MetaFilter posts tagged with analog

"The cryptanalyst has two cards in her hand, so there's nothing to do"

doctornemo — Fri, 08 Feb 2013 05:58:45 -0800

A card game to teach computer security. [d0x3d!] is the creation of some Naval Postgraduate School computer scientists, designed to help players learn digital security concepts. Playtested with middle school students.

The Typewriter at the Gates of Dawn

Wordshore — Tue, 20 Nov 2012 00:25:16 -0800

The BBC reports that the last typewriter to be built in the UK (according to its manufacturers) has been donated to London's Science Museum. "Brother said it had stopped making typewriters because demand had fallen to 30 a day, with most of those being sold in the US." From less than five years ago, another BBC news story: "The Japanese multinational Brother sold 12,000 electronic typewriters last year in the UK..." The first typewriter was patented (but not commercially manufactured) in 1714. Though many other mechanical typing devices were invented thereafter, the Sholes and Glidden typewriter (developed between 1866 and 1874) was the first commercially successful model, and the one which gave us the world 'typewriter'. Though in decline, the typewriter industry is not - contrary to recent reports - completely over. As recently as last year, one manufacturer was producing machines for the US prison system. New Brother typewriters are still for sale on Amazon. And Mom and Pop and independent stores, from Oregon to Massachusetts, are still around. The Flickr Writing Machines group contains many pictures of typewriters.

analog beauty in a digital world

Isadorady — Wed, 07 Nov 2012 23:55:02 -0800

This video on the beauty and fascination of analog media is from the PBS Arts tmblr OffBook

"An obscure world of celluloid intrigue"

bubukaba — Wed, 09 May 2012 13:02:53 -0800

"At a time when most old films were still protected by copyright and studios were urging the FBI to prosecute individuals owning copyrighted films, movie collecting was a largely underground and somewhat dangerous activity." In 1977, for example, a 20 year old film collector was visited by the FBI. The agents, posing as fellow collectors, entered his home and seized his collection. His case wasn't unique. Even the stars — most famously, Roddy McDowall — were subject to the legal wrath of the very studios they worked for. Still, some collectors got away with it (including one J. D. Salinger). Though the FBI raids still haunt the collective memory of the hobby, the world has become much safer for film collectors, perhaps because the industry realized — as early as the late '70s — that "as tape and other systems of recording proliferate, film companies will gradually lose control over their product". Today, celebrity collectors like Quentin Tarantino and Martin Scorsese are known publicly as such (and non-celebrity collectors with colorful personalities get profiled by The Guardian). Collector-oriented festivals like Cinecon, Cinevent, Cinesation, and Cinefest are thriving. Film archivists — notably, Harvard Film Archive, home of the Doc Burr Collection — are interested in them. And some young collectors [previously] have styled themselves as archivists, complete with home preservation projects [previously]. And of course, they're all over the internet, showing off their collections on YouTube, posting pictures of their sweet set-ups, writing how-to websites, and buying and selling on Ebay and assorted private forums.

Listening to the past, recorded on tin foil and glass, for the first time in over a century

filthy light thief — Fri, 10 Feb 2012 14:35:03 -0800

Towards the end of the 1800s, there were three primary American groups competing to invent technology to record and play back audio. Alexander Graham Bell worked with with Charles Sumner Tainter and Chichester Bell in at their Volta Laboratory in Georgetown, Washington, D.C., while Thomas A. Edison worked from his Menlo Park facilities, and Emile Berliner worked in his independent laboratory in his home. To secure the rights to their inventions, the three groups sent samples of their work to the Smithsonian. These recordings became part of the permanent collections, now consisting of 400 of the earliest audio recordings ever made. But knowledge of their contents was limited to old, short descriptions, as the rubber, beeswax, glass, tin foil and brass recording media are fragile, and playback devices might damage the recordings, if such working devices are even available. That is, until a collaborative project with the Library of Congress and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory came together to make 2D and 3D optical scanners, capable of visually recording the patterns marked on discs and cylinders, respectively. Six discs from Bell's Volta Laboratory have been scanned, and made available on Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory's page for the project, as well as posted on YouTube, and high quality images have been posted to Flickr (Flash-based slideshow). The National Museum of American History blog has a two-part post on the audio recovery: Trilled R's and the dawn of recorded sound in America, and Forgotten early sound recordings given a voice. IRENE (Image, Reconstruct, Erase Noise, Etc.), previously, in 2007 (Archive.org view of irene.lbl.gov), before work on these hundred-plus year old audio recordings were scanned. And Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory previously worked on audio recreation: the 1860 phonautogram, first thought to be a female voice, later determined to be the (male) inventor himself, and Edison's phonograph doll, the actual first recording of a woman's voice. All this work is different from the Digital Needle software written by Ofer Springer, a university student from Israel (previously, twice), which was more of a proof-of-concept project than an effort to archive broken or fragile media. One more prior post, this on Phonozoic, dedicated to the history of the phonograph and related media.

