[HN Gopher] How to send a photo around the world in 1926 (2013)
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How to send a photo around the world in 1926 (2013)
Author : _Microft
Score : 45 points
Date : 2023-03-16 17:10 UTC (5 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (gizmodo.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (gizmodo.com)
| causi wrote:
| It's very interesting to compare this method with its
| contemporary, the wirephoto:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cLUD_NGE370
| dang wrote:
| We changed the url from https://petapixel.com/2013/07/01/how-
| they-sent-photos-across... to the article it's cribbed from.
|
| Submitters: " _Please submit the original source. If a post
| reports on something found on another site, submit the latter._ "
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
| madaxe_again wrote:
| There's no diagram or copy of the photo on the gizmodo article,
| unfortunately, which makes it less informative than the re-
| post.
| dang wrote:
| Yes, sorry. I've added links to those at the top of the
| thread.
| _Microft wrote:
| My bad. Here's the actual source, would you mind updating?
|
| https://worldradiohistory.com/Archive-Electrical-Experimente...
| dang wrote:
| It's ok! these things aren't always obvious.
|
| That's a great link but the blog post adds quite a bit of
| context so I'll pin it to the top but not change the URL. I
| hope that works!
| brk wrote:
| A sort of low tech precursor to the fax machine.
| sidewndr46 wrote:
| To me it is actually a digitization of an analog process, then
| back to analog. The tape with the holes punched appears to be
| digital (holes are either punched or not).
| justsomehnguy wrote:
| Then a carpet loom is digital too, because it is punch card
| operated.
| ElfinTrousers wrote:
| You are correct. We're used to thinking of "digital" as
| implying "electronic", but that's only because our world
| contains huge numbers of digital electronic systems.
| jonsen wrote:
| For some interpretation of "low".
| tokai wrote:
| Isn't the fax machine from the mid 1800s?
| jonsen wrote:
| "...first commercial telefax service between Paris and Lyon
| in 1865, some 11 years before the invention of the
| telephone":
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fax#Wire_transmission
| dang wrote:
| The pictures aren't showing up for me but they're here:
| https://web.archive.org/web/20130704062401/http://paleofutur...
|
| also the main one is here:
| https://petapixel.com/assets/uploads/2013/07/pIqE68N.jpg
|
| Edit: and here's the original context:
| https://worldradiohistory.com/Archive-Electrical-Experimente... -
| thanks _Microft!
| teeray wrote:
| So it looks like they used an enlarger to basically create a
| bracketed exposure of the image. There must have been some means
| to make a raster pattern across all N exposures, and if light
| could pass through a given exposure it made a puncture in the
| tape. Playing this backwards, if you have a light shining through
| 1-N holes in a strip and concentrated through a lens to a point
| moving in the same raster pattern, it should reproduce the image.
| [deleted]
| proee wrote:
| It would be very interesting to see a timeline of all these sorts
| of communication technologies leading up to present day (latest
| being SpaceX starlink).
|
| Does anyone have any idea how long this was in use, and what
| technology replaced it? What is the formal name of this
| technology?
| marricks wrote:
| A bit presumptuous to say the latest way to transmit photos is
| by a specific company. Pretty sure most news papers don't use
| starlink.
| greenyoda wrote:
| This article has some history of photo transmission:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wirephoto
|
| Here's the 1970s version:
| https://petapixel.com/2015/07/26/this-is-how-press-photos-we...
| shrx wrote:
| Why were 5 different exposures needed?
| watmough wrote:
| My reading of the diagram says that 5 different exposures were
| needed to establish a 5+1 level gray scale.
|
| Note that each picture is scanned simultaneously, and
| contributes to whether 0 - 5 holes are made in the tape.
|
| At the receiving end, the number of holes controls the
| brightness of the beam reconstructing the image.
| shrx wrote:
| This makes sense, but I guess you could still achieve the
| same effect with only one exposure + a configurable readout
| offset with a variable resistor or something along these
| lines?
| RC_ITR wrote:
| I think the tape just had 5 channels and each channel related
| to one level of grayscale.
|
| If the tape had more or less channels, there would be more/less
| exposures.
| anonu wrote:
| Love this. I had no idea this machine existed. In an abstract way
| this was early "digitization". Its incredible how many iterations
| we had to go through to get to where we are today. But that is
| the very basis of progress... constant and rapid iteration and
| refinement.
| WalterBright wrote:
| The first internet was really the telegraphy network. It even had
| chat rooms.
|
| https://www.amazon.com/Victorian-Internet-Remarkable-Ninetee...
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