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Gentlemen,
The vast majority of comments on this topic are completely lacking any relevance to the TekScopes.

Please stop wasting our bandwidth.

Thank you, Dennis Tillman W7PF

I had a boss who made that necessary.

I go in the office, tell him what a job needs, we got it, callem am tell me if I should do it.

He gets on the phone and I hear "OK, we'll be there with it around 4:00"

"TONY, IT'S 3:30 !"

Everyone knows that Scotty always pads the estimated time by a factor of 3.5 to 1.

The Outer Limits episode with the monkey working in something was on Comet TV last night, at midnight.

Michael A. Terrell

Well, yeah- but if he had ever failed to get the engines working again at one of those critical junctures...
-Dave

From: Jeff Urban <JURB6006@...>
To: [email protected]
Sent: Wednesday, July 18, 2018 11:08 PM
Subject: Re: [TekScopes] OT: Scopes and other electronics on "The Outer Limits"

Except Scotty.

Except Scotty.

Or anyone who had a red shirt- that was the kiss of death!
-Dave

?new character on Star Trek, but not Uhura, you are dead within the hour. At least it seemed so.

On Tue, Jul 17, 2018 at 02:37 PM, David Hess wrote:

I found some of the old Twilight Zone and Outer Limits episodes to be
terrifying as a child. The Zanti Misfits comes to mind.

Something lost with youth. They were better when young and can really get scared. Later they lose some of their bite, or more aptly we lose the ability to feel it. It's almost impossible for a show to even "move" me slightly. Even young it eventually becomes clear that the good guys are not going to die, it is in their contract :-) well there was an exception, if you're Black and a new character on Star Trek, but not Uhura, you are dead within the hour. At least it seemed so.

Had an argument online a while back about the original airing of War Of The Worlds. People got so scared that some of them killed themselves. A guy was claiming there were adequate announcements that it was fiction and there was an argument about it, I wasn't in it yet but it piqued my curiosity. I downloaded the original and scrutinized and I can see why people might think it was real. There were only a couple of announcements it was Wells, they made it look like it was a music show and these were news interruptions. So if you go to the bathroom or something and miss that...

Star Trek had set and setting in the distant future, but much of the Twilight Zone and Outer Limits was set in the present. That probably contributed to its scariness.

I wonder just how much scifi contributed to our interest in science and technology.

On Mon, 16 Jul 2018 13:37:12 -0700, you wrote:

On Sun, Jul 15, 2018 at 08:45 AM, David Hess wrote:

They were using stories from actual science fiction writers. Larry
Niven wrote Inconsistent Moon which was episode 12 of season 2.

AAAAHHHH, I think I remember that one. the guy from Family Ties was on it and he was a scientist who figured the sun had gone nova, but it turned out to be a solar flare. He had the hots for this Woman and was a bit shy to approach her but when he thought the world was gong to end he went for her. She got a little bit miffed over that but got over it. the shockwave at the speed of sound hit them and the flare did kinda FUBAR the Earth but it did not kill everyone. he was kinda thinking when he wanted to cook all the food they had because the utilities were bound to go off.

For what it is worth, the woman was based on Marilyn "Fuzzy Pink"
Niven from the time that I assume he was dating her.

It had a bit more of a human touch than I prefer in scifi but not too bad. Even with Star Trek, which I cut my teeth on, the ones that are like a soap opera are not my favorite to say the least. I don't really even watch DS9 because of that. not that it is bad, it is just not my taste.

There was a close link between Larry Niven and David Gerrold who wrote
many Star Trek - TOS episodes. I think Niven only wrote one which
ended up in TAS. I do not know about later Star Trek.

When I was a kid, 7 when it came out nobody was allowed to talk when it was on. We had the choice, shut up, outside or hell broke loose, maybe locked in a closet or something. My Parents were not really abusive at all. Tough, but then so was I. But the olman was allowed to talk and he made some jokes about it that literally had me on the floor rolling in laughter. I mean to the point where I missed part of the show. But they did reruns so all was not lost.

That series was great, as well as some that followed, but I have to say, the new Outer Limits actually beat them.

I found some of the old Twilight Zone and Outer Limits episodes to be
terrifying as a child. The Zanti Misfits comes to mind.

