‘Seeing Things’ with Electrocular
YOU can look two ways at once with this 30-oz. electro-optical viewing device. The Electrocular uses a miniature cathode ray tube 7 in. long, a deflecting mirror, a focusing lens, and a dichroic filter viewing eyepiece to present a TV-type image without distracting from the work in front of you.
The developer, Hughes Aircraft Co., Fuller-ton, Calif., says the unit will let a repairman work on the rear of a digital analog panel (Fig. 1) while closed-circuit TV camera (outlined) pipes the results to him from the screen in front. Or a pilot (Fig. 2) can see a TV picture of air traffic information and ground conditions while he’s still in flight.

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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My question is, what is an “confined induction loop area”? Does that mean you have to surround your building with an antenna?

Pocket-Sized Radio Used in Private Paging System
Private and individual paging of personnel in plants and offices is possible with Motorola’s pocket-sized “Handie-Talkie.” Weighing only 10 ounces and slightly larger than a package of king-size cigarettes, the set is carried on the person. Its use eliminates the need for public-address type paging and loud call devices such as bells.
A typical paging system, using the “Handie-Talkie,” consists of a selector console with individual buttons for key personnel, and an FM transmitter that radiates alerting tones and voice messages within a confined induction loop area. The receiver is powered by a 4-volt mercury battery and is free from the noise interference common to many industrial establishments. Up to several hundred persons can be paged individually. (Motorola Communications and Electronics, Inc., 4501 Augusta Blvd., Chicago 51, 111.).

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I think this is the only time i have ever seen the word rape used in an advertisement.

“REPORT FROM ROTTERDAM”
Secret underground broadcasters still send out news of what the brave Dutch are doing to upset the Nazi “new Disorder”. Radio furnishes the ONE link between conquered countries and the outside world. In war, as in peace, The Radio Shack continues to play its part in the field of communications . . . now supplying vital equipment to help hasten the day of victory, and revenge for the rape of Rotterdam.

BUY WAR BONDS and STAMPS

THE RADIO SHACK
167 Washington St.
Boston, Mass., U.S.A.

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Reading Machine Spells Out Loud

Experimental eleetronic device looks at printing and says what it sees — at the rate of 60 words a minute.

By Martin Mann

PS photos by Hubert Luckett

SOME time ago, The New Yorker magazine satirically described the invention of a reading machine. “It is obvious,” a fictional Professor Entwhistle was quoted as saying, “that the greatest waste of our civilization is the time spent in reading. We have been able to speed up practically everything. . . . But today a man takes just as long to read a book as Dante did. … So I have invented a machine. It operates by a simple arrangement of photoelectric cells. . .”

A simple arrangement of photoelectric cells that will read a book for you now has been unveiled by RCA researchers. The device looks at printed matter and reads it aloud, letter by letter. It sounds like a radio announcer spelling out “R-I-N-S-O.”
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Long-Distance Microwave Pipe Carries Many Television Programs

Tens of thousands of cross-country telephone calls along with hundreds of television programs may someday be carried in a single two-inch metal tube. The longdistance wave guide, developed by Bell, could be buried underground and would funnel extremely short microwaves up hill, down dale and around corners. It is constructed of thin copper wire, tightly
coiled like a spring under pressure and wrapped inside a flexible outer coating which holds the wire in place. In laboratory tests, microwaves have been carried for 40 miles in a metal tube with the same loss of strength encountered when the waves travel 12 miles in a coaxial cable. The system uses microwaves shorter than any previously used in communications.

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Russian Proposes GLOBAL TV

THE RATHER LIMITED conception of radio transmission we had back in 1925, when we wondered whether radio waves could be propagated through space (see opposite page), has progressed to a stage where today we are near the point of transmitting television through space. With the launching of the first Sputnik last October, the dream of global TV received a tremendous shot in the arm and it has gathered momentum with each additional satellite thrown into the sky—both Russian and American. The magazine which first published data on Sputnik I, the Soviet periodical Radio, has outlined a plan which would allow nearly every TV set anywhere on earth to pick up a program transmitted from any other point. Television today, of course, is pretty much limited by line of sight, except in those areas which have coaxial cables, and a few spots which are equipped with over-the-horizon scatter facilities. The system proposed by engineer V. Petrov would make use of satellites which would pick up signals from stations on earth and bounce them to other satellites for more distant relay.

