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Archive: Retro
May 10, 2008
Crazy glass armonica
This "glass armonica" a banned musical instrument apparently “causes insanity” - I'm not sure about that but it's gorgeous looking and sounding... (more about it at the Wikipedia too).
Posted by Phillip Torrone |
May 10, 2008 01:00 AM
Music, Retro |
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May 9, 2008
Tetris theme on bottles
This trio performs the Tetris theme on bottles of various sizes and water levels. They give you some clues to how they made it, one being the clicking metronome in the background and sped up effect; they must have performed it much slower then sped it up. My lips hurt just looking at it, though. Via Geekologie.
Posted by Becky Stern |
May 9, 2008 12:00 PM
Arts, Music, Retro |
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Steampunk Maker Faire wrap-up
The steam mechanics, oilpunks, contraptors, neo-Victorians cosplayers, retro-futurists, post-apocalyptic Playa pirates, New Dandies, and electric cowboys were all out in force at this year's Bay Area Maker Faire. There was the Victorian castle on wheels, the steam-powered runabout, the steam-effects scooter, the fire-spewing bar with vaudeville side-stage, the radio-tubed Theremin, and the outdoor Victorian sitting room with a disgorged cabinet of wonders of brassy computer mods, rayguns, clockwork guitars, and a light-spewing violin covering several tables. There were also at least three airship crews.
One of the coolest things about all this is that many of these artisans were already great virtual friends, even collaborators, but had never actually met in person. Seen above is a drawing, by the amazing Suzanne Forbes, of the inimitable Jake von Slatt (left) and Datamancer (right). This is the first time these two well-known steampunk makers had met in meatspace. Here they're seen building a special Maker Faire Contraptors' Lounge keyboard (which we'll likely give away here on the blog at some point). More of Suzanne's drawings from the Lounge can be seen after the jump.
Sitting in the Lounge: Crewmembers of the HMS Chronabelle, Magpie of Steampunk Magazine. In the background (left) Captain Robert of Abney Park and Jake von Slatt, (center) MAKE photographer Sam Murphy and me (the bald dude -- and I swear I'm NOT picking my nose), (right) David S. Dowling (black vest). Seen on the table is Molly Freidrich's Sinister Device and one of her rayguns.
One of the tables in the Lounge, this one mainly featuring work by Jake von Slatt, including his clockwork guitar, his copper-plated etched mint tins, his telegraph sounders, and a phone project he's currently working on. Also seen is the new Steampunk Anthology edited by Ann and Jeff VanderMeer and a portfolio of Molly Freidrich's work.
Tom Sepe's steam-assisted motorbike.
Jake von Slatt: You've just been "steampunked" (by Meredith Scheff).
Read full storyPosted by Gareth Branwyn |
May 9, 2008 11:05 AM
Maker Faire, Makers, Retro |
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May 7, 2008
HOW TO - Make a kicking mule articulated wooden toy
Dug writes in with the making of a kicking automata mule. The mule consists of four components: head, ears, front legs joined to the main body, and hindquarters. Pieces of brass rod hold the various parts together, and lengths of string keep them articulated - via Automaton blog.
Posted by Phillip Torrone |
May 7, 2008 09:00 AM
Arts, Retro |
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April 30, 2008
DIY analog tape delay machine
From the Make: Flickr Pool:
V2 of my Tape Delay Machine uses two walkman type tape players. One is a Realistic Stereo Mate and the other is a Memorex XB.Both players have a similar footprint, so I arranged them side by side and connected them together.
A single tape loop runs through two modified cassettes (each which have had one of their left or right sides removed).
The players themselves have had there walls (the two in the center, respectively) filed down, so the tape runs fluently.
The Realistic Stereo Mate has recording capability, where as the memorex does not.
This is purposeful, because the tape (which moves counter-clockwise) travels through the left player (Realistic) where it's internal microphone records sound, and then travels to the Memorex which plays back the sound about 3 seconds later.
