That kid’s record recorder is pretty awesome. It works like a tape recorder. I wonder how well it worked.
“Playtalk” electronic toy for children uses a grooveless paper disk coated with “powdered” iron to record and reproduce magnetically music or voice. Records hold about two minutes of recording; can be “erased” and reused often
RADIO and ELECTRONICS TODAY
A — Twelve-pound self-powered tape recorder swings over the shoulder like a camera case. It is used by newsmen to cover news for the “Mutual Newsreel” programs; the small microphone may be held in the hand, or strapped on wrist
B — All-channel television and FM indoor antenna of unusual design employs parabolic-dipole arrangement on telescoping rods. Swivel joints make numerous adjustments possible
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It’s amazing how much those pictures look like frames from early computer rendered 3D movies.
Dolls Replace Drawings in Film Cartoon
THOUSANDS of carved wooden dolls give a three-dimensional effect to a new type of animated-cartoon film developed by George Pal, Hungarian photographic expert. Instead of using pictures drawn and photographed in sequence to provide movement, the new cartoon-film technique employs numerous doll figures carved and painted to represent the various movements and facial expressions of a single cartoon character. As many as thirty different carvings of one figure may be photographed in sequence for one simple change in a facial expression.
This looks like an early Viewmaster.
POCKET STEREOSCOPE SHOWS VIEWS ON FILM
Gone is the old-fashioned parlor stereoscope of a generation ago, but its counterpart, in modern guise, has just made its appearance. The new pocket-sized form of the instrument, illustrated above, is as small as a pair of opera glasses and uses thirty-five-millimeter motion picture film instead of paper photographs. A shift lever causes the pictures to appear.
Wow, given that that the list on the first page tops out at a 16″ screen, I wonder what they’d have thought of a 42″ plasma screen? They’d probably suggest you’d only need one per town.
What You Want to Know About Television
Buying a TV set? Here are some practical suggestions to help you decide what you want for how much.
By Carl Dreher
Drawings by Jere Donovan
“How big a set should I buy?”
“How can I tell what’s a good buy?”
“Should I install it myself?”
“How about the antenna?”
“Where should I put the set?”
“What about fire and shock hazards?”
“What’s the best place to buy a set?”
THESE are the questions people are asking about television. Last year a novelty, the galloping postcards now threaten the automobile as the center of family interest. Grownups stare respectfully at moth-eaten movies that wouldn’t pull customers in a free theater. Children are fascinated into silence. Read the rest of this entry »
This is a sort of early online gaming.
BILLIARDS by WIRE
College Teams Now Compete in Novel Telegraphic Tournaments
By ARTHUR GRAHAME
PLAYING separately in cities and towns scattered throughout the East and Middle West, teams representing many leading American colleges recently competed in the 1938 intercollegiate billiards tournament. During the entire competition, members of one team did not see their opponents on other teams. As the ivory balls rolled and spun on the green tables, clicking telegraph instruments carried the scores of individual teams to the director of the tournament. When all scores were in, the director wired the team standings back to the competing colleges.
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It’s really amazing how much these pictures look like the modern music visualizers in WinAmp or iTunes.
Music Is Turned Into Glowing Color
Soundless Symphonies from Keys of “Organ” Projected on Screen Are Hailed as Birth of a New Art
THE audience sat in hushed and wondering expectancy within the darkened theater. Without accompaniment of sound, soft color suddenly glowed upon the screen. Slowly it moved into definite form, its modulation of figures evolving in majestic sweeps. Its hue deepened and then melted radiantly into iridescent crimson, and from the restless, ever-changing shapes a slow rhythm was born. It grew and blossomed, a symphony of light, plastic and mobile. The “clavilux,” as Thomas Wilfred, the inventor, has named the organ, opens the door to a new art, the expression of moving color and form, which the artist-craftsman believes is destined to take a place as a sister of music and sculpture. It has long been the vision of dreamers; Mr. Wilfred has actualized the dream and provided the instrument that visualizes it.
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What movie does this remind you of?
Piano Students Use Giant Keyboard
WHEN Arthur Zahorik, a high-school music teacher in Milwaukee, Wis., tells a student to “run up the scales” he means it literally. For on the classroom floor stands a two-octave model of a giant piano keyboard, with white keys a foot wide, upon which students step to demonstrate their mastery of chords and scales. Each of the keys is actually a treadle which, when depressed, closes an electrical contact, causing a metal rod to strike a tuned metal plate and sound the correct note.
