Dead media
The dead media project (1997 - ) - Bruce Sterling
The Dead Media Project - A collection of "research notes" on dead media technologies, from Incan quipus, through Victorian phenakistoscopes, to the departed video games and home computers of the 1980s. The Project's homepage, including Sterling's original Dead Media Manifesto can be found at http://www.deadmedia.org --http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bruce_Sterling [Mar 2005]see also: death - media - new media
From: (Bruce Sterling) circa
1/18/1997
Via: http://www.glu-sg.si/deadmedia.htm [Mar 2005]
******************************
THE MASTER-LIST OF DEAD MEDIA
******************************
DEAD PRELITERATE MEDIA
Prehistoric etched-bone mnemonic
devices and lunar
calendars.
Preliterate clay tokens of Fertile Crescent area.
The Luba Lukasa mnemonic bead-tablet.
The Inuit Inuksuit.
Inuit carved maps.
String and yarn-based mnemonic
knot systems: Incan
quipu, Tlascaltec nepohualtzitzin,
Okinawan warazan,
Bolivian chimpu, Samoan, Egyptian,
Hawaiian, Tibetan,
Bengali, Formosan; American wampum,
Zulu beadwork.
DEAD SOUND-TRANSFER NETWORKS
Drumming, stentor shouting networks,
alpenhorns, whistling
networks, town criers.
SMOKE DISPLAYS AND NETWORKS
Signal fires, smoke signals (still
in use by Vatican),
fire beacons.
Skywriting.
DEAD PHYSICAL TRANSFER NETWORKS
Egyptian, Babylonian, Assyrian,
Persian, Mongol, Roman and
Chinese imperial horse posts.
Extinct mail and postal systems:
Thurn and Taxis (1550
AD), Renaissance Italian banking
networks, early
espionage networks, German butcher's-post,
Chinese hongs,
Incan runners, US Pony Express,
etc etc.
Balloon post (France 1870-1871)
American guided missile mail (1959),
Styrian, Tongan, German, Dutch,
American,
Indian, Australian, Cuban and
Mexican rocket mail.
Russian rocket mail (1992).
Pneumatic transfer tubes:
Josiah Latimer Clark stock exchange
pneumatic system
London (1853); R.S. Culler/R.
Sabine radial pneumatic
telegraph/mail system London (1859);
Paris pneumatic
mail system (1868)
Norwegian mountainside transport wires.
Pigeon post: Egyptian Caliphate
1100s, Mameluke Empire
1250's, military sieges of: Acre
(11--?), Candia 1204,
Haarlem 1572, Leyden 1575, Antwerp
1832, Paris 1870-1871;
Reuter's pigeon stock-price network
1849, military
pigeoneers of World War 1.
Chinese kite messages, 1232 AD
DEAD OPTICAL NETWORKS
Roman light telegraph;
Polybius's torch telegraph ca
150 BC
Moundbuilder Indian signal mounds
Babylonian fire beacons
Fire signals on the Great Wall
of China
Amontons' windmill signals (1690)
OPTICAL TELEGRAPHY:
Johannes Trithemius's Steganographia
(ca 1500?)
Dupuis-Fortin optical telegraph
(France 1788)
Chappe's "Synchronized System"
and "Panel Telegraph"
(France 1793)
Claude Chappe's French Optical
Telegraph (France 1793)
The Vigigraph (France 1794)
Edelcrantz's Swedish Optical Telegraph
(1795)
British Admiralty Optical Telegraph
(1795)
Bergstrasser's German Optical
Telegraph (1786)
Chudy's Czech Optical Telegraph
(the Fernschreibmaschine)
(1796)
Van Woensel's Dutch system (1798)
Fisker's Danish Optical Telegraph
(1801)
Grout's American Optical Telegraph
(1801)
Olsen's Norwegian Optical Telegraph
(1808)
Abraham Chappe's Mobile Optical
Telegraph (1812)
Parker's American Optical Telegraph
(ca 1820)
Curacao Optical Telegraph (1825-1917)
Watson's British Optical Telegraph
(1827)
Australian Optical Telegraph (Watson
system) (1827)
Lipken's Dutch system (1831)
O'Etzel's German Optical Telegraph
(1835)
Schmidt's German Optical Telegraph
(1837)
Ferrier's optical telegraph (1831)
Russian Optical Telegraph (1839,
Chappe system)
Spanish Optical Telegraph (ca
1846)
San Francisco Optical Telegraph
(1849)
Ramstedt's Finnish Optical Telegraph
(1854)
Heliography:
The Mance Heliograph (Britain
1860s)
The heliostat, the heliotrope,
the helioscope.
