timex was still there tied to that very same horse's hoof.

Subject: RE: BS: Technological Dead-ends
From: Hollowfox
Date: 02 Nov 07 - 04:44 PM

Repaire m'friend, I know folks who build these. Also ballistas. Luckily, they all keep their day jobs to support such hobbies.


Slings
Trebuchets
Orangers (Isn't that onagers?)

Subject: RE: BS: Technological Dead-ends
From: john f weldon
Date: 02 Nov 07 - 05:05 PM

In my youth... ...in the very town I still live in... ...the breadman and the milkman came by horse and cart! That was old technology! Alas, the streets were filled with horseshit, and the big laugh was if the horse pooped right under your bedroom window at 5 am. A sweet smell in the country, but that close, it could wake the dead!

(no one calls me ramblin john)

Subject: RE: BS: Technological Dead-ends
From: Uncle_DaveO
Date: 02 Nov 07 - 05:32 PM

The first computer I ever worked with (and I was 3 years out of college at the time) ran on vacuum tubes and was programmed with a roll of one-inch-wide paper tape with holes punched into it. The first thing we did each morning was to bang it underneath with a baseball bat to shake the condensation loose.

This is technically referred to as "percussive maintenance".

Dave Oesterreich

Subject: RE: BS: Technological Dead-ends
From: Rapparee
Date: 02 Nov 07 - 05:33 PM

Stand on the bank of the stream and pull down the brim of your hat (or use your hand as an eyeshade) until it "touchs" the other shore. Now carefully turn and note where the "shoreline" would be on your side of the stream. Mark it in your mind (or have a friend physically do so) and pace off from where you are standing to the "shoreline" mark. It's pretty accurate, within reason of course.

Yes, I meant onagers. Also ballistae. All sorts of things. (An oranger was a medieval weapon that flung rotten oranges at the enemy.)

Subject: RE: BS: Technological Dead-ends
From: Rowan
Date: 03 Nov 07 - 01:08 AM

Bert, before they demolished our computer lab, its wall had a slide rule mounted on the wall behind a 'break glass' panel under a sign that said "In case of power failure, break glass." But, you're right; the little $5 solar powered calculators have generally put slide rules out of business, along with tables of logarithms, sines, cosines and tangents.

And Foolestroup is right; as a caller I had to explain "clockwise" and its antonym to younger audiences. Having been given a digital-display watch I was able to compare the distances at which I could correctly discern time when viewing both it and an analogue display; the analogue won by a factor of at least three. I seem to recall a story about how an employee in a Swiss watch factory invented the digital watch and couldn't interest his employers; "It will never catch on!" is the translation of their apparent response. So he sold the idea to Casio, I'm told.

And, as for expensive Swiss watches being regarded as "certified chronometers", what a load of garbage! I was given one of those once and took it to Mawson where I was able to compare it with a caesium standard (we had the Pageos program with us for the winter) for 8 months or so; it's variability from week to week was appallingly huge.

Steam cars and Tesla turbines seem to have been dead ends though.

Cheers, Rowan

Subject: RE: BS: Technological Dead-ends
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 03 Nov 07 - 01:21 AM

"how do you tell the height of a building using a barometer?"

The best answer I have seen is:

Find the building watchman/repair man. Give him the barometer if he will tell you the height of the building.

Subject: RE: BS: Technological Dead-ends
From: JohnInKansas
Date: 03 Nov 07 - 01:37 AM

One of the first "digital drive" watches used a tuning fork for its frequency reference. My recollection is that most of them had an analog face, but the timing was done by an oscillator PLL locked onto the fork.

Accuracy was excellent, and they were fairly nominal in cost when compared to "clockwork" timekeepers with "similarly superior" accuracy. The airplane guys where I was working at the time immediatel rushed to provide one for each of their test pilots. They soon found, however, that when struck - or struck against something - in one particular axis/orientation, the fork bent extremely easily and the watches stopped, or at least stopped being as accurate as the average sundial.

