1936: TRENTON NEW TELEPHONE SETUP

How very archaic! This graphic was posted a few years ago, but it bears repeating. It shows two telephone operators at their switchboard, laboring all day answering and forwarding phone calls. The photo can now be classified as an historic and ephemeral memory of an era that will never return. How I miss that olive green New Jersey Bell Telephone truck as he responded on the SAME DAY to a telephone problem. I am hearing that the home telephone as we know it is fast becoming as extinct as the passenger pigeon. Not in the Glover household, thank you. I still want to be able to press a butting the size of my fingers and listen on a phone that has a speaker that fits the ear, and a transmitter that lines up with my mouth. As you might imagine, yes, I have a cell phone, but only use it for a possible on the road emergency breakdown so I can call AAA.

1936 - 2012: "WE'VE COME A LONG WAY, BABY"

That old "Virginia Slims" slogan "You've come a long way, baby" is quite apropos. We have indeed come a long way in electronic communications. Satellites, GPS devices, computer telephony, cell phones, and many other electronic advances that have evolved since the invention of the transistor, and other microscopic electronic components. Only a few of us in the over 60 generation remember the huge switchboard with the many ports that would connect point "A" with point "B." Those winsome young ladies who were so proficient with the switchboard are now among all of us senior citizens. Not that I don't appreciate the advancing technology, but I must admit I miss those beautiful old olive drab Bell Telephone vehicles bringing fast and courteous service to those of us who had a malfunction in our home telephones.

1981: TOM GLOVER'S "HI TECH" LAP TOP COMPUTER

Many things remind me that I am getting old! I started out over 70 years ago using a green "Dixon Ticonderoga" grammar school pencil. Then I and my contemporaries were issued "straight pens" with a cork finger grip. We dipped the pen into that ink well that was on the top right of every school desk. As we matured, we moved up to the upper classes where we used fountain pens and of course, pencils. At high school we were introduced to the manual typewriter. The electric was still a writer's dream. Into the top secret U.S.Army Security Agency where I was issued a typewriter that the army called a "Mill;" which was devoid of lower case letters; upper case only. Three years of "cloak and dagger" top secret typewriter output found me discharged and into a tragically dead end bearing business career where I began typing invoices on a "manual" typewriter. I pause here to marvel at the very gradual advances in literary and writing technology that I had experienced. Along came the electric typewriter. The transition from manual to electric was accompanied by a somewhat steep learning curve. Trying to remember that the electric typewriter no longer required a manual carriage return, and trying to keep your fingers from repeating key strokes. Hi tech electrics had the revolutionary automatic carriage return. Then, miracle of miracles, along came the "Sinclair," "Atari" "Radio Shack" and other dabblers in very early computing. Here we move into the latter stages of my journalistic career with the advent of the very early personal computer. When I started writing for the Mercer Messenger 30 years ago, I initially used a pencil and yellow lined paper to write a basic manuscript, moving paragraphs and sentences by circling them and arrowing them to their new location. Then came the electronic typewriter. Mine was a Brother which used a heat transfer system to print a page. It was also the first time I had a "spell-checker" and correction feature. And now to put a cherry on top of this rather verbose journalistic chronology, along came the Epson in the illustration above. I thought I achieved the ultimate in journalistic technology! The rest is recent history.

1940: "SOUNDIES:" ANOTHER NOSTALGIC VISION FROM THE PAST

Lord, am I getting old! I remember those hi-tech "soundies" that Hollywood churned out back in the late 1930's and into the war years. Back before DVD's, MP3's, WMV's and other digital entertainment, old fogies such as I had to rely on 8 or 16 millimeter film. I had a huge collection of 16 millimeter movies back in the 1970's but they took up half a wall in my basement so I got rid of them. Within that collection there was a number of old fashioned, "Soundies;" including Duke Ellington, Fats Waller, and one that I particularly liked, Helen O'Connell.

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Ralph Lucarella said...

WELL TOM, THERE AGAIN WE SHARED THE SAME THING. MY WIFE BOUGHT ME A BELL AND HOWELL MOVIE PROJECTOR IN 1940 AND I WAS SHOOTING EVERYTHING IN SIGHT. IN LATTER YEARS WE TURNED THEM INTO TAPES AND TODAY WE LOOK AT THE GOOD OLD DAYS ON EDINBURG ROAD AND THE TERRIFIC SNOW STORMS WE HAD IN THOSE DAYS. REGARDS.

