WEBVTT - Obsolete Forms of Media 0:00:04.400 --> 0:00:12.280 Welcome to tech Stuff, a production from I Heart Radio. Hedude, 0:00:12.360 --> 0:00:15.239 Welcome to tech Stuff. I'm your host, Jovan Strickland. I'm 0:00:15.240 --> 0:00:17.840 an executive producer with iHeart Radio and how the tech 0:00:17.920 --> 0:00:22.279 are you? You know? I recently started buying DVDs and 0:00:22.560 --> 0:00:27.680 blue rays and vinyl records again, partly because I'm tired 0:00:27.880 --> 0:00:31.920 of titles disappearing from various streaming platforms. You know, you 0:00:32.600 --> 0:00:34.920 you count on something being there, and then you log 0:00:34.960 --> 0:00:38.560 into your account and realize, Hey, that thing I wanted 0:00:38.600 --> 0:00:41.680 to experience isn't on this service anymore. So that's part 0:00:41.720 --> 0:00:44.800 of the reason. Another part is because I actually have 0:00:44.840 --> 0:00:47.879 this tiny little house in the middle of nowhere that 0:00:47.920 --> 0:00:52.000 has like no connectivity, and so I wanted to get 0:00:52.040 --> 0:00:55.120 some media that doesn't require an Internet connection because I 0:00:55.160 --> 0:00:57.920 can only watch the lizards and squirrels for so long 0:00:57.920 --> 0:01:01.040 before I start criticizing their lack of narrative of they 0:01:01.040 --> 0:01:04.560 do not take direction well. Anyway, I thought it might 0:01:04.600 --> 0:01:08.040 be fun to talk about some older forms of media 0:01:08.160 --> 0:01:12.880 that have passed out of favor or even gone completely obsolete. 0:01:13.840 --> 0:01:16.360 And this is more than just an episode where we 0:01:16.400 --> 0:01:19.400 look back and make goofy jokes about old forms of media. 0:01:19.720 --> 0:01:23.880 I've talked before about how data preservation is a real challenge, 0:01:24.400 --> 0:01:26.960 and and this is part of it. There are a 0:01:27.000 --> 0:01:31.840 lot of different challenges associated with the preservation of information. 0:01:33.000 --> 0:01:39.000 Sometimes we commit data, whether that's computer code, or it's 0:01:39.040 --> 0:01:43.560 an audio recording or video or digital documents or anything else, 0:01:44.080 --> 0:01:48.000 and we commit to a medium that subsequently loses support, 0:01:48.800 --> 0:01:52.080 and at that point, the information that's stored on this 0:01:52.160 --> 0:01:56.480 old format is on borrowed time. We need to either 0:01:56.840 --> 0:02:00.920 port the information over to another format, one that at 0:02:01.000 --> 0:02:05.040 least has support today, or we have to resign ourselves 0:02:05.280 --> 0:02:10.040 to eventually losing those older copies. Now, in some cases, 0:02:10.440 --> 0:02:14.600 like popular TV shows or movies or albums, we might 0:02:14.600 --> 0:02:17.600 not need to worry too much about the whole thing disappearing, 0:02:18.639 --> 0:02:24.640 but we might lose certain instances of that thing. For example, 0:02:25.280 --> 0:02:29.800 let's say that you were you bought an early DVD 0:02:30.400 --> 0:02:34.160 and had an amazing commentary track on it, and you 0:02:34.240 --> 0:02:36.960 really thought it was entertaining, and you've since lost it, 0:02:37.440 --> 0:02:40.280 and now when you start searching for a DVD of 0:02:40.320 --> 0:02:43.480 this same thing, all the current ones don't have that 0:02:43.560 --> 0:02:47.200 commentary track. That's one example of the sort of stuff 0:02:47.240 --> 0:02:51.840 you can lose even with things that continue to have 0:02:51.960 --> 0:02:56.760 at least some support in in current media. So this 0:02:56.880 --> 0:02:59.240 is a tricky thing. And let me give you an 0:02:59.240 --> 0:03:04.600 example of just lost media entirely. There's a popular television 0:03:04.600 --> 0:03:09.000 series called Doctor Who, and this is an English TV 0:03:09.160 --> 0:03:11.160 series if you're not familiar with it. It's been on 0:03:11.240 --> 0:03:15.919 forever since nineteen sixty three, actually, though not consistently since 0:03:16.040 --> 0:03:21.919 nineteen sixty and it was broadcast by the BBC, which 0:03:22.040 --> 0:03:25.160 is effectively a state backed broadcast network in the UK. 0:03:25.680 --> 0:03:28.920 And at the time, the BBC's normal method of operation 0:03:29.760 --> 0:03:33.520 was to broadcast content and if they started to run 0:03:33.600 --> 0:03:37.360 low on real to real tapes where they would store 0:03:37.440 --> 0:03:41.560 this stuff, they would just white older programs in order 0:03:41.600 --> 0:03:43.680 to put something else on that tape. So instead of 0:03:43.680 --> 0:03:45.960 buying new tape and figuring out where to store it 0:03:46.040 --> 0:03:48.160 and all that kind of stuff, they just say, hey, 0:03:48.200 --> 0:03:50.560 let's just erase this old thing. No one who's who's 0:03:50.560 --> 0:03:53.520 going to care? Because I mean, that was the thought was. 0:03:53.520 --> 0:03:56.760 It wasn't preservation, it was just it was transmission of entertainment, 0:03:56.800 --> 0:03:59.800 and then you moved on. No one was really thinking 0:04:00.040 --> 0:04:05.440 ahead two uh, you know, documenting this stuff and keeping 0:04:05.440 --> 0:04:08.560 it in a library and then further down the line, 0:04:08.600 --> 0:04:11.960 opening it up for home consumption. That just wasn't even 0:04:12.000 --> 0:04:14.360 remotely in the cards when people were thinking about this. 0:04:14.720 --> 0:04:17.039 In fact, I want to say that Eric Idol of 0:04:17.080 --> 0:04:21.920 Monty Python argued with the BBC and made certain that 0:04:22.000 --> 0:04:25.080 he got possession of the tapes after they produced the 0:04:25.120 --> 0:04:30.479 TV show so that the original Monty Python broadcasts would 0:04:30.520 --> 0:04:34.279 not subsequently get wiped because other shows had met that fate. 0:04:34.800 --> 0:04:37.880 So as a result, several of the early seasons of 0:04:37.960 --> 0:04:42.240 Doctor Who have missing episodes or entire missing seasons. And 0:04:42.279 --> 0:04:44.719 now and again you'll hear someone happening across an old 0:04:44.760 --> 0:04:48.560 copy of a previously lost episode, and that's a big deal. 0:04:49.279 --> 0:04:53.400 And because all forms of storage media have a limited lifespan, 0:04:53.920 --> 0:04:57.840 as time passes, the chances of finding a good copy 0:04:57.920 --> 0:05:03.280 of a previously missing episode decrease because the actual material 0:05:03.440 --> 0:05:08.400 that the the broadcast is saved upon will deteriorate over time. 0:05:08.480 --> 0:05:12.960 So yeah, data preservation is an important thing for us. 0:05:13.000 --> 0:05:18.680 To preserve things like like work of cultural significance, art information, 0:05:19.279 --> 0:05:22.560 you know, being able to document changes in public perception 0:05:22.960 --> 0:05:26.240 even like these are all important things, and they're made 0:05:26.240 --> 0:05:29.680 more difficult by the fact that we have these various 0:05:29.800 --> 0:05:34.040 forms of media that can go obsolete over time. Now, 0:05:34.880 --> 0:05:37.799 in the case of the BBC, the media isn't missing 0:05:37.839 --> 0:05:40.480 because we no longer support the format right real to 0:05:40.560 --> 0:05:43.479 real tape is still something that we have, you know, 0:05:43.520 --> 0:05:46.160 working equipment that can you that can actually access that. 0:05:46.839 --> 0:05:49.080 But you know, it is likely that you can grasp 0:05:49.160 --> 0:05:53.560 that when formats evolve, we can end up leaving data 0:05:53.600 --> 0:05:57.520 on previous formats behind. And again, as someone who is 0:05:57.839 --> 0:06:00.960 back to buying optical disks for tell television and movies 0:06:01.000 --> 0:06:04.200 and vinyl records for my albums, I frequently encountered the 0:06:04.200 --> 0:06:07.680 problem of looking for specific titles only to find out 0:06:07.760 --> 0:06:11.120 that the version I want is out of publication, or 0:06:11.160 --> 0:06:14.039 that the addition I wanted has long been unavailable, and 0:06:14.120 --> 0:06:16.599 anything that I can find on the market today is 0:06:16.640 --> 0:06:21.120 not exactly what I was looking for. So let's get 0:06:21.120 --> 0:06:24.440 a look at some formats that either no longer exist 0:06:24.680 --> 0:06:27.120 or they have such limited support that they might as 0:06:27.160 --> 