Posted by Gareth Branwyn |
Apr 30, 2008 10:38 PM
Electronics, Music, Retro |
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April 26, 2008
Molly "Porkshanks" Friedrich at Maker Faire
"Pandimensional importer/exporter" Molly "Porkshanks" Friedrich will be showing off some of her otherworldly wares in the Contraptors' Lounge at the Maker Faire next weekend. When not winking in and out of the spacetime continuum, Molly fashions really cool wearable art/jewelry and retro-futuristic gadgetry and sells them via Dangerous Detritus. [Photo of Molly by Libby Bulloff, who is also co-hosting the Lounge]
The Contraptors' Lounge is an outdoor Victorian sitting room and cabinet of curiosities being set up at Maker Faire. Such steampunk/retro-tech icons as Jake von Slatt, Datamancer and Abney Park will play host. As one of the on-site activities, Datamancer and Jake von Slatt will be double-teaming the build of a special Maker Faire edition retro/steampunk keyboard in the Lounge. It may be raffled off or auctioned for charity at the end of the Faire. The two will also be giving a talk, on the main stage, about their work.
Related Contraptors' Lounge posts:
Maker Faire is a two-day, family-friendly event that celebrates the Do-It-Yourself (DIY) mindset May 3rd and 4th at the San Mateo Fairgrounds, CA (Upcoming.org). It's for creative, resourceful people of all ages and backgrounds who like to tinker and love to make things. Buy tickets now and save, discount ticket sales end on April 25th, 2008.
If you're in the Bay Area, or plan to attend Maker Faire add "makerfaire" to your Twitter, we'll be giving away tickets and will have updates before and during Maker Faire!
Posted by Gareth Branwyn |
Apr 26, 2008 03:00 PM
Arts, Crafts, Maker Faire, Makers, Retro |
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April 24, 2008
Datamancer works his magic, on desktop, at Maker Faire
Besides the venerable Jake von Slatt, one of the other retro-tech fabricators whose work always tickles my brass is Richard "Doc" Nagy, who self-deprecatingly introduces his online moniker with: "Datamancer" is my dorkish, haXor-sexy, 1337 Interweb nickname. Yeah I'm a dweeb..." Honestly, I don't know many dweebs with such serious shop chops. What is a dweeb, anyway?
Datamancer's latest project is a brass-cased 22" wide-screen LCD monitor on a marble and brass stand. It's made to go with one of his amazing retro keyboards. He made the monitor as a prop in an upcoming film, an indy remake of Nosferatu. After the shoot, the monitor will be auctioned off on eBay.
Datamancer at Maker Faire!:
Richard Nagy will be at the Bay Area Maker Faire showing off his amazing wares. He is co-hosting "The Contraptors' Lounge," an outdoor Victorian sitting room and cabinet of curiosities. As one of the on-site activities, he and Jake von Slatt will be double-teaming the build of a special Maker Faire edition retro/steampunk keyboard in the Lounge. It may be raffled off or auctioned for charity at the end of the Faire. He and Jake will also be giving a talk, on the main stage, about their work. We'll have more details on all this leading up to the Faire...
Maker Faire is a two-day, family-friendly event that celebrates the Do-It-Yourself (DIY) mindset May 3rd and 4th at the San Mateo Fairgrounds, CA (Upcoming.org). It's for creative, resourceful people of all ages and backgrounds who like to tinker and love to make things. Buy tickets now and save, discount ticket sales end on April 25th, 2008.
If you're in the Bay Area, or plan to attend Maker Faire add "makerfaire" to your Twitter, we'll be giving away tickets and will have updates before and during Maker Faire!
Posted by Gareth Branwyn |
Apr 24, 2008 04:08 PM
Computers, Maker Faire, Retro |
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April 23, 2008
Flea market finds - Unreleased Atari EPROMS
Gism Butter's finds at a local flea market via Waxy.
