Technology New and Old

Please take a memo...

2008-11-20T06:19:00.000-08:00

My brother noticed that this blog is lagging far behind. He is right. Actually, I have had an old reel to reel tape recorder here on my desk for months as a reminder that I need to update the blog. So I have a few minutes and I will go ahead and update.

The technology of dictation began shortly after the wire recorder was invented. We have talked about that ancient form of recording voice onto a spool of wire. And somewhere along the way Dictaphone developed a sleeve recorder that was very popular in the office. Maybe I can get my hands on one of those some day and demonstrate how it was used.

But today we will take a look at the progress that has been made in dictation. Here is a photo of the Olympus America DS-71 digital voice recorder. It retails for around $500. The device uses flash memory to store around 1000 hours - yes, hours, of recordings.

Now let's look at how far we have come from the 60s. Here is a General Electric Reel to Reel Portable deck. You will hear a local NC pastor dictating a promo piece for an upcoming campaign where Vance Havner is the evangelist. I found this recorder several years ago in a flea market. The tape was included.

Think how far we have come...

2008-02-11T16:23:00.000-08:00

Another great comparison of technology, old and new -- music.

Over the years, I have collected several mediums of music "storage."

We have the 78 RPM Victrola. In our home we listen to Christmas music every Christmas morning on the old Victrola. There were a few early formats that used diamond needles, stainless needles, flat bakelite disks and cylinders (the Edison).

We have several 45 RPM record players and collections of the vinyl disks to go along with them. Most folks have heard of the other vinyl format, 33 long play, Hi FIdelity, etc.

Then there are the magnetic formats, starting with early wire recording - sounds reproduced from a spool of wire, Reel to Reel magnetic tape, then the rare Two Track (the mini-predecessor to 8 Track). Then 8 track, and finally the cassette. Ther are many tape formats still in use, most are digitally encoded.

But from the basic analog formats grew a digital format called Compact Disk. CD's will soon be outdated and replaced by electronic formats.

There are so many electronic formats of music, that I wont even try to list them. But a few are worth mentioning as they laid the ground work for what we listen to today. One very popular format was the MID or MIDI format. The Musical Instrument Digital Interface. By connecting a keyboard or similiar device (synthesizer) to a computer, the music writer could produce life-like sounding music that could be reproduced and shared with the personal computer. Lot's of folks just played scores directly into the computer and then cleaned them up with software. I can remember many years ago listening to classical organ music by the hours that was produced in these formats. If you had the right sound card in your computer that was able to reproduce the pipe organ sounds, the music actually sounded pretty good. However, many folks did not have the right equipment to listen to the music so it sounded very amateurish and game-like. The beauty of MID files was that the files were made up of simply numbers. So the files were very small - on the order of a few Kb even for an extended organ piece. I was please to see that one of my all time favorite MIDI sites is still going strong: http://www.classicalarchives.com/

Let's jump ahead several years to the more current music players: These are usually lumped into one category called digital audio or MP3 players. However, many of the devices are using newer audio formats like AAC, WMA, MP4, and others.

My Ipod has a 60 GIG internal hard drive. It stores up to 15,000 songs. Right now I have just about all the music I like - around 1500 songs - the equivalent of 4 straight days of music. If I loaded it full of music I could listen for weeks and never hear a repeat. Actually that would be around 42 days orf continuous music with no repeats. Imagine that.

If there is a point to all of this, consider how FAR we have come in our lifetime in the wonderful world of music storage and playback.

PS. If you can think of another format that I have missed, please mention it here...

Analog TV

2008-01-26T14:20:00.000-08:00

"On February 17, 2009, federal law requires that all full-power television broadcast stations stop broadcasting in analog format and broadcast only in digital format."

In recent entries, I spoke of a couple of antique televisions in my little collection. Obviously, these two sets will soon no longer be able to receive over-the-air TV transmissions. Unless of course, they are connected to a converter box.

Today, I went online and applied for two coupons from the FCC to use towards the purchase of a converter box. The converters will not be avilable until next month, but I wanted to see just how this entire process actually works. So I will write about it here and keep you posted.

Do any of you remember the FCC debacle of adding stereo to the AM radio band?

