I still have one somewhere. Think I last used it around 1982.
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Happy World Hippo Day! 🌍🦛
Obsolete Stuff
- Thread starter Black_Fly
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Here’s an analytical stereo plotter, connected to a CAD mapping systems. I was making my living running this on 2nd shift while attending graduate school. Totally obsolete now, but highly accurate. The methods have changed but some accuracy potential has been sacrificed. This was 1994ish. Swiss accuracy was the pinnacle of accuracy. My career took me from scribecoat drafting to aerial camera operation, to manual compilation to CAD system collection for GIS systems. That’s when firms started consolidating and many projects could get by with GIS products. Aerial mapping is still used for updates and refinement of databases, but the transfer technique uses different equipment.
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Planimeter, able to measure to hundreths of a square inch. It was used by foresters to measure the scaled mapping area of forest stands, timber sale units, post-sale activity units, and fire areas, among other things. You'd measure the square inch area of a unit drawn on a map and convert it to acres depending on the scale of the drawing. The planimeter was typically used for areas that needed higher accuracy, such as units in a timber sale contract or for double checking chain-and-compass surveys. Otherwise, if accuracy wasn't as important, we'd use dot grids of varying precision for acreage measurement. Now they use heads-up screen digitizing in GIS (Geographical Information Systems) for "drawing" and measuring a unit.
Maybe I'll set it up to show how it works; haven't used it in ages.
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Nice one. I’ve used them many moons ago at work. CAD kinda made them obsolete, although I have a cheap one for trip planning. Set it up and let us see.
I went from hand drawing units from stereo pair aerial photo interpretation and USGS topo mapping to using Autodesk AutoCAD and ESRI ArcGIS. The incremental improvements over that time, using a number of devices and technology, was not without a fair amount of frustration. At times we'd have to go back to manual methods because of software/hardware failures. It was fun to hand a newby a planimeter or dot grid and say: "Here, use this."
How about this. Not an object, but a skill - or more accurately, a language. At the beginning of the train service stage of my career, we were still transitioning into radio communication. Much of our communication between the locomotive engineer and the ground crew was still with hand signs and lantern signs. The old heads could give and receive pretty detailed and lengthy instructions by hand and sight, and with enough crew members those instructions could be passed over a great distance. And there were colloquialisms unique to different regions. I had to learn all of that - just to abandon most of it as radio took over (and crew size shrunk) within a few years. The vocabulary was soon reduced to pretty much just "forward", "back", and "stop". You'd be hard pressed now to find anyone still working who could even sign those three instructions very well.
For the five Yukon River races I have been on (both the 440 miler YRQ and 1000 miler Y1K), I planned and plotted the entire route using Google Earth with GPS turn waypoints to transfer to my two Garmin GPS 60csX units used during the race. Many river channels can and do change significantly every year or two, so I yearly updated my route based on new found map images and the previous year's race experience. Home trials indicated that the 60 unit’s batteries would last up to two days full time.
The Y1K race plan would take us six days to complete, so I brought batteries enough to change daily for two weeks if necessary. When I 'upgraded to the next level GPS 62, I almost threw the dang thing into the river after I discovered I could set my watch by its dead battery after only exactly 7 hours of run time. Luckily, I also brought my 60’s and could switch to using those. I had printed on paper map pages the entire route labeled with new heading directions indicated at each turn waypoint. So if necessary, I could use a magnetic compass I always had in case of complete GPS failure. By the way, race rules require a magnetic compass be personally physically carried on person by each crew member as part of a mandatory emergency equipment kit.
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Any obsolete camping equipment?
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Camping is so traditional I kind of like the old stuff.
I no longer use candle lanterns. I rarely use a gas or propane lantern except for a big group or task work like skinning a deer.
I have a gas Coleman stove for old times sake. Mostly I cook on propane or a fire.
I don't use tents much. Too much work and crawling around. No choice on canoe trips.
For a group like this, I can't see any camping equipment being totally obsolete no matter how old it is.
I no longer use candle lanterns. I rarely use a gas or propane lantern except for a big group or task work like skinning a deer.
I have a gas Coleman stove for old times sake. Mostly I cook on propane or a fire.
I don't use tents much. Too much work and crawling around. No choice on canoe trips.
For a group like this, I can't see any camping equipment being totally obsolete no matter how old it is.
Good point. I have to admit, I have gone back to white gas lantern and stove for car camping. The lantern, because it's quieter than propane. The stove, because the lantern.
I can't think of any traditional gear that is obsolete, that's one of its' benefits.
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I don't know anything obsolete about the old camp gear. Our power was out twice this past week. Pulled out the Coleman stove and lantern, made coffee, sat down in my chair enjoying the quiet, all without missing a beat.
We have power outages. I use all my old Coleman stuff. About 3 gallons of white gas on hand.
So here's the manual...
And how it sets up...
And an example of how it works...
Using this planimeter, which measures one square inch per revolution of the measuring wheel (with the gradation markings), and having tenths of an inch increments, along with the vernier scale, I can measure the area of a polygon and get within hundreths of an inch precision. Each ten revolutions of the measuring wheel is accumulated on the dial (to the right of the measuring wheel) so you can accommodate fairly large areas (polygons).
So the photo on the left, which measured a one square inch square polygon, shows a reading of 0 on the accumulator dial and 1.0 on the measuring wheel, and aligns with 0 on the vernier = 01.00 sq.in. The photo on the right shows that the polygon (e.g., lake) I measured has a reading of 0 (on the dial), has 1.3 (just shy of 1.4) on the measuring wheel, with 9 aligning on the venier = 01.39 sq.in. or 554.0 acres at 1:50,000 scale.
It was interesting going through the process again and reminded me of how happy we were when computers and digital peripherals came along. We previously spent hours manually measuring polygons and now software can scan and calculate data on thousands of digital polygons in the time it requires to take a sip of coffee.
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That is cool as heck. Thanks for sharing!
I remember using something like the above instrument in a basic cartography class. Somewhere in the basement I should have some of the maps I had to create. I kept them because they were so much work to create - nothing computerized or digital in the early 1970's.
Not photos of my father's originals . . .
But when I was 12 in 1956, I was communicating with all of you at 5 WPM with this device.
A year later, when I qualified for my general license, I was communicating with you at 15 WPM (or faster) with this much more modern device—a "bug"—which had a lateral vibrating spring pendulum to generate consistently rapid dits.
But when I was 12 in 1956, I was communicating with all of you at 5 WPM with this device.
A year later, when I qualified for my general license, I was communicating with you at 15 WPM (or faster) with this much more modern device—a "bug"—which had a lateral vibrating spring pendulum to generate consistently rapid dits.
I never got over about eight words a minute sending, but I could read a little faster. Amazing how far we've gone in one generation.
Indeed technology has advanced exponentially during my lifetime, but tempus fugit. 1956 was three generations ago.
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