This is some lost technology we can keep there — Soviet light bulbs from 1935 with Joseph Stalin’s silhouette as the glower. Too bad it didn’t cast a Great and Powerful Oz-like ominous head on the walls. First Soviet Bulb
After World War II, Thor Heyerdahl and his signal corps buddies arranged an adventure of a quieter, calmer, lower tech sort. After arranging backing for their research project, the Kon-Tiki, they went down to South America, and built a raft from balsa logs and sailed it across the Pacific. For more than a century scientists […]
Mike is looking for info regarding an unusual timekeeping device he came across – At present I have no documentation for this clock, and it has no markings other than the labels for the controls and external connections, such as “LPS OFF”, meaning lamps off, “RESET”, meaning set the time, etc. Internally it is evidently […]
Gorgeous raygun construction, spotted on the MAKE Flickr pool, fashioned from old radio and camera parts. Atomic Disruptor Raygun More: MAKE 17: “Discreet Companion” Ladies’ Raygun Tinkerbots’ rayguns
From the MAKE Flickr pool The nixie tube isn’t the only vintage tube display device – The Dekatron was used in computers and calculators as far back as the 1940s. Eschlaep’s put one to a bit of practical use as what is likely the coolest and highest power kitchen timer evers – Dekatrons are relatively […]
We’ve been having a bit of a tech-crush here at MAKE, on pneumatic tube systems. We wrote about it in a recent Lost Knowledge column, talked about it on Make: Talk, and Dale went to Molly Wright Steenson’s inspiring talk at ETech. In this San Jose Ignite video, entitled “It Really is a Series of […]
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 […]
