Vivatar:
Adding an external switch to the Vivatar camera proved simple. Opening the case up reveals that the shutter switch is a surface mount momentary with four solder connections. Now that switch is a DPST - push it part way and it focuses, push it all the way and it snaps the frame. So I turned the camera on and shorted the switch contacts with the blade of a X-Acto knife until I found the right pair.
Probably not the wisest procedure, but it works! Quick and dirty.
Heated the solder iron ; tacked on a pair of leads and a momentary pushbutton off of a junked PC.
Pressed case back together - tested - and victory.
Sweet, sweet victory.
-Savage and Tesla-
Discovered something interesting today, while reading Nikola Tesla's all-to-brief autobiography. Written sometime after the Great War, but before WWII, he talks about his life and mentions a variety of events, one of which remarkable only to the trained eye.
Bear with me here:
Clark Savage, Jr. - better known as 'Doc' Savage was easily the most interesting of the 'pulp heros'; he was a scientist who's achievements were rivaled only by the enigmatic Asian known as Fu Manchu, Ph.D.
While it was claimed that he spent his time 'righting wrongs' the activities of Doc Savage and his five 'associates' seemed primarily engaged in controlling 'mad' or 'fringe' science, usually when the criminal element had begun to exploit a given discovery or invention.
Doc Savage's activities required money. Vast amounts of it. Within a decade of taking possession of his murdered father's offices on the 86th floor of the 'tallest building in New York', it becomes apparent that Savage is buying large numbers of companies - ranging from hotels to airlines to manufacturing plants.
All of these operations must have generated profits. But in the beginning at least, in the 1930's, Savage's source of income was gold from the 'lost mines' in the banana republic of Hidalgo.
Hidalgo.
There is no Central American Republic called Hidalgo. All we know is that it was small, contains a native Mayan population, and has a gold mine. A large gold mine. Whenever Savage requires money, he makes a radio transmission. Shortly, a mule train enters the central city of Hidalgo, and packloads of gold is deposited in DocÂ’s accounts.
This arrangement was there from the beginning which by internal evidence was in 1931. P. J. Farmer argues for sometime in March or April.
A variety of questions immediately appear.Assumeing Doc is transmitting from New York, the radio equipment involved must have been state of the art in 1931.
First, it needed range, for dependable connection across thousands of miles.
Second, it needed security. It would have done no good if an unscrupulous enemy - and Savage had many - listened to the transmissions. Direction finding was a established art by that point, and the location of the transmitter, and hence the gold would have been discovered.
Or when a gold order was radioed, they could have been ready with a band of desperadoes to intercept the pack train.
Part of the security problem would have been handled by speaking in Mayan, or transmitting in code, but that would not deal with the DF aspect.
I found a hint.
Nikola Tesla was the inventor of the polyphase electrical system, of the first radio controlled machines, of the Tesla Coil, and many other machines and devices.
He was the inventor of radio - which led to a lawsuit that went all the way to the Supreme Court. Marconi lost - Tesla had been there first.
Tesla publicly operated radio controlled model boats in the Central Park Basin in 1898, referring to them as 'teleautomatons'... the term '‘Robot'’ having not yet been invented by Karl Capek.
In the Autobiography, Tesla talks about world wide communications, which had been his current preoccupation - remember Wardenclyffe? - and stressed that he had worked out a method of '‘individualism'’ which permitted uninterceptable transmissions.
Further, Tesla remarks that:
'“ ...As throwing light on this point, I may mention that only recently an odd looking
gentleman called on me with the object of enlisting my services in the construction
of world transmitters in some distant land. "“We have no money,"” he said, "“but carloads of solid gold, and we will give you a liberal amount."” I told
him that I wanted to see first what will be done with my inventions in America, and
this ended the interview.'“
'‘Odd looking gentleman'’ !
This would probably have been Major Thomas J. "Long Tom" Roberts, Savage's associate, electronics expert, and often described as looking like someone raised in a basement on a diet of mushrooms.
So did Savage use Tesla's system? I would imagine that Tesla would have bragged of it if he had, being a relentless self-publicist, rather than off-handedly remarking on one of many business meetings.
It has been argued that Tesla's 'world transmitters' were not radio stations as we think of them, but a rather more sophisticated idea based on ionospheric resonance.
Bill Beatty has a good essay
on the theory that may have been behind Tesla's transmitters. (Remarkably crackpot - free!)
...and on that note I have gone from fact to fantasy to speculation, and possibly back to fact.