The Babbage Occulting Telegraph
(never built)
Semaphore and flag signals:
Byzantine naval code (Byzantium
AD 900), Admiralty Black
Book code (England 1337), de la
Bourdonnais code (France
1738), de Bigot code (France 1763),
Howe code (Britain
1790), Popham code aka Trafalgar
Code (Britain 1803, 1813)
US Army Myer Code semaphore (USA
1860).
Military balloon semaphore (France
1790s).
Early 20th Century electric searchlight spectacles.
DEAD ELECTRICAL TRANSFER NETWORKS
ELECTRICAL CURRENT TRANSFER
George Louis Lesage / Charles
Morrison electric telegraph
(1774)
Francisco Salva's Madrid-Aranjuez
electric telegraph
(1796)
Soemmering's electrolytic bubble-letter
telegraph (1812)
Henry's electromagnetic telegraph
(1831)
Baron Schilling's Russian magnetized
needle telegraph
(1832)
Gauss/Weber mirror galvanometer
telegraph (1833)
CODED ELECTRICAL TRANSFER
Samuel Morse telegraph (patented
1837)
Karl August Steinhill paper ribbon
telegraph (1837)
Charles Wheatstone / William Fothergill
Cooke Five-Needle
Telegraph (1837)
The Alphabetical Telegraph
Foy-Breguet Chappe-code Electrical
Telegraph
The Bain Chemical Telegraph (1848)
Alexander Bain automatic perforated-tape
transmitters
(1864).
Telex.
CODED ELECTRICAL TRANSFER OF IMAGES
Elisha Gray's telautograph (1886); the telescriber.
The Vail telegraphic printer (1837),
the House telegraphic
printer (1846)
Frederick Bakewell's shellac conducting
roller (1848)
Giovanni Caselli's fascimile pantelegraph
(Paris-Lyon
1865-1870); Arthur Korn's telephotography
(1907), Edouard
Belin's Belinograph (1913), Alexander
Muirhead's 1947
fax.
ELECTRICAL TRANSFER OF SOUND
Unorthodox telephony networks and
devices:
The Bliss toy telephone (1886),
Telefon Hirmondo,
Cahill's Telharmonium (1895),
Bell's photophone,
the Telephone Herald of Newark,
Electrophone Ltd. wire
broadcast
Telephonic Jukeboxes: The Shyvers
Multiphone,
the Phonette Melody Lane, the
AMI Automatic
Hostess, the Rock-Ola Mystic Music
System
ELECTRICAL TRANSFER OF SOUND AND IMAGE
(Dead Telephony)
The AT&T Nipkow disk picturephone
(1927),
Gunter Krawinkel's video telephone
booth
(Germany 1929), Reichspost picturephone
(Germany 1936),
AT&T Picturephone, AT&T
Videophone 2500, etc
(Dead Mechanical Television)
Baird Television; Baird Noctovision;
Baird Telelogoscopy;
The General Electric Octagon;
the Daven Tri-Standard
Scanning Disc; the Jenkins W1IM
Radiovisor Kit,
the Jenkins Model 202 Radiovisor,
Jenkins Radio Movies;
the Baird Televisor Plessey Model,
the Baird Televisor
Kit; the Western Television Corporation
Visionette
(Dead Color Television Formats):
Baird Telechrome, HDTV, PALplus
letterbox format, etc
(Dead Interactive Television)
Zenith Phonevision, the first
pay-per-view TV service
(1951).
AT&T wirephoto (1925)
DEAD DIGITAL NETWORKS
Teletext, Viewtron, Viewdata, Prestel,
The Source, Qube,
Alex (Quebec), Telidon (Canada),
Viatel and Discovery 40
(Australia), the ICL One-Per-Desk,
etc.
