A Teletype By Any Other Name: The Early E-mail And Wordprocessor

November 13, 2024 by Al Williams 40 Comments

Some brand names become the de facto name for the generic product. Xerox, for example. Or Velcro. Teletype was a trademark, but it has come to mean just about any teleprinter communicating with another teleprinter or a computer. The actual trademark belonged to The Teletype Corporation, part of Western Electric, which was, of course, part of AT&T. But there were many other companies that made teleprinters, some of which were very influential.

The teleprinter predates the computer by quite a bit. The original impetus for their development was to reduce the need for skilled telegraph operators. In addition, they found use as crude wordprocessors, although that term wouldn’t be used for quite some time.

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Retrotechtacular: Color TV

November 12, 2024 by Al Williams 20 Comments

We have often wondered if people dreamed in black and white before the advent of photography. While color pictures eventually became the norm, black and white TV was common for many years. After all, a TV set was a big investment, so people didn’t run out and buy the latest TV every year. Even if you did buy a new or used TV, a black and white model was much less expensive and, for many years, some shows were in black and white anyway. RCA, of course, wanted you to buy a color set. [PeriscopeFilm] has a 1963 promotional film from RCA extolling the virtues of a color set. The video also shows something about how the sets were made, as you can see below.

We aren’t sure we’d have led with the idea that color could save your life in this context, but we have to salute the melodrama. There is a good bit of footage of picture tube manufacturing, although the technical detail is — understandably — aimed at the general public.

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Bogey Six O’clock!: The AN/APS-13 Tail Warning Radar

October 31, 2024 by Danie Conradie 20 Comments

Although we think of air-to-air radar as a relatively modern invention, it first made its appearance in WWII. Some late war fighters featured the AN/APS-13 Tail Warning Radar to alert the pilot when an enemy fighter was on his tail. In [WWII US Bombers]’ fascinating video we get a deep dive into this fascinating piece of tech that likely saved many allied pilots’ lives.

Fitted to aircraft like the P-51 Mustang and P-47 Thunderbolt, the AN/APS-13 warns the pilot with a light or bell if the aircraft comes within 800 yards from his rear. The system consisted of a 3-element Yagi antenna on the vertical stabilizer, a 410 Mhz transceiver in the fuselage, and a simple control panel with a warning light and bell in the cockpit.

In a dogfight, this allows the pilot to focus on what’s in front of him, as well as helping him determine if he has gotten rid of a pursuer. Since it could not identify the source of the reflection, it would also trigger on friendly aircraft, jettisoned wing tanks, passing flak, and the ground. This last part ended up being useful for safely descending through low-altitude clouds.

This little side effect turned out to have very significant consequences. The nuclear bombs used on Hiroshima and Nagasaki each carried four radar altimeters derived from the AN/APS-13 system.

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Boss Byproducts: Fulgurites Are Fossilized Lightning

October 29, 2024 by Kristina Panos 28 Comments

So far in this series, we’ve talked about man-made byproducts — Fordite, which is built-up layers of cured car enamel, and Trinitite, which was created during the first nuclear bomb test.

A fulgurite pendant. — A lovely fulgurite pendant. Image via Etsy

But not all byproducts are man-made, and not all of them are basically untouchable. Some are created by Mother Nature, but are nonetheless dangerous. I’m talking about fulgurites, which can form whenever lightning discharges into the Earth.

It’s likely that even if you’ve seen a fulgurite, you likely had no idea what it was. So what are they, exactly? Basically, they are natural tubes of glass that are formed by a fusion of silica sand or rock during a lightning strike.

Much like Lichtenberg figures appear across wood, the resulting shape mimics the path of the lightning bolt as it discharged into the ground. And yes, people make jewelry out of fulgurites.

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What Would It Take To Recreate Bell Labs?

October 17, 2024 by Maya Posch 45 Comments

It’s been said that the best way to stifle creativity by researchers is to demand that they produce immediately marketable technologies and products. This is also effectively the story of Bell Labs, originally founded as Bell Telephone Laboratories, Inc. in January 1925. As an integral part of AT&T and Western Electric, it enjoyed immense funding and owing to the stable financial situation of AT&T very little pressure to produce results. This led to the development of a wide range of technologies like the transistor, laser, photovoltaic cell, charge-coupled cell (CCD), Unix operating system and so on. After the break-up of AT&T, however, funding dried up and with it the discoveries that had once made Bell Labs such a famous entity. Which raises the question of what it would take to create a new Bell Labs?

As described in the article by [Brian Potter], one aspect of Bell Labs that made it so successful was that the researchers employed there could easily spend a few years tinkering on something that tickled their fancy, whether in the field of semiconductors, optics, metallurgy or something else entirely. There was some pressure to keep research focused on topics that might benefit the larger company, but that was about it, as the leadership knew that sometimes new technologies can take a few years or decades to come to fruition.

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Meet The Optical Data Format You’ve Never Heard Of Before

October 10, 2024 by Lewin Day 80 Comments

You consider yourself a power user. You’ve got lots of files, and damn it, you like to keep them backed up. Around a decade ago, you gave up on burning optical discs, and switched to storing your files on portable hard drives. One local, one off-site, and a cloud backup just to be sure. You’re diligent for a home gamer, and that gets you done.

The above paragraph could describe any number of Hackaday readers, but what of bigger operations? Universities, businesses, and research institutions all have data budgets far in excess of what the individual could even imagine. What might shock you is that some of them are relying on optical media—just not the kind you’ve ever heard of before. Enter Sony’s Optical Disc Archive.

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Polaris Dawn, And The Prudence Of A Short Spacewalk

October 3, 2024 by Tom Nardi 40 Comments

For months before liftoff, the popular press had been hyping up the fact that the Polaris Dawn mission would include the first-ever private spacewalk. Not only would this be the first time anyone who wasn’t a professional astronaut would be opening the hatch of their spacecraft and venturing outside, but it would also be the first real-world test of SpaceX’s own extravehicular activity (EVA) suits. Whether you considered it a billionaire’s publicity stunt or an important step forward for commercial spaceflight, one thing was undeniable: when that hatch opened, it was going to be a moment for the history books.

But if you happened to have been watching the live stream of the big event earlier this month, you’d be forgiven for finding the whole thing a bit…abrupt. After years of training and hundreds of millions of dollars spent, crew members Jared Isaacman and Sarah Gillis both spent less than eight minutes outside of the Dragon capsule. Even then, you could argue that calling it a spacewalk would be a bit of a stretch.

Neither crew member ever fully exited the spacecraft, they simply stuck their upper bodies out into space while keeping their legs within the hatch at all times. When it was all said and done, the Dragon’s hatch was locked up tight less than half an hour after it was opened.

Likely, many armchair astronauts watching at home found the whole thing rather anticlimactic. But those who know a bit about the history of human spaceflight probably found themselves unable to move off of the edge of their seat until that hatch locked into place and all crew members were back in their seats.

Flying into space is already one of the most mindbogglingly dangerous activities a human could engage in, but opening the hatch and floating out into the infinite black once you’re out there is even riskier still. Thankfully the Polaris Dawn EVA appeared to go off without a hitch, but not everyone has been so lucky on their first trip outside the capsule.

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