Does anyone remember spark plug scopes? Here's my Acilloscope from 1960. Basically, a mechanic would hook this thing up to a car's ignition system and point the menacing end of the scope at the owner/driver. The various plips on the scope screen would explain why the car is running poorly and therefore needs a tune-up. Science doesn't lie, buddy!
I just got one last week also. Its an RCA victor. I really have no room for it, but I couldn't resist because it was only $40 and it works and everything! Ive seen some that were rigged to work with cable. would be cool to also hook it up to a VHS or something to watch old hot rod "B" movies.
GM had some neat **** back in the day such as the Autronic eye headlight dimmer mentioned. My dads 57 chevy has a vacuum ashtray in the car that uses the engines vacuum to **** your cig ashes into a jar under the hood. My favorite of all time tho would be the automatic top closer for convertibles. They had a cup on the top of the windshield which would catch water and when filled enough would complete the circuit and automatically put the top up when it rained! A very rare option which costs about $2,000 now if you can find them. Greg
This is a good thread, and not at all off-topic, since I think anyone who is fascinated by old cars has a fetish for anything mechanical, the more off-beat the better, of course. I started very early dis***embling everything I could get my hands on,(still not so good at putting stuff back together.) A beautiful old pistol, or even an electric fan inspires me in the same way a great old car will. One of my "things" is old wris****ches, particularly ones with perpetual movements. I have watches that are more than fifty years old that still keep darn-near perfect time. I wore a 35 year-old perpetual when I raced in Mexico, and it kept perfect time, to within a couple of seconds with the atomic clock used as the official time for the race. These old watches do need to be given attention and TLC (and you better know a good watchmaker) but the satisfaction of owning a decades-old watch that looks beautiful and works perfectly, is not so different from owning a decades-old car that can still blow off a rice rocket at the stoplight. These old watches are beautiful exotic tech that has been almost completely replaced by cheap digital timekeeping in the majority of today's watches. Oddly, most high-end expensive collectors watches still use a cl***ic perpetual mechanism, as it is considered a mark of distinction in that hobby to have as complex and intricate a mechanism as possible. (Many of those new watches feature clear backs and openings in the face of the dial, to show off the movement, kinda like driving with no hood to show off those triple Strombergs and polished valve covers...)
I think i had to pee in one of those once in the hospital. I was groggy though from the drugs so maybe not.
first TV remote I remember was a motor that mounted to the top of the TV with a bracket that you adjusted so the shaft of the motor was directly in front of the channel selector switchThere was a forked fitting that straddled the fin on the channel selector selector knob the motor had a 20 foot cord with 2 push****ons on the hand held remote one selected a higher channel the other a lower channel.pushing either ****on would move the selector knob 1 channel then there was Quasars "Works in a Drawer"TV with printed circuit boards in a pullout rack in the front of the set the 45rpm record player for cars is still being made and sold as a kids "Close and Play"recordplayer !its just in a different case, that info is directly from the manufacturer they did this when 8 track tape players cought on
Thing about the new watches( dia lnot digital ,quartz) is that they stay accurate to the second for as long as the battery lasts.most people froget to wind there old watches!!lol but i agree the old watches are things of beauty, my grandfather had one of those "see thru" pocket watches, with Jewels on the friction points.Gl*** was tinted a rose color. JimV
I have one of those Zenith 300 remotes too. My dad has collected old TV's since he was 15. The only TV in my bedroom is a 59 Philco Predicta Barberpole.
My 38 and 39 Chevy's had a push ****on radios, when you push the channel selector the knobs spin to the station! My 63 Rivvi has a speed minder, vacuum trunk and wonderbar radio. Great Stuff!!
Fought my way to the back of the dining room (over the obsolescent anti-tank weapons, past the 265-283 soeed manuals...), checkedout my TV: 300, two oval ****ons, little mesh grid on front of TV just like business end of an old microphone. There's a little stud on the front to hold the remote safely, the reason many can still be found... Put the Chihuahua in the microwave for protection, clicked a few times. Oops. Memory. Gotta logoff and run home and take the Sonoran Mastiff Outta the microwave.
