5 ms·

In it's simplicity it is genius. I had no clue this was a thing. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wirephoto https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wirephoto I really

In it's simplicity it is genius. I had no clue this was a thing. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wirephoto https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wirephoto I really like these old "explaining" films. The pedagogical level is far higher than what seems common today. And the they take their time to convey the message.

Animats 3y ago
The hard part was synchronization. We're used to synchronization being easy today, but it was really hard to synchronize anything until the 1980s, when phase-locked loops became easy and cheap.
- rightbyte 3y ago
  Does the belinograph need syncing though? I imagine you would just have a waste ribbon around the photo and start it after the call with say a delay you both agreed too. Or maybe you could send light in some known pattern with a starter strip and the receiver could look at the lamp. Attenuation most have been a problem though? I guess you could send some sort of calibration photo to adjust gain? I don't think practical FM signal modulation was a thing yet in the 30s?
  - barrkel 3y ago
    You need to synchronize the spin rate of the drums on either end. If there's a difference of half a rotation over however many hundreds (thousands?) of rotations to transmit the photo, you'd end up with a completely distorted picture.
- jnewkirk 3y ago
  I had a pair of these transceivers when I was in my teens, from a somewhat later period, thanks to my grandfather who refurbished them from his time as a telegrapher at Western Union. Synchronization at startup took ten seconds or so while each unit adjusted its timing and apparently sent a correction signal to the other, drums whirling all the time and gradually matching initial positions. It looked like the most primitive process possible, but worked every time.
- barrkel 3y ago
  Yes, I was looking for the bit where they addressed skew. You can even see it in the demo with the string, horizontal lines come out wavy after transfer to the other spool due to small differences in synchronization.
mhuffman 3y ago
>I really like these old "explaining" films. The pedagogical level is far higher than what seems common today. And the they take their time to convey the message. I wonder what happened? I have been blown away by some of the older explainer videos from the 40s and 50s, esp. some of the military training videos for vehicle repair, electrical engineering, etc. Very concise and very clear explanations, always with visual examples. Today, we have things like 3brown1blue that are kind of like that, but in general you don't see information transfer like this either online or in school (at least not in my experience).
- dmitrygr 3y ago
  What happened is that the average attention span fell bellow 2 seconds. There is a book. “Amusing ourselves to death”. YOU can watch those videos. The average person today will be bored and tune out.
- Osiris 3y ago
  The one about how a differential works is fantastic. It just goes step by step through showing the problem to incremental improvements until the final gearing system is “simple”.
- BurningFrog 3y ago
  My guess is that back then producing films was expensive cutting edge technology, and the few films that got made hired the brightest and best, and gave them time to get it right. Today any unemployed bozo can make explainer YouTube videos. That great as a "democratization", but the average quality is obviously lower.
  - cj 3y ago
    Some quick googling shows cinematic film cameras in 1930/40 used to cost $100k-$300k adjusted for inflation. Today, the cheapest Netflix-approved camera is $2k [0] Lower barrier to entry is a blessing and a curse. Signal v noise, etc. [0] https://noamkroll.com/the-3-most-affordable-netflix-approved-cinema-cameras-you-can-buy-right-now/ https://noamkroll.com/the-3-most-affordable-netflix-approved...
mrandish 3y ago
> The pedagogical level is far higher than what seems common today. This is a growing pet peeve of mine. I used to think that advancing media formats and productions tools would generally make conveying knowledge faster, better and deeper. Instead, we see most media intentionally engaging in overall 'dumbification'. It's not just more content being shorter or more summarized, as I'm trying to compare 'apples to apples' here in terms of content targeting, length etc.
- anonymoose33282 3y ago
  What’s interesting is you also see the is was sponsored by Chevrolet (on the title screen), so it seems monetization-wise, it’s no different than today when YouTubers have a sponsor read at the start of a video. I just wonder if then it’s simply a matter of more creators competing for less ad-money-per-person, which leads to the kind of “optimized” content we see today.
  - Swizec 3y ago
    It’s the algorithm. You’re playing a different game when your content has to compete with and grab attention on its own vs when a gatekeeper decides to broadcast you at 3pm to every TV.
- Narkov 3y ago
