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General Vintage Technology Discussions For general discussions about vintage radio and other vintage electronics etc.

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Old 1st Apr 2015, 6:06 pm   #141
HamishBoxer
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Default Re: Obsolete Technologies that baffle the modern generation.

Yes I have one of those in an outbuilding that was here when I arrived and looks in good order too.
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Old 1st Apr 2015, 6:56 pm   #142
Radio Wrangler
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Default Re: Obsolete Technologies that baffle the modern generation.

Putting a paper tape reading routine in using only address and data switch banks! every time you booted a machine up.

Starting a diesel generator with a hand crank and decompressor.... one of these ran the Dunfermline Radio Society club premises for almost 20 years... then tickling the field to bring the genny up.

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Old 1st Apr 2015, 7:54 pm   #143
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Default Re: Obsolete Technologies that baffle the modern generation.

Threading up an open reel video recorder, or reel to reel tape recorder.
I am still amazed how few visitors have seen an 8 track cartridge, or a laserdisc machine.

Mark
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Old 1st Apr 2015, 7:55 pm   #144
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Default Re: Obsolete Technologies that baffle the modern generation.

Quote:
Originally Posted by HamishBoxer View Post
Think Bill means a paraffin blow lamp for plumbing and paint stripping jobs
Yes I did, fire risk and lead fumes all in one. Happy days!
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Old 1st Apr 2015, 8:36 pm   #145
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Default Re: Obsolete Technologies that baffle the modern generation.

Knowing how to coax a Mamod model steam engine into life. Pour pre-heated water into the tiny hole at the top of the boiler using an equally tiny funnel, fill the burner with meths, light with a match and avoiding the near invisible flames, push it into the firebox then wait and wait...and wait, until the whole boiler starts to spit and pop with the heat. Push the regulator valve forward then spin the flywheel while trying to avoid splashes of hot water. Excellent fun when I was about eight or nine years old. My parents bought it for me and never seemed concerned at all about the "danger". Nowadays...Where's the USB port on this? What's the point of going to all that trouble when you can watch a video of someone else doing it on the web?
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Old 1st Apr 2015, 9:12 pm   #146
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Default Re: Obsolete Technologies that baffle the modern generation.

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Originally Posted by mark pirate View Post
Threading up an open reel video recorder, or reel to reel tape recorder
Over 30 years ago, I landed a job on the strength of being able to thread a 16mm projector. I was always amazed at the mess some people managed to make after struggling to thread a reel to reel recorder. These skills were never universal, but then we never thought of them as skills!
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Old 1st Apr 2015, 9:44 pm   #147
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Default Re: Obsolete Technologies that baffle the modern generation.

Radio Wrangler's comment about punched tape reminded me about a job I had for a short while back in the mid 70s. Repairing computer boards and sub assemblies for Sperry Univac.

Special diagnostic programs were loaded into the computer to allow the different board types to be tested. Each program was contained on a foot thick block of 80 column punched cards that were loaded into a hopper. Drop a program and it could take a couple of hours to 're-compile' it again.

Al
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Old 1st Apr 2015, 10:51 pm   #148
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Default Re: Obsolete Technologies that baffle the modern generation.

I understand that the process of correcting the sequence of a deck of dropped punched cards was often known as a "floor sort"

John
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Old 2nd Apr 2015, 2:54 am   #149
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These skills were never universal, but then we never thought of them as skills!
Twas ever thus. Jump forward a decade or two and picture whatever we become looking at a USB connector and scratching her (or his) head and saying "I vaguely remember the cloud, but what on earth does this lump do?"
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Old 2nd Apr 2015, 9:32 am   #150
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Browsing the back in time for dinner thread reminded me of the Hipolito (Primus type) stove I was using in the '80s- obsolete even then but great fun. A 7lb biscuit tin was essential starting equipment when it was windy.
I still have one of those - in the biscuit tin but haven't been seen lately cooking breakfast in a laybay, this would have been in the '50s, last time I used it must have been in the '60s. I also had the paraffin blow lamp cracked many a window with that, keep thinking I should polish it. Can you still get the 'prickers' for unblocking the jet?

