Technology Connections

Ever wonder how pro cameras from the 1970's worked? Learn about their single most important tool for the photographer (and lots else!) in this exposé.

Let's not get too heated, this is after an inflammable subject. Frankly it's exhausting, but we gotta do it. We gotta explain how furnaces work! And soon, we'll talk about what will replace them. I'll try to remember to put a link here when that time comes!

Catchy title! But it's mostly true! There's a pinned comment you might want to read, as well. But there's some links down here, too.

I think we really oughta make this fashionable again, don't you?

Road signage and other markings may be something you take for granted, but have you ever wondered how they can appear so brightly with just the output of your headlights? Find out how, and get a load of other trivia, in this video!

Well now, what do we have here? It's a CD player... but also a turntable? Hmm... very interesting. But why? How? And is it actually a good idea? Lucky for you you've clicked on this video and will find out!

It's that time again! Time to take a deep dive into the mundane to see what we can learn. Join me as we look at this sprinkler!

You know, it's one thing when a product has a limited scope and application. It's another when it's passed off as something greater than what it is. Learn why these fad devices are fad devices in this video.

It's a real lost opportunity that we didn't call these Cassettepters. It's not-at-all difficult to say! OK, maybe Cassepter would be easier but isn't that, like, a sword or something? The descriptions are getting weird.

I know, my use of a laptop (and worse, that I like it!) makes me a truly terrible person.

It's more than 120V. It's even more than the other 120V! It is the sum of the two (and sometimes a different two!) that makes us who we are. Learn about the US electrical system in this not-at-all snarky video!

I love this toaster so dang much.

You might have been seeing a lot about these little devices lately. Have you ever wondered how they work? Well, let's find out!

This video is absolutely fantastic. Ever wonder why it goes Off-High-Medium-Low? Well, it has to do with motors and the ways we cheat with them.

We're really looking at the plusses and minuses of this whole ordeal...

Do you like your coffee to have a little kick? Then try a percolator! It's like tasting a shoe! Seriously. Why are these still a thing? I don't know but let's talk about them!

This video is super cool. We're talking about refrigeration, and how the design of a refrigerator affects its energy consumption. Freezers are the perfect place to see this in action, so let's take a look!

Today, we take a look at the selection accumulator; how it works, what it does, and how that relates to the rest of the machine. Strap in, folks!

Ever wonder how we made all these crazy machines do all their crazy machine things before computers came along? Wonder no more as we explore the inner workings of a Wurlitzer 3400 series jukebox from 1970!

Yep. Teleprompters. That's what this video's about.

This video discusses the color brown. Seriously.

The end is near. The death knell approaches. What will become of RCA’s invention? And is this really the end? Would you like fries with that?

Bet you didn't think a rice cooker was so interesting, did ya?

Alright, here it comes! The fourth part.

“Oh nooo! Betah!” In this video, we discuss the endlessly discussed rivalry betwixt the Victorious VHS and the Bent-outa-shape Beta, but from an entirely new angle!

Part three! It’s here! Huzzah! Let’s learn about what happened in the history of RCA that led up to the eventual failure of the CED.

Wouldn’t it be nice if VFDs made a resurgence? Just put VFDs on everything, already! Make VFDs the new “blockchain” or “neural networks” or whatever. Priorities, people!

So. Ya want color, eh? But you don’t want any of them dots or stripes? We can do that.

It’s seriously not that crazy of an idea. RCA might have pulled this off in a couple of ways, and in this video we explore those new angles.

Bring the magic home… with RCA! Please? We really want you to buy this. Please. Buy it now. Right now. It’ll be great.

Have you ever wondered why the word looks so weird? Wait. Weird as in, like, all the time? Of course! We live in a weird world! But light, though! What about weird light? Ahhh, that's what this video is all about. This is the strangest vid. description I've written in a while. Cool.

Click clack I was taken aback. Wonderin’ ‘bout those switches of light, yeah. Let’s find out what the point is of all that clacking, shall we?

Fiber optics. A DeLIGHTful technology. Ooh that’s a groaner. Well, why don’t we see them around more often? Let’s find out!

Well. Isn’t that strange. Digital data through fiber optics, and in the home no less! Let’s explore this a little, shall we?