Discovered something interesting today, while reading Nikola Tesla's all-to-brief autobiography. Written sometime after the Great War, but before WWII, he talks about his life and mentions a variety of events, one of which remarkable only to the trained eye.
Bear with me here:
Clark Savage, Jr. - better known as 'Doc' Savage was easily the most interesting of the 'pulp heros'; he was a scientist who's achievements were rivaled only by the enigmatic Asian known as Fu Manchu, Ph.D.
While it was claimed that he spent his time 'righting wrongs' the activities of Doc Savage and his five 'associates' seemed primarily engaged in controlling 'mad' or 'fringe' science, usually when the criminal element had begun to exploit a given discovery or invention.
Doc Savage's activities required money. Vast amounts of it. Within a decade of taking possession of his murdered father's offices on the 86th floor of the 'tallest building in New York', it becomes apparent that Savage is buying large numbers of companies - ranging from hotels to airlines to manufacturing plants.
All of these operations must have generated profits. But in the beginning at least, in the 1930's, Savage's source of income was gold from the 'lost mines' in the banana republic of Hidalgo.
Hidalgo.
There is no Central American Republic called Hidalgo. All we know is that it was small, contains a native Mayan population, and has a gold mine. A large gold mine. Whenever Savage requires money, he makes a radio transmission. Shortly, a mule train enters the central city of Hidalgo, and packloads of gold is deposited in DocÂ’s accounts.
This arrangement was there from the beginning which by internal evidence was in 1931. P. J. Farmer argues for sometime in March or April.
A variety of questions immediately appear.Assumeing Doc is transmitting from New York, the radio equipment involved must have been state of the art in 1931.
First, it needed range, for dependable connection across thousands of miles.
Second, it needed security. It would have done no good if an unscrupulous enemy - and Savage had many - listened to the transmissions. Direction finding was a established art by that point, and the location of the transmitter, and hence the gold would have been discovered.
Or when a gold order was radioed, they could have been ready with a band of desperadoes to intercept the pack train.
Part of the security problem would have been handled by speaking in Mayan, or transmitting in code, but that would not deal with the DF aspect.
I found a hint.
Nikola Tesla was the inventor of the polyphase electrical system, of the first radio controlled machines, of the Tesla Coil, and many other machines and devices.
He was the inventor of radio - which led to a lawsuit that went all the way to the Supreme Court. Marconi lost - Tesla had been there first.
Tesla publicly operated radio controlled model boats in the Central Park Basin in 1898, referring to them as 'teleautomatons'... the term '‘Robot'’ having not yet been invented by Karl Capek.
In the Autobiography, Tesla talks about world wide communications, which had been his current preoccupation - remember Wardenclyffe? - and stressed that he had worked out a method of '‘individualism'’ which permitted uninterceptable transmissions.
Further, Tesla remarks that:
'“ ...As throwing light on this point, I may mention that only recently an odd looking
gentleman called on me with the object of enlisting my services in the construction
of world transmitters in some distant land. "“We have no money,"” he said, "“but carloads of solid gold, and we will give you a liberal amount."” I told
him that I wanted to see first what will be done with my inventions in America, and
this ended the interview.'“
'‘Odd looking gentleman'’ !
This would probably have been Major Thomas J. "Long Tom" Roberts, Savage's associate, electronics expert, and often described as looking like someone raised in a basement on a diet of mushrooms.
So did Savage use Tesla's system? I would imagine that Tesla would have bragged of it if he had, being a relentless self-publicist, rather than off-handedly remarking on one of many business meetings.
It has been argued that Tesla's 'world transmitters' were not radio stations as we think of them, but a rather more sophisticated idea based on ionospheric resonance.
Bill Beatty has a good essay
on the theory that may have been behind Tesla's transmitters. (Remarkably crackpot - free!)
...and on that note I have gone from fact to fantasy to speculation, and possibly back to fact.
Differences:
Take this series of numbers; 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10.
Each of these numbers is different from the previous number by the same amount: 1.
So the series of first differences for this series is 1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1.
And the series of second differences is 0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0
Its boring. While manipulation of differences can be useful - the Difference Engine after all was not a machine designed to generate social alternatives - its seems to be a rarely used tool in the mathematics toolbox. However its a simple enough tool for my poor brain to understand. Lets try a better series.
The first ten thousand prime numbers:
2 3 5 7 11 13 17 19 23 29 31 37 41 43 47 53 59 61 67 71 73 79 83 89 97 101 ...
Bear with me, I'm coming to a point.