0:06:32.039 well be obsolete. One type of recording that was very 0:06:32.080 --> 0:06:36.320 nearly lost for good was the phone autograph. So this 0:06:36.400 --> 0:06:39.800 is the in fact, one of the earliest, possibly the 0:06:40.000 --> 0:06:45.719 earliest example of recording an audio signal UH to a 0:06:45.800 --> 0:06:50.719 different medium. So a French inventor named Edward Lyone Scott 0:06:51.440 --> 0:06:55.800 built the phonotograph way back in eighteen fifty seven. This 0:06:56.440 --> 0:07:00.200 predates Edison in the phonograph and as the names just, 0:07:00.560 --> 0:07:04.719 this device was meant to quote unquote right down sound. 0:07:05.960 --> 0:07:08.640 As I said, this is the earliest version of recorded 0:07:08.640 --> 0:07:13.160 sound that we have not for reproducing sound, our programming sound. 0:07:13.200 --> 0:07:17.040 We'll touch on that as well in this episode. Because 0:07:17.080 --> 0:07:20.720 there were ways where you could program sound for a 0:07:20.880 --> 0:07:26.840 device like an organ for example, but you couldn't just 0:07:27.040 --> 0:07:31.320 record audio and play it back. Now Scott, unlike Edison, 0:07:31.440 --> 0:07:34.880 he wasn't concerned with playing audio back. That wasn't what 0:07:35.000 --> 0:07:38.800 he was thinking of at all, So his methodology wasn't 0:07:38.880 --> 0:07:42.520 meant to allow playback. His plan was to use the 0:07:42.560 --> 0:07:47.600 phone autograph to record audio for study, with the perhaps 0:07:47.760 --> 0:07:52.840 ultimate goal of creating a speech to text methodology. That is, 0:07:53.560 --> 0:07:58.000 you could use the phone autograph to record speech, and 0:07:58.040 --> 0:08:02.600 then by studying the record the thing that was produced 0:08:02.600 --> 0:08:06.280 by the phone autograph, then another person who was skilled 0:08:06.360 --> 0:08:09.239 in the art would be able to recreate what was said, 0:08:09.360 --> 0:08:13.559 or to reproduce what was said or read what had 0:08:13.680 --> 0:08:17.000 been said. So the record left behind would be distinct 0:08:17.120 --> 0:08:20.200 enough to know what words had been spoken, but it 0:08:20.200 --> 0:08:23.040 would take a lot of study to learn which phonemes 0:08:23.040 --> 0:08:26.239 produced particular shapes. And as it turned out, it's way 0:08:26.240 --> 0:08:29.720 more complicated than what Scott was thinking, but it was 0:08:29.800 --> 0:08:33.560 an interesting line of thought. So by shapes, I'm talking 0:08:33.600 --> 0:08:39.240 about patterns drawn on smoke blackened glass or paper. So 0:08:40.160 --> 0:08:42.320 let's say you get a pane of glass. It's it's 0:08:42.400 --> 0:08:46.040 coated with lamp black. So there's this thin black coating 0:08:46.080 --> 0:08:49.800 on the surface of the glass, and the stylists that 0:08:49.840 --> 0:08:53.040 they would use was actually some bristles, and those bristles 0:08:53.080 --> 0:08:58.120 connected to a diaphragm that itself was at the narrow 0:08:58.240 --> 0:09:02.080 end of an acoustic trump It not the musical instrument trumpet, 0:09:02.080 --> 0:09:05.000 but the trumpet shape. So you have the big open 0:09:05.520 --> 0:09:08.800 side and then on the narrow side you've got this little, thin, 0:09:09.200 --> 0:09:13.920 sensitive diaphragm. Connected to that are these bristles that can 0:09:14.160 --> 0:09:18.679 just barely make contact with the lamp blacked surface of 0:09:18.720 --> 0:09:23.560 this piece of glass. This acoustic trumpet would mimic the 0:09:23.640 --> 0:09:26.080 human ear, So if you look at a human ear, 0:09:26.160 --> 0:09:28.959 you're like, oh, I see the ear is the opening 0:09:28.960 --> 0:09:32.720 of the trumpet the canal. Is this narrowing to the 0:09:32.760 --> 0:09:36.560 ear drum is the same as this little diaphragm. So 0:09:36.679 --> 0:09:41.120 in sound waves would enter the acoustic end of this trumpet, 0:09:41.120 --> 0:09:43.480 the open end of this trumpet, I should say, and 0:09:43.520 --> 0:09:47.480 then travel down the narrow pathway. It would cause the 0:09:47.520 --> 0:09:54.400 diaphragm to vibrate. The glass would move across the bristles 0:09:54.440 --> 0:09:59.120 at a regular