The Masters of Science Fiction and Masters of Horror anthologies which
ran around 2007 were pretty good. I think they drew on some of the
same source material as The Twilight Zone and The Outer Limits. The
more recent Black Mirror series is also worth checking out.

I recall seeing a couple instances of Tektronix oscilloscopes in those
series but would have to rewatch them to be sure. I have only watched
a couple Black Mirror episodes so far.

On Mon, 16 Jul 2018 13:37:12 -0700, you wrote:

On Sun, Jul 15, 2018 at 08:45 AM, David Hess wrote:

They were using stories from actual science fiction writers. Larry
Niven wrote Inconsistent Moon which was episode 12 of season 2.

AAAAHHHH, I think I remember that one. the guy from Family Ties was on it and he was a scientist who figured the sun had gone nova, but it turned out to be a solar flare. He had the hots for this Woman and was a bit shy to approach her but when he thought the world was gong to end he went for her. She got a little bit miffed over that but got over it. the shockwave at the speed of sound hit them and the flare did kinda FUBAR the Earth but it did not kill everyone. he was kinda thinking when he wanted to cook all the food they had because the utilities were bound to go off.

There was a short story that this was based on, IIRC>

It had a bit more of a human touch than I prefer in scifi but not too bad. Even with Star Trek, which I cut my teeth on, the ones that are like a soap opera are not my favorite to say the least. I don't really even watch DS9 because of that. not that it is bad, it is just not my taste.

Berman. Piller. Sheer Evil.....

<never mind>

When I was a kid, 7 when it came out nobody was allowed to talk when it was on. We had the choice, shut up, outside or hell broke loose, maybe locked in a closet or something. My Parents were not really abusive at all. Tough, but then so was I. But the olman was allowed to talk and he made some jokes about it that literally had me on the floor rolling in laughter. I mean to the point where I missed part of the show. But they did reruns so all was not lost.

That series was great, as well as some that followed, but I have to say, the new Outer Limits actually beat them.

IIRC, even darker than the original. And the original? Very FEW
episodes were positive.... Not that I remember.

YMMV.

Harvey

On Tue, Jul 10, 2018 at 07:22 PM, Michael A. Terrell wrote:

That so called radio station looked like something from what 'Sanford & Son'
would have tossed out.

Yeah. It was a small town AM radio station with maybe 10,000 watts. What gets me is how he pushed microwaves through that tower that was clearly not built for it, and at a strength to reach pretty far into outer space. Oh, and no propagation delay either.

I like picking scifi apart like that. Some say I overanalyse but I say they underanalyse.

I've actually written a bit of scifi and it is not easy to create new futuristic science. I can't reveal it because of reasons, but I got good reviews on it. And then the timeline. I ran out of timeline. I had to go back and change things, pain in the (_|_).

I had a half decent science background, but many authors don't. The depend on research and whatever, themselves or assistants.

But all in all I think scifi is a good thing. I mean real scifi, not this magic bullshit like Harry Potter. I consider the pollution. But if kids watch real scifi it can stimulate their interest in real science. I can't say for sure if that happened to me but I think it likely.

My story ? A guy wakes up 396 years on the future. He is a kinky person and an engineer. After more contemporary education he is again and engineer and does well financially. He takes 2 Wives, and each give him 2 kids. And what brought him to the future had nothing to do with time travel, it was suspended animation. After 396 years they did figure out time travel.

i was like in another world when I was writing it. And I had to read what I wrote the day before to keep continuity. I know how difficult it can be to write really good scifi, and I don't consider what I wrote all that good. OK but not great.

If I bored you with this, sorry, but this is an off topic non political thread so I figure I have some license here.

On Sun, Jul 15, 2018 at 08:45 AM, David Hess wrote:

They were using stories from actual science fiction writers. Larry
Niven wrote Inconsistent Moon which was episode 12 of season 2.

AAAAHHHH, I think I remember that one. the guy from Family Ties was on it and he was a scientist who figured the sun had gone nova, but it turned out to be a solar flare. He had the hots for this Woman and was a bit shy to approach her but when he thought the world was gong to end he went for her. She got a little bit miffed over that but got over it. the shockwave at the speed of sound hit them and the flare did kinda FUBAR the Earth but it did not kill everyone. he was kinda thinking when he wanted to cook all the food they had because the utilities were bound to go off.