  Does survivor bias account for this? Only the best/most worthwhile videos from the "old times" are archived. Right now, we see every piece of crap uploaded to YouTube. No doubt there's awesome video content being created today - Smarter Every Day by Destin Sandlin seems to fit - but it's surrounded by junk.
  - AlotOfReading 3y ago
    No, almost every piece of non-live media that was produced from the 1940s onwards went into huge broadcast archives. Some of the media it was stored on was destroyed, or otherwise reused for newer broadcasts, but much of what survived wasn't due to the inherent quality of the content and we have vast amounts of it remaining. Take this compilation of 1960s commercials from the Prelinger archives [0]. These obviously weren't produced to the same quality as the Chevrolet videos, but it's also not drastically different from contemporaneous syndicated content. The pacing is slower than modern ads, most include practical demonstrations of why the product is better/necessary, and there's just less optimization towards the visual frenzy we see today. [0] https://youtu.be/EGUuyewrNNo https://youtu.be/EGUuyewrNNo
caditinpiscinam 3y ago
A couple other good ones: How Differential Steering Works (1937) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yYAw79386WI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yYAw79386WI Flak (1943) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H8zPNMqVi2E https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H8zPNMqVi2E
- rightbyte 3y ago
  The diff one is so good. Note how they made a model in the wirephoto video too to show the concept but with painted rope. Models seems to me to be a very good pedagogical tool.
causi 3y ago
AT&T's "Similarities of Wave Behavior" is incredible.
Animats 3y ago
That's Jam Handy. They were really good at that. Some Youtubers should try that style. Neckbeards with headphones are so over.
- rdlw 3y ago
  Not sure what you mean by that but Steve Mould (physics/chemistry/engineering), Matt Parker (math), Primer (economics), AlphaPhoenix (electricity, lately), 3Blue1Brown (math), Fraser Builds (history of chemistry, alchemy), Ben Eater (computers), Gneiss Name (geology) and The Thought Emporium (genetics/miscellaneous) are some youtube channels I really enjoy that teach concepts by either making elaborate models, making elaborate animations, or just actually making the thing they're talking about from scratch.
ugh123 3y ago
> The pedagogical level is far higher than what seems common today. And the they take their time to convey the message. I think that is true for some content, but there's certainly a contingent of content creators out there now putting out a lot of good technical explainer videos. They're doing it far better than your typical mass media content producers.
- sgc 3y ago
  I agree completely. I have found so many great videos for woodworking, coffee (both roasting and espresso brewing), robotics, home construction, car repairs, computer/portable device repairs, etc. Youtube has made almost any hands-on activity so much easier for me to learn. I prefer reading for theoretical concepts most of the time, but something more complex that I don't have the time to properly study is sometimes better served by a good video or series as well. Practically, most everything I dig into it's using both, although I just now started using phind.com (thanks for the tip HN) to fill in some of the things all my sources seemed to be skipping over or presupposing, and that has helped me get answers to latent questions I had for quite some time. I really need those links out because I can't rely on AI generated information otherwise, of course.
kgwxd 3y ago
OT but one of my favorite songs is made from an old video like that https://youtu.be/Azsk21MpbUk?feature=shared https://youtu.be/Azsk21MpbUk?feature=shared
roywiggins 3y ago
Possibly the high water mark of such things was the "Secret Life Of Machines" series. Here is their episode on fax machines: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yuUyt9RG7pk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yuUyt9RG7pk
lagrange77 3y ago
As someone else also pointed out, this video about the differential is fantastic! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yYAw79386WI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yYAw79386WI
7373737373 3y ago
A style guide/analysis for these pedagogical films should be written, so it can be applied to new things
lysis 3y ago
The pedagogical level and the production values both have the same source - this is an advertisement. The Jam Handy Organization made what we would now call sponsored content. It is unfair to compare the production values of this to modern educational content or modern amateur content - they're operating at different scales and with different resources. In the past - as in now - media production is driven by the demands of capital. We can wax nostalgic for commercials all we want but comparing it to a different modern product does a disservice to the past and media workers in the present. https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt45kdjb.16 https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt45kdjb.16

