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mosc
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 Posted: Wed Jun 15, 2005 5:53 pm Post subject:
1954 Home Computer Of the Future! |
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Check this out. This makes even the trendy styling of todays Macs and PCs look pretty dreadful. I guess it proves that old saying: the future isn't what it used to be. 
Apparently, this was scanned from a 1954 issue of Popular Mechanics magazine. I really dig that dual steering wheel - chrome is still cool. 
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mosc
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mosc
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elektro80
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mosc
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| Posted: Wed Jun 15, 2005 6:04 pm Post subject:
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My dad has a 1953 Chrysler New Yorker...
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elektro80
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| Posted: Wed Jun 15, 2005 6:06 pm Post subject:
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I have that mag somewhere. I always loved this line:
| Quote: | | With teletype interface and the Fortran language, the computer will be easy to use. |
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elektro80
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| Posted: Wed Jun 15, 2005 6:13 pm Post subject:
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Did you ever fly with Braniff to Dallas?
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mosc
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| Posted: Wed Jun 15, 2005 6:27 pm Post subject:
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Blech. That's a Lockheed Elektra. Those were sucky planes. Ugly.
I took my first airplane ride in 1954 on a Lockheed Constellation from Jacksonville, Florida to New York City on Eastern Air Lines. That plane was one of the most beautiful planes ever made. Just seeing a picture gives my heart a throb even today. (I also still flip fo the P-38s, but I've never seen one fly in real life).
The sound of those four engines on the Connie will stay with me until I die. Absolutely beautiful. When I got my hands on a Moog Modular for the first time 13 years latter, the first thing I tried to synthesize was the sounds those engines made as heard from inside the plane.
Is that little boy Mosc?
 | My mom, brother and I took and EL-AL Connie to Tel Aviv from New York
--
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| Posted: Sun Jun 19, 2005 1:30 am Post subject:
Re: 1954 Home Computer Of the Future! |
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| mosc wrote: | Check this out. This makes even the trendy styling of todays Macs and PCs look pretty dreadful. I guess it proves that old saying: the future isn't what it used to be.
Apparently, this was scanned from a 1954 issue of Popular Mechanics magazine. I really dig that dual steering wheel - chrome is still cool.
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Something doesn't sit right with me with that picture. It looks photoshopped. |
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v-un-v
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| Posted: Sun Jun 19, 2005 2:06 am Post subject:
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| Looks alright to me. I think it's the large TV hanging off the wall which makes it look a bit off. The biggest laugh is that this is what personal computers were supposed to look like in 2004. Is the large steering wheel for playing games??!! And is that bloke on the left a robot?? |
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elektro80
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| Posted: Sun Jun 19, 2005 3:55 am Post subject:
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Who knows. THose magazines were full articles and pictures like that. I am pretty sure I have this issue with this pix innit. I can recall the picture text and all. I might be wrong. Nah.. this must be real.
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MzDe
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elektro80
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| Posted: Sun Jun 19, 2005 6:25 am Post subject:
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Cute!
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elektro80
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| Posted: Sun Jun 19, 2005 6:27 am Post subject:
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Hmm.. but now I really must find the box with old mags. there is this issue with visions of how your middleclass home will look like in 1980 and in 2000.
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elektro80
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| Posted: Sun Jun 19, 2005 6:28 am Post subject:
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And then we have all those flying cars!
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mosc
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| Posted: Sun Jun 19, 2005 9:56 am Post subject:
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Yikes, a fake! Too bad, but thanks much, MzDe, for setting us straight and for the neat pics of computers from that era.
Anyway, those pics of the Constellation Airliners are mostly real. 
At least this post got me off on some 1954 nostalgia.
Fake or not, it seems we are moving away from an era where our instrumentation is cool and exciting. I mean, from a control and function point of view, a modern laptop is a much more powerful device for music and computing than the RCA synthesizer, or even the Moog Modulars, and those early computers, but they aren't beautiful machines that accelerate your heart rate just by looking at a picture of them. What airplanes are as beautiful as a Lockheed Super G Constellation flying into the sunset? I mean, do you dream about flying in an Airbus?
What do we have today that compares to these beautiful machines? I'm thinking of the many beautiful synths that are hand made like Peter Blasser's stuff. http://www.ciat-lonbarde.net/kittennettik/picturecorner/index.html
Maybe these don't even compare. What else? Anything?
I mean, what is our present day's vision of the future?
