Computer-generated images for mechanical displays.

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Computer-generated images for mechanical displays.

Postby Stephen » Sat Aug 04, 2007 12:25 am

There seems to be a great deal of enthusiasm for recording and reproducing NBTV signals by mechanical means: hence the Edikow. With the popularity of generating images for NBTV by means of a computer there should be a similar level of interest in generating images for mechanical NBTV systems by means of a mechanical computer.

Thomas Fowler developed and built a successful ternary mechanical computer in 1840. See http://www.thomasfowler.org.uk/ and http://www.mortati.com/glusker/fowler/index.htm . Perhaps some of us could focus our mechanical skills on recreating such a ternary mechanical computer for NBTV purposes. I suppose too that such a computer could be part of a non-electric TV system as well if the output of the computer controls valving for a gaslight.

For that matter, a mechanical TV display could also be a graphical interface for such a mechanical computer: a mechanical, and perhaps even non-electric, PC.
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Re: Computer-generated images for mechanical displays.

Postby Viewmaster » Sat Aug 04, 2007 1:12 am

Stephen wrote:There seems to be a great deal of enthusiasm for recording and reproducing NBTV signals by mechanical means: hence the Edikow. With the popularity of generating images for NBTV by means of a computer there should be a similar level of interest in generating images for mechanical NBTV systems by means of a mechanical computer.


The old mech computers were not designed to work at high speed.
The info per sec for NBTV would be too fast for mechanical movements.
NBTV is 32 x 48 x 12.5 pixels per sec is it not?
A piano roll mech type system or musical box pins would be much too slow.
Anyway these systems are not analogue, but old digital! ..... The notes are either on or off.
So how would one store and deliver the analogue info fast enough by mechanical means other than disc or cylinder.

There is a push in pin system where one can push in a matrix of pins to form a face etc. in 3D.
So if one could scan the pin depths fast that might work. No cheating with LEDs etc. Pure mechanical this one.
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Postby Viewmaster » Sat Aug 04, 2007 1:20 am

The picture storage in pins. Read each one in depth for NBTV output.
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Postby Stephen » Sat Aug 04, 2007 1:41 am

Viewmaster wrote:The picture storage in pins. Read each one in depth for NBTV output.
This is very interesting. A scanning disc could be behind such a pin array, wherein a tiny electromagnet would replace each aperture in the disc. Each electromagnet would pull or repel a different pin a certain distance at each instance during the scanning cycle.
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Postby Viewmaster » Sat Aug 04, 2007 1:59 am

Stephen wrote:
Viewmaster wrote:The picture storage in pins. Read each one in depth for NBTV output.
This is very interesting. A scanning disc could be behind such a pin array, wherein a tiny electromagnet would replace each aperture in the disc. Each electromagnet would pull or repel a different pin a certain distance at each instance during the scanning cycle.


An electromagnet is not at all a precise distance device. You would need
to control the pin movement's distance back and forth very accurately and very very fast! 32x48 of 'em!

Now, how about the storage side (the mech computer)? Say, we play back images already stored on a CD for starters.
How are these going to be converted to an all mech computer storage system ready to play into the NBTV?

A NBTV camera could be as present but with the imaging dome sensor o/p feeding the mechanical storage.....tiny pins? But how to control them fast and accurately?
Wot a big cluttering sound it would all make! :lol:
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Mechanical computer.

Postby Stephen » Sat Aug 04, 2007 3:15 am

I suppose that any storage medium, even an Edikow cylinder, could theoretically store information for a mechanical computer. The mechanical computer would have to be synchronised with the storage medium to convert the stored serial data to parallel data that the mechanical computer could process. The output of the mechanical computer could be mechanical to operate a mechanism to control a display.

Let us consider a a mechanical computer coupled to a totally non-electric TV system. Referring to the diagram, each gas restrictor valve has twice the gas output of the one to its right. The mechanical computer would activate any combination of the three plunger valves to change the gas flow from nought to 7X, a total of eight levels. The gaslight would then respond in brightness to the changing gas flow in synchronisation with the scanning disc. An extra restrictor valve set to 8X flow with an associated plunger valve would provide a total of 16 levels.

If electricity is permissible, an electrical power source could replace the gas mains, each restrictor valve would be 4x, 2X or 1X some value of electrical admittance, each plunger valve could be a relay and the gaslight could be an electrical light.

Of course, the necessary speed of response would be the problem with all this. But Mr. Baird managed to get a working television system using ordinary selenium photocells, a seemingly impossible feat considering the sluggish response of selenium.
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Postby DrZarkov » Sat Aug 04, 2007 5:00 am

there is an interesting book about this: "The Difference Engine" by William Gibson. It is about an alternative history, where Charles Babbage has built his steam powered difference engine in the victorian age and started the age of information more than 100 years earlier.