The particular direction required to destroy the timepiece was peculiarly coincident with the angle at which a pilot's wrist quite frequently bumped into center console throttle/pitch/mixture knobs, and they lost at least a half dozen of these fine timepieces within a couple of months of handing the first ones out.

They had a sort of funny name, like "Accutron" or something similar. The watches were marketed for some time, and were reasonably durable for most "civilians" one supposes; but they were not used much by our pilots after the first couple of rounds of mass replacements.

They're probably valuable "collectors' items" now, although I'm sure someone here will tell me they're still using one that they bought on ebay last month.

John

Subject: RE: BS: Technological Dead-ends
From: DMcG
Date: 03 Nov 07 - 03:24 AM

Polaroid film.

Referring back to JohnInKansas' post: I heard a lecture while at University from an IBM guru talking about the limits of minaturisation in computers and how we could not get computers much smaller than they were in the sixties because you couldn't make the rings from core memory much smaller ...

Subject: RE: BS: Technological Dead-ends
From: JohnInKansas
Date: 03 Nov 07 - 05:15 AM

Yup. I have several compasses ...

Beam compasses, bow compasses, pen compasses, and some really sexy "french curves" ...

But for "projects" I'll often just grab a bean can and run a pencil around the bottom of it - sometimes with a selected one of my graded set of washers to "stand off" to a more convenient radius.

I do seem to have misplaced my "spline ducks" though.

John

Subject: RE: BS: Technological Dead-ends
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 03 Nov 07 - 09:40 AM

Qvack!

there's a Swedish one for you John....

Subject: RE: BS: Technological Dead-ends
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 03 Nov 07 - 09:37 PM

On the other hand technology can sometimes turn up surprises - for example the rickshaws you now run into in London streets(sometimes literally).

Subject: RE: BS: Technological Dead-ends
From: GUEST,leeneia
Date: 04 Nov 07 - 12:51 AM

McGrath listed the electric can-opener and the carving knife. I bought an electric can opener when my wrists were hurting from turning over bolts of fabric on the job. (It hurt to open a can.)

I use an electric knife to cut up ham when we cook free lunch for 200 at a local church. Again, it's easier on the hands.

A lot of dead ends are minor:

lipstick that you put on and lick to spread it
shampoo that had one green portion and one blue until you shook it
pop beads
hula hoops

Bye for now. I'm off for a week starting tomorrow.

Subject: RE: BS: Technological Dead-ends
From: JohnInKansas
Date: 04 Nov 07 - 06:22 AM

Although they're not the popular Xmas/wedding gift they were for a while, electric knives are still very much around. One of the most prominent places where they turn up for sale is in the sporting goods stores or sports departments at gen merch places.

The ones there are mostly battery powered. There's the "electric fillet knife" so that you can use them out there in the boat to get that fish cleaned and on ice and don't have to hurry back to the dock. A larger version is for field dressing your "big game" right on the tailgate of your pickup truck (or to cut it up into pieces small enough that you can lift them to put them in the truck - I suppose(?)).

Now the samples of "electric scissors" (for home/hobby use) that I've seen are an idea that hasn't died yet - but probably should ...

John

Subject: RE: BS: Technological Dead-ends
From: john f weldon
Date: 04 Nov 07 - 06:56 AM

The old version of alka-seltzer came in two packages of powder. You stirred one pack into each of two glasses and then pour one glass into the other to make it fizz. It really went off like a bomb. My grandpa used to think it funny to get someone to drink one glass, then the other.

Subject: RE: BS: Technological Dead-ends
From: Dave'sWife
Date: 04 Nov 07 - 07:34 AM

DIVX

Laser Discs - I loved those. My husband and I have a HUGE collection, mostly gifts from Joh Woo when he worked with him. We sold off some of the Criterion ones in 2000 during the Actors/Writers Strike when he was briefly laid off but we're reluctant to get rid of most of them. We keep our Disc player up and running because DVDs really cannot compare in terms of clarity and qaulity of picture. I wish we hadnt sold our copy of The Innocents. I had a question about that song the little girl sings and would have liked to go back and go thru it slowly.


DVDs - BluRay or other such tech will soon replace it as a format.