The sky is 'Purest Blue'

LastOfHisKind — Fri, 30 Dec 2011 15:42:23 -0800

Those of us who enjoy old-school chemical photography often need to calculate f-stop and exposure times. Of course you can use a ginormous table but there exists a solution from a more elegant age in which the sky can be purest blue above a very narrow old street. Marvel at Kaufmann's Posographe, a wonder of the analog age.

Size Doesn't Matter

netbros — Thu, 24 Nov 2011 16:15:36 -0800

Frank Kunert is happy his photographs have an “analog” look about them. After all, he did hand-make the models himself. Before the German photographer even snaps a single shot, he is in his studio, creating 3D model subjects — usually industrial grey constructs in still, almost poetic, settings — out of deco boards, plasticine, and paint. It could take weeks, even months, before Frank is fully satisfied. The result? Models that could could pass for the real thing, and photographs that portray complete worlds of their own.

buzz buzz buzz

w0mbat — Thu, 24 Nov 2011 00:11:47 -0800

In 1978 a tiny English company called Electronic Dream Plant produced their first product, the EDP Wasp synthesizer, the first of a short-lived range of creepy-crawly-named devices. In the golden age of big wooden and metal synths the wasp was made of plastic, battery-powered, with a built-in speaker, a keyboard with no moving parts, and used a brilliantly minimalist CMOS circuit design (in fact, people are still copying the Wasp filter circuit). It was the first analog synth to be truly affordable. The Wasp's accessibility, unique sound and portability saw it quickly used by musicians ranging from buskers to rock stars. The Wasp's main designer Chris Huggett later went on to design some of the most respected synths and samplers of the following decades like the OSCar and he helped make Akai's hit S range of samplers working with EMS synth legend David Cockerell. These days Mr Huggett designs Novation's terrific sounding synths. Not too many working Wasps survive, due to their flimsy construction, but EBay demand is very high for the few that live on. The sound is as popular as ever, you can still get them repaired, and because of the kind of cottage industry that gave birth to the Wasp in the first place, the magic box required to MIDI-control Wasps is still in production.

Dan McPharlin: Sci-Fi Surrealism (and Mini Analog Synth Models)

filthy light thief — Wed, 03 Nov 2010 13:20:20 -0800

Dan McPharlin is an Australian artist who creates fantastic landscapes that seem more likely to come from sci-fi novels from decades past than an artist who who gives away his music for donations (YT sample). McPharlin also made a series of miniature analog synthesizers that were featured on album art for Steve Jansen's album Slope (YT sample), as well as Moog Acid by Jean-Jacques Perrey & Luke Vibert (YT sample). Currently, McPharlin's website only has an 18 page portfolio in PDF form and an email address, but his Flickr collection is a sight to behold. Even his house looks like something from a 1970s photo shoot. McPharlin also made the cover art for an EP (sample) and an album (sample) for Scott Herren's Prefuse 73 moniker, art for the third album from alt/stoner/doom metal group The Sword (sample), and Dylan Ettinger's second LP. Interviews: * Wire to the Ear (2008), discussing the analog synth minis. * Sci-Fi-O-Rama (Oct. 25, 2010), with discussion of styles and influences, and information on other music where McPharlin's work is featured. * Australian Edge (archive), covering the artist's love of exploration tales, and his thoughts on Australian design scene versus the international design community.

"...we had no idea…"

zarq — Sun, 29 Aug 2010 18:27:07 -0800

The contraption was "created from a mishmash of lenses and computer parts and an old Super 8 movie camera." It was the size of a toaster, ran off "sixteen nickel cadmium batteries, a highly temperamental new type of CCD imaging area array, an a/d converter implementation stolen from a digital voltmeter" and took 23 seconds to record an image to cassette tape. But when Steve Sasson and his team of Kodak technicians presented the world's first digital camera to the public in 1975, they were asked: 'Why would anyone ever want to view his or her pictures on a TV?' Steve Sasson (wikipedia)

Antikythera 2.0

Burhanistan — Thu, 20 May 2010 08:25:13 -0800

Welcome to the Analog Computer Museum and History Center - a collection of pictures, diagrams, and historical snippets of pre-GUI devices of the 20th century.