But for our purposes I think that is no option. Even a C 64 or a Sinclair Spectrum would be much too slow. Maybe it is possible to generate simple testcards by a mechanical computer. Maybe it's even possible to make a mechanical "Pong" game for use with a televisor. That's all I'm afraid.
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Postby Stephen » Sat Aug 04, 2007 5:38 am

DrZarkov wrote:Even a C 64 or a Sinclair Spectrum would be much too slow. Maybe it is possible to generate simple testcards by a mechanical computer. Maybe it's even possible to make a mechanical "Pong" game for use with a televisor. That's all I'm afraid.
I was really hoping that I could someday replace my AMD 64 X2 Dual-Core processor-powered PC with a steam-powered one and a gaslight-lit mechanical display. Oh well.
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Re: Mechanical computer.

Postby Viewmaster » Sat Aug 04, 2007 6:39 pm

Stephen wrote:Let us consider a a mechanical computer coupled to a totally non-electric TV system. Referring to the diagram, each gas restrictor valve has twice the gas output of the one to its right. The mechanical computer would activate any combination of the three plunger valves to change the gas flow from nought to 7X, a total of eight levels. The gaslight would then respond in brightness to the changing gas flow in synchronisation with the scanning disc. An extra restrictor valve set to 8X flow with an associated plunger valve would provide a total of 16 levels.


That's as a DA converter using Rs....1meg/.5meg/250k/125k/64k/32k/16k/8k.

But again it's speed of response of the gas valves that would be the limiting factor.
In the 30s there was "The Gas Light and Coke Co." advert, "Meet Mr Therm."
If your gas valve system had worked, Stephen, the advert may well have read, "
"See Mr. Therm all alight on your Nipkow!" :)
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Postby DrZarkov » Sat Aug 04, 2007 6:57 pm

That is the point! If gaslight had worked, Mr Baird had very sure a patent on it! That's why they worked with Kerr cells, because there was no fast enough source of light. I think the problem is, that the flame will become bigger, but not brighter. If reaction is fast enough...
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Postby Stephen » Sun Aug 05, 2007 12:56 am

DrZarkov wrote:I think the problem is, that the flame will become bigger, but not brighter. If reaction is fast enough...
It may be true that the increase in brightness would not be proportional; that might be built-in gamma correction.
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Postby Viewmaster » Sun Aug 05, 2007 4:26 am

This is not really NBTV but let's go crazy....
.....imagine 32 rows of water fountains, each row having 48 fountains in it.
They are all running under various water pressures to each of the 1536 fountains.
A painter or sculptor, watching from a helicopter, looking down on them at an angle, adjusts the pressure on each via radio to someone on the ground adjusting the water valves.
Imagine what an amazing 3D picture he would see as he built up the various heights of the water as the sun set on them at an angle.
Not a movie but a still moving picture in water.....now someone suggest putting water jets on a Nipkow!!
...end of crazyness. :)
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Postby Stephen » Sun Aug 05, 2007 11:52 pm

Viewmaster wrote:This is not really NBTV but let's go crazy....
.....imagine 32 rows of water fountains, each row having 48 fountains in it.
They are all running under various water pressures to each of the 1536 fountains.
A painter or sculptor, watching from a helicopter, looking down on them at an angle, adjusts the pressure on each via radio to someone on the ground adjusting the water valves.
Imagine what an amazing 3D picture he would see as he built up the various heights of the water as the sun set on them at an angle.
Not a movie but a still moving picture in water.....now someone suggest putting water jets on a Nipkow!!
...end of crazyness. :)
This is not so crazy. Imagine that a cam shaft, or a bank of coupled camshafts, have a contoured surface that changes the height of each fountain as its respective camshaft rubs against a plunger-operated valve for the fountain. The array of fountains would then change in pattern and profile as the camshafts revolve. Each fountain could have a light source at its base to light the fountain. Each light source could be modulated in intensity and colour as well. This could be a programmed 3-D colour moving picture display!
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Postby DrZarkov » Mon Aug 06, 2007 7:09 am

As a video source I suggest a giant Edikow, with a 2 meter diameter and 5 meter long marble cylinder (groves made by a computer program), driven by water. That would be a real television monument, maybe for a new park at the location of Alexandra Palace if nothing will happen to conserve the building...
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Postby Viewmaster » Mon Aug 06, 2007 5:54 pm

DrZarkov wrote:As a video source I suggest a giant Edikow, with a 2 meter diameter and 5 meter long marble cylinder (groves made by a computer program), driven by water. That would be a real television monument, maybe for a new park at the location of Alexandra Palace if nothing will happen to conserve the building...


Yes, great idea, and how about a giant version of Kevin Hadfield's colour NBTV carousel rotating around the Alexandra Palace aerial tower for all of London to marvel at?

Instead of LEDs maybe huge coloured water jets spouting out from the tower, with your marble cylinder all floodlit at the top! :)

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