The Dead Media Notebook

by Bruce Sterling

  “Ordinary paper, treated chemically, is run through a simple machine in which the modulations of a voice are recorded by photo-electric tubes by a reflected light process.

  “Entirely new is the method of recording, and new also is the fact that there is no further treatment required to develop the soundtrack.

  “Electric impulses bring forth the sound track lines, but just how the black lines emerge on the impregnated paper Mr. Duston is frank to say he does not know. Electrodes connected to the output terminal of an amplifier rest on the paper and darken portions of it. An ordinary pickup is used to play back, and the same machine may be used for recording and reproducing.”

  Source: Tim Onosko, Wasn’t the Future Wonderful?, Dutton (p. 85)

  Dead human languages

  From Bruce Sterling

  [Bruce’s remarks: On the grand occasion of our two hundredth Working Note, I offer the suitably large, round, and grave topic of dead human languages. The obsolescence and extinction of human language is obviously a very large and challenging field of study.

  But is dead language “dead media”? Until this, our 200th Working Note, I have simply ducked this issue. However, the following press release describes this phenomenon so clearly that I have decided to offer it to the list.

  The cultural, social and intellectual loss contingent on the extinction of a human language staggers the mind. If dead languages were in fact “dead media,” they would obviously be enormously important phenomena, far overshadowing high Cahill-Rating curios such as optical telegraphy or mechanical television. The modern causes of language loss, travel, tourist culture, radio and television, have clear technological bases. Modern language loss is not a competition of tongues on a level demographic playing field, modern language is clearly shaped and sometimes driven into extinction by mass media. So are dead languages a proper field of study for the “dead media” scholar? Or should dead languages be classed as anthropology, archaeology, or linguistics, rather than media studies?

  As list editor, I have made no final decision on this matter, and I would appreciate advice and counsel from list subscribers. [Some pro arguments (as I see them): the “death” of, say, Hittite or Sumerian is certainly not in question. It seems perverse to suggest that a human language isn’t a “medium,” since the spoken word is a complex, dynamic, sophisticated and powerful method of communication. A dead and indecipherable written language, within the context of its recording technology, papyrus, clay, bark, would almost certainly qualify as “dead media.” A dead computer language also makes good sense as “dead media.” So why draw the line at human language?

  The con arguments are also multiform: First and foremost, this may be simply too large a subject for the Dead Media Project. Dead languages number in the thousands, and the subject opens entire new sets of classification and definitional problems. What is a “language,” and what differentiates a dead language from dead dialect, dead argot, dead slang, dead grammar,or even single dead words? Is Latin really and truly “dead,” or was Latin merely subsumed by Romance languages? If a spoken language with no technological basis is to be considered a “medium,” shouldn’t we have to worry also about, say, lost forms of dance? Lost music? Performance art? Religious ritual? Divination? Games? Mimes, even? I am fiercely determined to draw the line at mimes. Bruce Sterling]

  NEWS For immediate use April 18, 1997 “Unusual Brogue Of Ocracoke, N.C. Islanders Threatened With Extinction” By DAVID WILLIAMSON UNC-CH News Services “CHAPEL HILL, The unique dialect of ‘O’cockers’, what people native to the North Carolina barrier island Ocracoke call themselves, may disappear within a few decades, thanks to the unholy influence of ferries, roads, ‘dingbatters’, people who live elsewhere, and electronic media.

  That’s what two North Carolina linguists have discovered after studying the island brogue. In warm weather, dingbatters invade the once-isolated island, near where Lt. Robert Maynard lopped off the pirate Blackbeard’s head in 1718, in large numbers, bringing tourist dollars and more conventional American English. The electronic invasion, which has less impact, is nearly constant.

  “Study authors are Drs. Walt Wolfram, William C. Friday, distinguished professor of English, and Natalie Schilling-Estes, coordinator of the N.C. Language and Life Project, both at N.C. State University.

  “’Legislative action now protects a wide range of animals and plants on the brink of extinction, thanks to the combined efforts of concerned scientists and citizens,’ the researchers say. ‘At the same time, the dramatic decline of the world’s languages goes largely unnoticed, except by the affected speakers and a small group of linguists and anthropologists.’