Keeping Track of Time

2008-01-19T12:18:00.000-08:00

I got an email the other day from mom telling me that the 1980 GC 1195 Heathkit Electronic Clock had died. Dad and I built that clock from a kit. It was a great project, and has continued to run since we fired it up in 1980. We made a repair on it a few years ago, but Dad has babied it along all these years.
(Click on the advertisement for a larger image)
Hopefully I will get a chance to get it working again this summer.
In keeping with the Old and New idea, there is another clock my daughter and I just repaired. I cannot find anything about it on the internet yet, but maybe you can locate more information about it on the internet. This one is just a little toy model, but it keeps time, and runs for days on a full windup. Here is a short video of the clock running. It is a really clever design.

TV Today from the World of Tomorrow

2008-01-11T14:21:00.001-08:00

As promised, here is a close look at one of the most "out there" styles of its time, the Philco Predicta. This model is the "Barber Pole" or "Pedestal" version. Some called it the "Cyclops." After digging up a few facts on this TV I realized that this set was actually a later model of TV design. This model is a 1959 VHF only TV. Some of the electronics are 1st generation printed circuit, rather than wired with many feet of point to point wiring like the set in an earlier blog.
I bought this set in the VA mountains. Had always wanted one and stumbled across this one in the back of an antique and junk store. I paid $150 for it. When it was new in 1959 it sold for $495.00. Imagine that! How much is it worth today? If everything was working correctly, it could bring about $1200 on Ebay.

As you can see from the video, I was able to restore audio to the set, but am still working on getting a brighter picture - you cannot see in this video but there is a faint image. So I have some work to do in the brightness circuits. Check out this video!

Video technology progress

2008-01-11T05:10:00.000-08:00

Nothing demonstrates the progress we have made in technology more than video and TV. This unit was a third generation set. Just think how far we have come. From the old round vacuum tube (cathode ray tube - CRT) to LCD, plasma and beyond.

This is a 1948 Philco. Round picture tube. This generation of TV design started to square off the screen as you can see. Also, the screen is about 1 inch thick - it has a huge magnifying lens over the tube to enlarge the picture. Notice how many channels were available. I remember growing up in the 1960's with only two or three channels to watch (in black and white). Some fringe channels like WGN out of Chicago would come in on a perfect day. I still remember watching Felix the Cat on our old B&W set at home.

Notice the rolling screen. For you younger folks this was a common problem in the early days if TV. This set actually works pretty well and the screen is stable once it warms up (about 10 minutes). But you still have to fiddle with the the knobs once in a while to get a stable picture. It is the nature of vacuum tubes and aging components.

At the risk of sounding preachy, while we have made incredible progress in the technology of TV, we all know that we have gone the other way in the content. Would you agree?

In my next blog, I will show you a even earlier and rare TV set.

The collection

2008-01-10T17:25:00.001-08:00

I was in the attic today and noticed that I have about a dozen or so radios stacked up. Forgotten about them. Seems a shame. But just not enough space to display all of them. These in the photo are the ones that made it to the display in our home. All have been repaired and restored. Most of them are plugged in and tuned to my local AM transmitter. I can stream music from the computer room and they pick up this music. During the holidays we had some 30s and 40s Christmas music playing on all of them. It was a blast from the past.
For a few years around Christmas, I would search for a radio to restore during the holidays. Have not done that for a long time. No electronics shop at this time. To many other priorities, you know? A few years ago, I was given the contents of an old TV shop - everything in it. So the attic is filled with antique electronics - components and test equipment. One of these days, I will need to pull that stuff out and sell it all on ebay.

Happy birthday, Rex.

2008-01-03T14:57:00.000-08:00

In 1998 the Franklin Rolodex REX companion was created. It was a credit card sized LCD screen device that would hold 750 contacts and related information. It was actually a PC card that plugged directly into a PC card slot on a laptop ( or PC card slot on a desktop computer). The software that was included would allow you to sync the contact information with a database on your computer.

I used this device for a few weeks, but grew tired of its lack of input capability. In my line of work, I needed both access to a large list of contacts, and the ability to update and input new contact information on the fly. It was a cool idea, and would still work today if i would spring for the $4 worth of button cells that it needs to fire up.

Well it has been ten years. And I just stumbled on this in my desk. Lets you know how long it has been since my middle desk drawer has been cleaned out.

