The Dead Media Notebook

by Bruce Sterling

  “Dancer produced his first commercial slide in 1853 a rather austere picture of electrician William Sturgeon’s memorial tablet. By 1873 he was advertising nearly 300 microphotographs and by the end of his career the grand total had risen to over 500. Precisely how he manufactured his microscopic marvels remains a trade secret, since he never ventured into print on the subject.

  It is known that in experimental trials he used the eyes of recently killed oxen as photographic lenses and that he began the process with 4 X 5 inch collodion glass-plate negatives, but beyond that it can only be assumed that his method of reduction bore some similarity to that publicized by George Shadbolt in 1857. At the time Shadbolt was President of the Microscopical Society and editor of the Photographic Journal, in whose pages a priority dispute over the invention of microphotography took place, Dancer winning the day.

  “Almost as soon as Dancer perfected the mechanics of reproduction, he began selling microphotographs as novelty items. At a shilling a slide, and with decent parlour microscopes to be had for a few pounds,microphotographic entertainment was an economic method of rational recreation. In fact the market for microphotographs was sufficiently sizeable to make it profitable for Dancer to sell his slides to a number of retailers of scientific instruments.

  “Sir David Brewster, who in the 1850s was Professor of Physics at St Andrews, saw streams of possibilities emanating from Dancer’s invention. In an article on the micrometer for the eighth edition of theEncyclopaedia Britannica, he waxed futuristic on Dancer’s technique: ‘Microscopic copies of dispatches andvaluable papers and plans might be transmitted by post, and secrets might be placed in spaces not larger than a full stop or a small blot of ink.’

  While his latter reverie was to remain confined to the pages of spy novels, the former was genuinely prophetic: Brewster took examples of Dancer’s work on his Continental tour in 1857 where they were seen by French photographer Prudent Dagron, who in 1870 used the method to relay messages by carrier pigeon between besieged Paris and Tours.”

  [Microphotography—from experimental 19th century optical science, to parlour toy medium, to mass communication media for France under siege. Dancer the half-baked entrepreneur, to Brewster the teacher and pop science writer, to Dagron the entrepreneur and spy. It’s a very satisfying story, but a large gap remains; how did the Confederate spies in Canada learn to create and conceal microformed documents in the clothing of hired British agents?]

  Source: Cultural Babbage: Technology, Time and Invention edited by Francis Spufford and Jenny Uglow, Faber and Faber 1996 ISBN 0-571-17242-3 from an essay titled “Sliding Scales: Microphotographyand the Victorian Obsession with the Minuscule,” by Marina Benjamin(pages 99-122)

  Telephonic Jukeboxes: The Shyvers Multiphone, the Phonette Melody Lane, the AMI Automatic

  From Bruce Sterling

  “The ‘multiphone’ was created in 1939 by Kenneth C. Shyvers and his wife, Lois. They were operators of ‘juke’ boxes who found that ‘multiphones’ allowed a greater number of songs to be played. Whereas juke boxes played only 20 selections, the ‘multiphone’ could play up to 170 songs.

  “’Multiphones’ came to be installed in cafes and taverns in each booth or along the bar. The system required two leased telephone lines, one for the ‘multiphones’ and the other for the loudspeakers on the wall where the music played. The wired music system worked by inserting money, a nickel originally and later a dime. A feminine voice asked for your song number, and you responded. Soon you were listening to the music from the loudspeakers on the wall, which was connected to a central, record playing station.

  “Eventually, juke boxes were remodelled to play 180 tunes on 45 rpm records. The ‘multiphone’ system could not compete with them economically, and the system went out of business in 1959.” [Page 103 features two handsome illustrations of multiphone technology. The first is a Shyvers Multiphone, a hefty, towering gadget in stylish Art Deco cast aluminum. It has a speaker-grille in the bottom, a coin- slot for dimes, and what appears to be a rotating printed menu of “new releases.”

  The second device is a “Phonette Melody Lane” from the Personal Music Corporation of Newark, New Jersey. A modest device with a squat rectangular grille, it declares in embossed lettering: “INSERT 1 TO 6 NICKELS. EACH NICKEL PLAYS THE EQUIVALENT OF TWO RECORDS. THIS MACHINE CAN BE HEARD IN YOUR IMMEDIATE AREA ONLY.”]

