The Dead Media Notebook

by Bruce Sterling

  The full role of Ottomar Anschutz in the story of the first moving pictures is not well known. In 1892, two years before Edison’s peepshow Kinetoscope was first shown in public, Ottomar Anschutz’ acclaimed moving photographs were being exhibited in arcade machines, the ‘Electrical Wonder’, in Europe and America.

  By 1894 his ‘Projecting Electrotachyscope’ was projecting moving sequences of animals and human figures, very brief but of fine quality, onto large screens in Germany; the world’s first publicly projected photographic (unposed) motion pictures.

  Anschutz was a well-known photographer who specialized in fast exposures, taken with a shutter of his own design. By 1883 his ability to capture natural movement was being compared favourably with the work of Muybridge and Marey, but at that time he was taking individual photographs.

  By late 1884 he was shooting chronophotographs of the finest quality with a battery of twelve cameras; taking twelve photos in half a second.

  By 1886 his equipment consisted of a battery of 24 cameras with electrically linked shutters operated by an electrical metronome. Subjects included horses trotting, galloping, and jumping.

  His viewing machines, all of the seven or eight models bearing the name Schnellseher, were developed from 1886. The first had a wooden disc with 20 or 24 glass positives fixed onto it; a Geissler tube fashioned into a spiral form (and powered by a Ruhmhorff induction coil fed from batteries) was the light source. This flashed briefly as each picture passed the viewing aperture. A later model was a coin-operated automatic machine made in Germany by Siemens & Halske, and exhibited publicly in 1892/3 in London, and at Koster & Bial’s Music Hall and the Eden Musee in New York City. Celluloid transparencies were set into metal discs. The number of images varied, depending on the nature of the subject.

  In November 1894, a Projecting Electrotachyscope (‘Life-Sized Moving Pictures’) was exhibited in Berlin, and later in Hamburg. This consisted of two large picture discs, each holding twelve images, and moved intermittently by a twelve-arm maltese cross. Anschutz also developed a number of interesting zoetropes (Tachyscopes) that made use of his sequence pictures.

  Source: ‘Ottomar Anschutz and his Electrical Wonder’, by Deac Rossell (The Projection Box, 1997)

  the death of naval morse code

  From Bill Burns

  “After 130 years, the Royal Navy is turning out the lights on visual Morse code. Masthead signalling lanterns, used by warships to communicate with each other through some of the most famous naval battles in history, have been declared redundant by Admiralty chiefs in an era of secure communications. Recruits will no longer be trained to operate the Morse buttons by which messages could be flashed to other ships, and the lights themselves will be gradually decommissioned.

  “The idea of flashing dots and dashes from a lantern was first put in to practice by Captain, later Vice Admiral, Philip Colomb in 1867. His original code, which the Navy used for seven years, was not identical with Morse, but Morse was eventually adopted with the addition of several special signals. Flashing lights were the second generation of signalling in the Royal Navy, after the flag signals most famously used to spread Nelson’s rallying-cry before the Battle of Trafalgar. Ships will still retain Aldis lamps either side of the bridge, however, but signalling with these is complicated, involving transmitting signals in relays.

  Paul Elmer, of Naval Support Command, said: ‘Morse is just not used operationally any more. We have got much better, cleverer and more sexy stuff.’ “The move, announced in a Defence Council Instruction, recognises that the lights have not been widely used at sea ‘for some considerable time.’

  But a combination of inertia and respect for tradition means that nearly all large Naval ships are still equipped with them. Mr Elmer said: ‘Their heyday was the two world wars when they were used a lot for close convoy work. They were quite small and you could flash to other ships in the group without the enemy seeing.’

  “The lamps, which were omni-directional, were used to give commands to every ship in the group at once. The lamps’ advantage, and one of the reasons why they have survived so long, was that, unlike radio communications, they could not be intercepted by enemy vessels. ‘They were at their best during radio silence. You had to be quite close to see them,’ said Mr Elmer.