Phenylpropanolamine
The former active ingredient in Alka Seltzer Cold forumla and Appetite suppressents such as Dexatrim. A study suggested it might cause strokes if consumed in large amounts by bulemic teenagers or some such and so it was removed from the market despite being a very effective cold medicine. It's still available in Europe.

Subject: RE: BS: Technological Dead-ends
From: Bert
Date: 04 Nov 07 - 02:05 PM

An electric carving knife is great for cutting batts of fibreglass insulation.

Subject: RE: BS: Technological Dead-ends
From: Rowan
Date: 04 Nov 07 - 04:28 PM

JiK's collection of compasses sounds a bit like mine, and "Accutron" was the name of the tuning fork watch John described. The "chronometer" I castigated had a purely mechanical movement and predated the Accutrons.

Pageant (the a cappella group I sang with in Oz) had a member who gave us our reference pitch on her descant recorder but Rumbylowe (from Brisbane) had Martin Gallagher's watch. Martin had an Accutron and it was amusing to watch Rumbylowe get their reference pitch on stage. The Accutron gave a barely audible sound which was a few cents above D and certainly good enough to use; Martin would put his wrist up to his ear, hum the note and they'd all be into it. Great stuff!

Cheers, Rowan

Subject: RE: BS: Technological Dead-ends
From: Rapparee
Date: 04 Nov 07 - 07:00 PM

Actually, hula hoops are quite alive and are being used for exercise classes and other things.

I wear a Seiko watch which is a chronograph -- it has an "elapsed time"   ring, a stopwatch accurate to one-one hundredth of a second, an alarm function, and a second clock face. It also supplies the date, but not the day or month or year, so I only know that today is the 4 of sometime.

I also have a half-dozen slide rules; I'm collecting varies items to make a wall box like the one described and I already have a GENUINE IBM card!

(I also have a copy of the CRC Handbook on my desk at work for quick reference. "Stand back! I've got a table of cosines here and I know how to use it!")

Subject: RE: BS: Technological Dead-ends
From: JohnInKansas
Date: 04 Nov 07 - 09:20 PM

Rapaire -

You probably mean the CRC Standard Mathematical Tables when you refer to the CRC Handbook. I have a copy and actually have used it fairly recently. I also have two different editions of Burrington's (very similar to the CRC Math Tables, for those not familiar) which contains a few "integral equivalents" not found in the CRC Math Tables.

The CRC Math tables, however, are only one section - extracted and published separately - from the Rubber Manual, of which I also have one complete copy.

For the uninitiated, the "Rubber Manual" is the Handbook of Chemistry and Physics, so-called because it's compiled by the "Chemical Rubber Corporation" (CRC). My 41st edition (1959) is a 3,472 page collection of still (marginally?) useful data, but it goes back to ca. 1914 in origins, and so far as I know is still occasionally updated and published. Mine is missing the physical constants on a few dozen elements discovered since publication, but most of the ones missing are too expensive to be used for home projects, so I don't find their absence too much of a limitation.

John

Subject: RE: BS: Technological Dead-ends
From: Rapparee
Date: 04 Nov 07 - 09:38 PM

Actually, I have both the Math Tables and the Statistical Tables handbooks. And they are no more than 3 years old, although the data contained might be (pi, for instance, only gets longer and after the first seventy-five or so decimal places it becomes a bit unwieldy).

They're still available and can be purchased.

I also own a book on how to use a slide rule. Again, for most projects two decimal places is enough.

Subject: RE: BS: Technological Dead-ends
From: Rowan
Date: 04 Nov 07 - 10:11 PM

John, you and Rapaire have gazumped me! I can't rake up my Kaye & Laby (four-figure) or Castle (5-figure) maths tables; all I can muster is a Merck Index, 12th Ed., which has no maths tables in it at all. I feel somewhat ... inadequate in such company.

But my Seiko (Sports 100, at 1" across it's the smallest waterprrof watch I could find in 1980) is in my hip pocket, sans strap, and quite accurate enough for my current purposes. It has a digital panel that is supposed to do everything except make coffee but the analogue display suits me fine.