  “Manufacturers continued to experiment with new ways to deliver music to patrons. In 1939, AMI introduced the Automatic Hostess telephone system and in 1941 Rock-Ola invented the Mystic Music System. Both were jukeboxes in every way except that there was no phonograph mechanism. After depositing a coin, the patron spoke into a microphone to an operator who would play the selection; the music returned over the phone lines to the speaker. The systems proved unsuccessful for AMI and Rock-Ola, but the idea worked for the Shyver Multiphone Co., which operated in Seattle, Tacoma, and Olympia Washington, from 1939 to 1959.”

  A cousin medium to the telephone jukebox is very much alive today, though it is vastly more expensive, much smaller in variety, is limited to one person, and offers mere samples of songs. “MUSIC ACCESS. If you’d like to hear excerpts from these discs, call 900-454-3277 (95 cents per minute). Touch tone required. US only. Under 18? Get parent’s permission. When prompted: Enter access code (under the name of the artist). Music controls: 3 = Fast forward, 4 = Louder, 5 = Softer, = Exit music/bypass most prompts. A charge of 95 cents per minute will appear on your phone bill. An average call is about 2.5 minutes.”

  Source: Telephone Collecting, Seven Decades of Design (With Price Guide) by Kate E. Dooner 1993 Schiffer Publishing Company, 77 Lower Valley Road, Atgen, Pennsylvania 19810 ISBN 0-88740-489-8

  Nazi U-boat automated weather forecasting espionage network

  “Weather reporting formed a vital part of German military operations. Given that weather systems generally move from west to east across the Atlantic, it was imperative that U-boats at sea enhance the reporting net of surface ships and shore stations by radioing data to BdU as frequently as possible. [BdU - Befehlshaber der Unterseeboote (Commander U-boats); Admiral Karl Doenitz]

  “Some missions consisted almost entirely of weather- station patrols, either at the beginning or at the end of tactical missions. In support of these wide-ranging and highly mobile patrols, Germany built 21 land-based automatic weather stations that would provide specific data at predetermined transmission times. Fourteen of these unmanned stations were established in Arctic or subarctic regions (Spitzbergen, Bear Island, Franz-Joseph-Land and Greenland); 5 were located around the Barents Sea above Norway, and 2 were destined for North America. Only the first of those bound for North America, and planned for delivery by U-537 in the summer of 1943, was ever in operation.

  The 2nd mission failed when U-867 was sunk NNW of Bergen on 19 Sep/44.

  “BdU charged U-537, on its maiden operation voyage in the summer of 1943, with the installation of automatic station WFL-26 [Wetterfunkgeraet-Land] on northern Labrador. Code-named station “Kurt”, it consisted of a set of meteorological instruments, a 150W short-wave transmitter and antenna mast, and an array of nickel- cadmium and dry-cell batteries.

  “The station was packaged in ten cylinders approximately 1 x 1.5 m diameter, each weighing approximately 220 pounds. The cylinder with the instrument unit contained a 10-m-tall antenna mast with anemometer and wind vane. In order to avoid suspicion if discovered, the Germans had marked the cylinders with the rubric “Canadian Weather Service”. As it happened, the fact that no such organization existed by that name did not compromise the plan, for WFL-26 was not discovered and identified as German until July, 1981.

  “Once installed as designed, the station would broadcast a coded weathergram at three-hour intervals. To accomplish this, a sophisticated contact drum or Graw’s diaphragm (named after a certain Dr. Graw, then of Berlin) would transcribe the observed values for temperature, humidity, air pressure, wind speed and wind direction
into Morse symbols. These were then keyed on 3940 kHz to receiving stations in northern Europe. Transmission time for the whole weathergram, including one minute for warming up, did not exceed 120 seconds.

  “The choice of site for WFL-26 seems to have been left largely to [Kapitan] Schrewe’s discretion in consultation with the technical advisers. In order to avoid all possible contact with people ashore, especially with Eskimoes trekking south at this time of year,’

  Schrewe wanted to set up the station as far north in Labrador as possible. At 18:45 on 22 October, 1943, he anchored in Martin Bay, some 300 m from shore in position 60 degrees 4.5 minutes N by 64 degrees 23.6 minutes W.

