childhood inventions
 

On Fri, 11 Jan 2013 20:18:38 +0000, Ian Jackson
wrote:

In message , Graham.
writes



OC44 was an rf transister, unlikley ro me a photo version (BICBW)
Are you sure you don't mean OCP71?

Well spotted. Of course I mean the OC(P)71. I'm just making sure that
those at the back are awake.

I used to mainly use the ORP12 LDR for my optical experiments.


As you will no doubt know, Mullard got wise to the paint scraping
trick and put a block on it. Literally.

--
Graham.
%Profound_observation%

childhood inventions
 

More fascinating reading. (I know how much you admire Radio Amateurs).
http://modulatedlight.org/Modulated_...cle1Jan79.html


This is a link to a Light - RF crossband QSO from that site.
http://modulatedlight.org/Modulated_...1974_death.mp3

--
Graham.
%Profound_observation%

childhood inventions
 

wrote in message
...
On Fri, 11 Jan 2013 05:17:15 -0800 (PST),
wrote:

I think I was aged around 8 that while inflating a bicycle tyre I
suddenly got the idea that the action could be reversed and air could
move a piston in a cylinder.
Dashing in to show Mum and Dad my invention I was equally dashed when
Dad explained I was a hundred or more years too late.
All was not lost though as I discovered that afternoon what pneumatic
meant, attending school on Monday the teacher asked what we had done
that weekend and the subject came up. He was a good teacher and
seized upon things like this so we had an hour or two playing with
bicycle pumps and balloons and learnt a bit about air pressure.
On another occasion he queried why I was late and when finding the
reason was that I had forsaken my bike because I had been offered a
lift on a Steam Roller which was moving to a new section of road
repairs. That morning the class had a lesson on steam power with the
roller as exhibit A.

Was it really a *steam* roller? You must be old!

--
Max Demian

childhood inventions
 

On Fri, 11 Jan 2013 23:22:53 -0000
"Max Demian" wrote:

wrote in message
...
On Fri, 11 Jan 2013 05:17:15 -0800 (PST),
wrote:

I think I was aged around 8 that while inflating a bicycle tyre I
suddenly got the idea that the action could be reversed and air
could move a piston in a cylinder.
Dashing in to show Mum and Dad my invention I was equally dashed
when Dad explained I was a hundred or more years too late.
All was not lost though as I discovered that afternoon what
pneumatic meant, attending school on Monday the teacher asked what
we had done that weekend and the subject came up. He was a good
teacher and seized upon things like this so we had an hour or two
playing with bicycle pumps and balloons and learnt a bit about air
pressure. On another occasion he queried why I was late and when
finding the reason was that I had forsaken my bike because I had
been offered a lift on a Steam Roller which was moving to a new
section of road repairs. That morning the class had a lesson on
steam power with the roller as exhibit A.

Was it really a *steam* roller? You must be old!


In the Long Shop Museum in Leiston, Suffolk, there is a restored Steam
Roller. It was rescued from Ibiza, where it was visible from my
brother-in-law's office window, back in the 1970s. (He managed the Yacht
Harbour there). A real Steam Roller. I remember them, including one
working on the road outside our house, in about 1960 or so.
I'm not old, just not quite as sprightly as I used to be!
--
Davey.

childhood inventions
 

Bill, look at the 6th image down this page.



http://www.bluehaze.com.au/modlight/...4Amateur79.htm
Ohh thanks for that! Fascinating.

Bill

childhood inventions
 

Well you could get bulbs to work. There was I seem to recall a transmitter
based on the idea as a project in the late lamented Wireless world in either
50s or 60s. The point was that in order to keep the sound sounding
reasonable you had to use a low level of modulation so as not to go into the
non linear zone of thermal lag effect.
The receivers were ORP12s as I recall either with lenses or mirrors.
The main drawback was that when it was foggy it seldom worked. Snow did
not fare much better as blizzards are not transparent.
I built aan audio intercom using two lantern torches when I was young and
foolish. Very hard to keep the beams steady enough I found.

Brian

--
From the Sofa of Brian Gaff Reply address is active
wrote in message
...
I was brought up in a house that was a few hundred yards from the edge of a
vast estate of council and NCB houses. If anyone's interested it was on
Middlegate, Scawthorpe, Doncaster. We often used to walk up the hill to the
field at the side of the quarry, from where there was a view across the
estate and also across parts of Bentley. I used to fantasise about
broadcasting to the estate from there, by light. I would set up a powerful
lamp that would be modulated by audio. I knew a filament wouldn't respond
quickly enough, but I didn't know anything else that would, so I just hoped
that sopmething would turn up. Each receiver would have a large parabolic
mirror mounted somewhere high up enough to see my lantern, with a photocell
at the focal point. I remember talking to my science-inclined form master
about this, so that means I must have been first year secondary. Twelve or
thirteen I suppose.

I don't know why this came to mind, but I just wondered if anyone else had
mad inventions when they were a kid...

Bill

childhood inventions
 

You could only do that paint job on some of the Mullard devices, shortly
afterwards they made the bodies opaque.

My great inventions?
Pedal powered wire twister.. OK not of much use really, but fun.
It is interesting to note that my device for flashing festive lights in
weird sequences using OC72 transistors as bistables running from an astable
circuit took up half the room under the sofa, whereas nowadays its all done
in a chip you need a magnifying glass to see.. sigh...