TRANSFERS BY ELECTROMAGNETIC RADIATION
(Dead Television)
Nipkow disk (1884), Zworykin
iconoscope (1923), Farnsworth
Dissector.
Hugo Gernsback's Nipkow television
broadcasts (1928)
(Microwaves)
Microwave relay drone aircraft
(Canada 1990s)
(Radio)
RCA radiophoto (1926)
DEAD INK-BASED MEDIA
(dead text production devices and systems)
Typewriters: Henry Mill's device
(1714)
Pingeron's machine for the blind
(1780),
Burt's Family Letter Press (1829),
Xavier Progin's
"Machine Kryptographique" (1833),
Guiseppe Ravizza's
"Cembalo-Scrivano" (1837), Charles
Thurber's
"Chirographer" (1843), Sir Charles
Wheatstone's
telegraphic printers (1850s),
J B. Fairbanks'
"Phonetic Writer and Calico Printer,"
Giuseppe Devincenzi's electric
writing machine (1855)
Edison electric typewriter (1872),
Bartholomew's Stenograph (1879)
Schulz Auto-typist punch-paper
copier typewriter (1927)
Weir's pneumatic typewriter (1891),
Juan Gualberto Holguin's 'Burbra'
pneumatic typewriter
(1914), The IBM Selectric, etc.
Dead copying devices:
James Watt's ink copier (1780)
The aniline dye copy press
The hektograph
Edison's Electric Pen stencil
(1876), the Edison pneumatic
pen stencil, the Edison foot-powered
pen stencil, the
Music Ruling pen stencil, the
Reed pen stencil
Zuccato's Trypograph (1877)
Gestetner's Cyclostyle (1881)
The Edison Mimeograph (1887)
The Gammeter, aka Multigraph (circa
1900)
The Vari-Typer
Chinese imperial court printed
newspaper (circa 618 AD);
Beijing city printed newspaper
(748 AD)
Bi Sheng's clay movable type (1041
AD)
DEAD SOUND-CAPTURE TECHNOLOGIES
Extinct forms of dictation machine.
Poulsen's telegraphon wire recorder
(1893)
The Wilcox-Gay Coin Recordio (1950?)
DEAD SOUND ARCHIVAL TECHNIQUES
Extinct phonographic formats: Leon
Scott de Martinville
phono-autograph, Edison tinfoil
cylinder, Edison wax
cylinder,
the Bettini Micro-Phonograph,
the telegraphone,
Bell's graphophone, The Columbia
Graphophone Grand, the
Edison Concert Grand Phonograph,
the Pathe' Salon
cylinder, the Edison Blue Amberol
cylinder, the Edison
vertical-groove disc phonograph,
the Michaelis Neophone,
wire recorders, 78s, 8-track tape,
2-track Playtape,
the Elcaset, Soviet "bone music,"
aluminum transcription
disks, etc.
DEAD SOUND REPRODUCTION TECHNOLOGIES:
The AT&T Voder (1939)
The Bell Labs Vocoder
Talking dolls and cassette dolls
(von Kempelen's "talking" doll
(1778), Robertson's
talking waxwork (1815), Faber's
talking automaton (1853),
Teddy Ruxpin, dolls linked to
television programs,
realistic sound-producing squeeze
toys, etc).
DEAD STILL-IMAGE CAPTURE TECHNOLOGIES
Extinct photographic techniques:
Niepce's asphalt
photograph (1826), daguerrotype,
talbotype, calotype,
collodion, fluorotype, cyanotype,
Pellet process, ferro-
gallic and ferro-tannic papers,
albumen process,
argenotype, kalliotype, palladiotype,
platinotype, uranium
printing, powder processes, pigment
printing, Artigue
proces, oil printing, chromotype,
Herschel's breath
printing, diazotype, pinatype,
wothlytype, etc.
DEAD STILL-IMAGE TO TACTILE IMAGE TECHNOLOGY
Naumburg's printing visagraph and automatic visagraph.
