The Dead Media Notebook

by Bruce Sterling

  Also in 1920, a coincidence card system for compiling tabular and statistical data was patented by H. Soper. The system interspersed fully perforated reading columns between the columns of punched data, to allow selection and search without removing cards from the deck.

  An automated photo-electric system for searching personnel records was described in a French patent issued to Henri Lieber, 1923. Electro-mechanical systems based on optical index cards and photo-electric read-out, intended for telephony applications, received patents in 1951 and 1954. (I have been unable to determine if index cards were ever actually used in telephone switching systems.)

  Colin Burke, in “Information and Secrecy: Vannevar Bush, Ultra, and the Other Memex” (Scarecrow Press, 1994, p. 262) describes techniques developed by Polish cryptanalysts in the 1930s to crack the German Enigma codes.

  These Polish cards made use of punched overlay sheets and a light source: “It was much like the system later used by the British and American cryptanalysts and was similar to what postwar information scientists called the Peek-a-Boo system.”

  The Polish method substituted “parallel” optical search for the spinning rotors, plugboards, and statistical computations of the British codebreaking computers. (Apparently, American cryptanalysts had been using optical methods to apprehend statistical “coincidences” since the 1920s.)

  In 1940 an American mathematician, H. Robinson, published a set of prepared stencils using the Peek-a-Boo principle, as an aid in the solution of equations having the form “x^2 = 2(mod m)”.

  The Microcite system, developed at the U.S. National Bureau of Standards (1954), was a clever marriage of Peek- a-Boo cards and microform technology. Peek-a-Boo index cards were overlaid on a sheet of microfiche containing document abstracts. Abstracts that matched the query terms could be read directly with a microfiche reader.

  The Minimatrex system (from Jonkers Business Machines) used microfilm and a special viewing system to store micro-film strips (“termstrips”), each containing 5 or 10 frames. Each frame was a photographic reduction of the standard 10,000 item Jonkers Termatrex index card. Up to 12 termstrips could be superimposed in a single search.

  Peek-a-Boo card indexes were part of the vanished “documentarian” tradition of manual coding and indexing schemes, pushed aside in the rush to computerized databases and information retrieval systems.

  High-speed digital computers can now accomplish the same ends using grids of ten million “cells” and hundreds of thousands of “cards”. However, there is still no better way to demonstrate how a search engine works (or how machine pattern recognition or AI expert systems or associative memories work) than by means of this long-forgotten manual indexing technology.

  Source: Wildhack, W. A., J. Stern. The Peek-a-Boo System: Optical Coincidence Subject Cards in Information Searching; in, Punched Cards, Their Applications to Science and Industry, 2nd edition; R. S. Casey et al., Rheinhold, NY, 1958. Bourne, Charles P. “Methods of Information Handling”, Wiley, NY, 1963. Jahoda, Gerald. “Information Storage and Retrieval Systems for Individual Researchers”, Wiley, NY, 1970. Burke, Colin. “Information and Secrecy: Vannevar Bush, Ultra, and the Other Memex”, Scarecrow Press, Metuchen N.J., 1994.

  US Air Force ‘Clones’ Obsolete Electronics

  From Bruce Sterling

  [Bruce Sterling remarks: The US military has discovered that the eighteen-month lifespan of state-of-the-art chips is seriously interfering with their ability to keep war machines armed and ready. One answer, alluded to in this article, is to step outside the process of obsolescence and simulate “legacy electronics” by “cloning” them with “VDELE.” (It is not explained what is supposed to happen when the VDELE “design environment” itself becomes obsolete.) This development is of interest to dead media studies because the rapid obsolescence of electronic components has always been a Mark of Cain for electronic media. The simulation and emulation of dead hardware will increase in importance as the graveyard of dead multimedia becomes more and more crowded with the victims of Moore’s Law.]

  “The first F-22 production unit was unveiled last April amid great fanfare. Its first flight, originally slated for late May, was re-scheduled several times as a result of brake malfunctions, flight-software problems, and a fuel leak...

