Time travel

[greg_simons]

Ok folks, just kicking this idea around in relation to a thread I'm running, imagine there's a time portal at the end of the street, bit like goodnight sweetheart and you could drive right back into that zinc plated analogue world, what electronics would you load it up with to bring back home?.

[Cruisin Marine]

10,000 EL34, EL84, KT66, KT88, ECL86, ECC 81,2 and 3's etc. enough to pay for many houses now.

[Joe_Lorenz]

Well, as many Tektronix 570 curve tracers, Neuberger RPM 375 valve testers, 2A3, AD1 and Ed valves would fit. Not to forget a dozen Neumann Gefell microphones and a Hammond C3 organ. Think I'd need a trailer then.

Joe

[Roger Ramjet]

My old toy Dan Dare Radio set.
My old toy telephone set [that resembled 706 GPO Ivory phones].
My old baby alarm / intercom kit that was wired between our house & my pal's down the garden.

Rog

[GrimJosef]

Originally Posted by Cruisin Marine

10,000 EL34 ...

Guitar amp valves might be a good choice as there's a sufficiently large market that your tens of thousands of items won't drive the price down by saturating the demand.

If you could find some room for a few PX4s, PX25s, Western Electric 300Bs and Telefunken ECC803Ss then there might be a pretty penny to be made from those too.

Cheers,

GJ

[Lucien Nunes]

This is dangerous territory because I would come back with a ton of stuff, actually hundreds of tonnes, that have zero monetary value but interest me. How about a Kapp oscillating phase advancer? (Technically it's electrical rather than electronic, but it was the first thing that came to mind.) I've never seen one, I don't know of any in existence, there's no picture of one on the WWW, nor any leads to anyone who would have preserved one. I have seen a glimpse of one in the background of a film years ago, and that's all. A century ago it was the new way to improve the power factor of your large induction motor, now completely lost to history.

There's a thousand things like that. VERA - Vision Electronic Recording Apparatus. (actually, would not be such a bad idea to being a stock of headwheels for the quad machines that do survive). A computer or two. A couple of Express DMR lift controllers and their dispatcher. The remainder of the first thyratron-based theatre lighting dimmer installation (of which some bits survive). There's really a lot of stuff and much of it is big.

I need to stop thinking about this before it starts looking like a serious proposition and I allocate manpower and vehicles for it.

[Radio Wrangler]

Don't do it! Have the BBC educational programmes on Saturdays taught you nothing?

The moment you start mucking about with time travel, sure as eggs is eggs, the Daleks will turn up.

David

[kalee20]

I'd rather go FORWARD a few days then back to today.

Then I could pick the winning lottery numbers, and get myself £100 million.

With that, I could afford to set up a factory to make PX4's, KT66's, EM34's, whenever I, or anyone else, wanted!

[Craig Sawyers]

Indeed - the Time Lord does not muck about filling the Tardis with stuff. Unlike me who could fill three sheds, two rooms and a lockup without batting an eyelid.

Craig

[VT FUSE]

I would elect to travel back 40 years to snatch up pristine AVO VCM's MK3
and MK4, also VCM 163 and CT160.
A few more PX25'S, PX4's,PP5/400's and KT66 would see me happy in my retirement. I would stand aside to allow others to grab the EF86's and ECC803.
A warehouse full of Gardners transformers to power and output match the above valves.
Mike

[kellys_eye]

The first Apple PC i.e. #001

[Martin Bush]

I would save my dad's Sharp music centre and, somehow, leave an aerial lead running through the portal so I could listen to live broadcasts from the past.

[emeritus]

Some cartons of those round Bulgin mains connectors could be useful!

[Terry_VK5TM]

Not sure I'd even want to come back.

[GrimJosef]

Originally Posted by VT FUSE

... I would stand aside to allow others to grab the EF86's and ECC803 ...

Very generous. Actually NOS EF86s are still within financial reach, if you can find them now. But the seven used Tele ECC803Ss that have changed hands on eBay this year have fetched ~£700 each. Think what NIB ones might go for !

They're small and light, so easy to carry too .

Cheers,

GJ

[Rich Woods]

Originally Posted by Martin Bush

I would save my dad's Sharp music centre and, somehow, leave an aerial lead running through the portal so I could listen to live broadcasts from the past.

And while I was at it I’d run through a feed from a band 1 & 3 array and record all those missing episodes.

[Rich Woods]

I’d take a forklift through & bring back a crate of Leak valve amps.

[peter_scott]

Emiscope 6/6s

Peter

[Sideband]

I'd certainly think about bringing back some rare sets.....couple of pristine Eveready Sky Emperors, a few Philips Superinductance sets like the 'Ovaltini', some 994V valves since these don't seem to exist anymore, some pre-war tellys...in mint condition and working of course......you could go on forever! You could also work it the other way......set yourself up in business say in the 1960's with all the knowledge you have now and have a very lucrative repair facility. You'd be able to fix colour TV's as soon as the manufacturer designed them......

[Paul_RK]

Originally Posted by Terry_VK5TM

Not sure I'd even want to come back.

Me neither: I'd pick up my Panasonic RF-9000, an armful of Peter Hammill LPs and a few weeks' worth of historic football results and set the dials to 1955.'56 should see me established in a substantial property with a good library and a healthy proliferation of 1930s radios. Just have to resist all temptation to introduce myself to my folks or to me once I'm born - that didn't work out well in the early Twilight Zone episode Walking Distance - or for that matter to Peter Hammill, and the RF-9000 had best be kept hidden for a while.

Paul