Wednesday Night TV: UNIVAC Computer Commercials (1956 in 3D)

Today we have 2 commercials from 1956. Both are for Remington Rand UNIVAC Computers. The 1st commercial is 27 seconds long. This commercial aired on the CBS Television Network on 5 February 1956. Immediately after the 1st commercial is finished playing, the second will play. It is approximately 3 minutes long and was aired during the 5 February 1956 CBS-TV telecast of "What's My Line?" This last commercial promotes the CBS-TV weather services.

It is interesting to note that these commercials were not originally broadcast in 3D. The 3D effects were added later, as a sort of after market effect if you will. This 3D effect is the old type (Anaglyph image) requiring the red and blue glasses (Red on the left, Blue on the right). I pulled out an old pair of mine and the effects seem to work OK, but I am not sure why you would want to watch a 1956 computer commercial in 3D.



If you like this I can post some more in 3D. All using the Anaglyph image process. By the way, you might be interested in knowing that the Anaglyph image process has been around since 1853. That's right, 1853. Came out of Germany. Who knew his development would have figured so prominently in 1950's Hollywood and beyond?

© 2011 Barry T Horst

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Can You Spot It?

You may remember from an earlier post that Julie and I went to the public library here in town. One of the books that I checked out was Hidden Secrets by David Owen & Antonio J. Mendez. The book is "A complete history of espionage and the technology used to support it", so says the cover. Thus far I have found it to be a very good read.

The one thing that bothers me about this book and many others is when I come across a typo, more specifically, a misspelled word. It seems that you can run across this type of error or mistake quite often today because of people using a "spell check" program. It seems that the program will only catch misspelled words; not words that are normally spelled correctly but are absolutely wrong for where they are used. I have found several of those, but for the sake of time I will not be mentioning them now. After all, I'm hungry and I want to go have breakfast.

However, I can't believe what I saw last night in the book. On page 103 there is a picture of the German Enigma machine which was used for ciphering and deciphering messages sent to the various units in the field. Look at the picture closely. Do you see what I saw?

Can't see it yet? Perhaps it is a little small. Try this one.

That's a little better but still a little hard to see. How about this one?

That's better. Now look at the rows of keys (Bottom 3 rows) and lights (Top 3 rows). Pay particular attention to the letters on them. They are reversed. This is easy to see on the keys for the letters J, K, and F for instance. Now that would really make a cipher wouldn't it?

Look back at the first picture. Apparently the publishers reversed or flipped the picture in order to have it fit the layout of the page.

Interesting the things that publishers do and many people never notice.

For a little fun try this link to the Enigma Machine Applet. Here you can create your own coded messages just like the spies did.

© 2008 Barry T Horst


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Milestone For The Blog

The Blog has reached a milestone this evening. The Blog has had its first international visitor. The Blog is barely one week old. A few days ago I installed a FEEDJIT widget on the site. This widget tracks the location by city of the visitors to the Blog. This evening we had a visitor from London, England. Left click the map on the upper portion of the left sidebar and see where the other visitors are from. Just think, visitors from far and wide; from Riesel, Texas to London, England are viewing and reading the Blog.

Isn't technology wonderful?


© 2007 Barry T Horst



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Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.

It's 2007 And I Can't Wait For 1938

I was born in 1956. I am 51 years old. I enjoy using my computer, talking on a cell phone, and am still fascinated by spaceflight. I like to watch DVD's, listen to CD's, and other types of recordings.

Today, we take for granted things that were not common yet or would have only been a dream when I was born. Yes, computers were around when I was born. But they didn't sit on a desk or were small enough to carry. They were in a room. More precise, they were as big as a room. Think Univac. Space flight was in its infancy. Sputnik launched on October 4, 1957. Video recording was possible, but not by the general public as it is today. Recording on magnetic tape was still in its infancy in the 50's, having only been developed in the 1940's. Interesting side note here is that Bing Crosby was involved it's commercial development. DVD's and CD's were not developed until the 1980's. The concept behind cell phones began in 1947 but the technology was not developed yet.

Yes, we have that technology and more today. Through much of this technology I listen to CD's on the way to work and enjoy music from the 1940's and 1950's. I can listen to old radio shows from the 1930's - 1950's. I watch TV shows from the 1950's. I am able to retreat to a time period before I was born.

So why do so many of us spend so much money and time to use this modern technology in order to go back to a period of time when this technology was in its infancy? Is it because many of us are afraid of today's world and we search for a time that we think is safer, more secure? I suppose people see the 1930's, 1940's, and 1950's as a safer more secure time compared to our world today. Why? In the 1930's we had the Great Depression and the rising threat of Nazism. In the 1940's we had World War II. And in the 1950's we had the Cold War. Presently we are faced with global terrorism.

Was that time any safer or more secure than today? Probably not! The difference is that we know how that time period ended and we survived it. I believe that the same thing will occur today. Then in 2057 our children will long for the "good ole days" of 2007.


© 2007 Barry T Horst



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Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.