Wednesday, October 27, 2010

1944: WORLD WAR II - THE FUTURE OF TELEVISION

"Even small television sets will probably have screens about 8 x 10 inches....in more expensive television sets, screens will be as large as 18 x 24 inches..." Mention "Coaxial Cable," Alliance "TENNA-ROTOR," Philco, Capehart, and DuMont, to any of us "old timers" and we will regale you with stories of our struggles to point that antenna toward Philadelphia or New York for the perfect picture. I remember seeing the very earliest 6 inch television sets; indeed, I picked one up at a flea market back in the 1960's, but lost it in a flooded basement a year or so later. My very earliest experience with television was on a Trenton Transit bus going down Liberty Street toward town. At the bus stop, a television set was on and through the open window I had a chance to get a very fleeting glance at the picture. Result: complete infatuation with the new medium. It would be 1948 before brother Bud went to Bond's Electric on Hamilton Avenue and purchased a 10 inch "Admiral Consolette."
Those MEMORIES DO LINGER!
Email me and tell me about YOUR first television set.
Our visitors will be interested.

1936: DR. WILBUR'S "SIMULTANEOUS CALCULATOR"

From the "TECHNOLOGY" folder in the Hamilton Township Public Library Local History Collection, we see Dr. John Wilbur seated at the "monitor" of his 1936 desktop computer. Dr. Wilbur would be completely enthralled were he able to return to 21st century America and see how the calculator principle has evolved over these 70 plus years.

2009: 21st CENTURY TECHNOLOGY

When I was in Germany and then Italy during my time in the U.S. Army, I spent a lot of time in the base hobby shop, learning the art of photography. I remember how I wanted so much to procure one of those incredible "Rolliflex" reflex cameras; the Cadillac of cameras. Those of us interested in film processing spent hours in the "dark room," with negatives, the developer bath, the fixer bath and the final bath. Then over to the enlarger, the heat drum to put on a dryer for the final finish. All that equipment was extremely expensive. A good enlarger was also only a dream for the average budget. How technology has changed over these 50 or so years! There are many professional photographers who will always stay with the old fashioned film camera; hanging on to the very end. Indeed, many of them consider digital photography without film to be a heresy. Today, digital photography has given John Doe the ability to turn a light on in the "dark room." Those three developing trays have now been replaced with a printer. Even though digital photography was not involved in the graphic above, the same basic process of enhancing and developing changed that faded, wrinkled, barley legible document into a pristine article.
As for me, I'm all for the new technology and more than willing to let the professional film guys keep their expensive and elaborate equipment.

1986: STEINERT'S COMPUTER LAB

How far we have come in 22 years! Check out that computer in front of Charlie Sheppard. It looks like 2 of the original 8 inch "floppy disks" which were an integral part of the old MacIntosh and IBM AT and XT computers of the distant past. Macs seemed to be the preferred platform on which to learn computing in the educational systems locally and nationally.

1946: TRENTON GOES "HI TECH!"

It was a big deal back in September, 1946 when the city of Trenton un-veiled it new state of the art photostat machine. We were on the threshold of duplicating documents with the newsly acquired photostat machine. One wonders what the future held for the duplication and management of documents by the year of, oh, say 2008!

1940: THE OLD FAITHFUL PUSH MOWER

I DON'T KNOW WHETHER I POSTED THIS NOT. HOWEVER, THE LAWN MOWING SEASON IS IN FULL SWING, AND IT'S NICE TO KNOW THAT WE HAVE THE LUXURY OF POWER MOWERS. THERE ARE SOME FOLKS WITH A SMALL YARD YOU STILL USE OLD FASHIONED MOWERS SIMILAR TO THE ONE IN THE GRAPHIC.

1971: WHEN FILM WAS KING

HOW ARCHAIC! BACK IN 1971, THE FILM CAMERA WAS THE ONLY WAY TO GO. HOWEVER THE RELATIVELY RECENT ARRIVAL OF DIGITAL PHOTOGRAPHY IS FAST REPLACING THE FILM CAMERA. THERE ARE STILL FILM CAMERA DEVOTEES WHO CONSIDER FILM PHOTOGRAPHY AS SUPERIOR TO DIGITAL.

DIGITIZED VS. MICROFILM IMAGES

AS YOU VIEW THE OFFSET PHOTOS ON THIS SITE, KEEP IN MIND THAT A QUALITY GRAPHICS SOFTWARE PROGRAM CAN REALLY RENDER AN OLD PUBLISHED NEWS PHOTO INTO A THING OF BEAUTY.

COMPARE THE FOLLOWING YARDLEY BRIDGE GRAPHIC WITH ONE FROM SCRATCHY MICROFILM AND YOU WILL SEE WHY I AM SO ENTHUSED ABOUT DIGITIZING HISTORICAL MATERIAL FOR FUTURE GENERATIONS!

1913: YARDLEY PA. THE OLD AND NEW BRIDGES

THE NEW BRIDGE REPLACES A FORMER SPAN WHICH WAS BUILT IN TIME FOR TRAVELERS TO ACCESS THE 1876 CENTENNIAL EXPOSITION IN PHILADELPHIA. THESE PHOTOS FROM AN OLD 1913 EDITION OF THE TRENTON TIMES, HAVE BEEN ENHANCED, CLEANED, AND LIGHTENED, USING CURRENT GRAPHICS TECHNOLOGY.