One of these days, I will write about all the other handheld/PDA devices I have had over the past decade. Lost count at 12...

Old book - "Technical Manual for Life and Ministry"

2008-01-01T15:00:00.000-08:00

It's such a strange feeling to sit at grampa's desk. Staring at his ordination certificate, thoughts begin to flow... what it was like in his day of life and ministry? I know that he cared a lot for people. He was known by the folks in his church as a man who cared. He never wrote any books, at least not that I know of...none that we can take down off a shelf and read. I feel so cheated that I cannot hold his thoughts in my hands like the pages of a book.

Of course it is true that he wrote his books one page at a time each day of his life. There were volumes of them. But these books were made not of paper and ink but sweat and tears. Cuts and bruises. Each page being written by every act of love. Every act of sacrifice. All those hours in the garden. That garden was his way of providing for his family, and helping folks in need. Back breaking hours. Wrestling with the Gravely cultivator. The grease and dirt involved in just getting the beast to start the first time each Spring. That deserves a chapter all its own.

I must have read that chapter many times over, as I can remember the lessons I learned as I lay under a car in the student parking lot. It was dead of winter in Scranton PA. 1979. A impoverished seminary couple - shivering in their cold bare apartment - peering through the fogged up window, waiting for a prognosis from their young mechanic friend. This freshman, melting snow dripping in his face - was lying there wondering how in the world he could fix this car and not add to the couple's financial burdens. His mind flashes back to his grandfather. His dirty arms grappling around the engine of an old car that belonged to some poor chap we found stranded along the road. If grampa can do it, then well, so can I. That chapter on determination helped me ignore the frost bitten fingertips and work some MacGyver-like miracle - that would hold until the couple could get home for spring break.

This is the same frost-bitten and dirty determination that I learned from my dad. And he did it for the same reasons as my grandfather. Out of love and respect for hurting people.

Some might think it is a book that is out of print. Or at least very hard to find. But it was written, mind you. If you have a family history - (or ministry legacy, rather) as I do, you have an entire library at your disposal.

Thanks grampa (and dad) for all the great volumes of life that you have written for me to read and hold in my heart!

new and old - part two

2007-12-31T18:03:00.000-08:00

Made it safely home. Here are couple of shots of the load of treasures. Once we get it unloaded we may post a couple more photos.

still old and new...

2007-12-31T04:03:00.000-08:00

Yes, it is strange that today's entry can share the same theme. Here we are 5 hours from home picking up antique furniture that belonged to my great grandparents. And it is "New Year's Eve." Get it? Okay, whatever. I knew it was a stretch.

My uncle contacted me recently as ask if I would be interested in my grandfathers old roll top desk along with a few other things that came over from England. We will rent a trailer and load it up this morning.

I will post some pictures of these treasures.

One more day in this old year...make it a good one!

The old and the new

2007-12-29T15:19:00.000-08:00

The photo seems so appropriate for this blog title for a couple of reasons. First of all you technicians will notice that the meter my son and I are playing with is an antique. I found some batteries for it and my son and I decided to see if it worked. We were using it to measure the voltage of a small battery. As a three year old, this was Jesse's first experience with a meter. And thankfully, he learned how to use one the old fashioned way (zeroing the needle and all), before he ever learned to use a digital meter. That's the old part of the story.

Jess is now almost 20 years old. He is an electronics/computer engineering honors student at a local college. He has always had a bent towards the technical side of things. Just like his dad.

But the "new" part of the story is that he has moved on to the latest and greatest in technology. We enjoy talking about the future of computers and electronics. We prophesy that electrons will not be capable of handling the speeds and miniaturization of the new systems, so everything will have to move to transfer of information within particles of light. You are probably already aware that miniaturization has reached the point that electrons are too large to move "through" the wires. Can't wrap my "old" mind around that concept.

I know there are much smarter folks out there reading this who know the ins and outs of this idea. But what excites me most is that my son and his generation will be on the development side of that breakthrough technology.

However you feel about the ongoing debate of Microsoft, Apple, and their floundering world of operating systems, you must admit that it was our generation that made this present level of technology a reality.

And looking at this picture, it kinda feels good to know that this old Dad had a part in it all. However so humble.