  “Now, however, the Navy has several secure communications systems that can send vast quantities of information between ships without risk of interception, and at infinitely higher speed than a man flicking a light on and off in dots and dashes. New-generation warships are increasingly equipped with computers that continuously share information with others nearby, and with shore bases, along invisible data highways.”

  Source: Daily Telegraph

  artificial church bells

  From Trevor Blake

  The Schulmerich Magnabell is just a BIG tape player. But its purpose was to serve as an electric carillon and play bells in church. Use of tower bells as medium of communication has been relegated to a largely ceremonial role, and here, the ceremony is moved one step further from its source by no actual bells being present, only tape recordings of bells. While tape players are living media, I believe the Magnabell qualifies as dead media because of its function and history.

  The mechanical bells brought to Europe from China in the 12th Century inspired miniature versions of the same, including music boxes and musical clocks. These clockwork devices, often programmed by card or disc, led to mechanical looms, leading to the first gear and card calculation devices, leading to a need for calculation that gave rise to the modern computer.

  The Schulmerich Magnabell Instrument was produced by Schulmerich Carillons, Inc. of Carillon Hills, Selleresville PA, some time in the 1960s. The model I saw was bought at government auction and the following is based on observation, not documentation.

  The Magnabell is a large brown metal box approx. 5’ 7” with three locking windows. Behind the windows are the controls for the Magnabell. The upper window houses the programming instruments; on the left, a day/time/program dial. On the right are master on/off and routing switches. The center window houses the tapes and play/pause/stop controls. The lower window houses a phonograph with the speeds 16, 33 and 45.

  The Magnabell has internal speakers as well as line outs. The model I saw has two cartridges, one of Christmas music and one of general bell music. The upper left dial controls which of six programs are played and when. Switches on the upper right control the volume for the internal speakers and line outs, as well as an on/off switch for “TOWER.” The cart player has four automatic and one manual setting, a pause switch and curious play / release lever.

  The phonograph has an on button and an off button, each acting independent of the other, and a “PHONO” light. I was given the chance to turn it on and play a cartridge by the current owner, Habromania in Portland, OR. It took about 5 seconds to get up to speed, but once playing, it sounded just fine. This object was built to last and was well cared for.

  Source: personal experience

  Exchequer Tallies

  From George Dyson

  [George Dyson remarks: Some media are dead, as in dead- end, while others represent extinct ancestors of species thriving as vigorously as ever today. Exchequer tallies fall into the latter category; the recent proliferation of digital currency and public-key cryptography having brought the principle of the tally-stick back to life. The disappearance of the Exchequer tally is also of interest, rarely has the decision to put an end to an archaic medium back-fired as spectacularly as when the bonfire intended to extinguish the remaining Exchequer tallies engulfed the British Parliament buildings instead.

  In 1682, in the brief but precise Quantulumcunque Concerning Money, Sir William Petty posed the question: “What remedy is there if we have too little Money?”

  His answer, amplified by the founding of the Bank of England in 1694, would resonate throughout the world: “We must erect a Bank, which well computed; doth almost double t
he Effect of our coined Money: And we have in England Materials for a Bank which shall furnish Stock enough to drive the Trade of the whole Commercial World.”

  Petty showed that wealth is a function not only of how much money is accumulated, but of the velocity with which the money is moved around. This led to the realization that money, like information but unlike material objects, can, by assuming different forms, be made to exist in more than one place at a single time.

  An early embodiment of this principle, preceding the Bank of England by more than five hundred years, was the ancient institution known as ‘tallies’, notched wooden sticks issued as receipts for money deposited with the Exchequer for the use of the king.

  “As a financial instrument and evidence it was at once adaptable, light in weight and small in size, easy to understand and practically incapable of fraud,” wrote Hilary Jenkinson in 1911.

  “By the middle of the twelfth century, there was a well-organized and well-understood system of tally cutting at the Exchequer. . . and the conventions remained unaltered and in continuous use from that time down to the nineteenth century.”

