Beauty of old electrical and measuring things, etc.

[DrClaude]

*speechless*

 

[OmCheeto]

*speechless*

After two hours of googling, I would recommend reading this persons comment from below the video, before doing the same:

Jayyy Zeee

I have a degree in computer science and electrical engineering, have been working professionally in the field for over 20 years, and I have no clue how that coil stores bits.​

also speechless

 

[Averagesupernova]

I would assume it 'stores bits' the same way a shift register who's output feeds its input. There are roulette games based on this. A shift register is loaded with a single bit set to one out of however many wide the register is. For the sake of discussion let's say 24 bits wide. There is an oscillator that runs to shift this single bit around and around. The oscillator is set so it's frequency decays off and it simply stops. Where this single bit that is loaded with a one stops may or may not be where the player guessed it would be.
=
It is the same with this coil except it is mechanical. There is no need for a clock oscillator to keep the 'bits' moving as this is just a natural property of the coil. I will say it is hard to believe they could get that to work, but it is plausible. I wonder how long was needed to store what they needed to store? How many times around?
-
This may be nitpicking, but can this thing truly be called 100% electronic considering the coil is technically mechanical? At any rate, someone must have had a bad dream to think that thing up. LOL

 

[OmCheeto]

...
This may be nitpicking, but can this thing truly be called 100% electronic considering the coil is technically mechanical?
...

hmmm...
per wiki; "As of February 2016, 97% of all articles in Wikipedia eventually lead to the article Philosophy."

 

[Nidum]

After two hours of googling, I would recommend reading this persons comment from below the video, before doing the same:

Jayyy Zeee
I have a degree in computer science and electrical engineering, have been working professionally in the field for over 20 years, and I have no clue how that coil stores bits.

Google ' acoustic delay line memory ' .

There is a mercury column version as well

 

[OmCheeto]

Google ' acoustic delay line memory ' .

There is a mercury column version as well

Ummm... As I said, I googled for two hours.
My brain almost exploded...

http://www.oldcalculatormuseum.com/friden130.html
http://www.vintagecalculators.com/html/calculator_memory_technologies.html
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delay_line_memory
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magnetostriction​

Are you trying to kill me?

 

[Nidum]

My brain almost exploded...

Are you trying to kill me?

Only out of scientific curiosity . Did you record the maximum pressure reached ?

 

[OmCheeto]

Only out of scientific curiosity . Did you record the maximum pressure reached ?

No.
But it would have been irrelevant, IMHO, if I had.

ps. Let's get back onto the... oh, poop: Old... Things.

 

[OCR]

Did you record the maximum pressure reached ?

Gauge or absolute... ?

I ask...

Only out of scientific curiosity .

 

[Baluncore]

There is nothing new about acoustic delay line memories. Don't forget that the integral clock and data pulse timing must be continuously received, restored and retransmitted.

One advantage of delay line memory is that the ALU need only be a one bit serial processor. Another is that CORDIC can be applied to compute the arithmetic +, −, ×, ÷ and √ using shift registers and two serial adders alone. Later, with the addition of diode array lookup tables, all the transcendental functions could be implemented.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CORDIC

RPN and CORDIC went on to be used in the HP calculator range.
CORDIC was implemented in all the intel 80x87 FPU coprocessors.

 

[dlgoff]

*speechless*

Me too.
What I liked most about the video was at time 7:26 when Cliff said, "Why do I work on this? It's partly out of respect of those who came before me." Reminds me of this quote from a PF member: " ... Restoring some fine machine is honoring somebody's hard work." @Jim Hardy

... I googled for two hours.
My brain almost exploded...

http://www.oldcalculatormuseum.com/friden130.html
http://www.vintagecalculators.com/html/calculator_memory_technologies.html
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delay_line_memory
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magnetostriction​

Your effort is appreciated.

One advantage of delay line memory is that the ALU need only be a one bit serial processor. Another is that CORDIC can be applied to compute the arithmetic +, −, ×, ÷ and √ using shift registers and two serial adders alone. Later, with the addition of diode array lookup tables, all the transcendental functions could be implemented.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CORDIC

RPN and CORDIC went on to be used in the HP calculator range.
CORDIC was implemented in all the intel 80x87 FPU coprocessors.

From piano wire to silicon processors. Who would have thought ...? Thanks.

 

[Steven Robinson]

Best thread on the entire Internet... I am fascinated by the development of electro magnetic technology through time, and love old electrical and computer equipment. Once, I was puttering around in northern Vermont near the Canadian border, and a couple had a garage sale out. It was her late father's stuff, a former electrical engineer. It was half a dozen shelves crammed with meters, gauges, scopes, TRS-80s, Lisa's, Apple IIs, Commodore 128s, amplifiers, tools, etc.

I had to leave quick, I could feel my wallet squirming to get out of my pocket... Viewing this thread is much safer.

