Kyle Downes of the aptly named "Ultra Awesome" blog built this genius coffee table that's an enormous, working NES controller! It opens to reveal storage space for tons of game-carts . Link (via Wonderland)

Phil sez, "Dark Roasted Blend has posted a collection of illustrations from early Soviet science fiction, most by Yury Markov. Stunning artistry!" Link

Over on Boing Boing Gadgets, our John spotted this vintage wrist-mounted scrolling map from 1927, an antediluvian wrist-mounted GPS:

At first glance, this 1927 map watch is pretty nifty: an antediluvian GPS, don't you know. It was called the Plus Four Wristlet Route Indicator, a name so clunky, unmemorable and artless that it even sounds like the name of a modern GPS device. The idea was simple: the Wooster-esque motorist would putter around England, scrolling a tiny paper map loaded in his wrist as he went with two black knobs. If you took a turn, you simple slid out one map and inserted another one and continued on your way.

What ho! Ingenious! Except a complete road map only cost a few pence back in 1927, where as this device would have set you back around 5 quid. And just like modern GPS map providers, the real business model was in selling you additional maps.

Which leaves the design. I quite like it: it's cheap, but whimsical and adventurous, like something you might strap on your wrist to traverse Oz.

Link, Discuss this on Boing Boing Gadgets

LambdaCalculus379 sez, "This is a Picasa photo gallery of advertisements from 1950's pre-Castro Cuba. Many of these ads are beautiful examples of art from the era, and it would be a terrible shame to see these ads fade into obscurity. Ads range from things like department stores and movies to popular Cuban nightlife and iconic Cuban rums." Link (Thanks, LambdaCalculus379!)

This Czech industrial film from 1957 about the Kitchen of 2000 is a lovely bit of paleofuturism. Infra-red chicken, ingredient spouts, TV shopping (actually, we have most of those!). Link

Update: Treehugger's Chris Tackett sez, "one of our writers knew of a lot more clips of that kitchen, so he made a follow-up."

Devin sez, "I believe this was the navigation system for several old English bombers (Victor, Vulcan, and Valiant). Very wire-y and cool. Many, many plugs and things all over the place." Link (Thanks, Devin!)

Watchismo's feature today covers the illustrious history of early LED watches, whose origins are stylish as only artifacts from a lost era can be.

With the recent release of the $350,000 Opus 8 and the de Grisogono Meccanico dG with their mechanically mimicked LED digits, I wanted to also share this video and photos from the collection of UK LED collector, Lloyd "Theledwatch". He was recently featured on Antiques Roadshow (see video above) where he shared some of the best examples of early 1970s digital light emitting diode watches like the Pulsar Hamilton P1, Girard Perregaux Casquette, Omega Time Computer and my one-of-a-kind favorites by the Royal designer Andrew Grima.

Link

The fun-loving gamers at the Unreal Tournament forum have recreated Super Mario Bros as a rockin' UT2D level. Link

The December, 1951 ish of Mechanix Illustrated promised a United Nations space police, in charge of keeping the world safe from high orbit:

But, given the go-ahead, it can be done and in a reasonable amount of time. Meanwhile, John Q. Public can only sit tight and hope that the first permanent space-buggy is a benign one, set whirling by the United Nations and carrying space cops to enforce peace on earth instead of war.

Link

In December 1938, Popular Science featured this fantastic, gigantic 12-ton "landing strip in a box" for converting cow-pastures to airstrips.

ROLLING swiftly down highways on ten oversize balloon tires, a revolutionary airport-in-miniature for use by passenger air lines and military air forces now provides quick and complete assistance to stranded airplanes. This curious “twelve-ton tool box” is the invention of Kibbey W. Couse, of East Orange, N. J. It is capable of turning any level cow pasture into an airport complete with machine shop, repair parts, floodlights, and radio.

Link

Marilyn sez, "Modern Mechanix photographed the 25 pages of this April 1965 Nat Geo story on the 1964 New York World's Fair. Great photos of the General Motors Futurama exhibit, people riding a Ferris wheel made to look like a gigantic whitewall tire, attentive concertgoers at the New York State's Tent of Tomorrow, which looked all elegant back then, with that gorgeous, huge (130x166 ft) terazzo floor Texaco road map of New York State. (Interestingly, in the U.S. Pavilion a display predicted the world population would hit 7 billion by 2000, but we're still shy of that figure by some 300 million today). But the best part was the Westinghouse Time Capsule: which included 'The Bible, a piece of heat shield from a space craft, a National Geographic Atlas of the World in microfilm, freeze-dried food, a bikini bathing suit, and a popular recording by the Beatles...' Also a transistor radio, a computer memory unit, a heart valve, an electric toothbrush, and a package of birth control pills.