DEAD STILL-IMAGE DISPLAY TECHNOLOGIES
The stereopticon, the Protean View,
the Zogroscope, the
Polyorama Panoptique, Frith's
Cosmoscope, Knight's
Cosmorama, Ponti's Megalethoscope
(1862), Rousell's
Graphoscope (1864), Wheatstone's
stereoscope (1832), dead
Viewmaster knockoffs.
Medieval and renaissance magic-glass
conjuring.
Alhazen's camera obscura (1000
AD),
Wollaston's camera lucida (1807).
Magic lantern, dissolving views
Phantasmagoria: Robertson's Fantasmagorie,
Seraphin's Ombres Chinoises, Guyot's
smoke apparitions,
Philipstal's phantasmagoria, Lonsdale's
Spectrographia, Meeson's phantasmagoria,
the optical
eidothaumata, the Capnophoric
Phantoms, Moritz's
phantasmagoria, Jack Bologna's
Phantoscopia, Schirmer and
Scholl's Ergascopia, De Berar's
Optikali Illusio,
Brewster's catadioptrical phantasmagoria,
Pepper's Ghost, Messter's Kinoplastikon.
Biddall's Phantospectraghostodrama
and similar
"fairground bogeys."
Riviere's Theatre d'Ombres.
DEAD STILL-IMAGE "3-D" WITH SOUND
The Talking View-Master.
DEAD MULTIPLE-IMAGE PERSISTENCE-OF-VISION TECHNOLOGIES
Joseph Plateau's phenakistiscope
(1832), Emile Reynaud's
praxinoscope, Ayrton's thaumatrope
or "magic disks"
(1825), Stampfer's stroboscope,
William George Horner's
zoetrope or "wheel-of-life" (1834),
L. S. Beale's
choreutoscope (1866), the viviscope,
Short's Filoscope,
Herman Casler's mutoscope and
the "picture parlor" (1895),
the Lumiere Kinora viewer and
Kinora camera, the
fantascope, etc.
Dead cinematic devices, including
but not limited to:
Muybridge's zoogyroscope, E J
Marey's chronophotographe
and fusil photographique, George
Demeny's Phonoscope,
Edison kinetoscope, Anschutz's
Electro-Tachyscope,
Armat's vitascope, Rudge's biophantascope,
Skladanowsky's
Bioscope, Acre's kineopticon,
the counterfivoscope, the
klondikoscope, Paul's theatrograph,
Reynaud's Theatre
Optique, Reynaud's Musee Grevin
Cabinet Fantastique,
Lumiere cinematographe, Kobelkoff's
Giant Cinematographe,
Lumiere Cinematographe Geant (1900),
the vitagraph,
Paul's animatograph, the vitamotograph,
the Kinesetograph,
Proszynski's Oko, the Urbanora,
the Prague Laterna Magika.
DEAD MULTIPLE-IMAGE, PERSISTENCE-OF-VISION,
SOUND
TECHNOLOGIES
the Photo-Cinema-Theatre sound
film system (1900),
Gaumont's Chronophone (1910),
Messter's Biophon (1904),
The Mendel-Walturdaw cinematophone
(1911), The Jeapes-
Barker Cinephone (1908), Hepworth's
Vivaphone (1911),
Edison kinetophone (1913), Ruhmer's
Photographon optical
sound recorder (1901), the synchronoscope,
the
cameraphone, phonofilm, the graphophonoscope,
the chronophotographoscope, the
biophonograph,
DeForest Phonofilm (1923), Warner
Bros/ Western Electric
Vitaphone (1926), Fox Movietone
(1927), Vocafilm,
Firnatone, Bristolphone, Titanifrone,
Disney's Cinephone,
Hoxie / RCA Photophone (1928),
General Electric
Kinegraphone (1925), Cinerama
(1951), CinemaScope (1952),
Natural Vision (1952), etc.
The Scopitone.
DEAD MULTIPLE-IMAGE, PERSISTENCE-OF-VISION, IMMERSIVE
Raoul Grimoin-Sanson's Ballon-Cineorama
ten-projector
circular screen (1900)
DEAD MULTIPLE-IMAGE, PERSISTENCE-OF-VISION,
SOUND, SMELL
Odorama, Smell-O-Vision (1960),
Aromarama (1959) etc.