speed, at an unbroken regular speed, and 0:09:59.240 --> 0:10:02.200 the bristles would have vibrate with the vibration of the 0:10:02.200 --> 0:10:05.200 diaphragm which came from the speaking. So the idea was 0:10:05.240 --> 0:10:10.240 that because the time was was constant, the travel time 0:10:10.280 --> 0:10:14.120 for the glass was constant, you could look at the 0:10:14.160 --> 0:10:18.800 wiggly line created by these bristles and that would represent 0:10:19.280 --> 0:10:24.839 the sound that entered into the trumpet. And theoretically, if 0:10:24.880 --> 0:10:28.000 you were able to really study this, you should be 0:10:28.040 --> 0:10:30.920 able to tell what someone said based solely upon that 0:10:31.000 --> 0:10:35.640 squiggly line tracing the lampblack on the glass. And you know, 0:10:35.760 --> 0:10:42.040 that was a really interesting idea. Scott's work wasn't fully successful. 0:10:42.120 --> 0:10:44.400 Like he he was able to create the device and 0:10:44.440 --> 0:10:48.520 the device worked, but figuring out what was said based 0:10:48.600 --> 0:10:52.280 upon what was recorded turned out to be way harder 0:10:52.320 --> 0:10:55.360 than what he expected. It was just much more difficult 0:10:55.400 --> 0:11:00.480 to really suss all that out, and Scott's work plunged 0:11:00.559 --> 0:11:03.440 into obscurity for many years and was in danger of 0:11:03.520 --> 0:11:06.480 just being forgotten entirely, and then the narrative would just 0:11:06.520 --> 0:11:10.160 be Edison as the father of recorded sound. Now, in 0:11:10.200 --> 0:11:13.880 two thousand eight, a project called First Sounds found phone 0:11:13.880 --> 0:11:17.680 autograms these recordings that were made from Scott's invention, and 0:11:17.760 --> 0:11:22.359 through the use of digital scanning and some clever programming, 0:11:22.640 --> 0:11:26.160 they were able to recreate the sound that was originally recorded. 0:11:26.559 --> 0:11:29.559 Since the phone autogram could only record in two dimensions, 0:11:29.960 --> 0:11:32.680 the amount of information it captured was somewhat limited, but 0:11:32.720 --> 0:11:38.280 they could actually create uh simulated playback of this recorded sound. 0:11:39.440 --> 0:11:41.679 Elements of the phone autograph would actually make their way 0:11:41.760 --> 0:11:46.600 into devices like the grammophone, and this would aim to 0:11:46.800 --> 0:11:50.480 record audio for the purposes of playback rather than scientific studies. 0:11:50.559 --> 0:11:55.240 So this was taking Scott's idea but then expanding it 0:11:55.360 --> 0:11:59.160 specifically for the purposes of playback. So the grammo phone 0:11:59.200 --> 0:12:03.240 and then Edison phonograph technology would create the foundation for 0:12:03.360 --> 0:12:07.480 what would ultimately evolve into vinyl records much further into 0:12:07.520 --> 0:12:12.199 the future. So While the phone autograph itself is obsolete, 0:12:12.600 --> 0:12:14.839 its influence lives on today for those of us who 0:12:14.840 --> 0:12:19.120 still have a soft spot for turntables and LPs. All Right, 0:12:19.160 --> 0:12:21.000 we're gonna take a quick break. When we come back, 0:12:21.240 --> 0:12:35.600 i'll talk about another super cool but obsolete form of media. Okay, 0:12:35.679 --> 0:12:39.960 we're back, and I want to talk about organets. This 0:12:40.000 --> 0:12:43.200 one's a little tricky because tracing the history of organets 0:12:43.280 --> 0:12:47.280 can take you down a very long rabbit hole. Uh. First, 0:12:47.360 --> 0:12:50.640 let's start off with what an organet actually is. So 0:12:50.720 --> 0:12:55.520 it is a device that plays back music, instrumental music, 0:12:56.160 --> 0:13:01.160 and specifically, it's a read instrument. It that will play 0:13:01.240 --> 0:13:04.839 back music and you can't just play any tune on it. 0:13:04.840 --> 0:13:08.280 It's not like a keyboard that blows air through reads 0:13:08.360 --> 0:13:12.480 or anything like that. Instead, you would program music using 0:13:12.640 --> 0:13:17.120 a perforated surface, very much like a player piano. Right. 