 

[darkwood]

Here is a very old relay from a Grinder built around about WWII, using the once popular technique of mercury switching, note the wires are insulated with insulating porcelain beads.

 

[darkwood]

An old abandoned lift control room.

 

[dlgoff]

An old abandoned lift control room.

Nice. Can you say where it's located?

 

[dlgoff]

... note the wires are insulated with insulating porcelain beads.

And note the spare lamp. Good stuff.

 

[darkwood]

@dlgoff
Yes its in what used to be an old textile mill in West Yorkshire UK which it would have been operating a lift between 2 floors only.

Edit ...
Yes! I forgot to say ignore the spare lamp, there are actually 2 mercury bulbs one behind the other, the beads were used because of the flexing the conductor would go through and the insulation materials of the day wouldn't have held up to the repeated movement.

 

[dlgoff]

I've had this air pressure regulator of a while and don't know a lot about it. It looks like it dates back to the 1920's. Check out the Bakelite knobs.

from https://lib.bgsu.edu/finding_aids/items/show/149

By 1926 the company name changed to The DeVilbiss Company as their product lines continued to expand to include air compressors.

 

[dlgoff]

Sometimes a little new can help the old. Like this vacuum angle valve I've added to my vacuum system. I have two Edwards E2M8 rotary pumps and with the valve, I can use the second Edwards to get a quicker pump down so I can turn on the diffusion pump sooner.

Here are the Edwards pumps:

Here are two views of the angle valve:

Adds a little beauty doesn't it?

 

[DrClaude]

 

[dlgoff]

How do people come up with some of these techniques? e.g. the motor control mechanisms.

Love it.

 

[DrClaude]

How do people come up with some of these techniques?

I think that's what makes some of these devices so beautiful: the ingenuity that went into solving some problems.

Like the calculator memory in my post #251.

 

[dlgoff]

I think that's what makes some of these devices so beautiful: the ingenuity that went into solving some problems.

Oh yea. I agree. And that is so amazing.

 

[dlgoff]

I'll be posting some pictures later of an old Universal Radio I'm in the process of restoring but now I'm working late depositing copper onto glass and took a few pictures.
Up on post 269 I added a New part to the vacuum system. Since my house electrical circuit that powers the pumps (three of them) can't handle the surge on power up, I had to add a couple more New parts; time delay relays.

The vacuum deposition system:

The time delay relays:

Copper being deposited on glass slide slip covers:

 

[Greg Bernhardt]

I copied over a bunch of these wonderful images to our pinterest account
https://www.pinterest.com/physicsforums/vintage-devices/

 

[Fred Wright]

I consider first hand information like this to be like peer review information. I'm going to change it to the 5U4. Thank you. :)

Here's a future beauty I'll be working on but it's what's on top that's very special to me.

View attachment 175212
View attachment 175213
View attachment 175214

It was a gift from a good friend and I used it to look up the base diagrams for the tubes in order to verify they were indeed interchangeable. ;)

When I was 13 y.o. a neighbor gave me a copy of that book. I devoured it. I built a one tube (6J6 I believe) 10 watt 40m cw transmitter from its pages. It started a fire in my belly to learn electronics and mathematics not to mention the indescribable thrill of transmitting "cq cq cq de wb6pnm" and getting a response from a station over 1000 miles away with equipment I had built with my own hands. I wanted to know how my antenna radiated radio waves and I wanted to know how the ionosphere worked. I had thousands of questions. My father (a physicist) said; "You will only get the answers if you go to university and learn experimental physics". So I did. Sadly, young people today do not have this experience.
Thank you so much for posting these photographs. I was flooded with happy memories.

Peace
Fred

 

[dlgoff]

Sadly, young people today do not have this experience.
Thank you so much for posting these photographs. I was flooded with happy memories.

I'm so happy that you see the value of this thread and that it has brought you happiness too. Thank You.

 

[ZapperZ]

I have several rather old microscopes, two of them shown in the photo:

And then I got this multimeter from a friend who was having a garage sale and was selling it for $1. He wanted to just give it to me when I told him that I wanted it, but I forced him to take the $1. :)

The wooden case by itself is fascinating. And yes, it still works.

Zz.

 

[dlgoff]

I copied over a bunch of these wonderful images to our pinterest account
https://www.pinterest.com/physicsforums/vintage-devices/

I'm honored Greg. Thank You.

 

[dlgoff]

The wooden case by itself is fascinating.

Indeed. That and the manual. Thanks for sharing @ZapperZ.

 

[dlgoff]

I'm just now getting around to restoring this Universal Radio.

I doubt that it's power plug would get a Underwriters Laboratories endorsement.

What I really find interesting is it's name plate; ... ONLY FOR RADIO AMATEUR, EXPERIMENTAL AND BROADCAST RECEPTION.

 

[jerromyjon]

Hence the name, knob and tube wiring. I haven't acquired any tubes however.

You mean these things in my "ceiling"? They are still where they were installed although I have no clue how many decades since they were used. It was a bar in the 1930's.