  “(Lockheed Martin corporation) recently announced that it had achieved a technical breakthrough that will help the Air Force cope with a problem that is affecting other military aircraft programs, the unavailability of parts. Pentagon officials refer to this conundrum as ‘diminishing manufacturing sources.’ “The parts shortfall stems largely from the short commercial life-span of digital electronic components versus the long service life of weapons systems. A digital component, for example, may have a life of 18 months while the weapon system using that component often lasts for decades. Industry officials believe this ‘parts obsolescence’ problem drives up the coses of a weapons system’s operation and support, which amount to about two- thirds of the entire life cycle investment.

  “Lockheed Martin’s innovation involves the ‘first prototype clone replacement for an obsolete airborne printed circuit assembly,’ says a company spokesman. The savings will result, he says, from the use of collaborative tools and electronic specifications.”

  “The process used to develop the prototype is based on a VHSIC hardware description language (VHDL) model for an obsolete printed circuit assembly. Once developed, the model is then tested for compliance against the original obsolete printed circuit board in a virtual development, using commercially available software and hardware tools.

  “In this simulation environment, says the company spokesman, the design of the obsolete hardware can be re- targeted into modern component technology. Since the design is re-captured in an electronic specification, the cost of re-engineering is ‘greatly reduced.’ “(James A. Houston, a Lockheed Martin engineering project manager) says the benefit of cloning is that the embedded software and support equipment of the re- engineered electronics can be kept intact. Money is saved because there is no need to re-develop software and support equipment.

  “The Air Force awarded Lockheed Martin a contract for a VHDL design environment for legacy electronics (VDELE). ‘VDELE. overcomes the parts obsolescence problem using current technology,’ says Houston.”

  Source National Defense magazine (ISSN 0092-1491) October 1997 Volume LXXXII Number 531 Modelling and Simulation Techniques Aid Air Force Effort to Cut F-22 Costs pages 32-33

  Paris pneumatic mail

  From Alan Wexelblat

  Sherry Turkle’s most recent book, Life on the Screen contains something of a report on a dead medium which has been mentioned before on this list: the French (Parisian) system of pneumatic tubes for letter delivery. What I find interesting about this is (a) the recency of the report, Turkle lived in Paris in the early 60s; and (b) the specific use for which this medium retained its relevance: “I stayed with a family [in Paris] who avoided the telephone for everything but emergency communications. An intimate communication would go by pneumatique. One brought (or had delivered) a handwritten message to the local post office. There, it was placed in a cannister and sent through a series of underground tubes to another post office. It would then be hand delivered to its destination.

  “I was taught that the pneumatique was the favored medium for love letters, significant apologies, or requests for an important meeting. Although mediated by significant amounts of technology, the handwritten pneumatique bore the trace of the physical body of the person who sent it; it was physically taken from that person’s hand and put into the hand of the person to whom it was sent. The pneumatique’s insistence on physical presence may have ill-prepared me for the lessons of postmodernism, but it has made e-mail seem oddly natural.” As we delve into the reasons for a medium’s death or disappearance, it would be wise to keep in mind those media which deliver this sense of physical presence and see if that (or something like it) is a factor in media
Darwinism.

  Source: Life on the Screen: Identity in the Age of the Internet by Sherry Turkle Touchstone Books 1997 ISBN 0684833484

  RCA SelectaVision Holographic Videofilm

  From David Morton

  [David Morton remarks: The following article describes one of the several different technologies that RCA considered or actually marketed under the name “SelectaVision.” Other technologies included the SelectaVision capacitive videodisk and the SelectaVision VHS videotape system. The film-based system described below, which never went into production, coincided with but was significantly different than the film-based “Electronic Video Recording” technology developed at the same time by CBS, which was also a commercial failure.]

  “A laboratory model of a low-cost television color tape player built around lasers and holography and destined for home use in the early 1970s was exhibited recently by RCA. In commercial form, the SelectaVision player, which will be designed to attach to any standard color television set, will play full-color programs recorded on tapes made of the same clear, inexpensive plastic materials used in super-markets to wrap meats.