Brian

--
From the Sofa of Brian Gaff Reply address is active
"Ian Jackson" wrote in message
...
In message ,
writes
I was brought up in a house that was a few hundred yards from the edge of
a vast estate of council and NCB houses. If anyone's interested it was on
Middlegate, Scawthorpe, Doncaster. We often used to walk up the hill to
the field at the side of the quarry, from where there was a view across
the estate and also across parts of Bentley. I used to fantasise about
broadcasting to the estate from there, by light. I would set up a powerful
lamp that would be modulated by audio. I knew a filament wouldn't respond
quickly enough, but I didn't know anything else that would, so I just
hoped that sopmething would turn up. Each receiver would have a large
parabolic mirror mounted somewhere high up enough to see my lantern, with
a photocell at the focal point. I remember talking to my science-inclined
form master about this, so that means I must have been first year
secondary. Twelve or thirteen I suppose.

I don't know why this came to mind, but I just wondered if anyone else had
mad inventions when they were a kid...

ISTR that when I was also a lad (or, at least, a teenager) there were
several projects (probably Practical Wireless and similar) using an OCP44
(or an OC44 with the paint scraped off) as the light-sensitive diode
detector, and a torch bulb as the transmitter. Obviously, the frequency
response was rather limited, but maybe they compensated by applying lots
of pre-emphasis to the audio.
--
Ian

childhood inventions
 

Actually, I think it was done to make testing them less prone to issues
when light fell on them.
Later of course they put their transistors inside metal cases, but many of
these now suffer from a degeneration of the filler that shorts them out so
they need to be replaced.

Brian

--
From the Sofa of Brian Gaff Reply address is active
"Graham." wrote in message
...
On Fri, 11 Jan 2013 20:18:38 +0000, Ian Jackson
wrote:

In message , Graham.
writes



OC44 was an rf transister, unlikley ro me a photo version (BICBW)
Are you sure you don't mean OCP71?

Well spotted. Of course I mean the OC(P)71. I'm just making sure that
those at the back are awake.

I used to mainly use the ORP12 LDR for my optical experiments.


As you will no doubt know, Mullard got wise to the paint scraping
trick and put a block on it. Literally.

--
Graham.
%Profound_observation%

childhood inventions
 

I recall the problems actually attempting to make a radio transmitter from
early transistors. Of course you could just build an oscillator and modulate
its amplitude, but that was not very successful as no matter what you did,
it had some FM tendencies resulting in the middle of the carrier having an
almost dead spot.
The only successful one was three transistors, a buffer and an output stage
which was tuned and then it worked quite well.

Brian

--
From the Sofa of Brian Gaff Reply address is active
"John Legon" wrote in message
o.uk...
wrote:
I was brought up in a house that was a few hundred yards from the edge of
a vast estate of council and NCB houses. If anyone's interested it was on
Middlegate, Scawthorpe, Doncaster. We often used to walk up the hill to
the field at the side of the quarry, from where there was a view across
the estate and also across parts of Bentley. I used to fantasise about
broadcasting to the estate from there, by light. I would set up a
powerful lamp that would be modulated by audio. I knew a filament
wouldn't respond quickly enough, but I didn't know anything else that
would, so I just hoped that sopmething would turn up. Each receiver would
have a large parabolic mirror mounted somewhere high up enough to see my
lantern, with a photocell at the focal point. I remember talking to my
science-inclined form master about this, so that means I must have been
first year secondary. Twelve or thirteen I suppose.

I did something similar when I was a couple of years older with a neon
panel lamp mounted in a bicycle lamp as transmitter, and a photocell in a
toilet roll with a magnifying glass at one end as receiver. I had no
ambitions to broadcast to the estate, but was happy with a modulated light
beam that transmitted music across my bedroom...

Not exactly hi-fi, but it worked.

childhood inventions
 

Blimey, you must be one of those young whippersnappers then.
I was adult in the days of the ZX Spectrum, so we never had much in the way
of graphics, and web sites were not even heard of.

I did write some software, but nobody really wanted daft basic games like
Spider Diner or Rodent run..
Brian

--
From the Sofa of Brian Gaff Reply address is active
"the dog from that film you saw" wrote in
message ...
On 11/01/2013 13:17, wrote:
I was brought up in a house that was a few hundred yards from the edge of
a vast estate of council and NCB houses. If anyone's interested it was on
Middlegate, Scawthorpe, Doncaster. We often used to walk up the hill to
the field at the side of the quarry, from where there was a view across
the estate and also across parts of Bentley. I used to fantasise about
broadcasting to the estate from there, by light. I would set up a
powerful lamp that would be modulated by audio. I knew a filament
wouldn't respond quickly enough, but I didn't know anything else that
would, so I just hoped that sopmething would turn up. Each receiver would
have a large parabolic mirror mounted somewhere high up enough to see my
lantern, with a photocell at the focal point. I remember talking to my
science-inclined form master about this, so that means I must have been
first year secondary. Twelve or thirteen I suppose.

I don't know why this came to mind, but I just wondered if anyone else
had mad inventions when they were a kid...

Bill




i invented flash before adobe - in my head.
it simply occured to me one day that websites could be far more animated
and exciting than they were (this was in dialup days) if they generated
their own graphics with polygons,with maths, instead of having to download
them at a great cost of time.
and then adobe programmed it and people hated them for it ever since.

--
Gareth.
That fly.... Is your magic wand.