 

[jim hardy]

I'm just now getting around to restoring this Universal Radio.

What tubes does it use ?

 

[dlgoff]

You mean these things in my "ceiling"? They are still where they were installed although I have no clue how many decades since they were used. It was a bar in the 1930's.
View attachment 223505 View attachment 223506

According to the Wikipedia page Knob-and-tube wiring, they were

in common use in North America from about 1880 to the 1930s.

Since that post I've acquired a couple of those "tubes".

 

[dlgoff]

What tubes does it use ?

Except for one (a 6F6 GT which may have been a replacement tube?), they're all metal tubes.

Edit: @jim hardy, oops. There's another glass tube. The magic eye vacuum tube (6U5, 6G5).

 

[jim hardy]

Ahhh Octals ? :Local junkshop had a bushel of #30's. I'll see what else is there next week. old jim.

 

[dlgoff]

Ahhh Octals ? :Local junkshop had a bushel of #30's. I'll see what else is there next week. old jim.

Thanks Jim. I'll post a list of these tubes here. The last time (many years now) I powered it up, it received just fine.

Ahhh Octals ?

The 6U5,6G5 has 6 pins.

 

[jedishrfu]

Great collection!

No slide rule or adding machine to top it off?

No TKD breakage either! Kids are kids.

 

[dlgoff]

No slide rule or adding machine to top it off?

Well, way back when I posted this:
https://www.physicsforums.com/threads/my-old-computer-collection.727751/#post-4774103

 

[jedishrfu]

Nice collection. I have a couple of decitrig loglog bamboo slide rules and a pocket circular Concise slide rule with an embedded periodic table and other scientific constants insert. I also have an addiator, a handheld mechanical adder/subtractor that fascinated me as a kid.

 

[dlgoff]

Nice collection. I have a couple of decitrig loglog bamboo slide rules and a pocket circular Concise slide rule with an embedded periodic table and other scientific constants insert. I also have an addiator, a handheld mechanical adder/subtractor that fascinated me as a kid.

Photos?

 

[dlgoff]

What tubes does it use ?

I'll see what else is there next week.

Here's a list. Any or all would be welcomed. Thanks Jim.

Metal Shelled Tubes
6F6 - was probably a metal shelled tube originally.
6A8
6F5
6G6
6K7
5Z4

 

[OldWorldBlues]

That's awesome! You're probably a lot older than me, but I love that old aesthetic too :)

 

[dlgoff]

I finally got around to cleaning up the antenna for the Narco Superhomer VHT-3 navigation receiver. Here's how it looked initially:

Here it is with new paint:

I mounted it on a box so it could be mounted in place of the one I built. And like the old one, it has the Physics Forums logo that hopefully @Greg Bernhardt will like.

I mounted the antenna and just finished testing it with the Superhomer receiver. All functions tested okay. It's dark out now so I'll add a mounted picture later.

 

[jedishrfu]

How does it work navigation wise? Were there fixed transmitting stations and triangulation methods to determine your location? Or was that done by receiver magic?

 

[Janus]

I could send you one of these.

View attachment 170323

I used to have a camera like the one on the left. It had been my parent's. I even used it when I was first into photography back in the late '70s. The negatives were large enough that you could produce a good print just using the contact method, and without needing a enlarger. I do still have my folk's Bell & Howell movie camera from the late '50s, still in working condition.

 

[dlgoff]

I used to have a camera like the one on the left. It had been my parent's.

It was my parent's camera as well. I have a lot of the pictures they took with it.

 

[dlgoff]

How does it work navigation wise? Were there fixed transmitting stations and triangulation methods to determine your location? Or was that done by receiver magic?

Navigation is done by the VHF omni directional radio range (VOR) technique. From the Wikipedia page:

A VOR ground station sends out an omnidirectional master signal, and a highly directional second signal is propagated by a phased antenna array and rotates clockwise in space 30 times a second. This signal is timed so that its phase (compared to the master) varies as the secondary signal rotates, and this phase difference is the same as the angular direction of the 'spinning' signal, (so that when the signal is being sent 90 degrees clockwise from north, the signal is 90 degrees out of phase with the master). By comparing the phase of the secondary signal with the master, the angle (bearing) to the aircraft from the station can be determined. ...

 

[dlgoff]

... I'll add a mounted picture later.

It looks good up in the air.

 

[Janus]

How does it work navigation wise? Were there fixed transmitting stations and triangulation methods to determine your location? Or was that done by receiver magic?

The basic system has been explained. For the pilot, It is used this way: you tune your VOR receiver to the station you are using to navigate by. Then you adjust your VOR to the heading you want with respect to the station. A indicator will tell you whether you are flying to or away from the station (it also informs you if you are within range for the signal). A needle will deflect either right or left, which tells you what direction you need to fly to get on the wanted heading with respect to the station. You then just "Fly the needle"(Keep the needle centered ) to fly to or from the VOR station.