2007-12-28T13:58:00.001-08:00

Just found this...

I know it is a little strange! But I told you he really was our first child!

Kinda looks like a Heath/Zenith Advertisement, eh?

ko

Theo - again

2007-12-28T12:40:00.000-08:00

OK I promised some new friends I would begin writing about the Hero Jr Robot. This might get a little technical so - tune out and check back later if this bores you. Some of you old guys might find some humor in this, however.

Just a few facts to get us on the same page. The best source I have found for technical support and the latest in upgrades to your RTW-1 is Robert L. Doerr. His address is all over the place so I feel comfortable publishing it here: rdoerr@bizserve.com

Mr Doerr has developed a multicartridge for the Hero Jr. It includes all the cartridges that were ever produced for the robot - 12 in all. This may come as a surprise to some of you - especially if you are getting tired of hearing your robot sing daisy. Actually, I had several cartridges and traded them in for credit towards one of these multicarts. It is wonderful! He even provides all the documentation for each program. I don't know if he is still doing the trade in deal, but the one cartridge is worth every penny.

He also has a ROM upgrade that is addresses the Y2K calendar issue.

In a recent communication (December 2007) with Mr Doerr, he said that he is developing some new things for this robot "that will make it easy to add new things to Jr." So keep in touch - and we can rediscover this great old friend together.

I have had a lot of fun with HJPL, so please share with me your coding and stories about this great feature.

Also I have written many JrBasic programs - regrettably I did not save any of them. But if you are interested, we can chat about the various interfaces we have done on a computer and the robot working together. One that is worth a separate blog entry involves my "Theodore" keeping an eye on my pet cockatoo while we were at work. Long but funny story.

Connecting your robot to the PC is easy once you get the pieces together. Was even successful in programming him with a Palm via the serial port. Completely portable!!

Finally, I built a wooden head that had a motorized mouth and blinking eys. (Pictured above) The eyes blinked and mouth moved in sync with the robot's talking and singing. It fit nicely in the top of the robot. I got a lot of good laughs over that one. It was powered by the robot's batteries.

Remembering old friends

2007-12-28T11:38:00.001-08:00

"Theodore"

Build Date: circa 1984
Died: December 1991
Restarted: December 26, 2007

Seems a little dramatic, I know. Theo was our first child. Denise and I built him in the mid 80's. I remember when we brought him home in late January. It was a cold and snowy day. It is great to have Theo chattering away again. He is an old friend - who taught me a lot about electronics and programming.

We spent many long hours building and programming him. Even sent a few lines of code to Heath Zenith. They loved the code and paid me for it. But very soon after this, Heath Zenith dropped their kits production. A dead hobby I suppose. How did I get started in electronics? That is the topic of this blog entry - old friends.

John Ely was a dear friend. He was an old old man who taught me to love old and new technology. He had an electronics shop in his basement and a recording studio in his attic.

He would make reel to reel tapes of his private "radio show." John would record himself talking for hours on any subject with background music of his favorite collections. He loved to listen to organ music. His recordings had the feel of a late night monologue. His deep voice, mostly in depressed tones, would reflect on his late wife, and his progress on the many heatkits he bought. He talked about the full-sized electronic organ kit from Heathkit. Why did he buy and build this kit? He was not musical - although he loved music. I never heard him play it. Ever. MOstly he just wanted to pass the time.

John loved technology. So making these recordings - hundreds of hours of them- was his way to blog his life. Dozens of years before anyone knew what a computer or a blog was.

They say that when we look at our children they sometimes remind us of our past friends and family. Funny. When I look at Theodore, I remember John.

John has been gone for many years - 25 or more now, I guess. I sometimes wonder where all his stuff is today - all those hundreds of vacuum tubes, all those miles of recording tape. That Heathkit organ?

Actually, now that I think of it, I have some of John's Heathkit projects in my attic. An amplifier or two. An FM tuner. A couple of pieces of Heath test equipment.

Here's to you John. I am looking forward to seeing you again in Glory. We will pick up where we left off...

P.S. My mom just wrote to tell me a little more about this story. In his earlier years, John was an accomplished pianist. He was featured in a recital in a big hall in Chicago. So there you have it. The organ was an attempt to get reacquainted with his musical performance days.