  “Within an hour, a reconnoitering party set ashore by inflatable craft to locate a transmitter site. They would leave empty American cigarette packages and match folders on the site in order to decoy any subsequent Allied intruders.

  By 18:00 on 23 October, less than 24 hours after having anchored, the work was done. The first transmission of WFL-26 occurred 3 minutes late, but was otherwise technically perfect.

  “Throughout his Canadian patrol, Schrewe continued to monitor WFL-26 and on a number of occasions reported intense jamming by a station that turned out to be German. For reasons we can only surmise, Canadian stations heard nothing from “Kurt” in Labrador.”

  Note: Franz Selinger was the first to trace the location of WFL-26, and ultimately joined Douglas to lead an expedition to the site with the Canadian Coast Guard.

  Source: U-Boats Against Canada, German Submarines in Canadian Waters, by Michael L. Hadley; McGill-Queen’s University Press, Kingston and Montreal, 1985 References: KTB [Kriegstagebuch (“War Diary”)]/ U-537. Douglas, Alec [W.A.B.] “The Nazi Weather Station in Labrador,” Canadian Geographic 101, no.6 (December 1981/January 1982): 42-7 Douglas, W.A.B., and Selinger, Franz. “Oktober 1943-Juli 1981: Eine Marine-Wetterstation auf Labrador.” Marine- Rundschau, Nr.5 (Mai 1982): 256-62

  The Inuit Inuksuit

  From Ian Campbell

  I got this from my favourite science show. I wish I had more info (like an illustrated vocabulary), but this is a start.

  [Judy Halliday interviews Norman Hallendy, Founder, Tukilik Foundation.]

  Intro: Deciphering the Inuksuit, how stone relics signify everything from good hunting to sacred ground. Some of them are more than 5000 years old, but the Inuit are still building them today. [Bruce Sterling remarks: apparently the Inuksuit, though ancient and pre-literate, is still a living medium, then.] Similar stone structures can be found all over the world.

  Norman Hallendy has spent 30 years learning about arctic life including the inuksuit from Inuit elders.

  Judy: Every time you see pictures of the arctic you see these magnificant stone structures that [sometimes] look like men. What exactly are these structures?

  Norman: They fall into various groups, there are a group of them which are used as hunting instruments. They were put up in lines and occasionally a woman or kid along with them [because there were not that many hunters], and they’d frighten the caribou and they’d be driven into a lane to be picked off by hunters. That was [the most] important function of the inuksuit.

  And then there were others that were terribly important in terms of travel. You could actually learn a series of inuksuit, the shape of them, where they were situated and what time of the year they should be observed, you could learn a whole sequence and travel great distances without ever having been to that place. I knew of an old guy who travelled something like 900 miles without ever having been there based on a song his father had taught him about the Inuksiut and the landmarks along the way.

  Judy: So it’s like having mileposts or street signs except that the inuksuit are telling you the story.

  Norman: Yes, you could look at Inuksuit in general as messages. You see this is the beauty of them, what they are is messages regardless of [their] function, they convey some kind of information to you if you know how to read them.

  Judy: Are there ever any kind of religious or spiritual messages?

  Norman: I’ll generalize here, they could be in two ways, if the Inuksuit was quite a beautiful looking structure, and built a very long time ago, like a thousand years ago, believed to have been built by the Tunik... what the Inuit call the “other people”, these were considered objects of veneration, so it’s interesting where a functional object over time can become almost a religious object

  Judy: Would anyone ever build one to honour somebody?

  Norman: Oh yes, that did happen, that happened in individual cases where an inuksuit could be built to commemorate a major event, or a major happening by a powerful person a camp boss or a shaman for example. I was travelling with one old chap, that... before his uncle died, he asked his son to build an inukshuk to represent the spirit that he had as a spirit helper, as a shaman. And therefore there were these strange little objects that were built on the landscape that were actually spiritual representations. There’s another case, this occured early in this century, where there were a group of women out hunting,,, the ice broke, they were carried out to sea, and they were crying out to their husbands who could not help them, and finally they died out at sea. The men were so heartbroken by this tragedy that they built an inuksuit for every woman... so that her soul would have a place to come back to. I asked the question of one of the elders, should these really be called Inuksuit, the answer I got is that you should really refer to them as Sakabluni [sp?] [”stones which have spiritual significance”].