It had a bit more of a human touch than I prefer in scifi but not too bad. Even with Star Trek, which I cut my teeth on, the ones that are like a soap opera are not my favorite to say the least. I don't really even watch DS9 because of that. not that it is bad, it is just not my taste.

When I was a kid, 7 when it came out nobody was allowed to talk when it was on. We had the choice, shut up, outside or hell broke loose, maybe locked in a closet or something. My Parents were not really abusive at all. Tough, but then so was I. But the olman was allowed to talk and he made some jokes about it that literally had me on the floor rolling in laughter. I mean to the point where I missed part of the show. But they did reruns so all was not lost.

That series was great, as well as some that followed, but I have to say, the new Outer Limits actually beat them.

On Sun, 15 Jul 2018 18:32:31 -0400, you wrote:

Speaking of "Outer Limits" soldering, I just watched the episode "I, Robot" from 1964. There's a scene in which a scientist building a robot uses a soldering gun. And he appears to be actually soldering - you can't see the joint, but the gun's work light comes on, the transformer buzzes, and smoke rises from the tip.

That was not anything that Isaac Asimov did, but it was more borrowed
from a short story (and novel) called Adam Link, Robot, by Eando
Binder.

(Otto and Ernest?) Binder, hence EandO.

He was accused of killing his creator, in that story. In "the caves
of steel", by asimov, Elijah Bailey was defending RDaneel Olivaw from
the same charges, but the situation was quite different.

IIRC.

Harvey

I think the gun was the Wen model shown in this discussion thread:
<>

Pretty good episode, BTW - deals with some of the same issues about artificial intelligence that are being debated today.

Albert

-----Original Message-----
From: [email protected] <[email protected]> On Behalf Of Michael A. Terrell
Sent: Tuesday, July 10, 2018 8:12 PM
To: [email protected]
Subject: Re: [TekScopes] OT: Scopes and other electronics on "The Outer Limits"

Teaching a chimpanzee to use a meter is easy, but have you ever see one than can solder worth a damn? ;-)


Michael A. Terrell


-----Original Message-----

From: Albert LaFrance <albert.lafrance@...>

I've been watching some episodes of the outstanding US science-fiction
TV series "The Outer Limits", which aired from 1963-1965 (two seasons).
The settings of many episodes prominently feature electronic equipment,
typically in a scientific laboratory, military command post, space
mission control center, or a spacecraft.

A lot of the props were from local surplus stores. Even if it had been marked, it wouldn't have made sense.

Despite the fact that the show's opening title sequence begins with
what is probably best-known oscilloscope trace in history
(), I haven't seen a lot of
scopes in the episodes themselves, and the few that have appeared
weren't operating. A DuMont shows up from time to time, just sitting
on a counter or console as an afterthought. You'd think they'd at
least be rigged up to display the ever-popular Lissajous figures, but
the series was pretty low-budget.



One episode showed, in the background, a cart-mounted scope which had
the general form and panel layout of a Tek 500 series, but with a sort
of white cowling around the top and sides of the front panel. In
another, there was a rack-mounted 5-inch scope with a dark gray/green
panel. I don't know what brand either scope was.



In general, the electronics were a mix of real contemporary equipment
and stuff that was probably purpose-built as props. The real equipment
sometimes included those big multi-track analog tape recorders and
vertical pen plotters that were so popular in the early years of
aerospace development. The "prop" equipment was generally panels of
meters, toggle switches, pots/rotary switches and indicator lights; the
meters and lights were usually non-operational unless they had some significance in the plot.
A lot of them were in 19-inch racks or bench-type consoles.



A striking feature of these "prop" panels was the lack of labeling on
any of the devices unless, again, a particular device had a role in the story (e.g.
the radiation meter on an out-of-control reactor). But then, I guess a
scientist who's smart enough to invent a time machine or
inter-dimensional portal should be able to remember what switch does what.



