This is the monster from
The Creature from the Black Lagoon. It’s 50th anniversary site is
here.
Thanks to Stannous for the tip about the anniversary site.
Science Creates a Monster
Hollywood has produced some weird costumes but this $18,000 horror-suit tops them all. By Harvey B. Janes
AN ominous order rang through the studios of Universal-International pictures recently: “Gill-Man—report to the underwater tank to test your three heads!”
Accordingly a horrible monster, half man and half fish, lumbered menacingly across the lot, stopped at the huge water tank, poised for an instant and then plunged into the murky depths.
To the casual observer it might have seemed as though the studio was being attacked by a frightful sub-human creature from out of the past but the camera and set crews, producer, directors, actors and script girls all held their ground bravely. Were they too frightened to move? Or did they all know it was a trained monster?
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Apparently, this is one of those ideas that takes 30-40 years to catch on.
Mailbox Camera
HOW often have you arrived at a scenic beauty spot without your camera? A. D. Weir got caught on this pictorial limb so many times that he decided to do something about it.
The simplest remedy was a pre-loaded camera which could be rented at a near-by store for a small fee. That wasn’t a new idea—but in the past, devices to handle film inside such a camera had cost too much. Weir, a mechanical engineer, worked out a plan for feeding the 35-mm film without using a metal spool or winding device.
So, now you can drop into your drugstore, ask for a Photo-Pac and for $1.29 you get the loaded camera. After you take your eight exposures, you drop the entire unit in the mailbox. A few days later the mailman brings your prints and negatives. For helping to convert Uncle Sam’s mailboxes into darkrooms, we’re sending Mr. Weir Mi’s $50 Prize Gadget Award.
This is the fourth in a series of 5 articles I’ve scanned from an amazing 1952 issue of Scientific American about Automatic Control. Discussing automatic machine tools, feedback loops, and the role of computers in manufacturing and information theory, these are really astounding articles considering the time in which they were written.
This article is a fascinating exploration of the history and state of the art in automatic machine tools as of 1952. This is the CAM in CAD/CAM.
An Automatic Machine Tool
Feedback control has begun to advance in the working of metals. Presenting the first account of a milling machine that converts information on punched tape into the contours of a finished part.
by William Pease
THE metal-cutting industry is one field in which automatic control has been late in arriving. The speed, judgment and especially the flexibility with which a skilled machinist controls his machine tool have not been easily duplicated by automatic machines. Only for mass-production operations such as the making of automobile parts has it been feasible to employ automatic machinery. New developments in feedback control and machine computation, however, are now opening the door to automatization of machine tools built to produce a variety of parts in relatively small quantities.
The problem will be clearer if we first review briefly the history of machine tools and their relationship to manufacturing processes. The story begins in the last quarter of the 18th century. Prior to that time the tools of the millwright, as the machinist of that day was called, consisted chiefly of the hammer, chisel and file. His measurements were made with a wooden rule and crude calipers. His materials were prepared either by hand-forging or by rudimentary foundry casting. Crude, hand-powered lathes were already in existence, but they were used only for wood-turning or occasionally for making clock parts.
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I’m crushed. I can’t believe the Sharper Image would lie to me like this. For years they’ve been telling us that they are the inventors of the ionic breeze, that it’s space age technology, a miracle of modern science. But it was all a big lie, now I know it was actually invented buy some undetermined person in 1938.
Sharper Image, how can I ever trust you again?
Electrostatic Device Clears Air Of Smoke, Pollen
DESIGNED for home or factory use, a compact electrostatic air cleaner device was recently placed on exhibition at a convention of iron and steel engineers held in Chicago, Ill. The new cleaner is said to remove dust, smoke, and pollen from the air more efficiently than ever before.
In operation the electrostatic cleaner forces the air through an ionizing screen and the solid particles in it, 90% of which would pass through the average filter, are electrically charged. The air is then passed over grounded plates, causing the dust and pollen particles to cling to them.
This ia brief article about a speech synthesizer, but in the last paragraph it sounds like they were actually doing research into psychoacoustic audio compression.
PAT does the talking
“PAT” is the nickname given to a British talking machine which creates all the sounds that are normally used in speaking, and can string them together to produce the illusion of complete words and phrases. It can, in fact, talk.
In place of the human vocal cords, PAT (short for Parametric Artificial Talker) has an electron tube oscillator. In place of tongue and lips which normally vary the size of the mouth cavities, electrical resonators are provided and their resonant frequencies varied.
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Wow, this looks like it’s harder to make than than the street legal kart.
Junior Cadet Space Helmet
As any budding young astronaut will tell you, his most important piece of equipment is a realistic helmet with light, radio, oxygen tanks, and plenty of colorful armor.
WETHER they’re solving re-entry problems on the living room banister or stalking Martians in the orchard, junior spacemen need plenty of imagination-inspiring equipment. So vital a piece as the helmet should be built at home where the astronaut can help and be sure the construction meets space-age requirements.
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