0:13:17.280 --> 0:13:21.400 So it might be a long strip of paper that 0:13:21.520 --> 0:13:26.320 has perforated holes at specific points that represent specific notes 0:13:26.440 --> 0:13:31.199 and the duration of those notes. Or it might be uh, 0:13:31.400 --> 0:13:34.840 strips of cardboard, which was also very common, Or it 0:13:34.840 --> 0:13:38.160 could even be metal disks that have perforations in them 0:13:38.360 --> 0:13:41.520 so air can flow through those perforations. And thus ultimately 0:13:41.960 --> 0:13:46.360 allow reads to play, either by blowing directly across the 0:13:46.440 --> 0:13:50.079 reads are or allowing a valve to open and do that. 0:13:50.800 --> 0:13:52.600 But there's a lot more going on than just that. 0:13:53.679 --> 0:13:56.560 If we were to trace the history of pipe and 0:13:56.679 --> 0:14:03.360 read organs which pre eight Oregon nets, uh, that history 0:14:03.440 --> 0:14:08.880 takes us really far back um. In fact, it takes 0:14:08.920 --> 0:14:12.320 us all the way back to ancient Greece with a 0:14:12.440 --> 0:14:16.720 musical device called the hydrau liss, and this was essentially 0:14:16.760 --> 0:14:21.520 an organ that used air pressure and water pressure to 0:14:21.760 --> 0:14:27.000 play notes through pipes. So the organ head different pipes 0:14:27.040 --> 0:14:31.280 that were built to tune to specific notes, and if 0:14:31.280 --> 0:14:33.760 you were to force air through this pipe, it would 0:14:33.760 --> 0:14:37.040 produce the note it had been tuned to. And you 0:14:37.080 --> 0:14:40.040 would have keys that you could press down, and if 0:14:40.040 --> 0:14:43.520 you press on a key, it would essentially allow a 0:14:43.640 --> 0:14:47.320 valve to open for that specific pipe, and air would 0:14:47.320 --> 0:14:50.120 then be able to pass through. But where did the 0:14:50.160 --> 0:14:52.880 air come from? Right? Yes, if you press the key, 0:14:52.880 --> 0:14:55.240 it opens up this air path and that would allow 0:14:55.720 --> 0:14:58.160 a note to play for air to force through the pipe, 0:14:58.480 --> 0:15:00.920 But the air has to come from somewhere. Well. The 0:15:01.000 --> 0:15:04.400 air came courtesy of a chamber that was partly filled 0:15:04.400 --> 0:15:08.880 with water, and a bellows like pump would force air 0:15:08.920 --> 0:15:11.880 into this chamber, so the air would actually start to 0:15:11.920 --> 0:15:16.080 push the water down, and the water would have this 0:15:16.200 --> 0:15:19.960 regular pressure on the air inside valve would stop the 0:15:20.000 --> 0:15:22.720 air from just flowing right back out towards where the 0:15:22.720 --> 0:15:26.440 bellows were, where the pump was, and when you pressed 0:15:26.480 --> 0:15:29.000 down a key, it would allow the air and escape route, 0:15:29.000 --> 0:15:30.920 so it would go out and go through the pipe, 0:15:31.320 --> 0:15:36.120 And by continuing to pump the bellows, you would continue 0:15:36.240 --> 0:15:40.640 to maintain pressure inside this chamber that also had water 0:15:40.720 --> 0:15:44.600 in it, so that you could continue to play the instrument. 0:15:45.200 --> 0:15:47.720 And this thing is thousands of years old. It was 0:15:48.120 --> 0:15:50.840 before a common era when this was invented. It's it's 0:15:50.880 --> 0:15:54.400 incredibly ingenious. I would love to do a full episode 0:15:54.520 --> 0:15:59.000 about um pipe organs and reed organs and their history 0:15:59.600 --> 0:16:02.960 because it is really fascinating. It's also a little complicated 0:16:03.000 --> 0:16:05.680 to talk about without the use of visual aids, so 0:16:06.200 --> 0:16:11.160 it's a daunting principle. But anyway, this basic idea would 0:16:11.200 --> 0:16:14.000 evolve over time and we would get pipe and read 0:16:14.120 --> 0:16:17.080 organs that you might be more familiar with. In fact, 0:16:17.160 --> 0:16:20.760 once upon a time I actually owned some bellows organs, 0:16:20.800 --> 0:16:26.560 some pump organs where I could move the foot pedals 0:16:26.600 --> 0:16:30.200 to pump air into the organ and then play um 0:16:30.600 --> 0:16:32.680 musical notes, and you had to keep on pumping if 0:16:32.720 --> 0:16:35.200 you wanted to maintain that pressure. To be able to 0:16:35.280 --> 0:16:40.440 do that, it was really neat. So then we get 0:16:40.520 --> 0:16:45.080 to devices similar to the organets that would take advantage 0:16:45.200 --> 0:16:48.680 of this air pressure idea, but they would remove the 0:16:48.760 --> 0:16:53.920 human player from the experience. UH. One of these, a 0:16:54.000 --> 0:16:58.080 predecessor to the organet was the barrel organ or roller oregan. 