Long before computer labs and internet cafes people had to make due with coin-op typewriters.
Living Automatically
New machines ready to serve at the drop of a coin
A New York restaurant has substituted machinery for waiters. The diner needs only to write out the order and drop the card into a slot in the table, as above (see PSM, Apr. ’40, p. 126). In a basement kitchen the food is prepared and, course by course, served through the center of the table, which operates like a dumb-waiter (right) by hand or hydraulic power, compressed air, or electricity.
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Something tells me Modern Mechanix got scammed on this one. My guess is the two Hungarian guys got some investment funding and then vanished into thin air along with the cash.
Invisibility At Last Within Grasp of Man
by A.L. White
Two Hungarian scientists solve age-old quest with devices worthy of Arabian nights wizards.
SUPPOSE that out onto a stage come eight chorus girls performing an intricate dance. Gradually something seems to happen, the heads, faces, and upper parts of the bodies of the girls seem to be disappearing. In fact, little by little they do become invisible to the audience until at last only eight pairs of legs are seen gracefully skipping about on the stage in perfect rhythm. You rub your eyes and begin to think you’d better see an oculist right away, but while you are worrying about it, back into your vision come the eight girls, wholly there and dancing gaily as though they had not just given you the shock of a lifetime. Or suppose again that a girl is sitting atop a piano, singing. The piano begins to fade from sight; finally the girl is left sitting in midair, nonchalantly swinging her feet and blithely singing, as though her perch was perfectly substantial.
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Ah yes, the curative properties of radium.
Spring in City’s Park Spouts “Radium Water”
America’s third-biggest metropolis may possess a valuable radium mine. Its city fathers recently learned to their surprise that Fairmount Park, Philadelphia, contains the country’s most radioactive spring, when Dr. J. Lloyd Bohn, Temple University physicist, tested the water that gushes from it. What interests him about the spring is not the curative powers sometimes claimed for such waters, but the possibility that a rich natural deposit of radium may be found near-by.
These tricks are really dorky but anyone who uses the phrase “nocturnal orgy of nonsensical abandon” is OK in my book.
Make Hallowe’en Whoopee with Mechanical Tricks
by DALE R. VAN HORN
A Hallowe’en party might be defined as a nocturnal orgy of nonsensical abandon. In other words, an affair when any goofy trick is in order. If you want to show your guests some real fun perform the stunts described here and then won’t be a single moment of boredom
ON HALLOWE’EN Eve you can stage all the goofy stunts you have been wanting to exploit for a long time. Nothing is too low-brow for the occasion. It is the one time of the whole year, not even excepting New Year’s, when you can forget worldly cares and the weight of adult responsibilities, and have a thoroughly good time.
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Very cool 25 page photo spread of the World’s Fair from a 1965 National Geographic.
Check out the odd assortment of items in the time capsule on page 22 (larger view). Among other things it has a rather clunky looking computer memory module, birth control pills, a pack of cigarettes and a bikini.
New York World’s Fair 1964-1965
CLASSROOM IN A CARNIVAL. A journey round the world. A look back in time, and a window on the future. A treasure house of religious faiths. A procession of products. And a dream of “Peace through Understanding.”
This is the New York World’s Fair of 1964-1965. Here you can see how atoms collide in the first public demonstration of controlled nuclear fusion, at General Electric. Listen to the rustle of stars as picked up by a radiotele-scope at Ford. Take a journey into space, booked by the Martin Company in the Hall of Science. See how your voice “looks” on TV at the Bell System (page 515).
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