Crucial insights - Servicing the Lady

At the Cologne meeting last weekend, I met this nice lady introduced earlier and I swiftly took her into custody, away from this cold, away from this parking lot (see subsequent report on the Cologne meeting). She introduced herself as "Busy secretary", Japanese from Linemar, born ca. 1960. I readily wanted to give her the job, but the Lady remained mysteriously silent. Did I not push the right buttons?

Back home this warranted some closer inspection:

In principle the Lady feeds on two 1.5 Volt batteries. I bought a new pair, but no reaction.

Looking under the hood of her "Tom Thumb"-labelled typewriter (nice detail).

At this point, my "Dame ohne Unterleib" seems to worry a little - where would this journey go?

First rough cleaning from decades worth of dust.

It appeared that one cable was loose.

Beneath the hood, and letter which usually comes with the setting is missing.

Don't worry my dear Lady!

A closer look at the motor, including the bulb lighting the red keys of the keyboard. All not working.

The construction scheme of this nice yet not overcomplicated contraption: left: on/off button. blue: compartment for 2 1.5 V batteries. red and yellow (plus and minus) cable duplicating in the middle and then leading on to the motor (brown, right upper corner) and light bulb.

The battery compartment. I went shopping for some parts: new wire, new light bulb. It turns out the motor is intact - big luck as this would have been difficult to replace. Some sand paper (black) for brushing the contacts. All in all, repair costs came up to 2 dollars.

The motor (see also video at the bottom).

After some soldering - not difficult, but requires a steady hand and some PATIENCE.

The Lady still in waiting, but back on her throne.

Slowly regaining confidence (still a bit shy).

Finally back at her desk!

A kiss from the Miss, thanks Mr. typewriter repair man!

Now to catch up with some work!

Long live the typosphere!

My little typewriter stereoscope

Well the other day I came across this beautiful item on the flea market in basel: a stereoscope produced by Unis, Paris. 

Stereoscopy is almost as old as photography itself. Even before the advent of photography, cardboard drawings were used to create threedimensional pictures.

With my (well I admit I bought two) machines came several slides. Here you see a man sitting by the seaside, a nice photo I must say. I only show one half of the slide here, the second half being an almost identical picture, but taken from a slightly different angle, just so far apart as to simulate the distance between our eyes. When looked at separately, our brain then composes one three dimensional image from the two 2-D photos.

View on the lake through the woods, another slide included in the package. Above, photographed through the stereoscope, below the full picture, actually closer to the real effect when looking through the glasses.

Ok, so, my first thought was: I need to produce typewriter slides for this machine! Said an done. Transparent film for overhead projectors and printable with inkjet were readily available at the local store, further I had to invest in a new colour cartridge. I did some research on how to produce the pictures which then should go on the transparent sheet. 

Here you see the composite picture which resulted from taking two pictures, done on a tripod, then calculated the stereo baseline (1/30th of the distance from lens to object, so, in my case, 3-4 cm) and moved the tripod sideways accordingly (no macro slide at hand, would come in handy) for the second picture. Here you see the overlapping photos which show the side movement corresponding to the different angle of our left and right eyes.

I did this overlay in order to adjust the vertical position, which must be precisely the same line for both photos. I think the horizontal distance doesn't need to be superprecise: 3 or 4 cm hardly matter, our brain is clever enough to figure it out. The end result however is the two photos side by side.

Here is the final sheet before cutting.

close-ups, and one single slide.

There we go, first test, and it worked right away! The 3D-effect is real, I was happily surprised. It's physics, baby!

A look through the lens - can't really simulate the 3D effect in this post, although there would be ways... (maybe some other time)

Dr. S. spending the rest of the afternoon gazing at typewriters in the world's first mini-typewriter exhibition!