Some 7,000 visitors file through the RCA Pavilion each day to see themselves on color television (below, left) and hear a backstage briefing on the technological magic that splashes rainbows on their living-room screens. On the same site 26 years ago, RCA introduced black-and-white television to the United States. Official color TV center for the Fair, RCA telecasts news announcements, interviews with visiting dignitaries, highlights of other exhibits, and special events—more than 2,000 program hours from April to October. The pavilion also helped reunite families last year by showing lost children on some 200 television sets in buildings throughout the grounds. At the Dupont Pavilion, science joins showmanship (center). Here colorless liquids mixed in flasks shine with intense blue light in a demonstration of chemiluminescence—the same phenomenon that makes fireflies glow. In Dupont’s production, “Wonderful World of Chemistry,” live actors sing, dance, and talk with life-size motion-picture images on movable screens. One scene shows a live performer blowing out candles on a filmed birthday cake and spraying another actor with frosting. Eight different troupes, working simultaneously in two theaters, present the Dupont show 48 times daily.

Link (Thanks, Marilyn)

See also:
18 hours of 64 World's Fair audio!
Bell System film for 1964 World's Fair
Giant road map from 1964 World's Fair

A couple weeks ago, I blogged about the wonderful amateur film of a family's 1956 prize-trip to Disneyland made by Robbins Barstow of Wethersfield, Connecticut. Robbins just got in touch with me to tell me a little more about his decades-long love of film, supplying a link to a treasure trove of his fantastic work stretching all the way back to this 1936 Tarzan fan-film:

I am the now-88-year-old filmmaker from Wethersfield, Connecticut, who filmed, directed, edited, and narrated the amateur home movie entitled "Disneyland Dream" which you Boing-Boinged on April 11, 2008. I was delighted to be described as the "skinny, dorky, goofy dad" who documented our contest-winning family vacation to Disneyland in 1956, because our aim was to make the film "pure gold" fun for everyone viewing it. So far (April 19) it has garnered 15,777 downloads from the archive.org web site, thanks to your posting of the link! This is incredibly phenomenal to all of our still life-loving family, and I want to thank you for your fabulous review and letting the world know about it.

I am a retired educator, but all my life I have been an ardent amateur filmmaker, starting at the age of 12, in 1932, making family chronicles, travelogs, and other documentaries. I am submitting on your posted form another archive.org link which I think you will also enjoy -- a teen-age, fictional, Tarzan story which I made in 1936 with my two younger brothers and some neighborhood girls -- "Tarzan and the Rocky Gorge."

Actually, if you go to archive.org on the internet, and search for "Barstow Travel Adventure," you will find a listing of 8 of my personal travel documentaries, including Disneyland and Tarzan, which can be played anytime by anyone.

Link (Thanks, Robbins!)

Decades before Manifold Destiny (the engine-block roadkill cookbook) Modern Mechanix published this guide to cooking with waste-heat from your car-exhaust while camping. Given that this was back in the era of leaded gasoline, I'm sure the car-exhaust imparted a magic flavor to the chow.

MEALS can literally be cooked on the run through the use of the automatic cooker shown in the photo above. The cooker is mounted on the rear bumper of the motor tourist’s car and an extension from the exhaust pipe connected up with it, as shown in the insert. The cooker contains a steam pressure kettle which is heated by the hot exhaust gases. An hour’s drive is quite sufficient to thoroughly cook meats and vegetables. Total weight of the unit is so slight that running qualities of the car remain quite unaffected. Motor tours are much more pleasant when one is assured of a well-prepared meal at the end of the trip.

Link

Here's an ad for a multi-level-marketing scheme for a "high-tech" car headlight, circa 1931. With artwork like this, I'm ready to sign up. I think I just found my next tattoo.

AT LAST! An amazingly queer yet simple invention lifts the curse of night driving from the motoring world. This altogether new discovery called “Perfect-O-Lite,” replaces old glass “bulbs” in your automobile headlights with truly amazing results. Road illumination is instantly doubled yet glare is absolutely banished. Ordinary objects in the road, ruts, animals, obstructions, etc., are made clearly visible at least three times as far. Instead of ordinary “direct” light, this beam is composed entirely of double-reflected or “infused” light. This new kind of light cuts right through the other fellow’s headlights. Even shoots through fog, mist, rain and snow. There is no wiring or installation. No extra upkeep. Banishes the need for glare shields. No wonder concerns like Wallace & Tiernan, N. J., Houston Post-Dispatch, Tex., Columbus, Ohio, Fire Trucks, etc. have already installed Perfect-O-Lite as standard equipment. To prove what this invention will do, the manufacturer now offers a set to every motorist on FREE TEST. Simply mail the coupon promptly for details.

