Julia Suits’s The Extraordinary Catalog of Peculiar Inventions: The Curious World of the Demoulin Brothers and Their Fraternal Lodge Prank Machines - from Human Centipedes and Revolving Goats to Electric Carpets and Smoking Camels is a history of those long-gone, much lamented days when Americans joined fraternal lodges in great numbers, and when those lodges attracted and retained members by subjecting new initiates to horrible, dangerous, violent pranks that often involved some combination of 35 cal blanks and high-voltage electricity. You know, the good old days. The Demoulin Brothers were the top of the fraternal order prank-gadget food-chain, publishing a secretive (but wildly popular) catalog that was distributed to lodge presidents and other mucky-mucks. The catalog featured inventions that could be used to terrorize (and delight) the members by simulating their executions, making them think they were to be horribly burned, and other delights of the simpler era when TV wasn’t yet invented and radio was newfangled and untrustworthy. Suits is a real scholar of those days, and she livens up the many reproductions from the various catalogs with great context-giving notes about the nature of these lodges, reprints from newspapers and magazine articles of the day that give a sense of their prominence and significance, and biographies of the mad geniuses who sold these gadgets for so many years. From the demented copywriting in the catalogs to the fan-letters written to the company by excited lodge leaders who were delighted with the performance of the prank items, The Extraordinary Catalog of Peculiar Inventions is a time machine that transports readers to that gilded age and its highly specialized notions of fun and fraternity. The Extraordinary Catalog of Peculiar Inventions: The Curious World of the Demoulin Brothers and Their Fraternal Lodge Prank Machines - from Human Centipedes and Revolving Goats to Electric Carpets and Smoking Camels [amazon.com]

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Extraordinary Catalog of Peculiar Inventions: awesomely dangerous pranks from the age of fraternal lodges

From the Aug, 1956 issue of Scientific American , this sweet advertisement for the Univac: “Leading companies throughout the country have learned that Univac has become synonymous with enlightened management. And Univac savings more than justify its use for electronic control of management problems. Find out how typical users have put Univac to work in virtually all types of commercial data-processing. Well be happy to send EL135an informative, 24-page, 4-color book on the Univac System to business executives requesting it on their company letterhead.”

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Univac ad, 1956

From the Netherlands’ National Archive, a 1938 photo taken in New York City of a Colt revolver that has been modified to shoot a picture with every trigger pull. Presumably most of those photos are of people looking horrified and about to say something like, “Oh Christ, you turned your gun into a camera? No, don’t point it at me! Ahh!” ( via Super Punch )

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Revolver takes a picture every time you pull the trigger

Blogto’s Derek Flack went spelunking in the Toronto Archives for photos of old computers in situ, from the days when installing a monsterscale computing engine was cause for bringing in the photographer for a bit of posterity. I remember my dad taking me to some computer rooms in this era, though his facial hair was far more glorious than this gentleman’s. As I’ve mentioned before, one of the best parts of digging around the Toronto Archives is the stuff you find that you were never looking for. I’d guess that at least a third of the ideas I’ve had for historical posts about the city have come via some serendipitous discovery or another. Today’s installment is certainly fits this bill. When I was putting together a post about what banks used to look like in Toronto, I happened to stumble upon some spectacular, Kubrick-esque shots of an unidentified computer room that got me wondering if there were any more like them in the City’s digitized collection. As it turns out, there are though not as many as I’d like. Vintage computers and technology in Toronto ( via Super Punch )

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Hulking computing engines of Torontos yesteryear

Apple Computers : grossly overpriced since at least 1996. This is Best Buy ad from 1996 (the year some of you were born but the year I lost my virginity . JK JK MOM — I’VE STILL GOT IT). Because it would take me forever to resize the pieces into something decent because of the resolution, you can see the weekly ad in its entirety HERE (not hosted on Geekologie). Some highlights: Warcraft II $20 A CELLULAR FLIP PHONE 4, 8 and 16MB Memory upgrades: $30, $60 and $130 2.5 GB Hard Drive: $300 3.1 GB Hard Drive $400 Damn, we’ve come pretty far in the past 15 years, haven’t we? “Well I certainly have, I don’t know about you , GW.” WHAT THE F*** IS THAT SUPPOSED TO MEAN?! “You know, like your mental development.” Oh right, THAT. *trying unsuccessfully to flick booger off finger* A Best Buy Flyer From ‘96 [consumerist] Thanks to MIRV, Geek Squid (I see what you did there!) and Dan, who don’t shop at Best Buy because they’re convinced those sensors that go off if you try walking out the door with something you haven’t pay for give you ball cancer.