  “Worldwide, people speak an estimated 6,000 tongues, most of which are rapidly headed toward extinction, they say. At the current rate of language loss, between 50 percent and 90 percent of these languages will die out within the next century. In California alone, about 25 distinct languages, not merely dialects of the same one, have lost their last speaker in the past century.

  “Wolfram and Schilling-Estes began the most detailed study ever undertaken of Ocracoke speech in 1992, building on the work of retired University of North Carolina linguist Robert Howren, former UNC-CH honors student Wynne C. Dough and others. By comparing elderly, middle-aged and young islanders, they found elements of both Southern English, which N.C. residents speak on the mainland, and Northern speech overwhelming native sounds and replacing words.

  “’We have found a drastic decline in some of the traditional features of the dialect,’ said Schilling- Estes, who earned her Ph.D. at UNC-CH in 1996 and is a visiting scholar at Duke. ‘The ‘oy’ sound for ‘i’ is disappearing, along with other distinct vowel sounds and words such as ‘pizer,’ meaning ‘porch’ and ‘meehonky’ for the game hide-and-seek.’ “Words such as ‘mommuck’ for ‘harass’ and ‘quamished’ for ‘nauseated’ appear to be hanging on, she said. The brogue, which did not originate with pirates or Shakespeare as some claim, has survived chiefly because of the island’s former isolation. Most Ocracokers descend from southern English and Irish immigrants.

  “Schilling-Estes said she and Wolfram were not surprised to find the dialect disappearing, but they were almost startled at how cooperative Ocracokers were during their many visits, countless questions and audio taping.

  “’We weren’t expecting the people there to be so remarkably warm and open and so willing to help us learn about their dialect and their island,’ she said. ‘Because we believe in giving back to the communities we work in, we have helped by teaching eighth graders about the dialect, having T-shirts made that have Ocracoke words on them, and establishing a museum exhibit on language that’s very popular down there.’ [Bruce’s remarks: I would suggest that the academic “preservation” of folk culture is an extremely effective way of killing it.]

  “Why should anyone care whether languages and dialects disappear? Wouldn’t communication be more efficient if everyone spoke a common language?

  “’A window of scientific opportunity closes when a language dies,’ the authors write. ‘The more languages there are, the more information we have about how language in general works, just as we learn more about the general nature of life from biological diversity.

  “’But there’s more. When a language dies, an essential and unique part of a human culture dies with it. To imagine the personal impact, consider what it would be like to be the last speaker of a language with no one to talk to in your native tongue, the language of your childhood experience and your most fundamental emotional, artistic and spiritual expression.’

  “Likewise, whenever a dialect disappears, not only do linguists lose a unique tool for scientific study of major languages, but also a distinct, colorful and often fascinating portion of a culture disappears, the two say. “’Saying that dialect loss is not as important as language loss is like saying that we should be vitally concerned with the preservation of dogs, but not worried about particular breeds of d
ogs.’

  Source: University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill press release, April 18, 1997

  The Polyrhetor AT the 1939 World’s Fair Futurama

  From Daniel B. Howland

  The General Motors Futurama at the 1939 New York World’s Fair was one of the most elaborate dark rides in history.

  A chain of over three hundred seats snaked past gigantic animated tableaux of the city of the future, 1960, to be exact. The ride was narrated, and the narration was in sync with the scenery.

  The people sitting behind you would soon hear what you were hearing; the people in front, what you were about to hear.

  How do you deliver sound to an individual car in a ride? You build a twenty ton gizmo called the Polyrhetor.

  The cars travelled in pairs, which cuts the job down to delivering about 150 separate soundtracks at once.

  The soundtrack was broken up into 22 segments of about 39 seconds each, and recorded onto the audio track of motion picture film. Engineers looped each of these 22 segments, and rigged seven light beams and pickups to each loop.

  Okay, let’s deliver the sound to the cars.

  The track was divided into 22 segments, over which a pair of cars traveled in 39 seconds, and each track segment corresponded with a film loop.