After much annoyance dealing with fiddly capturing methods, I thought I’d show you the method I stumbled upon that works amazingly well, is fairly cheap, and awfully easy. I’ve been thrilled with it, and I think you’ll be too.

Oh no. It’s a new version of a well-established product that trades efficiency for convenience. But this time, it’s more than just being cool. It’s about cooling. Seriously, either we need to get more awareness of how dumb single-hose portable A/C units are, or we need to just use window units whenever possible. While I know that there are times a portable unit is the only option (remember, I’m in that boat), it seems that only very high capacity, premium machines have the facility to use two hoses. Which is frankly stupid but then again that’s what I’m trying to tell you now.

Hmm. What were these things? Why were some record sets made to work with them? When did we decide we hated them? Was that the right call? Will I ask another question? These are the things you’ll learn in this video, where we explore the humble record changer. Seriously. They didn’t suck!

Boy do I have a COOL topic for you today. We’re gonna turn up the HEAT with this one!

Have you ever run across a cool idea that you desperately hope doesn’t catch on? Flexplay is one of those. In this video, we’ll talk about what it is, why it was crazy to think it would go anywhere, and why it’s probably a good thing it didn’t.

That title isn’t hyperbole or clickbait nonsense. This really is better than your toaster. At least, I think so. Seriously, can we make this the norm, please? If we figured it out in 1948, you’d think we woulda kept going with it. I mean, really.

Big things are coming soon. In some ways, they already have!

It’s ink. But better!

Ya ever wonder about what’s in a toaster? No? Well, too bad ‘cause you’re gonna find out right now!

This is the fun, weird, and surprisingly complicated story of Disney’s PeopleMover attraction and how it ended up somewhere unexpected. And maybe even somewhere *really* unexpected!

Unless my understanding of the universe is deeply flawed, something about space heaters just doesn’t add up. In this video, I talk about that.

Analog video and frame-by-frame review don’t usually go nicely together (unless of course you’ve got a CAV Laserdisc onhand). So how did security camera systems stretch the normal recording time of VHS from a couple of hours to upwards of a week? Why, with ingenuity of course! Watch this video and find out the juicy secrets!

So, what’s the deal with the D? Why is it all, disclike? Last I checked, SD cards weren’t any sort of disc. What’s going on? In this video, we find out.

DVD-R, DVD+R, DVD-RW, and DVD+RW ain’t got nothin’ on my man RAM. Oh yes, DVD-RAM, the format of mild obscurity which seems like it should have been friggin huge. Alas, it was but mildly useful.

Ya know, I just love learning about the everyday things in our world that are meant to make life a little more accessible to those with disabilities. This video is about a small (but nearly universal) thing that elevators do to make life just a bit easier for the blind and visually impaired.

The time has come. What was once just a replacement for big black frisbees of sprially wavey soundy sounds has matured into a versatile, ubiquitous data storage solution. Would you look at that, progress on a disc! But that wasn’t all; many colors of books were published (neato, wouldn’t ya say?) and the disc went from a-thing-you-buy-with-stuff-on-it to a disc that you can put your VERY OWN stuff on it! Radical! And here’s some of that story.

Sometimes life throws curveballs. But rather than just get hit in the face, why not do something about them? This video is a mishmash of a project, some insight on Lead-Acid Battery technology, inverters, and applications. A bit different you might say from TC’s normal stuff, but what’s life without a little variety? *There are definitely different ways to charge lead-acid batteries, with different strategies optimized for different results. However, for general 12V applications, a large battery and a slow-ish charger for a car battery will be an A-OK combo.

Well, it’s time to answer that question that’s been burning in your minds. There’s lots of good stuff down here, so please to expand it to see!

This video is a supplement to the latest "real" video from this channel. There was a lot of interesting stuff here that got cut, so if this is the sort of thing you like--sit back and relax as you watch this loosely edited, not-at-all planned video.