  “These tapes will be scratch proof, rustproof, and bb virtually indestructible under normal use. The conversion process is described as follows: a color program originating from a color television camera or color videotape player is recorded on conventional film by means of an electron beam recorder. This film, known as the color encoded master, is then developed and convened by a laser to a series of holograms recorded on a plastic tape recorded with photoresist, a material that hardens to varying degrees depending upon the intensity of the light striking it.

  “Next, the tape is developed in a chemical solution that eats away the portions of the photoresist not hardened by the laser beam. The result is a relief map of photoresist whose hills and valleys, and the spacing between, represent the original color television program in coded form. This is called the hologram master.

  “The hologram master is plated with a thick coating of nickel and stripped away, leaving a nickel tape with the holograms impressed on it like a series of engravings. This is the nickel master.

  “Finally, by feeding the nickel master through a set of pressure rollers along with a transparent vinyl tape of similar dimensions, the holographic engravings on the master are impressed on the smooth surface of the vinyl as holographic reliefs. The result is a SelectaVision program tape ready for home use.

  “Playback of such a tape requires only that the beam from a very-low-power laser pass through it into a simple, low-cost television camera that sees the images reconstructed by the laser directly, and their colors as coded variations in those images. The playback mechanism, the laser, and the television camera are all housed in the SelectaVision player, which is attached to the antenna terminals of a standard color television set for actual viewing.”

  Source: Color TV tape player employs lasers and holography IEEE Spectrum 6 (Dec 1969): page 28

  Hummel’s Telediagraph; the fax machine of 1898

  From Marcus L. Rowland

  The Telediagraph was one of several early fax-like devices sending pictures via telegraph lines. It was invented circa 1895 by Ernest A. Hummel, a watchmaker of St. Paul, Minnesota.

  The first machines were installed in the office of the New York Herald in 1898. By 1899, Hummel had improved the machine and the newspaper had machines in the offices of the Chicago Times Herald, the St. Louis Republic, the Boston Herald, and the Philadelphia Inquirer. The system used synchronised rotating 8-inch drums, with a platinum stylus used as an electrode in the transmitter.

  The original image was drawn on 8x6” tin-foil using a non-conducting ink made from shellac mixed with alcohol.

  The image was received on carbon paper wrapped between two sheets of blank paper. When the electrode touched the tin-foil in the transmitter the circuit was closed; when it touched the shellac the circuit was open. The signal controlled a moving stylus in the receiver, making it touch or move back from the paper. At the end of each rotation a synchronising signal was sent, and the styluses in both machines moved 1/56” to the left before scanning the next line.

  The first picture sent was “an accurate picture of the first gun fired at Manila.” The machine took 20-30 minutes to send the picture.

  Near-copies of this and similar mechanisms were in use until the 1970s, although transmission speeds were improved and photocells allowed plain paper originals and photographs to be transmitted. The basic principle was also applied to stencil-cutting machines for ink duplicators.

  Source: Pictures by Telegraph by Charles Emerson Cook Pearson’s magazine, April 1900, page 405 in the bound volume (Jan-June 1900)

  The Organetta

  From Paul Di Filippo, Bill Burns

  “A Marvelous Musical Instrument THAT PLAYS ANY TUNE.

  “The Organette has gained such a world-wide reputation, that a lengthy description of it is not necessary. It will be sufficient to say that it is a PERFECT ORGAN that plays mechanically all the latest popular music, songs, dances, waltzes, jigs, etc. etc., as well as the best sacred airs. It consists of three strong bellows and a set of reeds with EXPRESSION box and SWELL. A strip of perforated paper represents the tune, and it is only necessary to place the paper tune in the instrument, as shown in the picture, and turn the handle, which both operates the bellows and propels the paper tune.