1947: THE MARVEL OF THE AGE

MR. LAND'S INVENTION WAS SURE TO OBSOLETE THE FILM CAMERA. I REMEMBER THE VERY FIRST POLAROID CAMERA THAT I SAW IN THE EARLY 50'S. IT WAS A HUGE CAMERA AND THE PHOTOS TOOK A MINUTE OR SO TO DEVELOP. TODAY'S DIGITAL CAMERAS LONG AGO OBSOLETED THE POLAROID AS WELL AS MAKING A DENT IN THE FILM CAMERA'S POPULARITY.

1947: WHEN COMMCYERCIAL TV WAS IN ITS INFAN

THIS YOUNG FELLOW WAS LIGHT YEARS AHEAD OF MOST OF CONTEMPORARY SOCIETY. THE IDEA OF BUILDING ONE OF THOSE NEWFANGLED TV SETS WAS BEYOND THE KEN OF ALMOST EVERY CITIZEN EXCEPT FOR AMATEUR RADIO OPERATORS AND OTHER ELECTRONIC EXPERTS. BARS AND RESTARUANTS STARTED PLACING TV SETS IN THEIR ESTABLISHMENTS. SPORTS WAS THE MAJOR FARE ON THE VERY EARLIEST TELEVISION SETS. I REMEMBER WHEN TV WAS DARK ALL NIGHT, SIGNED ON AT ABOUT 2 PM IN THE AFTERNOON AND WENT OFF THE AIR AT AROUND 10 PM.

1947: HI TECH PORTABLE RADIOS

JUST BEFORE COMMERCIAL TELEVISION CAME ON THE SCENE IN THIS YEAR OF 1947, THE AMAZINGLY SMALL PORTABLE RADIO WAS MADE AVAILABLE TO THE PUBLIC. HOW THESE HI TECH MARVELS CHANGED IN THE ENSUING YEARS AS THE TRANSISTOR BROUGHT THE TECHNOLOGY THAT WOULD ALLOW FOR PORTABLE RADIOS THE SIZE OF A PACK OF CIGARETTES.

1924: THE PORTABLE RADIO

FOUR YEARS OR SO EARLIER, BROADCAST RADIO BEGAN TO TAKE OFF. ALL OVER AMERICA,,THOUSANDS OF MEN WITH AN APTITUDE FOR RADIO BEGAN BUILDING THEIR OWN RADIO RECEIVERS. THE "BREADBOARD," FAMILIAR TO MANY OLD RADIO VETERANS, WAS A FAVORITE PROJECT FOR MANY MEN IN THE EARLY 20'S. THEN ALONG CAME THE "PORTABLE" RADIO; SURELY AM EXPENSIVE AND DESIRABLE ITEM WHICH WAS THE OBJECT OF AFFECTION FOR MANY RADIO LOVERS OF THE ERA.

1913: LONG BEFORE THOSE HIGH TECH CELL PHONES

CHECK OUT THAT "MODERN TELEPHONE SWITCHBOARD" IN THE LOWER PHOTO. IF THE FOLKS PICTURED IN THIS ARTICLE COULD SOMEHOW MAKE A VISIT TO THE TRENTON AREA OF 2001, THEY WOULD BE COMPLETELY FASCINATED IN THE CHRONOLOGICAL DEVLOPEMENT OF THE TELEPHONE.

1946: TRENTON GOES WITH HIGH TECH COMMUNICATIONS

I FIND THIS PHOTO TO BE COMPLETELY FASCINATING. THOSE PARABOLIC DISHES ON TOP OF THE BROAD STREET BANK BUILDING BROUGHT THE TRENTON AREA INTO THE WIRELESS TELEPHONE AGE.

1987: A "STATE OF THE ART" COMPUTER!

Wow! Look at the features on this 1987 "KAYPRO" computer! As I age...no, no....as WE age, I can't help but experience an extreme fascination for how fast our high tech age is progressing. I remember back in the 1980's when I graduated from a "Brother" electronic typewriter, which I thought was "state of the art," to an Epson laptop computer I purchased from my buddy, Wayne Davis, at that time the Editor of the late, lamented "Mercer Messenger." It had an LCD screen with 10 lines max! That old Epson ran on an outdated operating system known as "CPM." There was not "floppy" disk, rather a mini tape cassette stored the intelligence! Then I went to what I thought was surely the ultimate computer. A little laptop with a floppy drive which allowed it to store 720 KB of intelligence! Wow! While I was writing for the "Messenger,"
I recall lusting for that KAYPRO which was on a full page in the Messenger.