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Old 27th Jul 2019, 10:59 am   #41
SteveCG
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Default Re: Oh for a time machine.

Oh yes - time loops are a philosphers gravy-train.

And that Butterfly had better flap its wings just at the exact point that the atmosphere was at a tipping point if it is to have any long term effect.
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Old 27th Jul 2019, 11:04 am   #42
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Default Re: Oh for a time machine.

Let's suppose a vintage technology collector from 2080 builds a time machine and travels back to the present day. What contemporary items would he be likely to purchase?
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Old 27th Jul 2019, 11:13 am   #43
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Computer Hard drives - since these go sticky in terms of the platters spinning
DVD/CD laser assemblies - assuming any DVD/CDs in 2080 are still playable.
LCD displays.

In fact the more I think on it the less I feel anything made now is likely to work in any way then. Or Graham were you thinking not of repairing things that had avoided being recycled, rather new, 2020 AD, things that the collector could take with him back to 2080 AD and use there?

Last edited by SteveCG; 27th Jul 2019 at 11:17 am. Reason: added sentence
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Old 27th Jul 2019, 11:21 am   #44
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Default Re: Oh for a time machine.

I can't see many current radios- whether DAB sets with flaky software, lousy UI and short-lived displays, or budget supermarket plasticky AM/FM sets with poor DSP implementation- being drooled over in 2080 in the way that some pre-war sets are now.

You never know, though.
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Old 27th Jul 2019, 11:42 am   #45
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Default Re: Oh for a time machine.

I'd get a dozen reels of leaded solder, and take to 2080!
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Old 27th Jul 2019, 11:45 am   #46
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Default Re: Oh for a time machine.

I suppose I'm thinking what current day items are going to be of interest to collectors and restorers in 60 years time.

Some items will survive, but whether they'll be restorable or usable in 60 years time is a different matter. A time traveler would be able to purchase a brand new fully working item with no need to restore it.
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Old 27th Jul 2019, 12:23 pm   #47
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Default Re: Oh for a time machine.

Quote:
Originally Posted by kalee20 View Post
I'd get a dozen reels of leaded solder, and take to 2080!
You'd likely get incarcerated, charged with possessing a weapon of mass destruction, if we extrapolate the current growth of elf-n-safety.


I expect that people in the future would be most interested in items which showed how we lived, though their expectations might be somewhat steered by the film industry. The things which were not valued, just dumped would have rarity value. Look in current museums showing what the sixties were like. A few Beatles and Stones LP sleeves, they'll have survived, but try finding an Omo soap powder box to put in the kitchen area of the museum house.

Look at people restoring 19 set or 1154/1155 installations. The sets can be found easy enough, but it's the connectors, cables and fiddly little switch boxes that are the devil to find. The reason is the radios were valued, but the buyers were interested in getting on the air, they didn't want throat mikes, DF antennae and footly accessories. That stuff got dumped.

It'll be the same in the future. High worth items will have been kept. Crap, trivia and fripperies will have vanished.

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Old 27th Jul 2019, 2:26 pm   #48
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Default Re: Oh for a time machine.

I am thinking that an adventurer-collector visiting from year 2080 would target items that are already 'old' in 2019.
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Old 27th Jul 2019, 2:41 pm   #49
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Default Re: Oh for a time machine.

Quote:
Originally Posted by The Philpott View Post
I am thinking that an adventurer-collector visiting from year 2080 would target items that are already 'old' in 2019.
Not what I'd expect: isn't anything old (if we're thinking at all similarly of what "old" means here) that's survived until 2019 very likely to make it to 2080 anyway, assuming nothing utterly calamitous happens to the planet or to its specific location in the meantime?

Pre-war TVs, say, or round Ekcos, or the first Anita calculators - the vast majority of each of these has been destroyed by now, but, regional or global disaster aside, I would expect more than half of the numbers existing in 2019 to be still knocking around sixty years hence. It's anyone's guess whether demand for them will be more or less than it is now.

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Old 27th Jul 2019, 2:59 pm   #50
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Default Re: Oh for a time machine.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Radio Wrangler View Post
...try finding an Omo soap powder box to put in the kitchen area of the museum house...
Yes, there's something to be said even for mild to moderate instances of the hoarding tendency. I've just arranged to start volunteering at Fakenham's Gas Museum - England's only surviving town gas works, long mothballed and now open to the public - and couldn't but notice that, in a display featuring the wide variety of household products made using substances from the gas industry, was a recent bar of Wright's Traditional Soap. A bit out of place there, I do believe, as regulations long ago eliminated coal tar from its ingredients: but I used to like the real stuff, and put a few bars aside for a rainy day when the formulation changed, and with it the packaging of course. The museum deserves one of those...
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Old 24th Aug 2019, 10:31 pm   #51
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Default Re: Oh for a time machine.

Another place that would be great to step into for a few minutes.
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Old 25th Aug 2019, 4:27 am   #52
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Default Re: Oh for a time machine.

The one in that photo that sticks out is the white Murphy. The only telly there not pretending to be made out of a block of wood. It seems somehow more honest.

Who knows what current products will become desirable in the future? It isn't just the product's own nature that decides.

The Aston Martin DB5 became THE James Bond car. Earlier and later models don't now grab public attention like the DB5.

In terms of our sort of stuff, Kubrick put a Transcriptors turntable in 'Clockwork Orange' but that has nothing like the exposure of the Bond films.

Public interest seems to be a matter of looks. Internal workings are not visible. So what gets public interest?

Cuteness does, so I reckon the time traveller might want a Quad 33 and FM3

Scariness and nastyness does too. Madame Tussauds and museums with a torture chamber or 'black museum' section always say they are the chief draw where visitors linger longest. Maybe Mr Timetraveller would want a scary mercury arc rectifier, or an electric chair with a gruesome past?

If the valve audio trend lasts, absolutely ANYTHING with bottles in it would be hoovered-up. Probably by 2080 they'll have decided that the NOS EF80 is the best in low level stages, yes it has more noise and microphony than an EF86 (still in production in 2080's boutique craft factories) but it has granularity or something like that to die for.

Fashion is fickle, and unpredictable.

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Old 25th Aug 2019, 1:50 pm   #53
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Default Re: Oh for a time machine.

Living here in Chard, Somerset - to where we moved to about four years ago - has stimulated my interest in local history: there are many very old buildings here, especially in the High Street, some of which date from the 17th. century, and are remarkably well preserved.
This house is just over 100 years old - and has many original architectural features intact. * Soon after we came here, I set about flooring the loft - and found a few pages from the Times newspaper which had reports and photos about WW1: truly fascinating! I would dearly love a time machine to go back to circa 1912 and witness at first hand the comings and goings of the then residents of this house and the entire town and its environs. I have accumulated a large amount of literature & photos from and before that date to the present day, but that is no substitute for witnessing things at first hand.

* And this house has continued to keep me very busy: continual maintenance and restoration. And that - with other things - has substantially limited my time to pursue my hobbies, including reading and posting on this very Forum.

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