A hoary old project

[Panrock]

I was rifling through my old NBTV photos (as you do) and I came across this scan of a photo showing my first project in the NBTVA. These units, I think, date from the early '90s and have now been long cannibalised (or recycled if you prefer). Oh... and they never really worked, but I'm sure we can overlook that small point! .

This was supposed to be 45-line colour! 20'ish-inch Nipkow discs were used. I seem to recall Doug Pitt had to help me obtain Darvic of a big enough size. At the monitor, the modulated light sources were small white fluorescent tubes with gelatin filters sitting on the anodes of three EL34s.

The motors were ex-Lada heater fan, obtained from a breakers, later to be used again with the 'Grosvenor' and its camera. Incidentally I've slapped a preservation order on the Grosvenor kit, so it should be spared the fate of this predecessor; mind you it helps that the Grosvenor actually worked... My memory fails me but I think the camera used three 'eye response' photodides from RS, with filters.

(Not so) happy days!

Steve O

[M3DVQ]

I was rifling through my old NBTV photos (as you do) and I came across this scan of a photo showing my first project in the NBTVA.

Where do you put the washing powder?

[Harry Dalek]

You went really big ! i always think well it has to be a nice size for storage as its going to end up in a box in the garage
Good you took photos of what was.

[Panrock]

Yes, like a washing machine, the idea was to be able to watch it at work...

in case it couldn't also provide a picture. The front over the large hole was covered with transparent acrylic sheet, which also provided a 'gloss' finish..

Astually the monitor was okay - it was good at showing coloured noise on the screen. The problem was lack of sensitivity in the camera. It really could have done with photomultipliers.

Steve O

[Steve Anderson]

At least you still have the photos. When I think of all the things I built starting in my early teens up until the mid-90s. Nothing was documented, no photos were taken and the inevitable fate of all was dismemberment.

Then the PC became part of our domestic scene so record-keeping became easier and in some weird way I enjoy creating the documents. Later on the digital still camera appeared, no more costly film, processing or waiting for the results.

Then the inevitable happened...a disc crash...yep, everything vanished. I learned my lesson. This PC has two hard drives, it's not a Raid-array but it does automatically copy updated or new files to the back-up drive. Plus as if it's some form of fetish I also have an external USB hard drive. A decent sized USB flash drive is also worth the investment.

I have very little that pre-dates the early 2000s...now I know better.

Steve A.

[gary]

Yep, same with me.

But I did have a nice photo of my very first mechanical camera/monitor circa 1970 - it got a little crumpled so I threw it away - stupid. There should have been a negative but I have never found it. Oh well.