If you’re among the 85%* of people who don’t know what an LED printer is, then prepare to have your mind mildly blown as I tell you about the common printer tech that may in fact by lurking in your home or office, but which you’ve been mistakenly referring to as a laser printer. *gasp*

Did you ever want to know a little more about the nuts and bolts inside a CD player? No? Well I’m afraid you’ll have to pick another video because that’s exactly what this one is! In it, I start with a taken-apart Magnavox CDB 260, and we examine what all the parts do, how they fit together, and how they work together to turn pits and lands on a plastic disc into your favorite electrosynthamagnetic musical sounds.

The Compact Disc. Just, like, radical man. Lasers making the music? What will the technology wizards think of next? In this video we take a first look at the compact disc and its underlying encoding. Soon we’ll be looking more into CD players and their laser pickup systems, so be sure to subscribe if you haven’t already!

These devices are a common sight in homes and businesses around the US and around the world. But what are they for? Why do we need them? This video explores the life-saving potential of the GFCI (known alias: RCD) and explains how they work.

Let’s talk a bit more about digital sound. Thanks to a mathematical theorem, we know that a bandlimited signal can perfectly be represented by a series of discrete samples that occur at twice the rate of the frequency of the bandlimit. OK, that’s hard to explain in a little descroption blurb, so the video is probably your best bet.

These days, listening to music on the analog formats of old has seen a massive resurgence. Whether it’s cassettes or vinyl, it seems analog is in and mp3’s are out. But digital sound is pretty freaking neat! This video discusses how it works and is the launching point for this, the final videos on sound reproduction.

There are studies linked below that demonstrate a tangible safety benefit of amber turn signals. You might want to check them out. Though it might be small, the benefit is demonstrably there. This has always bugged me, and no one talks about it. Our automotive lighting regulations in North America are stupid when it comes to tail lights. This video is about what is stupid, why it’s stupid, and what we could do about it.

Oh man, did this not go well for Sony. Sometimes clever engineering can really backfire, as was the case for Betamovie. Let’s learn a bit about it.

We need to talk about private home charging more than we do. 99% of our charging infrastructure already exists, and this is something that absolutely needs to be communicated and not enough people are doing. Here is my attempt. In short, no matter if it's a Chevy Volt, Bolt EV, Nissan Leaf, or any of Tesla's cars, you will most likely be charging it at home. It's the cheapest and easiest way to do it--creating your own charging infrastructure.

Is this haunted room actually stretching? The answer may surprise you! (barf) The stretching rooms at the Haunted Mansion are perhaps my favorite piece of hidden engineering at the Disney Parks. While only the Anaheim and Paris versions function in the fashion described in this video, it is still a neat effect regardless of how it’s done.

Now that we know why street lights are orange, let’s look at whether or not they should still be so. The answer isn’t as straightforward as it might seem. Although newer technology seems to surpass HPS in nearly all respects, there are still considerations to be made.

Ever wonder why street lights are orange? For such a fast-paced world technology-wise, it seems somewhat odd that we are still using such a strange color of light for outdoor lighting. Well it turns out it is still a pretty good light source, though with limited use and perhaps a not-so-obvious flaw.

Come with me as I take the Chevy Bolt EV through 183 miles of summertime driving. It was really hot out and most of the drive was spent at 70 miles per hour, but the car still did pretty well.

1080i in 1994. Wow. Really, perhaps as early as 1993, but it seems the first player was released in 1994. Anyway, what better way to end the saga on Laserdisc than by talking about MUSE Hi-Vision discs. And some other stuff, too!

Did you ever try to copy one VHS tape to another and find that it just, well, didn’t work? Macrovision was the clever creation of what is now TiVo that managed to confuse a VCR without causing too much distress to a TV. In this video, we find out what it is, how to spot it, and how it works (with a healthy dose of speculation).

Around the mid-2000’s, the LED traffic light began making its way onto the scene. Recent developments in LED technology meant that energy efficient replacements for the standard incandescent lamp were beginning to appear. Municipalities rejoiced with the energy savings they provided, but in cold climates they weren’t met with quite as warm a welcome. Not producing sufficient heat to melt snow on their lenses, some drivers became confused by ambiguous signals and caused fatal accidents. This video tells the tale of why this newfound “problem” generated harsh criticism to the new technology, and explains why this reaction is entirely dumb and regressive.