Link

Mister Jalopy is the featured tool collector in the current issue of Factory Gear Magazine from Japan.

Not surprisingly, there is a Japanese mook (magazine/book) dedicated to obsessive tool collecting. Factory Gear Magazine dives into the toolboxes of World Rally Championship teams, Honda mechanics, F1 racing teams, German tool factories, stateside tool retailers and, much to my delight, Hooptyrides, Inc.

For 6 hours, the guys from Factory Gear cleaned, photographed, documented and considered hand tools that I forgot I even own. As the Factory Gear editor is also the owner of Deen Tools, it was not surprising that he and his crew were deeply knowledgeable about the engineering and manufacture of hand tools. They pointed out tiny details in construction that made one better than another -- details I had never noticed on tools that I use daily.

To say that I wonder what the article says would be to greatly understate my intense curiosity.

Link

Andy Baio's been slipped a hard drive containing the whole network share from Infocom, creators of the legendary text-adventure game Zork and The Hitchhikers' Guide to the Galaxy; he's mining the drive's many treasures and today he's published a long account of the abortivr Milliways game, a sequel to H2G2 set in the Restaurant at the End of the Universe:

1. It seems natural to include a scene in the restaurant, Milliways. Could be a bit of fun: strange parties, unctuous compere, self-introducing food. Perhaps there's an object there that you need to get. (It could be a SPORK, a spoon with sort of forky tines on the end. Or would that be a FOON?) It could be a vehicle from the car park -- Marvin has the keys. If you manage to re-enter Milliways at another time (oops! on another occasion), you will not meet yourself, "because of the embarrassment that usually causes." What about a visit to the Big Bang Burger Bar?

2. Given point 1, you must have a means (or several meanses) of time travel. In fact time travel instead of space travel could be the primary method of changing scene. In the original, the party got to Milliways by accident: in the radio version, a "hyperspatial field generator" overheated; in the book version, Zaphod's great-granddaddy screwed up the works of Eddie, the Heart of Gold computer. Maybe your trip to Milliways would require info from an anti-piracy device in the game package. Once at the restaurant, you can steal a timeship and go anywhen you want.

3. Given point 2, it seems natural for the "best ending" of the game to be your arrival on Earth before it's destroyed, which is the ending of both the first radio series and the second (namesake) book. The original route to this ending was an accidental landing on Golgafrincham Ark B, with its cargo of telephone sanitizers, marketing consultants, etc. (the ancestors of Earth's humans!). I rather like this bit, and hope we can work it into the game.

4. Okay, so what about the beginning of the game? The easy answer: take up the story where the "Hitchhiker's" game left off, namely the arrival on Magrathea. But in the original this arrival is followed by a travelogue of Magrathea and a flashback to the Deep Thought v. philosophers' union story (including the introduction of the "42" joke) and the joke about the true nature of mice. All funny bits, but I have a hard time envisioning how they can be made into interesting interactive versions. Perhaps you could time-travel to Deep Thought and interact with it yourself. The Magrathean catalog of planets on Sens-O-Tape could be useful.

Link

In October, 1939, Popular Science covered a Michigan gas-station owner's friendly "waiting rooms for hitchhikers."

Performing the role of the good Samaritan to the nation-wide fraternity of automobile hitch-hikers, the owner of a service station in Albion, Mich., recently established a hitchhikers’ depot hard by his row of gasoline pumps. Nailed to a tree, a large sign visible to approaching motorists at a good distance, identifies the spot, while a painted hand, with the thumb outstretched in the traditional manner, does the spade work for tired hikers.

Link

The Disney Experience's papercraft replica of the dear departed Disney skybucket ride is fantastic -- so cool to have a replica of this notorious widowmaker from the Happiest Place(s) on Earth. Link (Thanks, Mike!)

Before St Trinians was a (ho-hum with some bright moments) big-screen movie, it was a series of Charles Addams-esque cartoons by Ronald Searle (who also wrote illustrated the hilarious, dark and evergreen Molesworth books). Searle began the St Trinians books just before he was drafted to fight in WWII, whence he was promptly captured by the Japanese and interned in the notorious death/POW camp Changi (immortalized in my all-time favorite war-novel, James Clavell's King Rat).