Today, we went to the Laney College Flea Market. As usual. I know I’ve written about the amazing things I’ve found at this swap meet. In the past, I got a Game & Watch, and oodles of rare old console games. But today, I found a never published Atari game. I am not kidding. This is the holy grail of videogame collecting.Normally, identifying unreleased games is not easy. But these are...
Posted by Phillip Torrone |
Apr 23, 2008 06:00 AM
Gaming, Retro |
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April 22, 2008
Gorgeous space-age fiberglass bike
On Dinosuars+ Robots, Mister Jalopy points us to this crazy-cool atomic age fiberglass bike featured on Nostalgia.net. The bike was designed and prototyped in 1948 and sold for one yea, by Bowden, in 1960.
Posted by Gareth Branwyn |
Apr 22, 2008 06:56 PM
Bicycles, Green, Retro |
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April 21, 2008
Revisiting Claude Paillard's triodes
One of the most enthusiastic responses we've ever gotten to a Make: Blog post was for the video of French radio ham Claude Paillard's built from scratch vacuum tubes. If you haven't seen the video yet, you're in for a real treat. It still triggers passionate and effusive praise, such as this comment from a former Hughes Research Labs employee:
Dear Mr. Paillard,
I worked at Hughes Research Labs (now, HRL) for over 30 years and, vividly recall how skilled and talented the technical staff was. As a physicist, I relied immensely on our technical staff to fabricate the devices that we invented, without which, nothing would have become practical. It is magnificent to see and evaluate actual devices --- made with such precision (as you so beautifully demonstrated) --- evolve from our calculations and sketchy drawings. Your brilliant work brought back such fond and wonderful memories (you would have been hired on the spot!). In our laboratories, experimental and prototype lasers were made from scratch, just as you beautifully demonstrated with the triode. The gas discharge lasers required many of the skills that you posses, for this class of laser could be thought of as a "vacuum tube" with optical windows at both ends, and filled with a specified amount of spectroscopic purity, low pressure atomic or molecular gas(es), such as helium, neon, carbon dioxide, argon, xenon, etc. Moreover, such lasers require the vacuum-tube equivalent of a filament, cathode and anode to maintain a stable electric discharge, which is used to excite the active laser's gaseous medium. In many cases, a "getter" was "flashed" in the tube (using external RF to heat it up as you so eloquently performed), and, the evaporated material such as cesium (the shiny coating one sees along the inner walls of the tube) is used to absorb contaminants (e.g., oxygen) that would otherwise render the device useless.
To those readers that have never worked in a research environment, it is easy to overlook all the fine skills that are necessary to actually fabricate a triode, each aspect of which is a specialty in itself: metal forming and machining, instrument design, vacuum technology, materials processing, high-power RF technology, glass blowing (including forming and annealing), understanding of the detailed device properties of a triode and how to characterize its electronic performance. Your work is excellent and, viewing your video is refreshing and inspiring, for you make an extremely difficult labor of love appear so effortless --- true genius! Bravo to you!!
Posted by Gareth Branwyn |
Apr 21, 2008 11:00 AM
Makers, Retro, Science |
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Beeps and boops - monotone, a composer for simple devices...
Jim writes -
Why write a music program for the internal speaker when the speaker sounds so terrible? Because the journey is more important than the destination.
Ultimately, I wrote it to teach myself OOP techniques, and simply to see if it could be done. Along the way I felt that I learned what it was like to program 30 years ago, where you have to put much more thought up-front into design instead of rapid development.
Posted by Phillip Torrone |
Apr 21, 2008 12:00 AM
Arts, Music, Retro |
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April 15, 2008
Scientific Calculator Watch
David Jones made this calculator watch from off-the-shelf components, and made a killer site for it with some hints for making your own. Let's hope he completes the full tutorial, or at least starts selling them on Etsy. Via Evil Mad Scientist Laboratories.
