Pocket Typewriter

In 1952, Maurice Julliard patented a typewriter small enough to fit inside "an average size pocket." It could be used "without any support, being simply held in the hand."

His patent included a sketch of the typewriter, but I haven't been able to find any pictures of it. I'm not sure what practical use it was supposed to have, beyond being a novelty. His patent doesn't say. Would one use it to type miniature notes or manuscripts?

I noticed that it had a non-qwerty keyboard.

The Hackensack Record - July 24, 1952

Julliard's pocket typewriter wasn't the first one in existence. The book Victorian Inventions by Leonard de Vries contains an example from 1891. Though unlike Julliard's typewriter, it lacked a keyboard.

Posted By: Alex - Sun Jan 07, 2024 - Comments (2)
Category: Technology, Patents, 1950s

301 views

The video below is interesting as a peek into the way that YouTube works, but it's also interesting as a YouTube curiosity because its view counter is permanently stuck at 301, and has been for 11 years now, even though its actual view count is probably well over 1 million. Someone at YouTube had to deliberately freeze its view counter. As far as I know, it's the only video on YouTube that's received special treatment in this way.

Posted By: Alex - Fri Dec 08, 2023 - Comments (1)
Category: Technology, Internet, Video

The First Woman to Marry a Hologram

Back in 2018 we posted about Akihiko Kondo, a Japanese man who married a hologram. His holographic wife floated inside a desktop device.

Now Spanish artist Alicia Framis has announced she'll also be marrying a hologram. Her holographic partner is a life-size, three-dimensional projection powered by AI. His name is AILex.



Whereas Akihiko Kondo married a hologram because, by his own admission, he had trouble forming relationships with flesh-and-blood women, Framis is marrying a hologram as a piece of performance art which she's titled "The First Woman to Marry a Hologram."

She previously lived with a mannequin named Pierre.

More info: ElPais.com, AliciaFramis.com

Posted By: Alex - Thu Dec 07, 2023 - Comments (0)
Category: Technology, AI, Robots and Other Automatons, Performance Art, Marriage

Electrical Stimulation Face Mask

Full patent here.

Posted By: Paul - Wed Dec 06, 2023 - Comments (0)
Category: Frauds, Cons and Scams, Technology, Patent Medicines, Nostrums and Snake Oil, 1960s, Face and Facial Expressions

Dial Comes to Town

Posted By: Paul - Thu Nov 30, 2023 - Comments (0)
Category: Family, PSA’s, Technology, Telephones, 1940s

A system for climbing vertical surfaces

The French patent office granted Raymond Saulnier a patent in 1951 for "a system for climbing vertical surfaces." A British patent followed in 1952.

Saulnier had come up with a way to allow vehicles, or even people, to climb vertical surfaces without the aid of ropes. His insight was that climbing any slope is essentially a problem of adhesion. If a force stronger than gravity is pushing you against the slope, then you won't slide down. And that adhesive force could be supplied by the downward pressure of propellors or jet nozzles.



Of course, powering propellors or jet nozzles requires a lot of energy. So Saulnier imagined powering them with compressed air supplied by a tube from the ground. He suggested that firefighters, among others, might find his system useful for scaling the sides of buildings.

I've never seen a prototype of Saulnier's invention in action. But when I was in Target the other day, I noticed a Sharper Image-branded toy named the "Gravity Rover" that "climbs from floor to wall to ceiling." It occurred to me that this was Saulnier's invention transformed into a toy.

It's a pretty cool toy, but based on videos of it, extremely loud.

Posted By: Alex - Sun Nov 26, 2023 - Comments (0)
Category: Technology, Toys, Patents

The Honeywell Kitchen Computer

In 1969, Neiman Marcus offered a Honeywell "kitchen computer" in its Christmas catalog. The price tag was $10,600, which is equivalent to about $80,000 today. The price included a two-week course in programming, which was required to know how to use the computer. The computer could supposedly store recipes and help housewives plan meals.

No one ever bought one. Or rather, no one ever bought the "kitchen computer," but a few people (engineers, and the like) did buy the H316 minicomputer, which is what the kitchen computer really was. Neiman Marcus and Honeywell had simply repackaged the H316 as a kitchen computer.

Nevertheless, the "kitchen computer" is now credited as being the very first time a company had offered a home computer for sale. One of them is on display at the Computer History Museum.

More info: wikipedia

image source: Divining a Digital Future, by Paul Dourish and Genevieve Bell

If someone had bought one of the kitchen computers, it would have been pretty much unusable, because a user had to communicate with it in binary code, using a series of 16 buttons on the front to enter data. From Wired:

image source: The Computer, by Mark Frauenfelder

Posted By: Alex - Wed Nov 22, 2023 - Comments (5)
Category: Technology, Computers, 1960s

Miss Electronics of 1950 and Miss Microwave

The Institute of Radio Engineers chose 19-year-old Toy Palaske to be "Miss Electronics of 1950." She got to wear a swimsuit covered with electronics symbols and a crown topped with a television antenna.

A few papers reported a different title for her, "Miss Microwave of 1950".

I assume she was both simultaneously.

(left) Pasadena Independent - Sep 15, 1950; (right) Los Angeles Mirror - Sep 14, 1950

Posted By: Alex - Tue Nov 07, 2023 - Comments (0)
Category: Awards, Prizes, Competitions and Contests, Technology, 1950s

Recc Queens:  1957-1991

What does RECC stand for? "Rural Electric Cooperative Corporation." Bringing electricity to the sticks.

Read a short history here.

And what would any self-respecting organization be without crowning a queen? The photos here start in 1957 and go to 1991.

Posted By: Paul - Fri Oct 27, 2023 - Comments (0)
Category: Awards, Prizes, Competitions and Contests, Beauty, Ugliness and Other Aesthetic Issues, Hillbillies, Country Bumpkins, Ruralism and Flyover Country, Technology, Twentieth Century

Project Primrose

As a follow-up to Paul's recent post about the electric clothing of Diana Dew (from 1967)... here's a present-day electric dress recently unveiled by Adobe.

Posted By: Alex - Tue Oct 17, 2023 - Comments (0)
Category: Fashion, Technology, 2020s