  Judy: How did you find out that they carried so many messages?

  Norman: Well, I went up to the arctic and kept asking question about everything that came into my mind. Rather than study the people or the culture, I was trying to understand things, from the point of view of how do I respond to the arctic environment. Over time what I really gathered up were the old words, for objects for places or events and happenings. Because I was a very strong believer in semantics, not yours, but theirs. If a person really explained to you in their terms what you were looking at, you might see it from a different perspective.

  Source: @Discovery.ca the magazine show of the Discovery Channel Canada), May 28, 1996.

  The General Electric Show ‘N Tell

  From Eleanor J. Barnes

  A hybrid medium aimed at children was the GE Show ‘N Tell, a device for simultaneously playing a phonograph record and displaying a synchronized filmstrip. The record was the size of a 45, but played at 33 1/3 rpm. The filmstrip, with about 12 frames on what appeared to be 16mm film, was housed in a rigid cardboard or plastic strip, with a tab at the top for easy removal from the player. The display resembled a television screen, but was actually nothing more than a magnifier for a given frame of the filmstrip. The phonograph was on the top of the “TV” set. It could also be used to play 45-sized records (at either 33 1/3 or 45rpm) without viewing a filmstrip. Each topic consisted of a folder containing a filmstrip and accompanying record.

  The “A” side of the record was to be played synchronized with the filmstrip. The “B” side was related audio (such as a song) on the same topic, but was not intended to be played with the filmstrip. A “light-saver” switch allowed the video display (i.e. the lightbulb) to be turned off while playing the “B” side, or any record not designed for filmstrip synchronization. To play a record with filmstrip, one started by turning on the set, setting the turntable speed switch to “N”, and rotating the turntable by hand until an indicator line appeared in a small window next to the turntable. Otherwise synchronization could be off. One then set the record “A” side up on the turntable, and set the tone arm by hand at the beginning of the record. The slot for the filmstrip was in the top of the set, to the right of the turntable. One had to move the tone arm to gain access to the slot, one reason why you had to set the tone arm on the record before inserting the filmstrip. One slid the filmstrip into the slot as far as it would go, limited by the large tab at the top of the filmstrip; then adjusted so tha
t the first frame of the film was properly centered on the screen. A lever in the side of the set adjusted the focus. Moving the turntable speed switch to “33” started the record. Synchronization of the film to the audio was then automatic.

  Well over 100 filmstrip/record sets were available for the GE Show ‘N Tell. Categories included Disney characters, Fairy Tales, Children’s Classics (Heidi, Robinson Crusoe, Treasure Island, etc.), Christmas, Fun with Facts (Dinosaurs, Indians, Wright Bros., etc.), and Captain Kangaroo. Some titles that surprised me were “Hans Brinker and [sic] the Silver Skates” (properly “Hans Brinker, or, the Silver Skates”), “Huckleberry Finn,” and, most surprising of all, “Jane Eyre.” Needless to say, longer and more complex stories such as “Jane Eyre” suffered even greater oversimplification than “Children’s Classics” such as “Treasure Island.”

  Source: I own one. GENERAL ELECTRIC SHOW ‘N TELL ® Phono-Viewer and Phonograph

  The Bletchley Park Colossus

  From Bruce Sterling

  [This article by Tony Sale came my way through the Fringeware list. Mr. Sales’ narrative illustrates just a few of the steep technical, financial and social difficulties involved in resurrecting dead Big Iron. Presumably the reborn Colossus is now up and running. I’d be interested in an eyewitness account of the appearance and function of this living media fossil.]

  The Colossus Rebuild Project Helping to save Bletchley Park by Tony Sale, FBCS. The switching on of the rebuilt Colossus on Thursday 6th June 1996 by His Royal Highness the Duke of Kent KG. Briefing notes. Colossus was the first large electronic valve computer in the world and it was fully operational in the Spring of 1944, helping to break the German Army High Command messages enciphered using the Lorenz cipher machine.