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opg
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| Posted: Sun Jun 19, 2005 2:48 pm Post subject:
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That's the thing about style- it's gone. The Apple flat-screen LCD display I'm staring at seems to be one of a few pieces of technology that is pleasing to the eye. I've always liked these old computers:
The PT Cruiser was a disappointment. Today's bookshelf stereos look like George Jetson took a dump in your livingroom. And WHERE IS MY DAMN HOVERBOARD??? |
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Kassen
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| Posted: Sun Jun 19, 2005 4:35 pm Post subject:
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I´m realy into the old analogue computers myself, then ones you patch up with cables. I tried tricking one studio into buying one too hook up to a Serge (which would work; the Serge standard dates back to a time when synthesisers were thought of as lab equipment so it made sense to share plugs and standards with computers), tried to trick a software company into modeling the components as modules.
Everybody thinks I´m downright mad when I sugest such things.
Well, I maintain; analogue calculations sound much warmer then digital ones.
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mosc
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| Posted: Sun Jun 19, 2005 6:31 pm Post subject:
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That's an ADM 3A. I have one up in the attic.
In the late 70s I used it with a 300 baud modem. The modem was an accoustic coupled device. The telphone handset was pressed into the modem itself. That was my first exposure to Unix. Vi was my first word processor. Before the ADM 3A, I actually had a Teletype ASR33. With that I would use ed and then ex to edit text. Vi was great. For hacking code, I still use VIM.
This tread is turning into an episode of "This Is Your Life" for me. "This Is Your Life" was a popular program in the 50s. http://www.museum.tv/archives/etv/T/htmlT/thisisyour/thisisyour.htm
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opg
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| Posted: Sun Jun 19, 2005 7:08 pm Post subject:
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| Kassen wrote: | | Well, I maintain; analogue calculations sound much warmer then digital ones. |
Damn straight!
I still can't get over how refreshing it was to hear (and see on Saturday Night Live) the modular synth in Radiohead's "Idioteque" song. It makes me wonder what instruments will be like in 20 or 30 years....... |
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zynthetix
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| Posted: Sun Jun 19, 2005 7:25 pm Post subject:
Re: 1954 Home Computer Of the Future! |
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| 7 wrote: | | Something doesn't sit right with me with that picture. It looks photoshopped. |
I've been seeing variations of this picture on the net this weekend (especially on photoshoppers' boards)....there is something is about the monitor and keyboard. The lighting and some of the angles (vanishing points) on those parts don't sit with me either.
edit: just to nit-pick some more:
The way the paper is feeding out of the "printer" looks iffy, but more importantly, I do not see (or a mechanical way that) paper is feeding into the printer. |
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opg
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| Posted: Mon Jun 20, 2005 5:47 am Post subject:
Re: 1954 Home Computer Of the Future! |
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| zynthetix wrote: | | 7 wrote: | | Something doesn't sit right with me with that picture. It looks photoshopped. |
I've been seeing variations of this picture on the net this weekend (especially on photoshoppers' boards)....there is something is about the monitor and keyboard. The lighting and some of the angles (vanishing points) on those parts don't sit with me either.
edit: just to nit-pick some more:
The way the paper is feeding out of the "printer" looks iffy, but more importantly, I do not see (or a mechanical way that) paper is feeding into the printer. |
That's true! Actually, that printer looks pretty bad! It isn't angled with the table correctly, making the right side too flat.
The shadows are always the hardest part. That and texture is what bothers me the most about the latest 3-D computer-animated movies. I don't like this "in-between" phase. Either design it as a 2-D kid's cartoon or make it real.
Anyway, on a quick glance it might have fooled me, but there are too many details on the computer to give it just a quick glance. |
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mosc
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| Posted: Mon Jun 20, 2005 9:41 am Post subject:
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Well, that particular Zenith TV wasn't released until 1955, so that should have been a dead giveaway.
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opg
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| Posted: Mon Jun 20, 2005 10:43 am Post subject:
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| And I certainly wouldn't have been the one hired to mount that TV on the wall! |
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zynthetix
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| Posted: Mon Jun 20, 2005 9:24 pm Post subject:
Re: 1954 Home Computer Of the Future! |
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| opg wrote: |
The shadows are always the hardest part. That and texture is what bothers me the most about the latest 3-D computer-animated movies. I don't like this "in-between" phase. Either design it as a 2-D kid's cartoon or make it real.
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I can relate. A lot of movies are getting CG'ed to death these days. The whole trend reminds me of stop-motion layered with live action, a trend often seen from the 30's through the 50's (such as King Kong, Jason and the Argonauts, etc.) Its not that the special effects do not look somewhat convincing in either of these cases...its that the medium used to produce the effects is easily identifiable, hence diminishing the realism.
I honestly think the first star wars movies looked more realistic than these newer ones. (No comment on the scripts.) There was real light hitting real objects (models and muppets). Lord of the Rings had some amazing scenery, and I was suprised to find out that all the shots were places in New Zealand, intricate sets, and extremely large models of buildings and architecture. I think it is cheaper to hire some 3D animators than build a set though, so thats why we see a lot CG. |
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