I'll never use an oscilloscope again

It was verrrry scary stuff ...

.... Phil

I've been enjoying watching the first series of "The Avengers" in the UK, only seen the Diana Rigg ones before (much higher production values for those). This was in and around 1963, with Honor Blackman. Wobbly scenery , Mcnee fogetting his lines (done live in those days as no electronic recording and editting), hilarious fight scenes, close-ups on non-existent items as an actor had not correctly placed the item ,etc. Ever involving fiends with electronic devices, , jamming ICBM radar receivers, electronic rays stopping anything like motors at a distance, etc. Every episode has an actor who went on to be famous. No mention of an interociter yet though

HaHaHa! The station engineer in that episode was named Allan Maxwell.

Possibly the inspiration for that great SW radio pirate broadcaster, Alan Maxwell:

"He who shrank" is lifted directly from an Outer Limits episode. Maybe others.

My mistake. It's "He who evolved" that was lifted. Well, it's been about 15 years.

Hey Phil, this is not a "chat room" so let's try to keep this about electronics repair. Thanks.

It was verrrry scary stuff ... "

Well we all knew it was TV.

Anyway, I watched a documentary on that show and it was somewhat interestin g. they had to come up with a show every week, it as not like today, write some stupid shit and send it to the boys with the super MAC computers for s pecial effects. Galaxy Man was a guy in a wetsuit with motor oil poured all over him and a few spotlights. They knew how to do blacklighting but that was about it with the double exposures.

But think, I think they actually had to WRITE the episode.

That was back when things took a bit of effort. I can't stand new shows, wi th their video tricks you think the telly is f***ed up and needs service. F ucked up color, green and white like a bad CRT. Jiggling, rolling and all t hat. the broadcasting equipment used to be designed to avoid that, that's w hy they had genlock.

I can't stand new TV or movies. So much special effects, guys jumping fifty feet up in the air and all that shit. Where's the goddam plot ? What was t his all about anyway ?

But that is the way it goes, every year there is less and less keeping me h ere.

Genlock? TV stations had one or maybe two sync generators. If they had two, there was either a manual, or automatic fail over function.The video would jump to any external sync, if the input was used to attempt 'genlock'. That was how I transmitted a color ID from a B&W TV station in the early '70s. For those who don't know, the H and V sweep was slightly different for Monochrome and Color. I fed the output of a Heathkit color bar generator into the sync generators, as well as the video input on the crude RCA keying function of the Monochrome video router. I also disabled the TV transmitter's chroma trap which was used to prevent color TVs from trying to lock onto noise in the colorburst range of 3,579,545 Hz. I did all of this, to prove that the station could be converted to color.

N_Cook wrote: >

Lucas couldn't get a license to build Interociters.

It does sometimes happen that you can see the video picture on an oscope waveform.

It can happen with a simple picture like the station call letters when the scene lighting is such that the left of the picture is brighter then the right , and you have the scope set to the V rate.

or something like that,

it is eerie.

mark

There was a short story that took care of the problem of machines not being connected to power - they simply started up themselves. I recall driverless buses crushing pedestrians and tanks, etc running around killing everyone they could. What was the name of the story! 1950s I'm pretty sure...

John

The New Avengers was a British ITV production which was shown late night in the USA on CBS during the late 70s.

KillDozer.

Peter Wieck Melrose Park, PA

And it wasn't a movie, it was a TV series:

Some simple hand drawn cartoons would do that on a waveform monitor at the AFRTS TV station zi worked at in the '70s. I saw 'Quickdraw McGraw walk across the screen of a Tektronix RM529 more than once. :)

That was movie, this was a short Sci-Fi story whose name & Author I can't recall. I now think that it was from the 40s.

I recall hearing about KillDozer but never saw the movie...

John :-#)#

Theodore Sturgeon. Short Story, same name, and the basis of the movie.

Peter Wieck Melrose Park, PA

Nope, not that story.

This had toasters, cars, buses all becoming 'aware' and deciding to destroy the enemy (humans). Perhaps KillDozer was based on the original story. It (the original short story) is buried in my books that are still boxed up when I moved houses five years ago. Possibly written by a one-time author.

There are never enough bookshelves!

John :-#(#

hmmmm... that might be "Skirmish" by Clifford Simak.

"Mechasm"? Perhaps?