DEAD MULTIPLE-IMAGE, PERSISTENCE-OF-VISION,
SOUND, SMELL,
IMMERSIVE
Morton Heilig's early virtual
reality.
DEAD MULTIPLE-IMAGE, PERSISTENCE-OF-VISION, "3-D"
Devignes's stereoscopic zoetrope
(1860)
Stereoscopic phenakistoscopes:
Seller's Kinematoscope
(1861), Shaw's stereoscopic phenakistiscope
(1860)
Bonelli and Cook's microphotograph
stereo-phenakistiscope
(1863), Wheatstone's stereoscopic
viewer (c. 1870)
3-D projection systems: d'Almeida's
projected 3-D magic
lantern slides (1856), Heyl's
Phasmatrope (1870),
Grivolas's stereoscopic moving
pictures (1897),
the Fairall anaglyph process (1922),
Kelly's Plasticon (1922), Ives
and Leventhall's
Plastigram, aka Pathe Stereoscopiks,
aka Audioscopiks, aka
Metroscopix (1923,1925, 1935,
1953), Teleview (New York
1922), polarized light stereoscopic
movies (1936),
Ivanov's parallax stereogram projector
(Moscow 1941),
Savoy's Cyclostereoscope (Paris
1949), the Telekinema
(London 1951), Space Vision (Chicago
1966).
DEAD MULTIPLE-IMAGE, PERSISTENCE-OF-VISION,
SOUND,
ARCHIVAL
Dead video: Baird Phonovisor wax
videodisk
(1927), Ives/Bell Labs Half-Tone
Television (1930s)
Eidophor video projector (1945),
PixelVision,
Polavision, Philips Laservision
videodisk, Panasonic HDTV
(1974), McDonnell Douglas Laserfilm
Videodisc (1984),
analog HDTV (1989), RCA SelectaVision
CED videodisk,
Telefunken Teldec Decca TeD videodisk,
TEAC system
videodisk, Philips JVC VHD/AHD
videodisk
Dead videotapes: Ampex Signature
I (1963),
Sony CV B/W (1965), Akai 1/4 inch
B/W & Colour (1969),
Cartivision/Sears (1972)
Sony U-Matic (197?), Sony-Matic
1/2" B/W (197?)
EIAJ-1 1/2" (197?), RCA Selectavision
Magtape (1973)
Akai VT-100 1/4 inch portable
(1974),
Panasonic Omnivision I (1975),
Philips "VCR" (197?), Sanyo V-Cord,
V-Cord II (197?)
Akai VT-120 (1976), Matsushita/Quasar
VX (1976)
Philips & Grundig Video 2000
(1979),
Funai/Technicolor CVC (1984)
Sony Betamax
DEAD VIRTUALITIES
Physical display environments (non-immersive):
Dioramas (no sound), de Loutherbourg's
Eidophusikon
(sound and lighting) (1781), the
Stereorama, the
Cosmoramic Stereoscope,
Mechanical drama:
Japanese karakuri puppet theatre
Heron's Nauplius.
Dead thrill rides.
Immersive physical display environments
Panoramas, Poole's Myriorama,
the Octorama, the
Diaphorama, Cycloramas, the Paris
Mareorama (1900).
Defunct digital VR systems.
DEAD DATA-RETRIEVAL DEVICES AND SYSTEMS
accountant tally sticks
Card catalogs: The Indecks Information
Retrieval System,
Diebold Cardineer rotary files,
etc.
Vannevar Bush's Comparator and
Rapid Selector
Scott's Electronium music composition
system
DEAD COMPUTATIONAL TECHNOLOGY (ANALOG)
Extinct computational platforms:
abacus (circa 500BC Egypt, still
in wide use)
saun-pan computing tray (200 AD
China)
soroban computing tray (200 AD
Japan)
Napier's bones (1617 Scotland),
William Oughtred's slide rule
(1622 England)
and other slide rules,
Wilhelm Schickard's calculator
(1623 ?)
