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Fascinating youtube vid on vintage technology
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unknownparticle:

--- Quote from: MK14 on April 03, 2023, 01:06:32 am ---
--- Quote from: unknownparticle on April 02, 2023, 08:36:26 pm ---Well there is a descriptive title on the video ;)

--- End quote ---

It would be better, to write a nice summary, of what makes it interesting for you and perhaps others.  Then others (perhaps hundreds of others), can quickly glance at the summary, and decide for themselves, if it sounds potentially interesting or not.

Rather than having to try and second guess what exactly it is about, from a very brief title or recommendation from a user on this forum, they may know very little or nothing about.

E.g.
Interesting documentary (for me, even though I've already seen it, at least once, a fairly long while ago) video.  Which seems to be about an amazing production line machine, made/designed and built from very early 1940's technology, at around 1947.

Which seems to basically be a number of analogue (or similar) computer (elements or more).  Which improve/control the process.  Which makes these (what are similar to thin-film or other types of tiles/assemblies etc).

I.e. A sort of PCB (very early), but with films/coatings/chemicals etc, to make things like resistors, capacitors, inductors (I'm not sure of the exact list of component types) and valve/tube sockets, etc.

To effectively make a module, which is most of a full radio (of that time period), which just needs a few valves/tubes to be plugged into it, and the rest of the assembly.  To make what amounts to a mass produced device, such as a radio.

Presumably, that creates lots of cost savings, allows much higher production unit rates (quantities), and with much less labour (costs).

It seems clever, for that time period (1940's).

--- End quote ---

Perhaps I overestimated the level of curiosity that would exist here, but no problem I will refrain from bothering with such posts in future.
MK14:

--- Quote from: unknownparticle link=topic=371360.msg4793843#msg4793843 ---Perhaps I overestimated the level of curiosity that would exist here, but no problem I will refrain from bothering with such posts in future.

--- End quote ---

Not everyone, is going to have the time and inclination, to watch potentially long youtube videos, just because people here, have linked to them.

So, some kind of summary, about the video and why, it seems interesting, is a useful thing, to add, to a post with a link to it.
RJSV:
   OR, you could try compromise, between the feedback, and just put a cursory couple of sentences briefly, as some of the feedback is intended towards others who post vids without any intro,...so they are maybe just frustrated...

   Been this way, here.  I've gotten a bunch of justified criticism.  Puppies and Humans play a little rough, often.  Thanks for the video posting.
MK14:
Source (paywalled):
https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg17623656-200-the-chunkiest-chip/

More information about the production machine (to read the rest, seems to need a paid subscription):


--- Quote ---Today they are everywhere. Production lines controlled by computers and operated by robots. There’s no chatter of assembly workers, just the whirr and click of machines. In the mid-1940s, the workerless factory was still the stuff of science fiction. There were no computers to speak of and electronics was primitive. Yet hidden away in the English countryside was a highly automated production line called ECME, which could turn out 1500 radio receivers a day with almost no help from human hands.

The key to this miracle of manufacturing efficiency was this slab of Bakelite moulded with a pattern of grooves and filled with molten zinc – a forerunner of the integrated circuit. It would have taken hundreds of workers to match ECME’s output. All ECME needed was a couple of girls to feed in the Bakelite boards and someone to do the odd bit of maintenance. Did ECME and the plastic circuit board revolutionise the British factory? Not a bit of it. John Sargrove, the visionary engineer who developed the technology, was way ahead of his time. A few of the Bakelite boards survive in London’s Science Museum, but the ingenious machines that made them have been lost without trace.

THE Indian government ordered 20,000 of them. China’s president, Chiang Kai-Shek, bought 25,000 and might have ordered more if the People’s Revolution hadn’t disrupted his plans. By 1948, John Sargrove’s radios were selling like hot cakes in Asia and the Far East. Which was exactly what he had intended when he designed the world’s first automatic assembly line. The line turned out radios so cheaply that people in some of the world’s poorest nations could afford to …

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MK14:
If anyone would prefer to be able to read about the video in text/article form, or is interested, in an apparently detailed article about it, complete with pictures.  Here is the link:

http://www.r-type.org/articles/art-098.htm
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