St Trinian's: The Entire Appalling Business collects Searle's strips in a handsome hardcover package that is an absolute delight. Some of this material was apparently drawn in Changi, on paper stolen from the Japanese guards, using a smuggled fountain pen, and it all shines with the sweaty dark light of a (literally) tortured comic genius.

I haven't seen the 1950s films based on these strips, but I think I'll track them down now. Link

Back in 1970, Life magazine profiled the pioneering Rodman family, who installed a teletype terminal connected to a mainframe in their home, to explore the whacky far-future possibilities of "home computing." We got our teletype in 1977 and by that point, we had Eliza and a few other nice bits of ready-made software, but the main attraction was still doing silly things in BASIC.

When he got the computer for his home, Dr. Rodman had no idea his family would become so involved with it. His original project, which he is still working on, was to write a program for diagnosing lung ailments through test readings. Because a successful program will mean instant written diagnoses and also teach interns, Temple University agreed to pay for it.

Because he was a novice at programming, Dr. Rodman required uninterrupted access to a computer. The service he purchases hooks his terminal, a standard Teletype, through his telephone to a large computer 90 miles away in Teaneck, N.J. When the central unit is dialed, it responds with an audio pitch. An electronic device connected to the Teletype translates the computer’s messages to print.

The computer costs $110 a month terminal rental, plus $7.50 to $11 an hour. Once a program is stored, the cost is negligible. “Eat,” for example, costs the Rodmans about 10c for a weekly run-through. The computer, of course, does the bookkeeping for the bill.

Link

RCA unveiled the 53 Lb backpack TV transmitter in 1951 -- man, they sure knew how to make a box look sexy and futuristic back then! Link

IO9's located an 1893 advertisement for a laptop (typewriter)!

Measuring 12 inches long by 6-1/2 inches wide by 2 inches deep, and weighing a mere 3 pounds, the World typewriter was roughly the same size as many of today's laptop computers. Instead of a keyboard, however, the World used a dial; users chose a character with the right hand, then used the left to operate a lever that pressed it into the paper. Yet another lever was used to make spaces between words. Even so, the World typewriter was said to be

Link

This clever lad has arrayed a long row of bottles partially filled with liquid so that they play the theme from Super Mario Bros. when they are tapped in order; then he affixed a tapper to a remote-control car and drove it down the row, making for an unforgettable musical experience! Link (Thanks, Kyle!)

Torley sez, "My esteemed colleague, Joshua Linden, had the audacity and ingenuity to get Second Life streaming to an Apple ][+, and while masochistic due to slow-loading, it's pretty awesome to watch and listen to him explain how he did it. Sheer geeky awesomeness. Link (Thanks, Torley!)

Mark Rayner's hosting a photoshopping contest wherein contestants are invited to shop science fiction products and services into vintage ads. A magical combination. Link

The Retro Robot built-your-own kit from JojoMangoes consists of panels that you stitch together with thread to make a handsome, Lost-in-Space-esque bot. Link (Thanks, Alice!)

Dan "Ride Theory" Howland sends in a link to a stupendous Internet Archive video entitled "Disneyland Dream," noting: "This would be interesting if it were merely a 1956 home movie of Disneyland, but it becomes great when the skinny, dorky, goofy dad (think Dennis the Menace's pop) not only documents the actual trip, but shows us how they got there -- by winning a Scotch Tape vacation contest. Highlights: the family's matching 1950's 'Wild West' fringe jackets with their names stitched between the shoulders, and the kids repeated insistence they have to change hats to enter different parts of the park."

Every second of this footage is pure gold, from the cornball jokes, the lingering shots of the "tickertape parade" the suburban Connecticut neighbors throw as the family gets into their gigantic land-yacht to drive to the airstrip, the runway footage from Idlewild, and the trips around Pasadena, Knott's Berry Farm and Universal Studios in 1956. The humor is pure "dad" -- loving and corny and just right.

In July 1956, the five-member Barstow family of Wethersfield, Connecticut, won a free trip to newly-opened Disneyland in Anaheim, California, in a nationwide contest. This 30-minute amateur documentary film tells the fabulous story of their fun-filled, dream-come-true, family travel adventure, filmed on the scene at Walt Disney's "Magic Kingdom" by Robbins Barstow.

Link (Thanks, Dan!)

Deviantart's ~ryo007 has published a set of plans to make your own papercraft Super Nintendo Entertainment System, with a tiny cartridge! Link (via Engadget)