In this very chill and laid back video, we take a look at the Smith Corona PWP-3200, a word processing typewriter from the early 1990's. There were a number of products like this available, and while they are an interesting bit of technological history, they are really strange.

When I first made a video on analog color television, the thumbnail I created (and its explanation) caused nearly endless debate. I thought I'd try and clear this up a bit.

Sometimes, a company in Japan decides they're gonna give it all they got, and the result is a wacky machine like this. Pioneer, the company that brought you pretty much everything to do with Laserdisc, designed this wonderful series of machines which are both single side Laserdisc players and 5 disc CD changers. Due to the limitations of the Laserdisc format, a rather robotic solution was needed to do the job.

The original PlayStation is a pretty neat thing. Using the CD as a storage medium was a smart move. But, Sony needed to add anti-piracy features to the disc to prevent miscreants from making bootleg copies of Crash Bandicoot. This video tells the story of how that works, why it wasn’t infallible, and also proposes a potentially impervious solution (24 years late, though).

Well, it had a good run. Although Laserdisc could never really get off the ground, it had a reasonable showing in the high end video market. Intended as a mass market product, Laserdisc would never get there. But DVD... well that's a whole other story. In 7 or 8 years, DVD went from being introduced to being everywhere, and it is still selling pretty well in the face of streaming services such as Netflix. Just how long DVD can cling to life remains to be seen, but you can still stroll on into any big box store and pick up a DVD player and some movies to go with it. This video tells how DVD got started, and why it was able to succeed where Laserdisc failed.

Have you ever needed to light your fish tank with Chinese LEDs? No? Well, here's how. I'm sure the information will be incredibly useful. In any case, maybe you'll learn about how to use these new-fangled diodes of light.

If you lived in North America any time in the 20th century, you probably ran across one of these telephones. The Western Electric Model 500 and its subsequent variants were so ubiquitous that you almost couldn't go anywhere without seeing one, especially in the United States where it was standard equipment from the phone company. Even if you're not American, if you've seen any of our movies, you'll have seen this phone, too. A literal fixture of American life, this phone was inescapable. But its ubiquity also caused some filmmakers or TV show producers to get a little lazy. This video tells that story.

While Laserdisc certainly wasn’t the most successful format, it was among the most interesting. This video explores the evolution and features of the format, with a wide variety of sample clips.

Nothing zaps the range of an EV quite like winter. But how bad is it? Join me on a few trips with a Chevy Bolt EV, and we'll find out.

Laserdisc didn't have an easy start. In this video, we take a look at the first few years of Laserdisc's existence. Though many articles or videos talking about Laserdisc will blame the high cost of discs and the inability to record, those problems are only partially to blame.

These days, it seems everyone wants the latest and greatest equipment for the audio needs. But there's a lot of fantastic hardware you can find in thrift stores and enjoy today. I've found that with a little patience, you can find true high fidelity speakers from the best brands, and though they may need some TLC, I think the results are worth it.

Laserdisc seems to get a lot of retro cred these days. It gets featured as a technical oddity, but from today’s perspective, it might seem strange that it didn’t become the de-facto standard. Boasting many of the same features as the modern DVD, you would think it couldn’t possibly have received the cold reception it did. In this series of videos, we’ll find out why.

Roller coasters are pretty neat, I must say. But they rely on passive vehicles holding fragile humans while zooming around at high speeds. That can be a tough thing to manage safely, but it's not impossible. This video shows you a few ways it's done.

In this video we explore how we added color to everyone's favorite passive entertainment medium. Modern color broadcasting began in 1954 after years of experimentation, and this video will teach you the early history.

In this video we explore Digital ICE, an image processing technique involving infrared light, photographic film, and a dash of algorithmic magic.

Philo Farnsworth's Image Dissector was the heart of the first television cameras. This video tells the story of the early days of television, and shows how these early video tubes worked.

Meet the grandfather of the compact fluorescent light. This device from GE is really interesting and ahead of its time, but far too weird to gain widespread acceptance. GE manufactured these adapters to shoehorn the standard circline tube into more everyday applications, and the result is kinda weird. This video's a quick exploration of this early attempt to bring the energy saving virtues of fluorescent lighting into the domestic arena.