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1996 Best Buy Ad: We’ve Come So, SO Far

This tiny, turn-of-the-20th-century bookcase with its complement of miniature books is on sale at Vininghill, an antiques dealer. A very sweet miniature bookcase , probably made of maple. This bookcase revolves on a long steel pin, and spins with ease. The 40 miniature books are volumes of Shakespeare and are printed in Glasgow by David Bryce & Son, and in London by Henry Frowde, Oxford University Press Warehouse Amen Corner. The item is dated 1904. One of the books is dedicated to Ellen Terry, the actress. This is a lovely item. Size: bookcase - 6-1/4 inches x 4 inches books - approx. 2 inches x 1-1/4 inches Edwardian Miniature Revolving Bookcase ( via Bookshelf )

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Miniature bookcase and books: 1904

Work has gotten underway on Plan 28 , a project to create Charles Babbage’s Analytical Engine, the never-built successor to the Difference Engine. The Analytical Engine was to have been a general purpose computer, and Ada Lovelace designed the first-ever programming language to run on it. Many factors led to its never being completed — the state of the art in precision engineering in Babbage’s day, finance woes, and so forth. John Graham-Cumming, who founded the project, is also the author of The Geek Atlas , a fantastic book. This has required building relationships with a number of bodies. I recently announced that the project had been accepted into the portfolio of projects handled by the Computer Conservation Society. They will provide expert advice as needed. The other vital body to work with is The Science Museum in London. Doron and I have been working with The Science Museum team at many levels to ensure that the project is known about and that we would be able to get access to Babbage’s plans and notebooks to perform the vital academic study of the Analytical Engine as Babbage imagined it. The first step to doing that research was to digitize the entire Babbage archive. Digitization greatly facilitates research as these precious documents can be viewed conveniently from around the world. I am pleased to be able to say that The Science Museum agreed that digitization was vital and undertook this project. The work on digitization started on Monday, September 12 and early in October Doron and I will have access to the digitized versions of Babbage’s plans and notebooks for study. This great first step on Plan 28 is, finally, underway. We are very, very grateful to The Science Museum and all we have worked with there for their support and for having undertaken this vital work that will benefit not only Plan 28 but all those who wish to study Charles Babbage’s work wherever they are. Plan 28: Analytical Engine project gets underway ( Thanks, John ! ) ( Image: AnalyticalMachine_Babbage_London , Wikimedia Commons/Bruno Barral, CC-BY-SA-2.5. )

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Work begins on Babbages Analytical Engine

This report from the Second West Coast Computer Faire — in 1978 — from Byte magazine is a perfect time-capsule of the heroic age of personal computing: I enjoyed the many special features of the show, particularly the excellent computer generated art on display in the lobby. The microcomputer chess tournament proved to be one of the hits of the show. Larry Wagner from Atari presided over the 3 day battle of the processors, taking time out to give me a guided tour of the tournament. The level of play was impressive, and the winning program, called SARGON, was a 16 K byte Z-80 assembler program written by a husband and wife team, Kathe and Dan Spracklen. It beat some highly touted com- petition. (A copy of the SARGON program is available for $15 postpaid from the Spracklens, 10832 Macouba PI, San Diego CA 92124.) I was impressed with the professional appearance of the show, which held its own with many of the established engineering and computing shows. The Third West Coast Computer Faire will be held this coming November 3, 4 and 5 in Los Angeles. Plan to see it if you can. The Second West Coast Computer Faire (Jul, 1978)

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Report from 1978’s "Second West Coast Computer Faire"

Hard to believe it’s been 20 years since the original publication of The Difference Engine , William Gibson and Bruce Sterling’s seminal cyberpunk alternate history about a Victorian England dominated by mechanical computers. I was privileged to write the introduction to this 20th Anniversary special edition, which also includes new material from Bill and Bruce about the book’s creation. It came out today, and I can’t wait to get my copy! The Difference Engine

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Difference Engine 20th anniversary edition

German and Austrian archaeologists are taking notice of an extensive network of tunnels that riddle central Europe. These tunnels — thought to date from the 10th to 13th century — have fanciful names like “goblin hole” and their exact historical function is somewhat mysterious. A group of female healers, noting the exit looks “like a vagina,” re-enacted their births using Austrian “Schlupf” tunnels. Others attribute them to the druids, or Christian rituals, or believe they were used to hide from bandits in the lawless “medieval clearing period.” The tour begins in the taproom and proceeds down a stone stairway into the cider cellar, where there is a trap door that opens into a gaping hole. “We don’t let people with heart conditions do the tour,” Wsner says in his thick Austrian accent. He keeps a large sling on hand for emergencies, so that if anyone faints he can pull them out of the narrow tunnel. The vaults could not have served a practical purpose, as dwellings or to store food, for example, if only because the tunnels are so inconveniently narrow in places. Besides, some fill up with water in the winter. Also, the lack of evidence of feces indicates that they were not used to house livestock. There is not a single written record of the construction of an Erdstall dating from the medieval period. “The tunnels were completely hushed up,” says Ahlborn. Archeologists have also been surprised to find that the tunnels are almost completely empty and appear to be swept clean, as if they were abodes for the spirits. One gallery contained an iron plowshare, while heavy millstones were found in three others. Virtually nothing else has turned up in the vaults. Until recently, the secret caves were explored only by amateur archeologists. The pioneer of Erdstall exploration, Lambert Karner (1841 to 1909), was a priest. According to his records, he crawled through 400 vaults, lit only by flickering candlelight, with “strange winding passages” through which “one can often only force oneself like a worm.” Experts Baffled by Mysterious Underground Chambers ( via BLDGBlog ) ( Image: Ben Behnke / DER SPIEGEL )

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Strange tunnels of Austro-Germany