  “The perforations in the paper allow the right reeds to sound and a perfect tune is the result, perfect in time, execution, and effect, without the least knowledge of music being required of the performer; even a little child can operate it as is shown in the picture, a little girl is playing a waltz, and her little friends are dancing; they are better pleased than if Strauss himself were playing for them, and older people enjoy it equally as well. It is also tuned in the key best suited for the human voice to sing by.

  “The Organetta is perfectly represented by the picture. It is made of solid black walnut, decorated in gilt, and is both handsome and ornamental. The price of similar instruments has hitherto been $8, and the demand has been constantly increased until now there are over 75,000 in use. We are encouraged to place the Organetta on the market at this greatly reduced price, believing that the sales will warrant the reduction. The Organetta though similar in construction is an improvement upon our well-known Organette, which sells for $8 and $10. It contains the same number of reeds and plays the same tunes. Our offer is this: on receipt of $8 we will send the Organetta by express to any address, and include FREE $4.25 worth of music, or on receipt of $6 we will send with in $2 worth of music FREE, or for $4 we will send it with a small selection of music FREE. The price includes boxing and packing. These are agent’s prices, and we will appoint the first purchaser from any town our agent, if he so desires. Address, THE MASSACHUSETTS ORGAN CO., 57 Washington St., Boston, Mass.”

  [Bruce Sterling remarks: The crude half-page woodcut of waltzing 1880s children has a pronounced Edward Gorey atmosphere. The Organetta itself stands on four sturdy mass-produced legs and appears to be about two feet long, a foot wide and a few inches high. It resembles a small wooden trouser press. A hand-turned crank at the rear of the device entrains a long foolscap sheet of perforated music, drawing it entirely through the body of the Organetta, while a locomotive-like connecting-rod off the crank’s driving wheel puffs a hinged bellows up and down at the instrument’s base. The bellows apparently blows air directly through the punched holes in the sheet music, and up through a tuned rack of harmonica reeds. The “expression box” and “swell” seem to be two bladderlike boxes on the top of the Organetta. Pressing on them may have affected the quality of the sound.]

  “The bellows apparently blows air directly through the punched holes in the sheet music, and up through a tuned rack of harmonica reeds.” On almost all of the organette-type instruments the bellows sucks air through the punched holes and down through the reeds; a few did use pressure rather than vacuum, but these were the exception.
The Massachusetts Organ Company was the leader of a thriving mail-order business in the 1880’s, Bowers’ Encyclopedia of Automatic Musical Instruments calls them “a master of ballyhoo.” All of the companies used the same sales techniques - if you became an “agent,” you qualified for the lower price. Of course, every customer was considered an “agent.” If you bought sufficient quantity, they’d even private-label them for you.

  Cool thing: the cuts in the roll paper are large and the encoding obvious, so repairing old rolls and making new rolls is very easy. So with a little work with a ruler and a xacto knife, and you could have the organette playing “Louie, Louie” or “Tom’s Diner” or something.

  Source: Peterson’s Magazine, May 1883, page 435. Advertisements. Encyclopedia of Automatic Musical Instruments by David Q. Bowers Vestal Press Ltd 1997 ISBN: 0911572082

  Computer Game Emulators

  From Bruce Sterling

  [Bruce Sterling remarks: the advent of computer-game “emulators” on the Internet may be of historic significance. This would appear to be a spontaneous (if questionably legal) international revolt against planned obsolescence in the computer gaming industry. Game fans and programmers all over the world are digitally disemboweling the arcade and home games of their youth, and re-writing them to run on contemporary home computers. Then they distribute the emulator software, source code, game drivers, ROM images and such, for free download.]

  M.A.M.E. Frequently Asked Questions V0.27 (6th of September, 1997) “0.0 Introduction “Welcome to the Multi Arcade Machine Emulator (MAME) Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ). I hope this will give you some help needed to get MAME to play your favourite games from the nostalgic past.

  “1.0 What is MAME? “MAME is a program that emulates arcade gaming machines on your PC using the original ROM images from those same games, so that it looks, feels and plays like the original.