Animats 3y ago

The hard part was synchronization. We're used to synchronization being easy today, but it was really hard to synchronize anything until the 1980s, when phase-locked loops became easy and cheap.

rightbyte 3y ago
Does the belinograph need syncing though? I imagine you would just have a waste ribbon around the photo and start it after the call with say a delay you both agreed too. Or maybe you could send light in some known pattern with a starter strip and the receiver could look at the lamp. Attenuation most have been a problem though? I guess you could send some sort of calibration photo to adjust gain? I don't think practical FM signal modulation was a thing yet in the 30s?
- barrkel 3y ago
  You need to synchronize the spin rate of the drums on either end. If there's a difference of half a rotation over however many hundreds (thousands?) of rotations to transmit the photo, you'd end up with a completely distorted picture.
jnewkirk 3y ago
I had a pair of these transceivers when I was in my teens, from a somewhat later period, thanks to my grandfather who refurbished them from his time as a telegrapher at Western Union. Synchronization at startup took ten seconds or so while each unit adjusted its timing and apparently sent a correction signal to the other, drums whirling all the time and gradually matching initial positions. It looked like the most primitive process possible, but worked every time.
barrkel 3y ago
Yes, I was looking for the bit where they addressed skew. You can even see it in the demo with the string, horizontal lines come out wavy after transfer to the other spool due to small differences in synchronization.

mhuffman 3y ago

>I really like these old "explaining" films. The pedagogical level is far higher than what seems common today. And the they take their time to convey the message. I wonder what happened? I have been blown away by some of the older explainer videos from the 40s and 50s, esp. some of the military training videos for vehicle repair, electrical engineering, etc. Very concise and very clear explanations, always with visual examples. Today, we have things like 3brown1blue that are kind of like that, but in general you don't see information transfer like this either online or in school (at least not in my experience).

dmitrygr 3y ago
What happened is that the average attention span fell bellow 2 seconds. There is a book. “Amusing ourselves to death”. YOU can watch those videos. The average person today will be bored and tune out.
Osiris 3y ago
The one about how a differential works is fantastic. It just goes step by step through showing the problem to incremental improvements until the final gearing system is “simple”.
BurningFrog 3y ago
My guess is that back then producing films was expensive cutting edge technology, and the few films that got made hired the brightest and best, and gave them time to get it right. Today any unemployed bozo can make explainer YouTube videos. That great as a "democratization", but the average quality is obviously lower.
- cj 3y ago
  Some quick googling shows cinematic film cameras in 1930/40 used to cost $100k-$300k adjusted for inflation. Today, the cheapest Netflix-approved camera is $2k [0] Lower barrier to entry is a blessing and a curse. Signal v noise, etc. [0] https://noamkroll.com/the-3-most-affordable-netflix-approved-cinema-cameras-you-can-buy-right-now/ https://noamkroll.com/the-3-most-affordable-netflix-approved...

mrandish 3y ago

> The pedagogical level is far higher than what seems common today. This is a growing pet peeve of mine. I used to think that advancing media formats and productions tools would generally make conveying knowledge faster, better and deeper. Instead, we see most media intentionally engaging in overall 'dumbification'. It's not just more content being shorter or more summarized, as I'm trying to compare 'apples to apples' here in terms of content targeting, length etc.

