Restoring a Late-90s Packard Bell Multimedia PC
Look over the shoulder of an antique computer collector as he’s restoring a homely PC from the last century.
antique
Definitely not Boring: Old Tech Drills Any-Shaped Hole
The parser drill (a precursor to the CNC milling machine) is capable of drilling a hole in just about any shape, including sharp corners.
How Middle Schoolers Reinvented the First Text Message System
Looking at historical inventions is a way for students to interact with technology and understand it.
Coffee Maker: Grandpa’s Grinder
Come explore the insides of an old fashioned crank coffee grinder.
Tool Tales: The Pump Drill
A pump drill is an ancient tool traditionally been used to generate friction heat for starting fires, as well as for boring holes. The principle of a pump drill’s operation is similar to the button spinner or whirligig, in which rotational momentum is built and maintained by repeated twisting and untwisting of a cord. After reading about them in a book about primitive technology, I got interested in the idea of a “modern” pump drill, operating on the same principle as the ancient tool but manufactured from industrial-age materials instead of wood, stone, and bone.
DiResta: Printing Press, Part 2
In each bi-monthly episode of DiResta (every other Wednesday at 2pm PT), artist and master builder Jimmy DiResta (Dirty Money, Hammered, Against the Grain, Trash for Cash) lets us into his workshop, to look over his shoulder while he builds whatever strikes his fancy. On this episode of DiResta, Jimmy continues with his restoration of […]
Beautiful 18th-century cometarium
This mechanical model of a comet’s orbit, based on the action of elliptical gears, is dated to 1766, and is housed at Harvard’s Putnam Gallery. From which:
This apparatus was designed to demonstrate how the speed of a comet varies in its orbit according to Kepler’s law of equal areas. The comet Benjamin Martin chose for this instrument is Halley’s Comet, which goes around the Sun every 75 1/2 years. Martin began producing cometaria before Halley’s Comet made its predicted return, and so was betting that Halley would prove correct in his theory.
Interestingly, the device turns out to be not an entirely accurate demonstration of Kepler’s second law. Physicist Martin Beech of the University of Regina has studied the history and mechanics of cometaria at great length. His clearinghouse page is an excellent source of detailed information.