The first differences:
1 2 2 4 2 4 2 4 6 2 6 4 2 4 6 6 2 6 4 2 6 4 6 8 4 2
4 2 4 14 4 6 2 10 2 6 6 4 6 6 2 10 2 4 2 12 12 4 2 4 6
2 10 6 6 6 2 6 4 2 10 14 4 2 4 14 6 10 2 4 6 8 6 6 4 6
8 4 8 10 2 10 2 6 4 6 8 4 2 4 12 8 4 8 4 6 12 2 18 6
10 6 6 2 6 10 6 6 2 6 6 4 2 12 10 2 4 6 6 2 12 4 6 8
10 8 10 8 6 6 4 8 6 4 8 4 14 10 12 2 10 2 4 2 10 14 4 2
4 14 4 2 4 20 4 8 10 8 4 6 6 14 4 6 6 8 6 12 4 6 2 10
2 6 10 2 10 2 6 18 4 2 4 6 6 8 6 6 22 2 10 8 10 6 6 8
12 4 6 6 2 6 12 10 18 2 4 6 2 6 4 2 4 12 2 6 34 6 6 8
18 10 14 4 2 4 6 8 4 2 6 12 10 2 4 2 4 6 12 12 8 12 6 4
6 8 4 8 4 14 4 6 2 4 6 2 6 10 20 6 4 2 24 4 2 10 12 ...
Now this seems to be patterned. The pattern reminds me of a wave form with increasing amplitude and decreasing frequency. Also note the new series ..... remove the redundancies and you end up with
One could also ignore every number in the series that is less than the previous number. This generates
2,4,6,8,10,12....
The set of primes having been proved infinite, I wonder if this means that this subset of differences is also infinite, containing within itself all integers that are a multiple of 2...
I would like to graph this, but tonight I've managed to crash Excel three times, and Quattro wasn't any better at handling it. I would think that a 2.2 Ghz processor with 512 MB of RAM could graph a measly 9,999 data points, even with Micro$oft bloatware...
I'll have to find a better program , and one that preferably does not require two hours of study in order to produce a stinkin' graph. If I was going to bother to learn something, I'd figure out how to do this in Mathematica.
I was going to be a bastard and post all 10,000 primes and 9,999 differences, but that seemed anal. I've uploaded both and here are the links:
First Differences
Second Differences
And , of course the primes:
(Ever notice that there is not a word for 'all three'?
I hereby coin 'Throce' to fill the void...)
Now for the second differences:
1 0 2 -2 2 -2 2 2 -4 4 -2 -2 2 2 0 -4 4 -2 -2 4 -2 2 2 -4 -2 2 ...
Note the negative numbers. This causes a fork in the inquiry. It was the negatives that led me to visualize waves in the first place. If I calculate the differences using absolute values, I get:
1 0 2 2 2 2 2 2 4 4 2 2 2 2 0 4 4 2 2 4 2 2 2 4 2 2 ...
and third differences:
1 2 0 0 0 0 0 2 0 2 0 0 0 2 4 0 2 0 2 2 0 0 2 2 0 0 ...
Amused myself in using the first differences to create a bitmap. Copied a BMP header onto the textfile using DOS EDIT in binary mode; used Find/Replace to deal with the pesky CR/LF characters (that's Carriage Return/Line Feed, a beautiful vestige of the teletype, btw ) ; and then took a peek with photoshop:
The aspect ratio is completely arbitrary. Its a little gray.
I tweaked it a bit, boosted the contrast as high it would go for the pleasant polychrome effect:
Now, if I was feeling progressive, I'd get the computer to generate several thousand copies at various aspect ratios that I could page through and see if any patterns emerged. But not tonight - I'm tired, see?
Take this series of numbers; 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10.
Each of these numbers is different from the previous number by the same amount: 1.
So the series of first differences for this series is 1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1.
And the series of second differences is 0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0
Its boring. While manipulation of differences can be useful - the Difference Engine after all was not a machine designed to generate social alternatives - its seems to be a rarely used tool in the mathematics toolbox. However its a simple enough tool for my poor brain to understand. Lets try a better series.
The first ten thousand prime numbers:
2 3 5 7 11 13 17 19 23 29 31 37 41 43 47 53 59 61 67 71 73 79 83 89 97 101 ...
Bear with me, I'm coming to a point.
