The Dead Media Notebook by Bruce Sterling, Richard Kadrey, Tom Jennings, Tom Whitwell Read Free Book Online Page B

1930s.
    WAVELENGTH ANALYSER - MIT optical-electric analog scientific measuring device, 1930s.
    WHIRLWIND - Postwar electronic digital computer built at MIT by group outside of Bush’s circle.
    There you are. A veritable fleet of dead (military) media waiting to be explored. These machines are, in many ways, ‘missing links’ in the popular conception of computer evolution.
    Source: Information and Secrecy: Vannevar Bush, Ultra, and the Other Memex, by Colin Burke, Scarecrow Press, Metuchen N.J. 1994. LC# HD9696.C772B87 1994.
     

Tongan Tin Can Mail
    From Suzanna Layton
    “When copra traders set up operations on the island (Niuafo’ou) near the turn of the century, a method of communications became necessary. At one time passing steamers would seal incoming mail for the island in ship’s 40-pound biscuit tins which were then thrown overboard to native swimmers.
    “The swimmers had maneuvered a mile or more through the turgid surf, towing the outgoing mail that had been carefully soldered in tins. The swimmers and ship would exchange mail containers and each would be on their way. From this unique method of mail delivery, the island became known as Tin Can Island and the letters carried thus are called Tin Can Mail.
    “The swimming mail lasted until 1931 when a shark killed a swimmer. From then on, mail was brought in by outrigger canoe.”
    [Bruce Sterling remarks: in a further astonishing twist, the Kingdom of Tonga now makes a commercial business of selling Internet domain names. There is now an automatic registration site on the Web, Tongan Network Information Center (tonic.to) based in a server in the Tongan consulate in San Francisco. TONIC sells Tongan domain name registrations for a hundred dollars each, and is managed by former virtual reality entrepreneur Eric Gullichsen, a notable pioneer of modern dead media.]
    Source: Tonga and Tin Can Mail Study Circle
     

Edison’s Electric Pen and early desktop publishing
    From Darryl Rehr
    Desktop Publishing is a phenomenon of the late 20 th century. Modern products have made it possible for any office staff to produce material that looks professionally printed.
    However, office managers have had other kinds of small-scale publishing methods available to them for more than a century. The words used to describe them were more modest, of course.
    At first, they talked about office “copying,” and later they called it “duplicating.” Only today, with computers, coupled with high-definition laser output has the technology grown up enough to earn the term “Desktop Publishing.”
    Desktop Publishing’s first century began in 1856, when British chemist William Perkins discovered the first synthetic dye, aniline purple. This dye pointed the way to a wide range of new inks, including “copying ink” used in the first practical method of reproducing business documents. An original written with copying ink was placed against a moistened sheet of tissue, the two were pressed together in a massive iron press, and a copy would appear on the tissue. Since the copy was backwards, the tissue had to be held up to the light to be read.
    The copy press became a fixture in every Victorian office. Today, they are sold in antique shops as “book presses,” their true function long forgotten.
    Aniline dyes also made another copying process possible. It was invented during the 1870’s, and although it was sold under many brand names, generically it was known as the “hektograph.” The device used a stiff gelatin pad coupled with special hektographic ink made with aniline dye. A document written with the ink was pressed to the pad. The gelatin absorbed the ink after a few minutes, and the original was removed. Blank sheets were then pressed against the pad, and the gelatin released a little of the ink each time, producing a positive copy.
    The hektograph was good for about 50 copies. 20 th -century spirit duplicators (such as “Ditto”) were a later outgrowth of the