I have a 1959 Philco Predicta Tandem, it's remote control....kinda. The TV tube is completely seperate from the ch***is but connected via a cable that's flat....ish.... and about the size of firehose. You can put the tube in any location and the ch***is elsewhere and then come up with ingenious plans on how to hide the gigantic beige connector. I also once owned a Sylvania Halovision which was purported to reduce eye strain by having a white neon backlit frosted plexigl*** surround around the CRT. I wish I'd never sold that set, it worked perfectly and I've never seen another one. I'm gonna predict that people will be having a good laugh about some of the **** we have now in 50 years time.
Here's a picture. That CRT the lady is holding with seemingly little effort probably weighs about 25 lbs, the ch***is is about the same.
Also, the screen is made from casein plastic (milk based) and it stinks to high heaven, especially in the humid jungles of Florida.
"I'm gonna predict that people will be having a good laugh about some of the **** we have now in 50 years time." Yeah...I'm waiting with bated breath (as are hundreds of lawyers...) for the first news story of a Lexus parallel parking itself suddenly at 75 MPH on the interstate... Or maybe a Navy Hawkeye flying over the York streetrod show and setting thousands of remote control gloveboxes and cowl vents and windows flapping away in unison...dumping hundreds of fake drivein trays and fake cheeseburgers onto the fake children leaning on the fake doors.
Echoplexs used a super long (4ft?) tape loop in a large c***ette the size of a pop can (side view) but only 3/8" thick. About a foot of tape hung out and was threaded through the record and playback heads and motor mechanism. The echo was controlled by moving the record head farther away form the play head. The farther from the playback head, the longer the echo. Spring units are for reverb, but different from the Echoplex. My 50 Chevy has a wiper ****on that has the washer fluid pump built right into it. You push this ****on over and over and it pumps fluid through the ****on via a tiny pump on the back of the ****on and then out to your wipers.
I used to work for the Genie company who had been into electronic gizmos well before my days. They made one of the first remotes in the country. We still had an old one laying around the office where the receiver was a switch which plugged into a 110 system. There was a guy there who was absolutely terrible with computers and we loved picking on him. We connected it to his monitor and every once in a while we'd turn off his monitor while he was using it. He never did figure it out.
Who remembers the"FLYMOW" gr*** mower? I saw one as a kid.....kinda hovered like a hovercraft....kinda looked dangerous.... Can't remember if it was electric or gas......
There's a few on E-bay. Seems like the airflow to lift it off the ground would flatten the gr***, not allowing the blade to cut it. Still pretty cool...
We had a Flymo discussion on here...they made a brief splash here about 1965, but are still sold in England!
Dad's New Yorker had an Am FM stereo with the search ****on. I'd demonstrate the search ****on to my p***enger, then say that one could also make it search by making a gun with your hand, pointing at the radio, and then dropping the thumb like a hammer. I'd demonstrate this special feature, while simultaneaously pushing the scan ****on on the floor next to the dimmer switch. Then let the p***enger pint and search. Most people would catch on once they concentrated and heard the click of the search ****on on the floor.
**** - couldn't find those Popular Sciences, after my move evrything feels like a bomb went off. I'll find them over the weekend. Talk about silly stuff in cars though, my buddys Lamborghini Countach SP400 is on of the early "Periscope" cars, it has this cause you can't see anything out the back window, unfortunatly, you can't see anything through the periscope either.
Had a Flymo. Worked great. Nice part was mowing sideways under the flowers.etc. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ When Regan was Prez, Air Force 1 would fly over the SoCal coast into Santa Barbara and if some of the high powered communications devices were operating garage doors all over Santa Barbara would open.
Lmao about the Hawkeye! And on the Lexus,why would you want a car thats smarter than you are? If you dont know how to park,you probobly shouldnt be driving anyway.
My grandparents had one... that's why they, and probably why I still, call the remote a "clicker"... Sam.
Old post I know... My girlfriend is a watchmaker, so she kinda understands the old car thing like you were saying... She digs ladies watches from the 20s-60s, deco style and has enough to go 9 months without wearing the same one twice and they all work. Since we've been together, I gotten some old Hamiltons and some perpetuals too, but I tend to wear $10 watches because destroy them when I work.
So no one noticed the device that took a picture before the event occurred? I coulda predicted that one....
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