Giant scrolling text in 1945??

snipped-for-privacy@gmail.com wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@googlegroups.com:

I think massive multi-ton stones could be set on teflon slides and a tower where humans, as an exercise routine, pull ropes to lift the stone 50 meters in the tower slide, then use the kinetic energy to drive generators to power things like street lighting and sidewalk lighting. Just like cuckoo clocks. One could have several slide towers surrounding specific areas in a city. Put cell nodes up on top. Use electric to hoist it if folks get lazy or quarantined.

Not in any way claiming perpetual anything here. Just saying that humans have a lot of juice withtin them that we all let go to waste. And we know a LOT about 'gravity bobs' in a controlled fall. So it would be real easy to get something back from our ability to lift a mass off the ground.

Block and tackle, boys. Tick tock. nick nack paddy whack. Give this dog his bones.

Pimpom wrote in news:SABnG.13166$tS2.12693 @fx14.ams1:

Bond clothing in New York City had an early scrolling banner. The earliest as far as I know.

Search bond clothing scrolling banner, and you'll see it in black and white.

Early pinball machines and times square / 42nd st signs were pretty fancy with relays and multivibrators. Probably could be deemed as early single purpose computing units driving them.

Pneumatic logic circuits that used to operate car wash systems were cool too.

Pretty sure things have evolved since though and a car wash control panel is a lot less complicated. Actuators have come a long way.

Lasse Langwadt Christensen wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@googlegroups.com:

Wow, that is early. Those damned germans! :-) (I am german and french)

bitrex wrote in news:64EnG.82706$ snipped-for-privacy@fx39.iad:

I liked the "Chevrolet's Octane Selector". I had to go look that one up.

Pimpom wrote in news:1yEnG.7301$ snipped-for-privacy@fx18.ams:

Probably fed by teletype or teleprinter. Otherwise, the "print program" would have to be stored somehow. like punched tape. It is similar to a player piano or automaton, so getting a sequence of lights in a singe column to scroll in a right to left 'waterfall' mode (so as to be read L to R) was probably no mean feat. Then, there is the actual text input.

Wax on... wax off...

Lights on... lights off...

Iterate. Yeah, probably not easy and needs a LOT of constantly maintained wiring. And multivibrators and relays. All turned on by a guy throwing an open knife switch. Heheheh!

I wonder how many New York Times Square electrical signage workers got nailed over the years. Probably less than the number that fell off high rise steel. (some of those were not accidents)

George Herold wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@googlegroups.com:

snip

Well duh. That's what *they* said.

Pimpom wrote in news:m5_nG.71734$6IG.33190 @fx01.ams1:

I always thought the boys that do the lights for Vegas were something else. All before they had the current computer controlled systems.

Probably moonlighting skunkworks employees did it as a hobby.

Sometimes stuff gets missed, erpecially back in the all-paper, pre-airmail days.

I tried getting a copy of Voigt's GB231972A, but the UK patent office is st

copy.

Makes UK patents easy to miss!

Cheers

Phil Hobbs

I've heard that too, but haven't seen the actual regulation.

Cheers

Phil Hobbs

snipped-for-privacy@decadence.org wrote in news:r7s6o9$14uo$1 @gioia.aioe.org:

hus-

workers

Big change moving to this...

Times Square New York City

This is becoming tiresome. To sum up, I think designing a practical scrolling text display 80+ years ago was ingenious. You say it isn't. You're entitled to your opinion, as I am to mine. So let's agree to disagree and leave it at that, OK?

I believe you misunderstand me.

I'm saying it wouldn't be too difficult. I'm also saying that it wouldn't take any sort of digital processing (to convert one code to a different light pattern).

I completely agree that it was novel and hadn't been seen before.

But I don't think it was difficult.

Sure.

You're uninformed, I'm afraid. The PTO has a strong adversarial system, where the examiner tries to shoot down even good patents, believe me. Thing is, when you're processing hundreds of thousands of patents per year (335,000 were granted in 2019), in a zillion technical areas, the demands being made on examiners aren't trivial. Nobody can be expert in everything. I've had some arguments with examiners that went back and forth through four separate office actions, and took years to grant.

Having said that, if you're granting that many patents, some real dogs are bound to get through.

There are two kinds of reviews that aren't court cases, and are very widely used: the _inter partes_ review (IPR) and _ex parte_ reexamination (EPR). Both are much cheaper than district court cases, with EPRs being much cheaper than IPRs, because the requester doesn't have to pay for a lawyer--the patent office just re-examines the patent. Filing one of those is $6,000 IIRC. I've done four IPRs, I think.

The other advantage to those PTO proceedings is that in a district court there's a strong presumption that an issued patent is valid, so proving invalidity is an uphill battle. That's reasonable, because companies often invest a lot of money in practicing their patents, and need secure property rights. It's just the same as renovating a factory--you need to be sure it's really yours or the investment makes no sense.

In a PTO proceeding, that presumption doesn't exist. That was one of the main reasons that many folks opposed the rule changes bitterly--it allows administrators to take away a property right with no compensation and no recourse, which on its face is unconstitutional. (Some finessing had to be done.)

Cheers

Phil Hobbs

I've heard that a number of times over the years that the US Patent Office would not consider a free energy machine patentable.

Seems like UK now has a free online system called IPSUM for viewing applications. Once published patents are easily found via worldwide.espacenet.com

As in:

piglet

USPTO seems happy to grant dodgy patents using gravity and buoyancy as in (just one of many) US2010180587

piglet

That's a published application, not a granted patent.

Cheers

Phil Hobbs

Thanks. Weird that they didn't reference that on the UK patent office page.

Cheers

Phil Hobbs

Don't know for sure i nthis case, but projection display technologies did exist then. From Matt Brennesholz, Information Display, July-Aug

"The Scophony projector from the 1930s was a surprisingly modern, mechanically scanned projection system based on rotating drum mirrors, an arc lamp, and an acousto-optic modulator. Scophony systems were used in a few movie theaters for live events, but plans to build a home version of this projector died when the war started."

Regards, Rich S. (SID member)