The first differences:
1 2 2 4 2 4 2 4 6 2 6 4 2 4 6 6 2 6 4 2 6 4 6 8 4 2
4 2 4 14 4 6 2 10 2 6 6 4 6 6 2 10 2 4 2 12 12 4 2 4 6
2 10 6 6 6 2 6 4 2 10 14 4 2 4 14 6 10 2 4 6 8 6 6 4 6
8 4 8 10 2 10 2 6 4 6 8 4 2 4 12 8 4 8 4 6 12 2 18 6
10 6 6 2 6 10 6 6 2 6 6 4 2 12 10 2 4 6 6 2 12 4 6 8
10 8 10 8 6 6 4 8 6 4 8 4 14 10 12 2 10 2 4 2 10 14 4 2
4 14 4 2 4 20 4 8 10 8 4 6 6 14 4 6 6 8 6 12 4 6 2 10
2 6 10 2 10 2 6 18 4 2 4 6 6 8 6 6 22 2 10 8 10 6 6 8
12 4 6 6 2 6 12 10 18 2 4 6 2 6 4 2 4 12 2 6 34 6 6 8
18 10 14 4 2 4 6 8 4 2 6 12 10 2 4 2 4 6 12 12 8 12 6 4
6 8 4 8 4 14 4 6 2 4 6 2 6 10 20 6 4 2 24 4 2 10 12 ...
Now this seems to be patterned. The pattern reminds me of a wave form with increasing amplitude and decreasing frequency. Also note the new series ..... remove the redundancies and you end up with
One could also ignore every number in the series that is less than the previous number. This generates
2,4,6,8,10,12....
The set of primes having been proved infinite, I wonder if this means that this subset of differences is also infinite, containing within itself all integers that are a multiple of 2...
I would like to graph this, but tonight I've managed to crash Excel three times, and Quattro wasn't any better at handling it. I would think that a 2.2 Ghz processor with 512 MB of RAM could graph a measly 9,999 data points, even with Micro$oft bloatware...
I'll have to find a better program , and one that preferably does not require two hours of study in order to produce a stinkin' graph. If I was going to bother to learn something, I'd figure out how to do this in Mathematica.
I was going to be a bastard and post all 10,000 primes and 9,999 differences, but that seemed anal. I've uploaded both and here are the links:
First Differences
Second Differences
And , of course the primes:
(Ever notice that there is not a word for 'all three'?
I hereby coin 'Throce' to fill the void...)
Now for the second differences:
1 0 2 -2 2 -2 2 2 -4 4 -2 -2 2 2 0 -4 4 -2 -2 4 -2 2 2 -4 -2 2 ...
Note the negative numbers. This causes a fork in the inquiry. It was the negatives that led me to visualize waves in the first place. If I calculate the differences using absolute values, I get:
1 0 2 2 2 2 2 2 4 4 2 2 2 2 0 4 4 2 2 4 2 2 2 4 2 2 ...
and third differences:
1 2 0 0 0 0 0 2 0 2 0 0 0 2 4 0 2 0 2 2 0 0 2 2 0 0 ...
Amused myself in using the first differences to create a bitmap. Copied a BMP header onto the textfile using DOS EDIT in binary mode; used Find/Replace to deal with the pesky CR/LF characters (that's Carriage Return/Line Feed, a beautiful vestige of the teletype, btw ) ; and then took a peek with photoshop:
The aspect ratio is completely arbitrary. Its a little gray.
I tweaked it a bit, boosted the contrast as high it would go for the pleasant polychrome effect:
Now, if I was feeling progressive, I'd get the computer to generate several thousand copies at various aspect ratios that I could page through and see if any patterns emerged. But not tonight - I'm tired, see?
I was given a broken Vivatar 3826 Digital Still Camera. Its previous owner had smashed the lens off of it - accidently, I assume, and not in a fit of pique. Its names a misnomer, because it can take video as well. That capacity didn't excite me as I shoot very little video, and still use a old VHS camcorder. (Yes I know, its archaic technology, and not quite old enough yet to be hiply retro.)
I adapted a SLR camera lens to it. Most of my lenses are 52mm screw mount, so I cut down a screw on lens cap and glued that to the body of the camera after working out what seemed like the best spacing.
The flash was broken, so I unplugged the flash's circuit board and removed it. I had to cut the power leads to the flash board. The camera did not seem to care. Apprantly, it uses a timer to geuss when the flash capacitor is at full charge rather then some sort of feedback. Makes sence really:
the RC constant of the charger should only vary slightly, and within
acceptable bounds.
removed the tiny moter that drove the internal zoom lens. This moter is the size of a pencil eraser and will prove quite useful for another project. The big moter (I use the term loosely) that drove the focusing I didn't bother to remove. I just used a sharp X-Acto knife to cut the flexible circuit traces that led to it. I was going to leave the moters in, but they tended to move when I pressed the shutter button due to an irritating 'focus' setting before the switch could move to 'shoot'. This would vibrate the CCD when I wanted itI still.
