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Note: There have been other
videos posted, but I often forget to link to them on this page. Please use the website
Search box at the at the top of the page to look for something you don't see here
since many of the videos I have featured are not on these archive pages. Thanks.
 I love this quote by UK engineer James Newman:
"I just got suckered into it bit by bit." This story about Mr. Newman's effort to
build a 16-bit computer using discrete components appeared in Popular Science
magazine. Newman wanted to create a functional, programmable computer that would
provide a visual indication of how data flow and computation occurs within a microprocessor;
the result is his "Megaprocessor."
To do that, he constructed this 10-meter-long by 2-meter-tall rack of circuits consisting
of more than 40,000 discrete transistors. An Intel 8086 microprocessor has ~29,000 ...
12/8/2017
 Albert Michelson is a name known to anyone
who has taken (and paid attention during) a course
in physics for his being the first person to accurately measure the speed of light
in air. Born in 1852 to Jewish parents in Poland, his family emigrated to America
in 1855 initially settling in Virginia City, Nevada. That happens to be where the
fictional TV family of the Cartwrights owned their sprawling Ponderosa ranch in
the series Bonanza. Screenwriters for the show took a bit of historical
liberty in depicting young Michelson as having attending primary school in ...
4/28/2017
 Empire of the Air: The Men Who Made Radio
is a quite interesting documentary about the struggle that Edwin H Armstrong
- inventor of the superregenerative and superheterodyne circuits, and of wideband
frequency modulation (FM) - had with Lee DeForest - inventor of the Audio amplifying
tube - and David Sarnoff - CEO of Radio Corporation of America (RCA). Extensive
legal battles ensued between Armstrong and DeForest over vacuum tube patents, and
Sarnoff's transition from biggest cheerleader to biggest thwarter of Armstrong's
efforts are epic. A huge amount of historical information and vintage film clips
...
4/21/2017
 The secret of
Mjölnir, Thor's
hammer, has finally been revealed. As it turns out, being found 'worthy' of lifting
Mjölner requires having the right thumbprint. Well, at least inventor / maker Allen
Pan's version of the hammer does. The July/August issue of Popular Science
ran an article on Pan's cleverly converted toy Mjölnir wherein he buried four
lead-acid batteries to power a scrounged microwave oven transformer for duty as
an electromagnet. An Arduino Uno-driven sensor detects Pan's unique thumbprint and
disables ...
10/18/2016
 On the May 13, 2005 episode of The Tonight
Show, Jay Leno held a speed contest between two Ham Radio operators using
Morse code and two Millennials using their smartphones for texting
(SMS). At least one member of the audience thought
texting would win. Mr. Chip Margelli (K7JA) did the
sending. He declares, "Let me assure you that we never saw that message before I
flipped the blue card over. Each message, in rehearsal, was different. The character
count was the same as the one during dress rehearsal
..."
8/15/2016
 Radio controlled drones have gotten a bad
name, mostly due to moronic operators that have no regard for other people's privacy
or safety. I would like to be able to say those types are in the minority, but unfortunately
they probably do make up the majority of drone owners. That is because unlike with
R/C airplanes and helicopters that require at least a modicum of skill and common
sense to fly successfully, even the cheapest drones incorporate stability systems
that are so good even a caveman could fly one. At the opposite end of the drooling
loser contingent of the drone pilot spectrum is the rapidly growing number of highly
skilled pilots that advance not just
...
8/4/2016
 This item appeared on the ARRL news website.
It links to a video showing an engineered demolition of a shortwave antenna farm
in North Carolina commissioned by the Voice of America (VOA) in 1963, during the
Cold War. The video provides an aerial view of the entire line of towers collapsing
as the precisely timed charges go off. The most impressive aspect is that explosives
are detonated only on every other tower in such a way that the falling tower takes
out the one next to it almost in a dominoes manner (see yellow
circle). 25 pounds of explosives were used rather than possibly 50 if every
tower's guy lines had been ...
4/6/2016
 Very recently while watching a 1960s era
TV show I asked myself a question I've asked many times before: If one of those
heavy, bulky vintage cars constructed of thick pressed sheet steel body components,
full steel tube frames, and cast iron 8-cylinder engine blocks was to have a head-on
collision with a modern car built with light-weight materials of composite construction
and minimal structural bulk, which would be the victor? My gut reaction was to think
that the result would be like a sledge hammer and a Coke can colliding; I'd rather be the sledge
hammer. I know cars are engineered to sacrifice the car to preserve the passenger
compartment by ...
