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Subject: Dead Media Working Note 06.8
Dead media: Popular Science 1932: Naumburg's Visagraph,
the Electric Eye Linotype, Ordering Music by Phone
From roommate_AT_teleport.com (Dan Howland)
Source: Popular Science Monthly, June 1932
"BLIND CAN NOW 'SEE' PRINT AND PICTURES
"FOR the first time blind persons may actually 'see'
pictures and read newsprint and typewritten letters,
through the medium of their fingertips, with a device that
was demonstrated the other day in New York City. Termed
the "automatic visagraph" by its inventor, Robert E.
Naumburg, it scans a printed page with an electric eye.
Black and white outlines of letters and drawings are
transformed at high speed into raised and magnified lines,
punched by a vibrating needlelike point upon moving sheets
of aluminum foil.
"In this device the inventor has radically improved
an earlier model demonstrated a year ago, which he called
his 'printing visagraph' (((P.S.M., July '31, p. 40))).
That machine, resembling an office desk in size and
appearance, transformed ordinary bookprint into embossed
letters that could be read with the fingers. It was
hailed as an amazing development, though the user had to
perform rather complicated adjustments in inserting the
book, and though smaller type than bookprint was beyond
its reach. These handicaps have now been removed.
"So far improved is the new 'automatic visagraph' by a
modified scanning system that it will reproduce the type
of newspapers, magazines, and virtually anything in print.
Even such things as radio diagrams and maps, hitherto
inaccessible to a blind person because not even an
attendant could read them to him, are now made 'visible.'
"To read a book with the latest model, two of the
pages are thrust through a slot, with no effort to
straighten the book or align it. The volume is pushed
automatically across a transverse slit, beneath which a
fast-moving electric eye scans the printed line.
(((Picture captions - punctuation verbatim)))
"This totally blind girl is reading a novel in ordinary
bookprint with the aid of the new visagraph in which and
electric eye scans the printed page so raised letters
appear on aluminum foil beneath the girl's fingertips.
Left, radio diagram, typewriting, and handwriting made
'visible' for blind"
(((One wonders how "visible" a blind person using the
visagraph to read this issue of Popular Science would find
the resulting bas-relief of a halftone of a photograph of
a bas-relief of "a radio diagram, typewriting, and
handwriting.")))
"This form of visagraph reproduces a map from a newspaper
so that it can be "read" by a blind man"
Page 28
"Electric Eye Sets Type Rapidly Without Aid of Human Hands
"HIGH-SPEED typesetting without the intervention of the
human hand is forecast by the recent demonstration of an
automatic linotype machine. Controlled by an electric
eye, it transforms typewritten 'copy' directly into lead
type. The only limit to its speed is said by its
Charlotte, N.C., inventor to be that of standard linotype
machinery.
"Copy for use in the automatic typesetter is written
upon a special typewriter which prints a symbol composed
of from one to six dots beneath each letter and space.
The letters are only for the guidance of writer and
editor, for the dot symbols alone actuate the typesetter.
"Each symbol has been chosen to represent a certain
letter. When a sheet of this copy is fed into a special
carriage that replaces the usual linotype keyboard, an
electric eye scans the lines of dots. Each symbol,
according to the number and pattern of dots, actuates the
proper lever that sends the corresponding letter of type
sliding from the type magazine into place. The lines of
type are then cast into slugs in the conventional manner."
Page 24
"PHONOGRAPH RECORDS SELECTED BY PHONE
"CUSTOMERS of a British dealer in phonograph records now
choose their purchases by telephone. The enterprising
merchant fitted a talking machine with an electric pick-up
and amplifier, and plays over the selections before a
telephone fitted with a hornlike transmitter. The
telephone subscriber then places his order for the desired
records."
"NEW ROBOT CAMERA IS DANCE PARTNER
"A MOVIE camera that bobs up and down in the motions of a
dance has been introduced for realistic close-ups in
ballroom scenes. Cams in the automaton's rubber-tired
wheels may be adjusted for a waltz, foxtrot, or tango, and
the actress goes through the steps in the robot's wooden
arms. It is powered by electric motors."
((("Cambot, give me rocket number nine!" - Joel
Robinson)))
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Media | 0.01-02.0 | 02.1-04.0
| 04.1-06.0 | 06.1-08.0 |
08.1-10.0 | 10.1-12.0 |