British Pathe Digital News Archive

[Rod H]

http://www.britishpathe.com/

This site was recently given publicity on BBC1 and seemingly contains a vast amount of freely available film archive footage. Quite facinating - just type 'wireless' into the search box and see what comes up!

For example......... http://www.britishpathe.com/record.php?id=8855

Rod

[repairman 1234]

Thanks very much indeed for this super link,

as well as the hovercraft and many other super films, i very much enjoyed this http://www.britishpathe.com/record.php?id=186 more 'on topic' film

[David G4EBT]

Originally Posted by repairman 1234

Thanks very much indeed for this super link,

as well as the hovercraft and many other super films, i very much enjoyed this http://www.britishpathe.com/record.php?id=186 more 'on topic' film

It makes us realise just how much progress has been made in production techniques since then, and what constitutes the term 'tiny'. Some of the superlatives used to describe transistors seem quite quaint by today's standards: "only half the size of a matchstick", "so tiny a dozen would fit in a thimble". To emphasis the point they showed them alongside a large octal valve.

I doubt they could ever have imagined that within a few decades, millions would fit on a chip in memory sticks, SD cards etc, or that 'gigabyte' would be an everyday term to describe the amount of storage in a myriad of devices around the home, from digital cameras to MP3 players, computers etc.

They had some strange ideas as to what passed for a 'clean' environment. Women wearing white overalls, but with hair uncovered. When you see how much manual effort went into producing transistors back then, its easy to see why they cost so much, and why the end results were variable.

I guess they made them, tested them to see how they performed, then coded them - I doubt they were able to specifically design them with certain parameters in mind.

Fascinating stuff!

Thanks for the link.

David,
G4EBT

[Boom]

Fascinating stuff indeed. Each transistor made and tested by hand. Amazing! I wonder what happened if someone in the production room coughed?

Dave

[Darren-UK]

There's a Pye Promotional Film to go with the Newmarket one. The Pye stuff proper begins approximately 4mins into the film, should anyone wish to skip the rest.

[Boom]

Originally Posted by Darren-UK

There's a [URL="http://www.britishpathe.com/record.php?id=78549"].

Taxi drivers in uniforms?

[Kat Manton]

Hi,

Originally Posted by David G4EBT

I guess they made them, tested them to see how they performed, then coded them - I doubt they were able to specifically design them with certain parameters in mind.

This is still done today, with microprocessors, for example. This is why you'll find cheaper CPUs with half the cache of the more expensive ones, cheaper single-core versions of dual-core processors, and various clock rates. Not all dies from the same wafer will either work fully or work at the maximum clock rate, but can still be sold by disabling the broken bits and 'locking' them at a lower speed.

Some things don't change

Regards, Kat

[Top Cap]

Bulbs lighting without wires at the schoolboy exhibition, would health and safety allow this today? Glad I was a kid when I was!

http://www.britishpathe.com/record.php?id=38542

[owgigijack]

Great Radio Caroline footage -
http://www.britishpathe.com/workspace.php?id=5045&display=list

Simon Dee, and the Beatles.