Cheers, Rowan

Subject: RE: BS: Technological Dead-ends
From: JohnInKansas
Date: 05 Nov 07 - 02:23 AM

Rowan -

Citing a reference only two generations old hardly counts as a reminiscence!!! The Merck Index is well known, and I've consulted library copies a couple of times; but I've never had one since I figured out it wouldn't help my first wife's cooking.

I do have a half-dozen different editions of the Merck Diagnostic manuals, including the "reprint" of the first one - that came bundled with the "Centenial Edition" (17th), but these aren't really "dead end" things since they're all continuing series.

Among ones falling into obscurity, Rapaire may also remember "Jahnke and Emde" and/or "James and James" - both of which I also remember using a lot but haven't the foggiest idea of the "real titles."

*****Oops: retraction. I found my Funktionentafeln Mit Formeln Und Kurven, Eugene Jahnke and Fritz Emde, Stuttgart 1933, 2d ed 1938, Dover Reprint of 1938 edition 1959. - - - - A really handy little book - then.

Which gets to the obsolescence issue:

Remember when one had to understand the equations in order to solve them, instead of just letting the computers make guesses for you?

It's the understanding that's obsolete and in ill repute, I guess.

It once was said that "When you understand the question, the answer will be obvious." Now it's not necessary since digital approximations are accepted (almost) universally as "answers" without the need to even remember what the questions were. Douglas Adams was right!

John

Subject: RE: BS: Technological Dead-ends
From: skipy
Date: 05 Nov 07 - 05:19 AM

Peltier–Seebeck and Thomson effects
Skipy

Subject: RE: BS: Technological Dead-ends
From: PMB
Date: 05 Nov 07 - 06:05 AM

Peltier-Seebeck is still in use- processor coolers in computers, and the cute little fan that sat on the stove of the narrowboat and blew the air about when it got warm, until someone banged into a lock and it fell off and broke.

But bubble memory, the steam tables (and log and trig tables for that matter), GTO thyristors, Strowger switches, Karnaugh maps, rub- on PCB transfers (2x and 4x size), A4 XY plotters, *FX graphics commands, the column mounted manual gearstick, Trafficators, starting handles, bus and milk tokens, Sparklets powered corkscrews, artificial cream makers, hand meat mincers, Redex, Bri-nylon, Liberty bodices, Jumping Jacks, tub washing machines with roller wringers, gas pokers....

Subject: RE: BS: Technological Dead-ends
From: DMcG
Date: 05 Nov 07 - 08:57 AM

I still have a copy of a book with six figure log tables. Anyone got a book of logs with seven or more?

Last night I was reading a book called "Mathmatician's Delight" by W.W. Sawyer, published in 1943, which has about eight chapters on things he saw as fundamental for understanding practical mathematics - trigonometry, differential calculus and so on. One of the chapters was on logarithms.

I must stress this is not the sort of book I usually pick to while away an evening...

Subject: RE: BS: Technological Dead-ends
From: Rapparee
Date: 05 Nov 07 - 09:21 AM

I wish I could remember how to extract square and cube roots WITHOUT a book or calculator or computer. I was taught to do this in grade school, but have forgotten.

Subject: RE: BS: Technological Dead-ends
From: JohnInKansas
Date: 05 Nov 07 - 10:46 AM

Square roots are pretty simple, but notation to illustrate would be tedious here. I always had to re-derive the method for cube roots every time I needed it, since I never used it enough to remember.

For square roots, it's basically using

(a+b)² = a²+2ab+b²

and using "pairs of digits" and just "thinking backwards."

And do we remember when your "hi fi" system garnered sneers and disrespectful comments if you didn't have at least 10 pounds of output transformers per watt? And 30W per channel was a monster.

John

Subject: RE: BS: Technological Dead-ends
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 05 Nov 07 - 01:40 PM

If you ever need logarithm tables they are available on line - for example.

Lots of the stuff mentioned here are of course still available and used by some people, as and when they do the job best, it's just that the fashion for them which made them market leaders has moved on. Rather the same as happened to concertinas and banjos at the end of the 19th century.