Wow, that guy looks scarily entertained by his movie. Think of it as the Video Ipod of 1952.

Now! SEE MOVIES without SCREEN OR PROJECTOR with Melton Pocket Movie Viewer

Men, you’re going to have a world of fun with the MELTON MOVIE ‘ VIEWER, and you’ll think of a dozen pals overseas to send one to. With the Melton, you can view a complete 50-foot roll of any standard 8 mm. film, without screen or projector. Easy to operate; just look in viewer and turn handle. You see clear live-action picture in color or black and white. A precision instrument you’ll be proud to own. Satisfaction, or money back. Only $4.95, ppd. Send to
MELTON INDUSTRIES, Inc.
Box 390 Dept. MI-3 Reno, Nev.
Add $1.00 ea. for film:

• Beauties of Bali
• Robinson-Turpin Fight
• Danger Trail
• A Thrill a Second
• Bathing Buddies
• Hit the Silk
• Grand Canyon

Machine Builds Muscles

THE young lady below is getting all the beneficial effects of rowing and riding from the machine on which she is exercising. It strengthens and stimulates muscles and internal organs.

New TV Sets Project Pictures
A PACKAGED projection unit made by North American Philips Co. is being incorporated in current models by more than a dozen manufacturers of home television receivers. Some of these new models will throw the video picture on a screen outside the unit, just like home movies. Main components of the Protelgram® are shown in the photo at right. The optical system is diagrammed below.
A 2/2-in. picture tube, whose face is a lens as well as a fluorescent screen, forms the heart of the unit. A 25,000-volt power supply produces a picture of high brilliance on the tube face. The image is reflected by a concave mirror and another tilted at 45 degrees. Spherical distortion is removed as the image passes through a correcting lens.
The projector is a modification of the Schmidt-type optical system. Most of the receivers in which it will be used will employ 12- by 16-inch viewing screens in the cabinet; a few will use the projector to throw a three- by four-foot image onto an external screen.

This one is very close to current milk cartons. The only difference I can see is that instead of being folded and stapled, the top of the container is heat bonded, allowing you to simply pull the sides apart instead of taring the overlap.

Pouring Spout for Milk Carton
A pouring spout for cardboard milk cartons of the type shown that will eliminate dripping and spilling, and allow the carton to be drained completely, can be made by slitting the ridge of the carton and pulling out the fold under the ridge. To re-seal the carton, simply push the flap back to its original position. On most cartons, this can be done without removing the staple, but a few have a long staple, which interferes if not removed.
W. Dyre Doughty, Tucson, Ariz.

This is an excellent 1953 article on the beginnings of forensic science. It covers the establisment of a forensic school at harvard, the switch from untrained coroners to skilled medical examiners and all sorts of modern forensic techniques. It also has pictures of amazingly detailed models made to recreate crime scenes for instructional purposes.

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Mysterious Death Their Business

By Richard F. Dempewrolff

Death from causes unknown is a phrase that will drop from its too frequent use in the nation’s homicide files if a new kind of investigator has anything to say about it.

Today, on en upper floor in a remote wing of the Harvard Medical School, an eerie atmosphere hangs over a certain laboratory headed by pathologist Dr. Richard Ford. Called the Department of Legal Medicine, its business is concerned with unexplained death.

Sightless eyes stare at intruders from a row of life-sized plaster heads of murder victims—one with slashed throat, another with a bullet hole drilled through one temple, trickling a painted red stream against its death-white cheek. Beneath them, rows of plaster chest sections are perforated with accurately simulated bullet holes and powder burns typical of wounds inflicted by various-caliber bullets at varying distances.

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Very cool article from 1939 about the first programmable electronic sign in Times Square (think the grandfather of the Jumbotron). Every single change of a light, and there are 27,000 of them, is punched as a row on a 160 column roll of paper that gets fed through the vast machine.

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Oh, and in response to the question posed here:

“The paper is wide enough for 160 perforated holes across. One hundred holes to represent all the lights in each zone. Thirty to represent the zones in all the sectors. And nine to represent the sectors.”

“But that’s only 139 holes’” we remark brightly.

“Well, there are nine holes to erase the sectors.”

“That’s 148.”

“And nine for flashing the sectors on and off.”

“That’s 157.”

“And—” Mr. Latz scratched his head. “There’s three more for something else, but darned if I know what they are!”

The answers are:
158 - displays goatse
159 - displays Xeyes. Every platform needs Xeyes.
160 - reserved for pending MPAA DRM solution.

Big City Sign

“How does it work?” is the question most frequently heard, as New Yorkers and visitors gaze at the sign whose color and action make it one of Broadway’s most startling attractions.

27,000 light bulbs! 40 miles of wiring! 500,000 connections!