  Under the track were seven smaller tracks, hooked to the sound pickups. Under each pair of cars rode a miniature trolley, the wheels of which rode in these wee tracks and were electrically hooked to the speakers.

  As the first two cars entered the first segment of track, the trolley entered groove number one, and out came the sound from film loop number one, pickup number one. The trolley under the second set of cars rode in groove two, and received the soundtrack from film loop number one, pickup number two, and so on. By the time the first set of cars moved out into the second track segment, film loop number two, pickup one, the eighth set moved into its groove in the first track segment, and the narration from pickup one began again.

  In the late 1960’s, Disneyland designers faced similar problems with “Adventure Through Inner Space” and the “Haunted Mansion.” I have yet to confirm it, but I feel confident a system similar to the Polyrhetor, probably substituting magnetic tape for film loops, was used in these rides.

  For years, the Haunted Mansion “Ghost Host” narration has been shut off, but every Halloween they fire it up and it still works, both technically and aesthetically.

  The Futurama was a huge hit, far and away the most popular attraction at the fair.

  Designer Norman Bel Geddes did everything he could to extend the run of the ride beyond the Fair’s 1940 finale.

  When GM decided against building a permanent public relations building to house it, he considered loading the whole shebang into 44 trucks and taking it on tour.

  Then he came up with a much more practical idea, the entire ride could be installed inside a Zeppelin and flown around the country. Sadly, America had other things on its mind in 1940, and this lovely scheme came to nothing.

  Source: 1939, The Lost World of the Fair by David Gelernter, Free Press,1995. ISBN 0-02-874002-5 The Designers Go to the Fair: Norman Bel Geddes, the General Motors Futurama and the Visit-to-the-Factory Transformed” by Roland Marchand. Design Issues, Volume VIII, Number 2, Spring 1992, MIT Press Journals. ISSN 0747-9360

  A VINE VENDING MACHINE IN THE 1960S: THE Sony Videomat

  From Daniel B. Howland

  The See-Yourself-on-TV Vending Machine “Want to analyze your golf swing, or perfect your fly- casting technique? This unique $3,000 ‘vending machine’ makes it easy. Pop a quarter into the slot, and Sony’s Videomat takes and records a moving picture of you for 30 seconds. Overhead lights blink on, and a miniature TV camera, mounted below the unit’s TV screen, captures the action.

  “The TV pictures are recorded on a rapidly spinning magnetic disk about the size of an LP phonograph record. The machine then plays back the instant movie twice on its built-in 19-inch color TV set. The conventional picture tube was turned sideways to produce a tall, narrow screen, the shape best suited for picturing standing and moving people.

  “The low-cost recording disk is a lightweight aluminum hoop covered with a sheet of ultra-thin plastic film that is coated with the same magnetic substance used on conventional magnetic tape. At the start of each new recording, the machine erases the disk, which has a predicted life of several thousand record-playback cycles.

  “Besides its obvious use at sports centers and country clubs, Sony expects the unit to be bought by clothing stores, so customers can observe how their clothes fit as they move [thereby replacing wasteful mirrors costing tens of dollars], and by cocktail lounges, for the amusement of patrons between drinks. Drama schools and dancing studios should find it a useful teaching aid.

  [An entire production of Hamlet or Swan Lake could be recorded with as few as one hundred of the disks, and viewed up to two times before automatic erasure.]

  [The Videomat looks like the box a magician might use to stick swords through an assistant, with the sideways video screen about eye level. On top are two headlamps that wouldn’t look out of place on the rollbar of a 4X4 truck. The photo shows a modish woman smiling at the image of herself posing. ]

  [ The Videomat is a relic of the days when seeing oneself on a video screen was still a novelty. A cartoon from the 1964/1965 World’s Fair Official Souvenir Book shows a boy at the RCA pavilion.

  “Look here, son,” says the host, “You’ve been lost five times, today alone. How about letting some other kids get a crack at being on color TV?” And today we appear on video when we buy a Big Gulp.]