anonymoose33282 3y ago
What’s interesting is you also see the is was sponsored by Chevrolet (on the title screen), so it seems monetization-wise, it’s no different than today when YouTubers have a sponsor read at the start of a video. I just wonder if then it’s simply a matter of more creators competing for less ad-money-per-person, which leads to the kind of “optimized” content we see today.
- Swizec 3y ago
  It’s the algorithm. You’re playing a different game when your content has to compete with and grab attention on its own vs when a gatekeeper decides to broadcast you at 3pm to every TV.
Narkov 3y ago
Does survivor bias account for this? Only the best/most worthwhile videos from the "old times" are archived. Right now, we see every piece of crap uploaded to YouTube. No doubt there's awesome video content being created today - Smarter Every Day by Destin Sandlin seems to fit - but it's surrounded by junk.
- AlotOfReading 3y ago
  No, almost every piece of non-live media that was produced from the 1940s onwards went into huge broadcast archives. Some of the media it was stored on was destroyed, or otherwise reused for newer broadcasts, but much of what survived wasn't due to the inherent quality of the content and we have vast amounts of it remaining. Take this compilation of 1960s commercials from the Prelinger archives [0]. These obviously weren't produced to the same quality as the Chevrolet videos, but it's also not drastically different from contemporaneous syndicated content. The pacing is slower than modern ads, most include practical demonstrations of why the product is better/necessary, and there's just less optimization towards the visual frenzy we see today. [0] https://youtu.be/EGUuyewrNNo https://youtu.be/EGUuyewrNNo

caditinpiscinam 3y ago

A couple other good ones: How Differential Steering Works (1937) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yYAw79386WI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yYAw79386WI Flak (1943) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H8zPNMqVi2E https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H8zPNMqVi2E

rightbyte 3y ago
The diff one is so good. Note how they made a model in the wirephoto video too to show the concept but with painted rope. Models seems to me to be a very good pedagogical tool.

causi 3y ago

AT&T's "Similarities of Wave Behavior" is incredible.

Animats 3y ago

That's Jam Handy. They were really good at that. Some Youtubers should try that style. Neckbeards with headphones are so over.

rdlw 3y ago
Not sure what you mean by that but Steve Mould (physics/chemistry/engineering), Matt Parker (math), Primer (economics), AlphaPhoenix (electricity, lately), 3Blue1Brown (math), Fraser Builds (history of chemistry, alchemy), Ben Eater (computers), Gneiss Name (geology) and The Thought Emporium (genetics/miscellaneous) are some youtube channels I really enjoy that teach concepts by either making elaborate models, making elaborate animations, or just actually making the thing they're talking about from scratch.

ugh123 3y ago

> The pedagogical level is far higher than what seems common today. And the they take their time to convey the message. I think that is true for some content, but there's certainly a contingent of content creators out there now putting out a lot of good technical explainer videos. They're doing it far better than your typical mass media content producers.

sgc 3y ago
I agree completely. I have found so many great videos for woodworking, coffee (both roasting and espresso brewing), robotics, home construction, car repairs, computer/portable device repairs, etc. Youtube has made almost any hands-on activity so much easier for me to learn. I prefer reading for theoretical concepts most of the time, but something more complex that I don't have the time to properly study is sometimes better served by a good video or series as well. Practically, most everything I dig into it's using both, although I just now started using phind.com (thanks for the tip HN) to fill in some of the things all my sources seemed to be skipping over or presupposing, and that has helped me get answers to latent questions I had for quite some time. I really need those links out because I can't rely on AI generated information otherwise, of course.

kgwxd 3y ago

OT but one of my favorite songs is made from an old video like that https://youtu.be/Azsk21MpbUk?feature=shared https://youtu.be/Azsk21MpbUk?feature=shared

roywiggins 3y ago

Possibly the high water mark of such things was the "Secret Life Of Machines" series. Here is their episode on fax machines: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yuUyt9RG7pk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yuUyt9RG7pk

lagrange77 3y ago

As someone else also pointed out, this video about the differential is fantastic! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yYAw79386WI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yYAw79386WI

7373737373 3y ago

A style guide/analysis for these pedagogical films should be written, so it can be applied to new things

lysis 3y ago

The pedagogical level and the production values both have the same source - this is an advertisement. The Jam Handy Organization made what we would now call sponsored content. It is unfair to compare the production values of this to modern educational content or modern amateur content - they're operating at different scales and with different resources. In the past - as in now - media production is driven by the demands of capital. We can wax nostalgic for commercials all we want but comparing it to a different modern product does a disservice to the past and media workers in the present. https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt45kdjb.16 https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt45kdjb.16