Shooting indoors with on 30 watts of Compact Flo
urescent for light - a dim enviroment
- the camera did better than my unmodified Kodak EasyShare 7300. This is probably due to the much larger lens aperture.I then tried to take a shot outside, with a sunny background:
Massive overexposure!
Trying all availible settings of f-stop and exposure time didn't help. The camera was designed under the assumption that it had the light gathering ability of a 6 mm wide lense, and I was feeding it through a 40 mm wide lens.
Thats around a 44 X increase in light gathering!
Useful at night, I suppose, but not very useful for garden parties.
I used a old amateur astromer trick to solve that problem. I blocked the mouth of the lens with duct tape, and used a washer as a makeshift diaphramn. This brought the apeture down to around 5 mm and the overexposure became a thing of the past.
It does make the camera look odd, though.
Next step is to put a new and improved shutter switch on it. The original one takes too much force, and I don't like its action.
Got tired of looking at my brother's broken guitar amp.
Its a Beltone AP-12 that someone lovingly pulled all the tubes out of, and broke one for dessert. I have boxes of old vacuum tubes that are a sad relic of my past; I figured I could find a replacement.
Its a 6AR5. Various sites refer to it as a "commen pentode" one going so far as to claim "This can often be seen in old thrown out televisions" .
I could have bought one for 10.00$ USD, which was more than I was willing to invest. I dug through my boxes.
I didn't have one. I searched for a replacement. The sites wern't real forthcoming on that issue, but by happy accident I found a schematic a Japenese fellow had posted for a receiver design, and he'd noted that I could replace the 6AR5 with a 6AQ5. I found 4 6AQ5s within ten minutes. The sites agreed the pinouts were identical, that the curves were close to matching - and most importantly, the replacement exceeded the performance of the original. I stuck the tube into the amp, doublechecked everything, and plugged it in.
Nothing.
Presently I found the loose wire between the power switch and the fuse. Clamped it by way of a jury rig, tried again. Amp lit up, tubes glowed, the speaker made that sound-not-sound , that peculiar clearing-of-throat
hum/not hum indicative of sucsess.
Now to solder it up, replace the wobbly power switch, and find myself a guitar.
Incidently, the amp contains the following tubes, from the side of the board which contains the transformer:
6AR5 6X4 6AV6 6AV6 6AV6
Which comes to 3 @ 6AV6, 1 @ 6AR5 and 1 @ 6X4 rectifier.
I am told the Beltone was actually made by Teisco. The plate on the back reads
Davis Importing Co. Ltd.
BELTONE
Musical Instrument Amplifier
Model No. AP AP-12
115 V. 60 CYC. 31 VA.
Its a Beltone AP-12 that someone lovingly pulled all the tubes out of, and broke one for dessert. I have boxes of old vacuum tubes that are a sad relic of my past; I figured I could find a replacement.
Its a 6AR5. Various sites refer to it as a "commen pentode" one going so far as to claim "This can often be seen in old thrown out televisions" .
I could have bought one for 10.00$ USD, which was more than I was willing to invest. I dug through my boxes.
I didn't have one. I searched for a replacement. The sites wern't real forthcoming on that issue, but by happy accident I found a schematic a Japenese fellow had posted for a receiver design, and he'd noted that I could replace the 6AR5 with a 6AQ5. I found 4 6AQ5s within ten minutes. The sites agreed the pinouts were identical, that the curves were close to matching - and most importantly, the replacement exceeded the performance of the original. I stuck the tube into the amp, doublechecked everything, and plugged it in.
Nothing.
Presently I found the loose wire between the power switch and the fuse. Clamped it by way of a jury rig, tried again. Amp lit up, tubes glowed, the speaker made that sound-not-sound , that peculiar clearing-of-throat
hum/not hum indicative of sucsess.
Now to solder it up, replace the wobbly power switch, and find myself a guitar.
Incidently, the amp contains the following tubes, from the side of the board which contains the transformer:
6AR5 6X4 6AV6 6AV6 6AV6
Which comes to 3 @ 6AV6, 1 @ 6AR5 and 1 @ 6X4 rectifier.
I am told the Beltone was actually made by Teisco. The plate on the back reads
Davis Importing Co. Ltd.
BELTONE
Musical Instrument Amplifier
Model No. AP AP-12
115 V. 60 CYC. 31 VA.
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