  Source: Popular Science, May 1966 (Picture News, Page 87)

  the Telegraph: the Morse Pendulum Instrument, the Morse Register

  From Paul Di Filippo

  [Bruce Sterling remarks: Paul Di Filippo was kind enough to send me this one-volume technical compendium from 1900 A.D., and it is a veritable brass mine of dead media. The beautiful period etchings (sadly mixed with blurry, up-to- date photos), are especially impressive, and the work now has a signal place of honor on my dead media reference shelf. The turn of a century seems to inspire technical writers to great flights of summary fancy, and Edward W. Byrn’s deep-breathing peroration on the telegraph rivals the writing of John Perry Barlow.]

  “Of all the inventions which man has called into existence to aid him in the fulfillment of his destiny, none so closely resembles man himself in his dual quality of body and soul as the telegraph. It too has a body and soul. We see the wire and the electro-magnet, but not the vital principle which animates it. Without its subtile, pulsating, intangible spirit, it is but dead matter. But vitalized with its immortal soul it assumes the quality of animated existence, and through its agency thought is extended beyond the limitations of time and space, and flashes through the air and sea throughout the world.

  “Morse’s first model, his pendulum instrument of 1837, is illustrated in Fig. 5. A pendulum carrying a pencil was in constant contact with a strip of paper drawn beneath the pencil. As long as inactive the pencil made a straight line. The pendulum also carried an armature, and an electro-magnet was placed near the armature. A current passed through the magnet would draw the pendulum to one side. On being released the pendulum would return, and in this way zigzag markings, as shown at 4 and 5, would be produced on the strip of paper, which formed the alphabet. A different alphabet, known as the Morse Code, was subsequently adopted by Morse...”

  “The alphabet consisted simply of an arrangement of dots and dashes in varying sequence. The register is an apparatus operated by the combined effects of a clock mechanism and an electro-magnet. Under a roll, see Fig. 8, a ribbon of paper is drawn by the clockwork. A lever having an armature on one end arranged over the poles of an electro-magnet, carries on the other end a point or stylus. When an electric impulse is sent over the line the electro-magnet attracts the armature, and the stylus on the other end of the lever is brought into con
tact with the paper strip, and makes an indented impression. A short impulse gives a dot, and a long impulse holds the stylus against the paper long enough to allow the clock mechanism to pull the paper under the stylus and make a dash.

  “the Morse register has been practically abandoned, as no expert telegrapher requires the visible evidence of the code, but all rely now entirely on the sound-click of the electromagnet placed in the local circuit and known as a sounder, the varying time length of gagps between the clicks serving every purpose of rapid and intelligent communication.”

  [Note that the telegraph’s early hard-copy peripheral was simply tossed aside as useless!]

  “The invention of the telegraph has been claimed for Steinheil, of Munich, and also for Cooke and Wheatstone, in England, but few will deny that it is to Prof. Morse’s indefatigable energy and inventive skill, with the preliminary work of Prof. Henry, that the world to-day owes its great gift of the electric telegraph, and with this gift the world’s great nervous forces have been brought into an intimate and sensitive sympathy.”

  Source: The Progress of Invention in the 19th Century by Edward W. Byrn Munn and Co., Publishers, Scientific American Office, 361 Broadway, New York 1900

  THE TELEGRAPHY ECOSYSTEM OF 1900

  From Paul Di Filippo

  [We continue quoting from this valuable pop-science tome from 1900, so kindly sent us by noted futurist and antiquarian Paul Di Filippo:]

  “...When practical telegraphic communication was solved by Henry, Morse, and others, further advances in various directions were made. Efforts to increase the rapidity in sending messages soon grew into practical success, and in 1848 Bain’s Chemical Telegraph was brought out. (U. S. Pats. No. 5,957, Dec 5, 1848, and No. 6,328, April 17, 1849.) This employed perforated strips of paper to effect automatic transmission by contact made through the perforations in place of the key, while a chemically prepared paper at the opposite end of the line was discolored by the electrical impulses to form the record. This was the pioneer of the automatic system which by later improvements is able to send over a thousand words a minute.