  A precise description was given in 1850 by Alfred Smee [a remarkable, and remarkably-neglected, artificial intelligence and neural network pioneer]. As resident surgeon to the Bank of England and the son of the accountant general, Smee was able to state with authority concerning some tallies preserved as relics that “curiously enough, I have ascertained that no gentleman in the Bank of England recollects the mode of reading them.”

  “The tally-sticks were made of hazel, willow, or alder wood, differing in length according to the sum required to be expressed upon them,” reported Smee.

  “They were roughly squared, and one end was pointed; and on two sides of that extremity, the proper notches, showing the sum for which the tally was a receipt, were cut across the wood. All these operations were performed by the officer called ‘the maker of the tallies.’ “On the other two sides of the instrument were written, also in duplicate, the name of the party paying the money, the account for which it was paid, the part of the United Kingdom to which it referred, and the date of payment; recorded with ink upon the wood, by an officer called ‘the writer of the tallies.’

  “When the tally was complete, the stick was cleft lengthwise by the maker of the tallies, nearly throughout the whole extent, in such a manner that both pieces retained a copy of the inscription, and one half of every notch cut at the pointed end.

  “One piece was then given to the party who had paid the money, for which it was a sufficient discharge; and the other was preserved in the Exchequer. Rude and simple as was this very ancient method of keeping accounts, it appears to have been completely effectual in preventing both fraud and forgery for a space of seven hundred years. No two sticks could be found so exactly similar, as to admit of being identically matched with each other, when split in the coarse manner of cutting tallies; and certainly no alteration of the particulars expressed by the notches and inscription could remain undiscovered when the two parts were again brought together.

  “And, as if it had been further to prove the superiority of these instruments over writing, two attempts at forgery were reported to have been made on the Exchequer, soon after the disuse of the ancient wooden tallies in 1834.” [3] Exchequer tallies were ordered replaced in 1782 by an “indented cheque receipt,” but the Act of Parliament (23 Geo. 3, c. 82) thereby abolishing “several useless, expensive and unnecessary offices” was to take effect only on the death of the incumbent who, being “vigorous,” continued to cut tallies until 1826.

  “After the further statute of 4 and 5 William IV the destruction of the official collection of old tallies was ordered,” noted Hilary Jenkinson.

  “The imprudent zeal with which this order was carried out caused the fire which destroyed the Houses of Parliament in 1834.” [4] The notches were of various sizes and shapes corresponding to the tallied amount: a 1.5-inch notch for 1000 pounds, a 1-inch notch for 100 pounds, a half-inch notch for 20 pounds, with smaller notches indicating pounds, shillings, and pence, down to a halfpenny, indicated by a pierced dot.

  “The code was similar to the notches still used to identify the emulsion speed of sheets of photographic film in the dark. The self-authentication achieved by distributing the message across two halves of a uniquely- split piece of wood is analogous to the way large numbers, uniquely split into two prime factors, are used to authenticate digital financial instruments today.

  Source: (Addison-Wesley, 1997) pages 162-163 Quantulumcunque Concerning Money by Sir William Petty (London: A. and J. Churchill, 1695), page 165. “Exchequer Tallies,” by Hilary C. Jenkinson Archaeologia, second series, vol. 12 (1911) page 368. Instinct and Reason: Deduced from Electro-biology by Alfred Smee (London: Reeve, Benham and Reeve, 1850), pp. xxix-xxxii

  afterlife of the Edison Electric Pen

  From Stefan Jones

  “It was a time when the modern form first flourished, in the city where mechanized tattooing was invented, by a Bowery tinkerer named Samuel O’Reilly, who modified Edison’s electric engraving pen in the 1890’s to make the first tattoo machine.” [Bruce Sterling remarks: Edison’s electric pen was not an :”engraving pen.” It used a darting needle to repeatedly puncture a sheet of stiff paper, which was then used as a stencil template for inking multiple copies of the document. The Electric Pen was patented in 1875, so it took some twenty years to discover this pen’s useful ability to repeatedly pierce human skin.]