Blaise Pascal's calculating machine
(1642 France)
Schott's Organum Mathematicum
(1666)
Gottfried Liebniz's calculating
machine (1673)
Charles Babbage's Difference Engine
(built 1990s) (1822
England)
Charles Babbage's Analytical Engine
(never built) (1833
England)
Scheutz mechanical calculator
(1855 Sweden)
The Thomas Arithmometer
Hollerith tabulating machine (1890)
Vannevar Bush differential analyzer
(1925 USA)
DEAD COMPUTATIONAL TECHNOLOGY (DIGITAL)
The Cauzin Strip Reader (archival)
Extinct game platforms:
Actionmax Video System, Adam Computer
System,
Aquarius Computer System, Atari:
2600/5200/7800,
Colecovision, GCE Vectrex Arcade
System,
Intellivision I/II/III, Odyssey,
Commodore, APF, Bally
Astrocade, Emerson Arcadia, Fairchild
"Channel F,"
Microvision, RCA Studio II, Spectravision,
Tomy Tutor,
etc.
DEAD BINARY DIGITAL COMPUTERS
Konrad Zuse's Z1 computer (1931
Germany)
Atanasoff-Berry Computer (1939
USA)
Turing's Colossus Mark 1 (1941
England)
Zuse's Z3 computer (1941 Germany)
Colossus Mark II (1944 England)
IBM ASCC Mark I (1944 USA)
BINAC (Binary Automatic Computer)
(1946-1949 USA)
ENIAC (Electronic Numerical Integrator
and Computer)
(1946 USA)
Dead mainframes.
Dead personal computers:
Altair 8800, Amiga 500, Amiga 1000,
Amstrad
Apple I, II, II+, IIc, IIe, IIGS,
III
Apple Lisa, Apple Lisa MacXL,
Apricot
Atari 400 and 800 XL, XE, ST,
Atari 800XL, Atari 1200XL, Atari
XE
Basis 190, BBC Micro, Bondwell
2, Cambridge Z-88
Canon Cat, Columbia Portable
Commodore C64, Commodore Vic-20,
Commodore Plus 4
Commodore Pet, Commodore 128 CompuPro
"Big 16,"
Cromemco Z-2D, Cromemco Dazzler,
Cromemco System 3, DOT Portable,
Eagle II
Epson QX-10, Epson HX-20, Epson
PX-8 Geneva
Exidy Sorcerer, Franklin Ace 500,
Franklin Ace 1200
Gavilan, Grid Compass, Heath/Zenith,
Hitachi Peach
Hyperion, IBM PC 640K, IBM XT,
IBM Portable
IBM PCjr, IMSAI 8080, Intertek
Superbrain II
Ithaca Intersystems DPS-1, Kaypro
2x
Linus WriteTop, Mac 128, 512,
512KE
Mattel Aquarius, Micro-Professor
MPF-II
Morrow MicroDecision 3, Morrow
Portable
NEC PC-8081, NEC Starlet 8401-LS,
NEC 8201A Portable, NEC 8401A,
NorthStar Advantage, NorthStar
Horizon
Ohio Scientific, Oric, Osborne
1, Osborne Executive
Panasonic, Sanyo 1255, Sanyo PC
1250
Sinclair ZX-80, Sinclair ZX-81
Sol Model 20, Sony SMC-70, Spectravideo
SV-328
Tandy 1000, Tandy 1000SL, Tandy
Coco 1, Tandy Coco 2
Tandy Coco 3, TRS-80 models I,
II, III, IV, 100,
Tano Dragon, TI 99/4, Timex/Sinclair
1000
Timex/Sinclair color computer,
Vector 4
Victor 9000, Workslate
Xerox 820 II, Xerox Alto, Xerox
Dorado, Xerox 1108
Yamaha CX5M
etc. etc. etc.
Dead computer languages.
Fortran I, II and III, ALGOL 58
and 60, Lisp 1 and 1.5
COBOL, APT, JOVIAL, SIMULA I and
67
JOSS, PL/1, SNOBOL, APL
Dead operating systems.
Dead Internet techniques.
We are actively hunting data in
all these categories.
We are also searching for new
taxonomical methods and
alternative categorization schemes.
Send email if
you (a) are personally willing
to re-format this list along some
specific taxonomical scheme or
(b) you have a novel idea for
a taxonomical approach.
Bruce Sterling (bruces@well.com) Jan 18, 1997
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