Another electronics tidbit from the series: in one episode, a scientist
had developed a way to rapidly advance an individual primate's
(including
human's) evolution, based on the premise that an organism's future form
is already encoded in its DNA and can brought out by the use of a
machine built for that task. To show a visitor how effective this
technique was, the scientist pointed to one of his successes - a
chimpanzee seated at a bench in a corner of the lab, quite convincingly
using a VOM to troubleshoot some piece of vacuum-tube electronics!

I saw ads for the red version in '60s electronics magazines. The original Weller design is much older, so they may have had to wait for Weller's patents to expire.


Michael A. Terrell

On 07/15/2018 06:04 PM, Michael A. Terrell wrote:

They had a red phenolic case, and a single post for the soldering iron.

I have a couple of the ones with two screw posts for holding heater elements.

Doesn't say insty iron on metal case with 50's-60's ad art.

On 07/15/2018 05:32 PM, Albert LaFrance wrote:

Pretty good episode, BTW - deals with some of the same issues about artificial intelligence that are being debated today.

Funny to think of pairing soldering with a Wen transformer soldering gun and AI. :-)

I've got one of those Wen soldering guns -- good for soldering galvanized steel when you don't want to heat up
a big iron, and for plastic carving and shaping with a flat-iron shaped element. For plastic work I use a variac in front of it.

A Wen 'Insty Iron'? If so that was a fast heating soldering iron with a pistol grip. They had a red phenolic case, and a single post for the soldering iron. I have one, somewhere in my collection of obsolete tools.


Michael A. Terrell

Speaking of "Outer Limits" soldering, I just watched the episode "I, Robot" from 1964. There's a scene in which a scientist building a robot uses a soldering gun. And he appears to be actually soldering - you can't see the joint, but the gun's work light comes on, the transformer buzzes, and smoke rises from the tip.

I think the gun was the Wen model shown in this discussion thread:
<>

Pretty good episode, BTW - deals with some of the same issues about artificial intelligence that are being debated today.

Albert

On Sun, 15 Jul 2018 20:28:02 +0100, you wrote:

On 11 Jul 2018, at 21:11, Jeff Urban <JURB6006@...> wrote:

... Neither series wasted alot of money on special effects, which seems to be common these days. I mean they are just about to the point where they don't need actors. I shit you not, look at some of the video games these days. …

The impressive character animation in video games is done by actors, using motion capture gear to record the real human actor’s movement and voice and use it to control an animated software “puppet” in a precise, wholly-predefined, scripted, and generally non-interactive sequence.

We’re still quite a long way from achieving realistic video game character acting (particularly interactive acting) without using motion capture, except in limited settings — e.g., action sequences in first-person shooters — where the interaction is limited and you’re unlikely to notice the flaws.

You *can* buy movement libraries done from mo-cap. Real problem comes
when you run out of humanoid characters and have something that needs
an integrated mo-cap of, say, wings and tail.

Harvey

On 11 Jul 2018, at 21:11, Jeff Urban <JURB6006@...> wrote:

... Neither series wasted alot of money on special effects, which seems to be common these days. I mean they are just about to the point where they don't need actors. I shit you not, look at some of the video games these days. …

The impressive character animation in video games is done by actors, using motion capture gear to record the real human actor’s movement and voice and use it to control an animated software “puppet” in a precise, wholly-predefined, scripted, and generally non-interactive sequence.

We’re still quite a long way from achieving realistic video game character acting (particularly interactive acting) without using motion capture, except in limited settings — e.g., action sequences in first-person shooters — where the interaction is limited and you’re unlikely to notice the flaws.

On Wed, 11 Jul 2018 13:11:14 -0700, you wrote:

Too much Tektronix and I will start seeing them everywhere. like TVs, when I saw a TV on TV I would say "that's about a five year old Zenith", they had one on Bewitched.

The recent series Chance with Hugh Laurie had a Tektronix 465M or 465
variant in the back room of the antique furniture shop for some
reason.

It was a good series, but unlike most things that got resurrected, I think the 1990s series was better. I think the writing was better than any Star Trek, certain episodes anyway. They also had more of a budget, the documentary on the original said their budget was about a shoestring. Neither series wasted alot of money on special effects, which seems to be common these days. I mean they are just about to the point where they don't need actors. I shit you not, look at some of the video games these days.

They were using stories from actual science fiction writers. Larry
Niven wrote Inconsistent Moon which was episode 12 of season 2.