3/17/2016
 Maybe you are one of the more than 11 million
people who have already viewed this incredible "Marble Machine" video, by
Swedish musician Martin Molin. Molin designed and built his wooden music machine
using aircraft plywood, ball bearings, Lego blocks, pressure transducers, plastic
tubing, lengths of wire, springs, and a host of other off-the-shelf components,
none of which appear to have required custom metal machining. The huge wooden gears
were designed on his computer, ut out on a band saw, and assembled with glue and
screws. 2,000 metal marbles are the lifeblood of the instrument which, by function,
must be classified as percussion. Even the integrated base guitar is
...
3/9/2016
 There
is no denying Blendtec founder Tom Dickson has earned the title of überBlendermeister
with his online "Will It Blend?" series of videos. Using his company's Total Blender,
Tom has over the years inserted, among many other things, popular and often expensive
high-tech devices, and then pressed the appropriate button on the machine to start
the action. Since its beginning in 2007, "Will It Blend?" videos have documented
in a combination of full speed and slow motion the pulverizing of iPhones, iPads,
Galaxy phones, Windows phones, Kindles, laser pointers, wii remote controls, Xbox
360 Kinect, a hearing aid, a video camera, magnets, and even a cassette tape. In
the most recent episode, Tom hosts a
…
 You might recall
seeing the video of Boston Dynamics' "Big Dog" robot that is part of a DARPA project
developing battlefield automatons capable of carrying heavy loads at a swift pace
over rugged terrain. Their newest humaniod, called "Pet-Proto," is enough to
give you nightmares. Add a few lowpass filters on the joint mechanics and this boy
would look like it came straight out of the Transformers or Terminator movies. One
big hurdle that has to be overcome is the power source. Big Dog has an internal
combustion engine driving a hydraulic pump (electronics probably work on batteries),
and this Pet-Proto dude has hydraulic lines from an external supply. The robots
are capable of autonomous decision making and are guided and motivated by GPS, LIDAR,
ground sensors, gyroscopes, and other super-sophisticated devices. 11/18/2012
 Many thanks to Kevin, of Roanoke, VA, for
sending me a link to this documentary video covering the entire
production chain for radio
crystals as filmed by Reeves Sound Laboratory, in New York, NY. It was produced
during World War II so the methods used are not anywhere near what is common
today. What is the same, fundamentally, is the ingenuity and hard work that goes
into developing a new technology, and particularly the effort needed to move to
high volume production. As with most of these vintage factory films, a few aspects
of normal practices of the era are immediately apparent. First is the near utter
lack of personal safety devices on machinery and accessories for workers. Fingers
run perilously close to diamond-impregnated crystal dicing blades, unprotected hands
and arms are submersed in oils and cleaning solutions, no ear protectors
…
5-7-2015
 Videos
of automated factory fabrication and assembly lines are awesome. Watching the robots
sling metal panels around for presses using hundreds of thousands of pounds of pressure
to stamp out body panels for the Tesla Model S electric car is an inspiring
reminder of how ingenuous and capable our fellow homo sapiens can be in spite of
politicians' best efforts to enslave an underclass voting bloc of slackers. Think
of the amount of knowledge required to conceive of and execute the processes show
in this video - metallurgy, robotics, software, production planning, material sourcing
and handling, factory environment, structural analysis, safety, testing, budgeting,
training, union demands, human concerns, massive governmental regulation, surface
finishing, marketing, work flow, and a host of other issues. That doesn't even include
the brainpower necessary to plan, design, test, and build all the electrical and
electronics parts of the vehicle. Utterly amazing. It takes 3-5 days from beginning
to end to build a Model S. Even back in the 'old days' when most of the labor
was manual, film reels showing masses of humans working together to make a complex
piece of machinery like a Ford Model T will bring a tear to the eye of any
self-respecting tech aficionado.
/19/2013
 How does anyone even think of this stuff?
This video demonstrating how to turn your
smartphone into a holographic
projector was posted by Mrwhosetheboss on August 1, 2015 and has over 10 million
views already - and it's no wonder. He doesn't mention on the video what inspired
the idea. A clear plastic CD jewel case cover it used to make the projection surface
and specially created videos that project onto the four faces are used to create
the holographic effect. The concept reminds of a little multi-faceted mirrored device
that used to be sold which sat in the middle of a record player and turned flip-book
...
9-23-2015
 OK Go is perhaps best
known for sophisticated videos that require extremely high levels of choreography.
Their I Won't Let
You Down video was posted on YouTube just yesterday and it has nearly 2.5
million views a day later. Back in 2010 I posted their Mousetrap-like
This Too Shall
Pass video; it now has more than 45 million views. Two major aspects of
high technology are featured here: Honda's UNI-CUB β robotic unicycle and the use
of a remote control
octocopter drone for filming the video. Honda is not selling the UNI-CUB β yet,
so Honda must have been involved in the effort; the OK Go video is featured on the
...
10/28/2014
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This archive links to the many video and audio
files that have been featured on RF Cafe.