0:16:58.800 --> 0:17:01.840 So with a barrel organ, you have a pump or 0:17:01.920 --> 0:17:05.640 bellows that provides air power. You have musical notes that 0:17:05.760 --> 0:17:09.760 get produced through pipes or reads, but instead of a keyboard, 0:17:10.240 --> 0:17:14.959 the valves for these pipes connect to little levers, and 0:17:15.119 --> 0:17:18.320 you program music on a cob or barrel. So this 0:17:18.400 --> 0:17:21.800 is a cylinder and has various little projections on it, 0:17:22.240 --> 0:17:26.160 like a little spike or sometimes kind of staples, similar 0:17:26.160 --> 0:17:28.000 to what you might see with a music box. If 0:17:28.040 --> 0:17:29.840 you've ever looked into a music box and seeing the 0:17:29.880 --> 0:17:33.960 little barrel turning has a little projections on it. So 0:17:34.040 --> 0:17:38.160 these little protrusions would come into contact with these levers 0:17:38.200 --> 0:17:41.480 connected to the valves, and when they would. It would 0:17:41.520 --> 0:17:45.000 make the valve open, which would allow air to escape 0:17:45.359 --> 0:17:50.119 the chamber of the instrument through a read or pipe, 0:17:50.560 --> 0:17:54.400 and a note would play. So as the cylinder rotates, 0:17:54.440 --> 0:17:58.359 it hits these levers to produce pre programmed music. The 0:17:58.440 --> 0:18:00.639 quality of the music depends largely on the quality of 0:18:00.640 --> 0:18:03.040 the pre programmed barrel. If you did a poor job 0:18:03.119 --> 0:18:06.440 placing the pens and staples on the barrel, then the 0:18:06.520 --> 0:18:09.000 songs just not gonna sound right. The staples, by the way, 0:18:09.160 --> 0:18:12.159 would hold a valve open longer than just one of 0:18:12.160 --> 0:18:15.399 the little projections would, so if you needed a sustained note, 0:18:15.840 --> 0:18:19.040 you would use these staples to do that. Now, if 0:18:19.040 --> 0:18:23.040 you've ever encountered an organ grinder, like a person who 0:18:23.040 --> 0:18:25.520 plays one of these on the street, or you've seen 0:18:25.560 --> 0:18:27.879 one in movies or whatnot, you have seen a version 0:18:28.080 --> 0:18:31.919 of the barrel organ. They are typically cranked by hand, 0:18:32.320 --> 0:18:35.240 and the hand crank powers both the bellows and the 0:18:35.359 --> 0:18:38.520 rotation of the barrel itself. And again, I would need 0:18:38.520 --> 0:18:41.640 to do a full episode to talk about the technology 0:18:41.720 --> 0:18:45.280 behind this, the various gears that allow this to happen, 0:18:45.440 --> 0:18:49.760 because it's really fascinating stuff. But let's finally get too orcadets, 0:18:49.760 --> 0:18:53.560 so rather than using a barrel with these little projections 0:18:53.600 --> 0:18:57.800 or a cob like the organ grinder and barrel organ devices, 0:18:58.520 --> 0:19:02.560 they would use referred of material through which air could 0:19:02.640 --> 0:19:07.280 flow freely. Some organets depended upon forcing air through the holes, 0:19:07.320 --> 0:19:10.280 like blowing air through the holes in order to engage 0:19:10.359 --> 0:19:13.080 with reads and play a note. Others would create a 0:19:13.160 --> 0:19:15.919 vacuum so they would pull air through the holes and 0:19:16.000 --> 0:19:18.640 essentially do the same. It's really not that different from 0:19:18.880 --> 0:19:21.919 how a harmonica works. Like if you ever play to harmonica, 0:19:22.000 --> 0:19:24.880 you know that if you blow air, you will make 0:19:24.920 --> 0:19:27.240 the reads vibrate and get a certain sound. If you 0:19:27.720 --> 0:19:30.520 suck air in, the reads will vibrate and you'll get 0:19:30.520 --> 0:19:35.320 a slightly different sound. So anyway, the solid bits of material, 0:19:36.400 --> 0:19:39.320 like the solid bits of of the paper or the 0:19:39.359 --> 0:19:43.959 disc block airflow right. Air cannot flow through solid paper 0:19:44.080 --> 0:19:47.399 or solid metal, So in those cases like no note 0:19:47.520 --> 0:19:51.320 plays because it has it can't go through the material. 