Peter
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Old 2nd Apr 2015, 10:38 am   #151
G8HQP Dave
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Default Re: Obsolete Technologies that baffle the modern generation.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Radio Wrangler
Putting a paper tape reading routine in using only address and data switch banks! every time you booted a machine up.
There was a time, many years ago, when I knew how to use the switches to tell a PDP-11/40 to boot from RK05 disc.

Quote:
Originally Posted by dseymo1
These skills were never universal, but then we never thought of them as skills!
What we called common sense (and just 'getting the job done') are now called 'transferable skills'.

Nowadays you can get NVQ Level 2 in 'being polite to your boss' (Interpersonal Relationships), 'making tea for your colleagues' (Hygiene), 'holding the right end of a blowtorch' (Introduction to Plumbing), 'turning up on time' (Time Management) and 'being nice to customers' (Coping with Stress in the Workplace).
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Old 2nd Apr 2015, 11:26 am   #152
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Default Re: Obsolete Technologies that baffle the modern generation.

Yes the delights of the primus stove. The fun of trying to clear the jet with the pricker without breaking the fine wire off the pricker. And if you hadn't got the vaporiser hot enough with the meths before pumping you could get a three foot high flame. Best to light the thing outside your tent.

And then there were the petrol blowlamps used by GPO jointers and others which were self pressurizing so didn't need pumping. I seem to remember that they were primed with a small amount of petrol rather than meths and were also less prone to blocked jets. The same principle is still used in some Coleman camping stoves and lanterns so some of the more adventurous of the modern generation can presumably cope with this technology.

Edward
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Old 2nd Apr 2015, 11:33 am   #153
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Default Re: Obsolete Technologies that baffle the modern generation.

Fountain pens.
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Old 2nd Apr 2015, 11:34 am   #154
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Default Re: Obsolete Technologies that baffle the modern generation.

I make my own prickers from a strand pulled from a wire brush.

My petrol blowlamp pokes itself every time the valve is closed. This fooled me as I thought at first that the internal pricker was the remains of one that had snapped off in the jet. That was technology that baffled the middle-aged.

- Joe
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Old 2nd Apr 2015, 12:26 pm   #155
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Spelling, punctuation and maths without electronic intervention.
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Old 2nd Apr 2015, 12:40 pm   #156
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Default Re: Obsolete Technologies that baffle the modern generation.

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Originally Posted by Biggles View Post
Knowing how to coax a Mamod model steam engine into life.
Some forty years ago, and similar age, my Mamod traction engine was enthusiastically chuffing around the yard with the never-forgotten aroma of oily steam and meths. One of my friends said, "Where do the batteries go?"! One of those cases where someone had so epically missed the point that it wasn't even worth formulating a response... So, even then, steam was forgotten and baffling technology to some. I still have it, and in surprisingly good cosmetic nick considering, but the unknowns of internal boiler corrosion dissuades me from raising steam nowadays.
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Old 2nd Apr 2015, 1:22 pm   #157
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Default Re: Obsolete Technologies that baffle the modern generation.

They still come without batteries!

http://www.mamod.co.uk/shop-categori...raction-engine
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Old 2nd Apr 2015, 3:45 pm   #158
Alan Stepney
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Default Re: Obsolete Technologies that baffle the modern generation.

I have read every post in this fascinating thread, and just wonder why I have and still use, so many of the items mentioned.

That includes petrol blowlamps, Primus stoves, and, of course, some Mamod engines as well as some of the tools mentioned.

When you show them to the younger generation, there is a percentage who ask questions and want to know more.
The same with a crystal set. Get them to make one and the looks of joy when they actually hear a station from something they have made themselves...
Well, these are the ones who will follow us in the next generation.
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Old 2nd Apr 2015, 3:51 pm   #159
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Default Re: Obsolete Technologies that baffle the modern generation.

You have them and use them because they still work and because the do what they do well.

They are satisfying items to have and to use.

Some new items are still made in this category, but they are rare. They ought to be celebrated. They are now very special

David
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Old 2nd Apr 2015, 4:22 pm   #160
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Anyone mentioned Telex yet ? And looking at last post -Magnetos
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