“STATIONARY” SATELLITES

If a satellite is launched from the equator so that it follows an eastward track at the proper speed and height, it will remain over one spot on the equator. In other words, if it went into orbit over Belem in Brazil, or Stanleyville in the Belgian Congo, or Singapore in Malaya, it would remain fixed in the sky over that spot. This is because—if the velocity and height are correct—the speed of the satellite will exactly match the eastward rotation of the earth. It will be making an orbit of the earth once in 24 hours (compared to the 90 to 106 minutes or so for the present satellites. Since the earth rotates on its axis once in 24 hours, there will be no relative motion between the two spheres.
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Seems like you’d need a pretty big pocket if that hand holding it is any indication

Pocket-Size Wire Recorder
PERHAPS one of the most sensational units to appear on the wire-recorder scene recently is a complete battery-operated recorder, 6-3/4x 4-3/8 x l-1/2 in. in size. It records, erases and plays back through a pair of lightweight earphones.

The entire recorder fits any average-size pocket, or it can be carried and operated in a fabric shoulder-type carrying case, as illustrated in photo A. Two types of sensitive miniature crystal microphones are available, as shown in photo D. One is a lapel variety and the other is a wrist-watch type worn by the operator in photo A, for making concealed recordings useful in detective work and for checking comments in crowds at shows and similar applications.

This Minifon recorder, made in Germany, is now available on the American market; it is powered with standard miniature A and B-batteries. The motor is driven by a Mallory mercury-cell-type battery pack that sells for $4.25. This provides 24-hour service. The A and B-batteries last for full shelf life. An a.c. power-supply unit also is available for operating the motor from 110-120 volt a.c. lines. Photos B and C are internal and external views of the recording and playback unit. Recording wire is available in spools providing 1/4 to 2-1/2 hours of continuous operation.

Really interesting piece about reporters covering the Italian invasion of Ethiopia in 1936. It’s interesting to contrast with the current reports coming out of Iraq. I wonder if they still suffer from mutton fatigue.

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AT THE FRONT IN ETHIOPIA

by Arthur T. Robb
Managing Editor of “Editor & Publisher”

THERE’S a war on in East Africa. Since early summer, when it became certain that II Duce intended to capture for Italy the last vestige of Africa not already under European rule, scores of young and old men in journalism, American and European, have turned their faces to the Red Sea, hoped or planned that their next assignment would be in Ethiopia. To youth it offered opportunity for fame and adventure denied them by the routine of police court or city hall. To the veterans of a score of big and little wars like Karl Von Wiegand and Floyd Gibbons, the din and dust of battle preparations were as the bell for the old fire horse. They had to be on their way.
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Very cool, if a somewhat optimistic article from 1958 about machine translation.

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Breaking the Language Barrier

Each year, millions of reports on scientific research are published—a big fraction of them in foreign languages. In this mass of Russian, Dutch, Chinese, Hindustani data are clues to H-power, interplanetary flight, more powerful batteries, longer-wearing tires. The trouble is: Too few scientists and engineers read foreign languages. What we need is a machine to read one language and type in another: an automatic translator. We’re trying to build—not one, but several. Engineering problems? Fantastic. Here’s where we stand now.
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This is pretty cool. Someone realized that when you fax something you can print the output at any scale you want. They connect the output to a giant inkjet printer (using an airbrush as a print head) to create huge images.

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Giant Photos Made Electrically

WITH a new apparatus recently developed in in England, small sized photographs, drawings, aerial photo maps, blueprints, sketches, painted portraits or scenes, printed or typed matter, and prints of almost any kind including reproductions of photographs or paintings, are directly reproduced and simultaneously enlarged to any size on almost any kind of paper, linen, canvas or other fabrics, or any other material such as even thin metal if it will wrap around a drum, by means of an airbrush jet controlled by a photo-electric scanner. One of these sharply detailed enlarged pictures, showing the head and shoulders of a child, measuring 30×34 feet and said to be the world’s largest photograph, is at present being displayed in London.
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