0:19:52.000 --> 0:19:54.800 A hole allows a note to play out. Now, most 0:19:54.880 --> 0:19:59.240 organets had between fourteen and forty or really more frequently 0:19:59.320 --> 0:20:03.760 thirty nine reads, so your media would have to match 0:20:03.840 --> 0:20:07.200 the instrument to play properly. Right, if your player only 0:20:07.240 --> 0:20:13.560 had fourteen reads and you had a paper roll designed 0:20:13.560 --> 0:20:17.520 for a thirty nine read device. It won't work because 0:20:17.520 --> 0:20:20.280 you can't line things up properly and you have to 0:20:20.320 --> 0:20:22.160 line up the whole's just right, or else the wrong 0:20:22.200 --> 0:20:26.200 notes are gonna play, or you're gonna destroy the recording 0:20:26.840 --> 0:20:29.520 now or the program, I should say, it's not even 0:20:29.520 --> 0:20:33.280 a recording, it's a program. One version of the organ 0:20:33.320 --> 0:20:36.639 at used metal discs, which were not this similar to 0:20:36.760 --> 0:20:40.160 record albums, except these had holes punched in them as 0:20:40.160 --> 0:20:43.760 opposed to grooves cut into them, and you would align 0:20:43.800 --> 0:20:45.959 them properly on the organette. You would turn a crank 0:20:46.040 --> 0:20:48.959 and this would turn the disc and wind would go 0:20:49.119 --> 0:20:51.280 through it and through to the reads, and you would 0:20:51.560 --> 0:20:56.199 play the pre program music. And it's pretty impressive stuff. 0:20:56.240 --> 0:20:59.520 Their videos on YouTube where you can watch people demonstrating 0:20:59.560 --> 0:21:04.280 how Gannett's work, including these metal disc versions, and some 0:21:04.359 --> 0:21:07.479 of them sound really nice, like they're tuned really nicely 0:21:07.880 --> 0:21:10.800 and they're producing nice notes. But the rise of the 0:21:10.800 --> 0:21:14.720 phonograph would reduce organets to curiosities. And while they are 0:21:14.800 --> 0:21:19.000 highly sought after today by collectors, at the time when 0:21:19.119 --> 0:21:22.239 phonographs were starting to rise in popularity, most folks were 0:21:22.280 --> 0:21:25.200 just putting their organ ets away and not thinking about 0:21:25.240 --> 0:21:29.879 them anymore. These days, I could arguably talk about film 0:21:29.920 --> 0:21:35.080 being a nearly obsolete medium, almost completely replaced by video, 0:21:35.520 --> 0:21:39.120 but that seems particularly harsh and it's not completely true. 0:21:39.160 --> 0:21:42.440 I mean, there are still filmmakers who are using actual 0:21:42.600 --> 0:21:47.040 film in their and their projects. Photographic and cinematic film 0:21:47.119 --> 0:21:49.720 has been around for more than a century. Basically, it 0:21:49.760 --> 0:21:51.600 all has to do with a strip of plastic film 0:21:51.680 --> 0:21:55.600 coded in photoreactive chemicals. When these are exposed to light, 0:21:55.600 --> 0:21:59.280 the chemicals on the film react. And if you were 0:21:59.320 --> 0:22:01.960 to put such a film in a device that can 0:22:02.040 --> 0:22:05.520 direct light to the film using a lens and a 0:22:05.560 --> 0:22:07.879 shutter to control when the light can come through and 0:22:07.920 --> 0:22:10.800 when it can't, you can make yourself a fancy schmancy 0:22:10.840 --> 0:22:14.119 film camera and capture images. It will capture whatever the 0:22:14.280 --> 0:22:17.160 light captured when it was entering the lens and hit 0:22:17.200 --> 0:22:19.720 the film. At that point you have to develop the film, 0:22:20.040 --> 0:22:22.280 create a negative image, and then transfer that over to 0:22:22.400 --> 0:22:25.640 new film to get your positive image. But then you've 0:22:25.640 --> 0:22:29.359 got your cinematic masterpiece. Now Here in the States, film 0:22:29.480 --> 0:22:33.439 enthusiasts became familiar with eight millimeter sixteen millimeter and Super 0:22:33.520 --> 0:22:39.120 