The weekly Lost Knowledge column explores the possible technology of the future in the forgotten ideas of the past (and those slightly off to the side). Each Tuesday, we look at retro-tech, “lost” technology, and the make-do, improvised “street tech” of village artisans and tradespeople from around the globe. “Lost Knowledge” is also the theme of MAKE Volume 17 (due on newsstands TODAY, March 10, 2009)
In honor of MAKE, Volume 17, officially released today, I thought I’d post a couple of pages from the issue, from The Lost Knowledge Catalog, a piece I did, illustrated by the incomparable Suzanne Rachel Forbes. The whole issue was really a ball to work on, but I especially had fun doing this piece.
More:
- Lost Knowledge: The Antikythera Device
- Lost Knowledge: Village tech in West Papua, Indonesia
- Lost Knowledge: Neon lights
- Lost Knowledge: Reanimating Dead Media
- Lost Knowledge: Manual typewriters
From MAKE magazine:
Check out MAKE, Volume 17: The Lost Knowledge issue!
Buy your copy in the Maker Shed
Subscribe to MAKE
Access the Digital Edition (if you’re already a subscriber)
In Volume 17, MAKE goes really old school with the Lost Knowledge issue, featuring projects and articles covering the steampunk scene — makers creating their own alternative Victorian world through modified computers, phones, cars, costumes, and other fantastic creations. Projects include an elegant Wimshurst Influence Machine (an electrostatic generator built entirely from Home Depot parts), a Florence Siphon coffee brewer, and a teacup-powered Stirling engine. This special section also covers watchmaking, letterpress printing, the early multimedia art of William Blake, and other wondrous and lost (or fading) pre-20th-century technologies.
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