Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

How photos were transmitted by wire in the 1930s

kottke.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

41–50 of 117 posts

Re: How photos were transmitted by wire in the 1930s

#41

Post by rdlw »

Animats wrote: post #22
rightbyte wrote: post #4

In it's simplicity it is genius. I had no clue this was a thing. 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.

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

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.

Re: How photos were transmitted by wire in the 1930s

#42

Post by IvyMike »

For a slightly later version of this: My most popular YouTube upload is the telecopier scene from Bullitt, where you can see the police use the latest and greatest "fax" technology of 1968. I uploaded the video without almost no information, but in an surprising twist, a lot of the youtube comments are actually pretty informative.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nQGAaCSFlJI

Re: How photos were transmitted by wire in the 1930s

#43

Post by cm2187 »

mhuffman wrote: post #8
rightbyte wrote: post #4

In it's simplicity it is genius. I had no clue this was a thing. 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.

>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 visua…

Youtube is full of videos like that. A few sample excellent channels:

https://www.youtube.com/@animagraffs

https://www.youtube.com/@engineerguyvideo

https://www.youtube.com/@Lesics/videos

The problem is more that they are drowned under the volume of content available.

Re: How photos were transmitted by wire in the 1930s

#44

Post by jimbokun »

mhuffman wrote: post #8
rightbyte wrote: post #4

In it's simplicity it is genius. I had no clue this was a thing. 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.

>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 visua…

Those videos were the equivalent of 3brown1blue for their day. With YouTube, there are far more videos of this sort today than there were then.

Re: How photos were transmitted by wire in the 1930s

#45

Post by sgc »

ugh123 wrote: post #39
rightbyte wrote: post #4

In it's simplicity it is genius. I had no clue this was a thing. 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.

> 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.

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.

Re: How photos were transmitted by wire in the 1930s

#46

Post by kgwxd »

rightbyte wrote: post #4

In it's simplicity it is genius. I had no clue this was a thing. 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.

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

Re: How photos were transmitted by wire in the 1930s

#47

Post by mikehollinger »

This is remarkable. Lasers were invented in 1960 as a point of reference.

The painted rope on two spools was also remarkable because of its simplicity - and it holds up today on explaining what a "download" is. ;-)

And even cooler - if we wanted to, I would wager a high school student could implement something along these lines using lego today. There's optical sensors, and you could rig up something to hold a pen like this [1] to render the image.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?app=desktop&v=dHmgaLgFRGM

Re: How photos were transmitted by wire in the 1930s

#48

Post by pjerem »

cm2187 wrote: post #43
mhuffman wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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 visua…

Youtube is full of videos like that. A few sample excellent channels: https://www.youtube.com/@animagraffs https://www.youtube.com/@engineerguyvideo https://www.youtube.com/@Lesics/videos The problem is more that they are drowned under the volume of content available.

Also Jared Owen which does an impressive work of 3D modeling to explain how things and places work. I’m amazed by the level of documentation you have to ingest to model things in such details.

Re: How photos were transmitted by wire in the 1930s

#49

Post by abrookewood »

asimpletune wrote: post #15

That scene (around 3:45) with the two, coupled spools of rope that transmit the picture from one spool to the other is simply amazing.

Agreed - really conveys what is happening in a simple and effective manner. It's a great addition to the video.

Re: How photos were transmitted by wire in the 1930s

#50

Post by ClassyJacket »

mhuffman wrote: post #8
rightbyte wrote: post #4

In it's simplicity it is genius. I had no clue this was a thing. 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.

>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 visua…

Have you seen Technology Connections on YouTube?
Post reply on HN