  Source: New York Times, July 27, 1997, page 31 article Cappucino With Your Tattoo? Try That on a Sailor by Randy Kennedy

  Poster Stamps

  From Trevor Blake

  “A new format in graphics and advertising caught the eye of the world at the turn of the century. Miniscule in size, universal in appeal, and blazing with all the varied colors of the rainbow, this was the poster stamp, an esoteric rarity among collectibles. As the name suggests, it is a poster in stamp form. Always gummed and a little larger than the regular postage variety, these stamps normally were printed up in perforated sheets so they could easily be torn apart and stuck to invoices, envelopes, and correspondence, or simply collected as sheets into albums. In the name of art, commerce, and even propaganda, the poster stamp presented diminutively all that the largest billboard displayed, accomplishing everything that is required of an efficient poster. Although not issued for revenue, this ‘currency of commerce’ presented immense opportunities both for the vision of the graphic artist and the keen businessman.

  “Germany created poster stamps or ‘REKLAME MARKEN’ (literally ‘advertising stamps’) around 1907, just as that country had previously pioneered the fancy post card. Munich, Nuremberg, and Cologne all claimed the honor of having originated this new medium. Its sole reason for existence was to advertise and promote a product or event. Up until that time, the only stamps produced were revenue or postage, and those usually were intricate, single-color etchings or line engravings. Exhibition seals issued in the late 1800s were considered the forerunners of the colorful poster stamp, as were the earlier chromolithographic trade cards. The new poster stamp, with its vivid splash of brilliant colors, was a bold contrast to the drab black-and-white graphic landscape that was permissible at the time among most distinguished lines of business.”

  “The year 1915 seems to have been a high-water mark for the hobby. Poster stamps were displayed at a merchandise show in Madison Square Garden, and THE POSTER STAMP BULLETIN was published in Yonkers, New York, for a growing number of enthusiasts in that area. The Society of Modern Art, catering mainly to the graphic artist, printed THE POSTER STAMP ART SUPPLEMENT, which contained many examples of art posters in stamp form. The market was flooded with millions of flakes of brightly hued paper as clubs and societies formed to collect and preserve the humble poster stamp.

  “The poster stamp made possible the novel use of brilliant color in advertising to attract the stoic eye. Every known process was employed in pro
ducing them, lithography, three- and four-color process, zinc and copper-plate etching, steel engraving, and photogravure. While European varieties from the Belle Epoque and the Secessionists eras were even embossed, lithography and the printing of broad, flat areas of color were responsible for the most striking graphic examples.

  “Increasing business through advertising simplicity was the main intent of poster stamps, but they also brought high art to the masses on a level that could never have been achieved otherwise. Poster stamps were the common man’s art gallery. Adults as well as children were charmed by the stamps from the very beginning, collecting and pasting them into books specially made for that purpose. It was possible for the layman, with a minimum amount of effort and practically no expense, to accumulate a much finer collection of posters than he could buy in any larger format. They were widely considered handsome works of art even then and truly worthy of being sought after for permanent possession.” [.] page 16 “As national subscription magazines entered homes throughout America and elsewhere in the 1920s and ‘30s, business sought a larger piece of the advertising pie. Effective advertising meant reaching the largest possible market. Although poster stamps had made incredible inroads, it began to be felt that the advertising dollars were better spent on full-page, full-color ads in high- circulation publications that offered plenty of room for information copy rather than on the minimalist, small- scale poster stamps. Even though there were exposition stamps and seals for the various world fairs and events of the 1930s, as well as propaganda stamps issued in the early 1940s to boost patriotism at the beginning of World War II, the days of poster stamps were clearly numbered.

  [Trevor Blake remarks: LICK ‘EM, STICK ‘EM is full of reproductions of poster stamps and even includes a sheet of sixteen poster stamps for the book and the publisher. The book includes chapters on poster stamp themes such as transportation, world’s fairs, fashion, advertising and political propaganda. Poster stamps were an engaging medium: imagine all the beauty and power of turn-of-the- century poster art done for those tiny ads in the back of old comic books. While poster stamps were yet another medium that in its day everyone took for granted, the only large-scale living descendants of poster stamps in the United States are Easter Seals.]