Posted by Becky Stern |
Apr 15, 2008 09:00 PM
Electronics, Retro |
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Apple IIgs laptop build
In other antique Apple news, Ben Hack strikes again, with an impeccable custom-built IIgs laptop.
Apple IIgs Original Hardware Laptop
Related:
Posted by Gareth Branwyn |
Apr 15, 2008 02:00 PM
Computers, Retro |
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Second Life on ancient Apple
Impossibly geeky bugger streams Second Life through an Apple IIc.
[Sci-fi trivia note: Legend has it that an ad on a bus stop for the Apple IIc was one of William Gibson's inspirations for the "cyberdecks" in his Sprawl novels. So it's rather fitting to see a virtual world through its lens, however hopelessly pixelated.]
Second Life on an Apple II [via]
Posted by Gareth Branwyn |
Apr 15, 2008 11:00 AM
Computers, Retro |
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April 13, 2008
The Multari
Marshall writes -
The Multari is a portable Atari 2600 with 32 built-in games built by myself, Marshall. It features a vacuum-formed styrene plastic case, 5" LCD, and no big cartridges to carry around.
Posted by Phillip Torrone |
Apr 13, 2008 03:00 AM
Gaming, Retro |
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April 11, 2008
Steam Wars figure mods
Action figure modder Silloff, who's work we've blogged about before, has an amazing collection of Star Wars figures re-envisioned within a steampunk universe.
Posted by Gareth Branwyn |
Apr 11, 2008 01:00 PM
Crafts, Retro, Toys and Games |
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April 7, 2008
Make: Controller-driven celestial clock
Sean Gallagher posted pics of this incredible celestial clock he's building which uses the Make: Controller.
Posted by Gareth Branwyn |
Apr 7, 2008 02:00 PM
Computers, Retro |
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April 4, 2008
Repairing paperbacks
By way of Mister Jalopy and Dinosaurs + Robots comes this interesting tip on repairing paperback book covers by reheated and reseating the cover to the spine. I'm definitely going to try this (first on an expendable title, as suggested).
Posted by Gareth Branwyn |
Apr 4, 2008 02:00 PM
Crafts, Retro, Toolbox |
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April 1, 2008
Shredz64: Guitar Hero for C64
Toni Westbrook authored a new C64 game called Shredz64, bringing the best game of all time to the best computing platform of all time.You can use the real Guitar Hero controller using the PSX64 PS2-to-DB9 converter which Toni also created. This takes the game controller input and maps it to the appropriate up, down, left, right and potentiometer lines for the Commodore.
Shredz64 uses the internal SID audio processor to play any of your favorite SID tunes. In addition to the built-in songs, you can import new SID files and even create new levels by editing note tracks (using the game controller, naturally).I'm speechless.
Related:
Hacking the C64 DTV.
C64 wordpress theme.
C64 USB keyboard.
NI Traktor MIDI controller in a C64 case.
Adding Ports and Power to the C64 DTV.
Teeny Tiny Commodore 64.
Homemade Commodore 64 joystick.
Posted by Phillip Torrone |
Apr 1, 2008 08:00 AM
Computers, Music, Retro |
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March 31, 2008
Five hundred and seven mechanical movements
Dugg writes in -
One reader of The Automata / Automaton Blog wrote to me with an interesting question. "I'm looking for a simple mechanism to convert rotational motion to reciprocal motion along the SAME axis as the rotation, not perpendicular."I decided to investigate potential solutions in one of my favorite books on mechanisms, Five Hundred and Seven Mechanical Movements: Embracing All Those Which Are Most Important in Dynamics, Hydraulics, Hydrostatics, Pneumatics, Steam Engines... (Astragal Press, 1995).
Answers and more here. Looks like a great book!
Posted by Phillip Torrone |
Mar 31, 2008 07:00 AM
Retro, Reviews, Science |
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The Best of Maker Faire 2008
Check out all the fun and excitement at this year's Maker Faire in San Mateo, California. People from all over the world came to experience this amazing event. Take a look at some of the highlights and make plans...
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