Analog Fire Control

mikepaco — Wed, 19 May 2010 16:58:47 -0800

u.s navy vintage fire control computers : An intriguing look at the mechanical workings of the computers of World War 2.

Basic Mechanics in Fire Control Computers

drmanhattan — Sun, 14 Feb 2010 14:04:30 -0800

I've never really had a clear understanding of how mechanical computing worked, until today when I watched these US Navy training films from 1953. Part 1 focuses on shafts, gears, cams and differentials. Part 2 explains mechanical component solvers, integrators and multipliers. More information about ship gun fire-control systems here.

The Computer Graphics Revolution circa 1978

ZenithNadir — Sun, 20 Dec 2009 09:17:33 -0800

"We might not be aware of it, but we're all watching more computer generated television these days." [SLYT]

300 baud of awesome in a wooden box

loquacious — Mon, 01 Jun 2009 11:47:03 -0800

This is what 300 baud looks like online today.

Nightmares on Wax.

loquacious — Sat, 23 May 2009 19:35:06 -0800

RCA Victor's record manufacturing process in 1942: Part one - Part two.

Bleeps and bloops

Blazecock Pileon — Fri, 18 Jul 2008 09:26:38 -0800

Charles Cohen improvises on the very rare Buchla Music Easel synthesizer.

Analog textual clocks

cillit bang — Fri, 16 May 2008 06:22:09 -0800

An analog textual clock - An analog textual clock

Lovely, edible fractals.

signal — Sat, 12 Apr 2008 18:21:35 -0800

Sierpinski Cookies. Also: Fimo Fractals.

Skip to page 12 for some real fun. Philbrick must have owned stock in a battery factory.

metasonix — Sat, 11 Aug 2007 00:19:01 -0800

In 1937-38, computer pioneer George Philbrick worked for the Foxboro Co. as an analyst. He had the radical idea of building an electronic analog computer to simulate the behaviour of hydraulic industrial equipment, so Foxboro customers could experiment with control systems without needing a pipe wrench. One of the world's first analog computers was ignominiously ferried around the U.S. in the back seat of Philbrick's car. Ironically, Philbrick didn't give his "Automatic Process Analyzer" a properly techy, pretentious nickname. He dubbed his one-eyed monster Polyphemus. (PDF) (prev)

Don't bother looking at Wikipedia for an article about George Philbrick.

metasonix — Sat, 04 Aug 2007 01:57:38 -0800

It has always been difficult to look up any information on the pioneers of computing. Even today, in the Internet age, one has trouble finding much about early computers--even on the ultimate computer network.

Consider the late George A. Philbrick. He was one of the titanic figures in electronic computing in the 1950s--mainly because of the company he founded, which was a major manufacturer (and pioneer) of the operational amplifier, at a time when an "op-amp" was made of vacuum tubes. Op-amps were used to build analog computers, which were widely used to simulate physical processes in the days when digital computers were either non-existent, or too slow and costly, for many kinds of simulation and process-control work. Op-amps, in chip form, are still widely used in electronics. Yet, despite his unquestioned status as a major pioneer of electronics, there was almost nothing on the Internet about Philbrick or his company.

Until 2005--when Joe Sousa decided to put up a website dedicated to Philbrick's legacy. Behold The Philbrick Archive.

I've got moves you haven't even seen yet

Blazecock Pileon — Mon, 16 Jul 2007 01:29:51 -0800

What is the relationship between the optical groove in a record or wax cylinder and sound, and how can we use this to recover analog recordings from the past? Dr. Carl Haber explains IRENE (.pdf; begin at slide 44 for audio samples).

Twitter for the analog set

Alt F4 — Wed, 23 May 2007 13:01:13 -0800

Does Twitter move a little too fast for you? Maybe Dawdlr is more your speed. The lovechild of PostSecret and the web-app-everyone-loves-to-hate, postcards sent in are scanned and posted twice a year. Next update? November 21st.

Ben Laposky, the Father of Computer Art?

Chinese Jet Pilot — Tue, 23 Jan 2007 16:49:51 -0800

Pioneering electronic artist Ben Laposky began creating his “Oscillons” – abstract artworks created by photographing Lissajous figures off a cathode-ray oscilloscope – in the early 1950’s. Some consider him the father of computer art, and the beauty and clarity of his work is astonishing.

Scifi magazine covers, 1930-today

mediareport — Sat, 11 Nov 2006 23:23:30 -0800

A year-by-year archive, from 1930 to the present, of every poignant, creepy, tacky, tragic, goofy, beautiful and, yes, kinda slutty cover of the magazine that started out as Astounding Stories of Super Science and became Analog, with lots of changes in between. [via the horse's neck]