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Cyhist Feb 14 1997 A
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Date: Fri, 14 Feb 1997 08:18:16 EST
Reply-To: "CYHIST Community Memory: Discussion list on the History of
Cyberspace" <CYHIST@MAELSTROM.STJOHNS.EDU> Sender: "CYHIST Community Memory: Discussion list on the History of
Cyberspace" <CYHIST@MAELSTROM.STJOHNS.EDU> From: keith reid-green <kreid-green@ETS.ORG>
Subject: CM> Rapid arm movements
X-To: CYHIST@SJUVM.STJOHNS.EDU
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Community Memory: Discussion List on the History of Cyberspace ______________________________________________________________________
Chris Chiesa said: "...if I moved my arm RAPIDLY across my field of vision while
staring at a fixed point beyond the watch, I could see "multiple copies" of the time display, with gaps in between. I deduced from this that the display was not constantly-illuminated but rather went on and off at a high frequency."
Thanks for the revelation. I thought I was the only crazy teenager. :-) When I was 17, television came to Denver. I was a freshman at Colo. U., studying physics. My mother went out and bought a television set and she hasn't turned it off since. She'll be 90 in June and must hold the world's record for watching television--she even watches the fishing show at 6:30am.
But I digress. Regarding Chris's arm-waving, when we got the TV I noticed that if I moved my hand quickly in front of the set I could detect the screen blanking. This was because I would see two or three silhouettes of my hand. My brother and I had contests to see who could move a yardstick the fastest, as measured by the number of yardsticks we could count as the real one passed across the screen. For the record, each instance represented 1/30 second.
The first calculator I had wasn't electrical. It consisted of a set of toothed rods that were moved by a stylus, and a bar that would reset the apparatus to zero. It was built to add, and to subtract by complement arithmetic, and I soon figured out a way to multiply by successive addition. I put the multiplier in the high-order positions, added the multiplicand and subtracted one from the multiplier until it became zero. Just like the electromechanical Monroe calculator and most computers. I still have the calculator. It reminds me of Napier's bones. Who else remembers Napier's bones? There's an original set in a museum in southwest Scotland--can't remember its name but I could probably dredge it up if anybody's planning a vacation in Scotland this year.
Keith S. Reid-Green
Princeton, NJ
KReid-Green@ets.org
______________________________________________________________________
Reply-To: "CYHIST Community Memory: Discussion list on the History of
Cyberspace" <CYHIST@MAELSTROM.STJOHNS.EDU> Sender: "CYHIST Community Memory: Discussion list on the History of
Cyberspace" <CYHIST@MAELSTROM.STJOHNS.EDU> From: keith reid-green <kreid-green@ETS.ORG>
Subject: CM> Rapid arm movements
X-To: CYHIST@SJUVM.STJOHNS.EDU
______________________________________________________________________
Community Memory: Discussion List on the History of Cyberspace ______________________________________________________________________
Chris Chiesa said: "...if I moved my arm RAPIDLY across my field of vision while
staring at a fixed point beyond the watch, I could see "multiple copies" of the time display, with gaps in between. I deduced from this that the display was not constantly-illuminated but rather went on and off at a high frequency."
Thanks for the revelation. I thought I was the only crazy teenager. :-) When I was 17, television came to Denver. I was a freshman at Colo. U., studying physics. My mother went out and bought a television set and she hasn't turned it off since. She'll be 90 in June and must hold the world's record for watching television--she even watches the fishing show at 6:30am.
But I digress. Regarding Chris's arm-waving, when we got the TV I noticed that if I moved my hand quickly in front of the set I could detect the screen blanking. This was because I would see two or three silhouettes of my hand. My brother and I had contests to see who could move a yardstick the fastest, as measured by the number of yardsticks we could count as the real one passed across the screen. For the record, each instance represented 1/30 second.
The first calculator I had wasn't electrical. It consisted of a set of toothed rods that were moved by a stylus, and a bar that would reset the apparatus to zero. It was built to add, and to subtract by complement arithmetic, and I soon figured out a way to multiply by successive addition. I put the multiplier in the high-order positions, added the multiplicand and subtracted one from the multiplier until it became zero. Just like the electromechanical Monroe calculator and most computers. I still have the calculator. It reminds me of Napier's bones. Who else remembers Napier's bones? There's an original set in a museum in southwest Scotland--can't remember its name but I could probably dredge it up if anybody's planning a vacation in Scotland this year.
Keith S. Reid-Green
Princeton, NJ
KReid-Green@ets.org
______________________________________________________________________
