Subj : Recent finds?
To   : poindexter FORTRAN
From : Daniel Path
Date : Fri Feb 04 2022 21:34:33

Hello poindexter.

03 Feb 22 08:27, you wrote to paulie420:

 pF> -=> paulie420 wrote to aLPHA <=-

 pa>> While this isn't retro COMPUTING, I collect some Russian
 pa>> antiques. Lighters, a couple neat watches, some WWII era bomb
 pa>> fuzes (I have a large fuze collection... very cool.) and a few
 pa>> phones - I love seeing how DIFFERENT their tech was that ours,
 pa>> and most of it is built really well. Very industrial, as you say,
 pa>> too.

 pF> I'm a fan of soviet-era 35mm cameras. As you'd mentioned, their tech
 pF> is different, simple, foolproof, and genius in many ways.

 pF> I shot hundreds of rolls of film through a LOMO LC-A, a little compact
 pF> camera that, like many Soviet era cameras, was a copy of a Japanese
 pF> camera that itself was a copy of another.

 pF> They put an amazing little triplet lens on it, and in keeping with the
 pF> "simple yet genius" description, had an amazing shutter. A spring
 pF> opened the shutter, and a solar cell charged a capacitor. When the
 pF> capacitor charged, it powered an electromagnet which closed the
 pF> shutter. That meant you could do 2 minute exposures without draining
 pF> the battery. In order to adjust for different film
 pF> speeds/sensitivities, a rotating disk with different sized holes was
 pF> fitted over the solar cell. Slower speed film meant a smaller hole,
 pF> and a longer exposure.

 pF> Other cameras were blatant copies of other cameras - Zorki cameras,
 pF> for example, were made in a Contax factory that was taken over in WWII
 pF> and moved to the Soviet Union.

i still have my grandpa's SMENA. :)

Daniel

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