THESE figures are impressive, but an electric “spectacular” must depend on more than sheer size to attract attention in New York City’s Times Square, which has the most imposing collection of electric signs in the world. It must have action, color, and originality—and that’s just what the Wonder-sign, newest and brightest addition to the Great White Way’s signs, has.

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Did you think that the baby monitor was a recent invention?

“Radio Nurse” Watches Child

A “RADIO NURSE” now brings the nursery into the living room, kitchen, or any other room desired. When a child is sleeping or playing in a room when no older persons are present, every sound within that room can be transmitted to any spot in the house. The outfit consists of a pickup unit, placed near the child to be “watched,” and a loudspeaker, which can be placed in any convenient location.

Very interesting (and long) article from the dawn of the TV era (1939) explaining all of the hurdles; technological, economical, political, etc that will have to be jumped before TV is widely available. A lot of it sounds similar to the current emergence of internet based video distribution. Just as they are today, the major movie studios and radio networks were unsure of how to handle this new beast. They feared it would replace them, so the bought in, then gave up, then bought in again, a lot like what we’re seeing with TV networks allowing their content to be distributed online.

According to the printed stories, Paramount will soon be set for big-scale television on a national basis, with transmitting stations on both coasts planned to give the public “this new type of entertainment”. When sound broadcasting began to loom as the movies’ first really serious competitor, Paramount bought an interest in the Columbia Broadcasting System, and then dropped it when they learned that there was nothing wrong with the movies that good pictures couldn’t cure. Now, apparently, Paramount is making another attempt to cover itself, and protect its stockholders by entering television in case it does materialize into something more than hot air.

There are also some interesting parallels to the DRM questions flying about today:

He will also make receivers—in fact, he’s making one right now for the Empire State signals—but under the Paramount set-up the new receivers will reproduce only his broadcasts, not the NBC or CBS ones!

And some funny assumptions about radio’s future:

No grade “A” broadcast station uses phonograph records; will they step down a notch and use “image records?”

The answer I guess was, yes. Though sattellite and streaming media are chaning this, for the last 50 years, TV and Radio content (with the exception of sports, news and talk radio) have been ruled by recorded programming.

Full article text after the break.

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Words I never thought I’d say: “Wow, that girl in the Iron Lung looks sexy!”

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Metal Lungs Give Life

DEATH stands at the hospital bedside, waiting. Beneath the covers, a gasping youngster rights for breath. He is a’victim of infantile paralysis. Slowly, cruelly, the dreadful fingers of paralysis clutch at the chest muscles which pump the breath of life through his body. Soon those muscles will cease to function and the youngster will cease to breathe.

But death has not reckoned with the mechanical ingenuity of man.

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Safety Belt Devised For Car
DESIGNED to hold passengers firmly in their seats in event of a crash so that they will not be thrown violently against the car interior, a newly developed safety belt for automobiles may eliminate injuries attributed to this cause.

And it only weighs 7lbs!

The Lens That Focuses Itself
Ever shoot an out-of-focus picture? Then you’ll be interested in the newest lens from Nikon. It focuses as automatically as your eye, and just as fast. You can just point and shoot at fast-moving subjects from athletes to zebras without giving focus a thought. As long as you keep your subject within the sensing circle in the center of your viewfinder, you’ll get sharp pictures. Any drawbacks? Sure. The lens is k big (11 inches long), heavy (it weighs six pounds including the batteries that power the autofocus mechanism), slow (f/4.5), and you won’t be able to buy one until next year.—A. J Hand

How does it work? Like this:

Light reflected from the subject passes through the first group of lens elements and is split by a ring mirror. Some of the light passes through the lens to the film plane. The rest is reflected down to the autofocus mechanism where a condensing lens forms an aerial image. The position of this image will vary according to distance of the subject. A contrast-sensing set of four photocells inside the autofocus system moves up and down the shaft of focused light. Every time the photocells pass through the point of focus (also the point of highest contrast) they send a pulse to the logic circuit. At each up-and-down cycle of the four cells, a clock pulse is fed to the logic circuit as well. A third pulse indicating the current focus of the lens also is transmitted to the circuit. The circuit takes the three pulse signals and converts them to a time signal. The time signal corresponds to the distance between the sharpest image position and the current focus position. An analog circuit and power amplifier actuate a servo motor that shifts the movable lens elements to bring the lens into focus. All this takes place several times a second—scanning, computing, and refocusing.

Levers Control Bike Brakes
A FRONT wheel brake, operated from the handlebar and a two-speed rear wheel coaster brake, operated by a lever mounted on the frame, have been developed for bicycle use. The rear brake has a change speed gear which provides extra power on hills, quick pick-up, and more speed. Photo shows fingertip controls.