While the CFL is pretty much done being a thing these days, it was a really great invention for saving energy. But some people claimed they caused them headaches. In this video, I explore the reason that fluorescent light can indeed cause headaches or eyestrain in sensitive people, and I explain why that wasn't an issue with the CFL. Then we explore the modern LED bulb and how it actually is bringing the cause of this flicker back.

John Logie Baird is often considered to be the inventor of television, but not of television as we know it. His mechanical television is a remarkable invention for its simplicity, but as you'll soon see, it would never have been all that practical.

Have you ever wondered how old-school television worked? It seems almost impossible for a device to make moving images without a computer being involved. Yet analog television is very, very old. How on Earth did it work? Find out in this video.

This is a much fairer comparison than using the Panasonic unit as the VHS playback device. Many people believe that Beta was a vastly superior product to VHS, but I think this was mostly marketing prowess on Sony's part. People seemed to think that they were giving up something of quality if the went with VHS over Beta. But as this video will demonstrate, I don't think that was really the case.

This is the continuing exploration of Sony's repeated missteps in the development and marketing of the Beta videotape format.

The late 1970's and early 1980's were a frightening time to be a video enthusiast. Two formats are duking it out and trying to assert their dominance, and although Sony was first* to market with their Betamax machine, they were caught off guard by JVC's competing VHS system which, rather than focus on pedantic details like cassette design and technical perfection, strived to make a cheap, versatile format that worked.

We've been told that our laptops can watch us without our knowledge. That little indicator light? Worthless. Hackers can get around that. But why? There's a simple way to make sure this is impossible, which is explored in this, the very first episode, of Stupid Design.

Ever wonder why the gas-fired furnace is still so prevalent? Why isn't electric heat the standard? Well, wonder no more as we explore the economic and practical reasons the gas-fired furnace is so ubiquitous in colder climates, and how in the future this is almost certainly going to change.

In this video we discuss the Dolby Noise Reduction systems found in consumer cassettes decks and how they work. Though technically very simple, Dolby B noise reduction provides a very effective means of reducing audible tape noise, and was ubiquitous throughout the cassette's life. Dolby noise reduction was such an important part of their legacy that the company still pays homage to it in their logo. The "D"s in the Dolby Double D logo are really the shape of audio tape heads.

These days a VCR seems more quaint than anything else. But in fact, there's a device inside every VCR that solved what seemed to be an unsolvable problem. The video head drum is a fascinating solution to the complex problem of tape speed, and therefore I think it deserves to be remembered. Plus, the video head drum shares some motor technologies with modern hard disk drives. So there's that.

The technological advances that we've investigated so far have revolved around the vacuum tube. But the invention of the transistor really sparked a whole new era of sound. The advent of small circuits for sound reproduction meant that things could shrink. Tape went into cartridges. Amplifiers used less energy. And everything became more robust.

On Technology Connections, we looked at this machine briefly when we explored the invention of magnetic recording technology. Now, in long form, is a more thorough look at this machine and how it works. We start with an overview of operation, then take it apart to get a look at the inside.

We've come along way since the invention of the phonograph. But up to this point, artificial sound was still decidedly artificial sounding. "High fidelity" isn't really one technology, but a collection of technologies that combined to create natural sounding recordings. Similarly, stereo sound, though now completely universal, had to be introduced. This episode explores what makes a good high fidelity recording, and how stereo came to be.

From the Chevy Volt, to the Nissan Leaf, to the Tesla Model S, electric cars seem to be the way of the future. Join me as we explore a typical wind farm and discuss the potential for wind energy and electric cars. While today's electric grid propels these bastions of modern engineering with a fair bit of fossil fuel, it's clear that electric cars are pretty green and will only continue to get greener.

Rather than use electromagnets to cut a groove, why not use them with other magnets? By using materials that could be magnetized, the electromagnets used in the phonograph cartridge could be adapted into a magnetic recorder. This technology is still very much in use today, but in this episode of Technology Connections, we're exploring the two earliest forms of audio reproduction done with magnets: the wire recorder, and the magnetic tape recorder.

Once we figured out how to amplify a signal with a vacuum tube, the possibilities became endless for the world of sound recording. In this video, we explore how the invention of radio improved the phonograph record by introducing electric recording technology.