eight formats, So the millimeter refers to essentially the width 0:22:39.480 --> 0:22:42.680 of the film, the strip of film. So an eight 0:22:42.720 --> 0:22:45.200 millimeter film is shot on a strip of film that's 0:22:45.240 --> 0:22:49.159 approximately eight millimeters wide. Now it could be really really long, 0:22:49.400 --> 0:22:52.640 but it's eight millimeters wide. Super eight is also eight 0:22:52.680 --> 0:22:55.959 millimeters wide. But it allows the image to take up 0:22:56.000 --> 0:23:00.800 a little bit more of the space on that film, 0:23:00.840 --> 0:23:03.320 a little more of the width of the film. And 0:23:03.359 --> 0:23:05.280 you might wonder, well, how is that even possible? What 0:23:05.400 --> 0:23:07.320 has to do with the way that film gets pulled 0:23:07.359 --> 0:23:11.640 through a camera or a projector. See, film has these 0:23:11.680 --> 0:23:16.160 little perforations, and eight millimeter has these perforations down one 0:23:16.200 --> 0:23:19.400 side of the film, and you you get these little 0:23:19.400 --> 0:23:23.600 perforations hooked into a sprocket in the camera or the projector, 0:23:24.200 --> 0:23:27.520 and it engages the perforations. So when the sprocket begins 0:23:27.520 --> 0:23:31.600 to turn, it pulls the film along and you can 0:23:31.760 --> 0:23:34.680 either record with a camera or playback with a projector. 0:23:35.320 --> 0:23:40.000 Super eight makes these perforations smaller than the older eight 0:23:40.000 --> 0:23:42.800 millimeter film did. That means you don't need as much 0:23:42.840 --> 0:23:45.879 space around the perforations. You can actually dedicate more of 0:23:45.880 --> 0:23:49.040 that space to the image itself and get a bigger 0:23:49.080 --> 0:23:51.280 image out of super eight than you would out of 0:23:51.320 --> 0:23:55.520 regular old eight millimeter film. Uh. Anyway, while you can 0:23:55.520 --> 0:23:57.960 still find super eight film and the occasional place to 0:23:58.040 --> 0:24:00.880 develop it, which is getting harder to do all the time, 0:24:01.520 --> 0:24:04.159 there's another format that never really took off here in 0:24:04.200 --> 0:24:06.520 the United States, but it was popular in other parts 0:24:06.520 --> 0:24:09.920 of the world, and that's nine point five millimeter film, 0:24:09.920 --> 0:24:13.640 which first emerged in the nineteen twenties in Europe. So yeah, 0:24:13.800 --> 0:24:16.360 this film is a little bit wider than eight millimeter, 0:24:16.960 --> 0:24:19.680 and it also used a different approach to those perforations. 0:24:19.760 --> 0:24:23.000 So instead of having the perforations to the side of 0:24:23.080 --> 0:24:26.119 the image the way eight millimeter does, the nine point 0:24:26.119 --> 0:24:30.960 five millimeter film has perforations that are between the individual 0:24:31.800 --> 0:24:35.760 frames the images themselves. So think of a film strip 0:24:35.800 --> 0:24:39.119 as really just a series of still photographs one after 0:24:39.160 --> 0:24:41.359 the other. When you play them back fast enough, you 0:24:41.400 --> 0:24:45.200 have the illusion of movement. Well, this means that between 0:24:45.320 --> 0:24:48.000 say photo one and photo two, right in the middle 0:24:48.080 --> 0:24:51.760 between the two you have a perforation, and then below 0:24:51.800 --> 0:24:54.720 photo two and above photo three you've got another perforation. 0:24:55.240 --> 0:24:57.520 So instead of to the side it's above and below 0:24:58.040 --> 0:25:01.560 the images. Now, the benefit of that is you can 0:25:01.560 --> 0:25:05.399 dedicate even more of the width of your film to 0:25:05.880 --> 0:25:10.000 capturing an image. And the actual image area of nine 0:25:10.040 --> 0:25:14.600 point five five millimeters isn't that less, not much less 0:25:14.600 --> 0:25:18.000 than what we get with a sixteen millimeter camera, So 0:25:19.080 --> 0:25:22.320 in ways it was superior to eight millimeter. Now, the 0:25:22.400 --> 0:25:25.800 nine point five millimeter format technically still exists, but it 0:25:25.880 --> 0:25:29.400 caters to a pretty small group of hobbyists and enthusiasts. 0:25:30.040 --> 0:25:32.639