Embedded Files
TYPEWRITERS!
Minor misalignment (specifically regarding capital letters), typebar occasionally sticks at the printing point, Ink ribbon flaps are bent and do not close properly.
It comes with a case (behind the typewriter) at least!!
No case, typebar infrequently sticks at the printing point.
It has perfect alignment still, and a very nice vibrant orange shell which has stood the test of time.
Both in working* (faults listed) condition!
Both have new ink ribbons.
Hermes Baby comes with its original case! It also smells like a museum. You know, that musty old thing smell.
I am unaware of the production dates of both typewriters. There is not a lot of information regarding them seeing that I can barely find anything about those specific models. Nevertheless, here are my educated guesses:
Hermes Baby (Grey) 1957
Rover 1000 (Orange) 1978
Both came as a gift for my brother; I took them from him. It wasn't like he would ever use them anyways!
UPDATE 24/11/2024: I have a THIRD typewriter now, but I am currently too tired to write a new section about it. Maybe I will get to that later.
Mysterious Postcard
Unfortunately I cannot read the writing. As of today, 10/09/2023, I have put out a request for someone to decipher the handwriting and write it in the form of text. I am unsure if anyone will indeed do it, but if someone does, I will post it here.
The address, however, is intellible:
75 Hampden Road, Grays, England.
------
UPDATE (06/10/2023)
1935 Brussels International Exhibition stamp. Nothing fancy; only worth £2 give or take a few.
If anyone is up to the challenge, here is the text orientated correctly.
A letter, dated August 3rd, 1935.
I found this around last year. There was a mild breeze and the letter flew and landed in front of me, after being picked up by the wind.
Now frankly, there most likely wasn't anything special about the letter as there was a boot sale in the same area prior. I'm sure it flew off one of the many stands that cover the field every week.
In any case, I occasionally glance at the letter, wondering who wrote it. It's a sobering thought to me. I wonder if whoever wrote the letter still occupies the minds of any living relatives, or if he/she been forgotten to relentless tides of time; this letter of which I just so happened to stumble across being a remnant of their ever-declining presence as their life drifts further into the past. Second by second, hour by hour.
Bryce3D!
Bryce3D is a 3D modelling software from 1997. Bryce is widely seen as a cornerstone for the early period of the internet due to its simplistic UI and ease of creating and rendering intricate images. Go through random websites from the time period on the Internet Archive and it wont take long to find a render from Bryce.
The first image you see to the left was made in no more than 7 minutes.
The UI to Bryce3D is very unique. One in this modern day and age - including, at one point, me- will find it very hard to get used to. Namely, the camera controls to the left. These are buttons where you need to click and drag your cursor to move the camera angle, height and distance.
The images you see on the left showcase some of the things I've done of Bryce3D.
Here's some information from Wikipedia about Bryce, seeing that there's a lot of blank space here:
The original Bryce software arose from work with fractal geometry to create realistic computer images of mountain ranges and coastlines.[5] An initial set of fractal based programs were developed by Ken Musgrave (who later created MojoWorld) a student of Benoît Mandelbrot, and extended by Eric Wenger. Wenger later met and worked with software artist Kai Krause to design a basic user interface. The first commercial version, Bryce 1.0, appeared in 1994 for the Macintosh.
In 2000 Bryce was purchased by Corel Corporation. Corel released version 5 of Bryce in 2001, which included several new features, like Tree Lab and metaballs. Unfortunately, rendering on version 5 was much slower than version 4, and the price tag set by Corel higher.[9] Soon followed a patch to version 5.01, which fixed some bugs and added a few undocumented features.
In 2004, the software was sold again, to Daz 3D.[10] In 2005, Daz 3D released Bryce 5.5 which included the Daz Studio Character plugin. This integration between DAZ's application for the manipulation of 3D models, Daz Studio, and Bryce allowed users to import content from Daz Studio and Poser, complete with all materials including transparencies, directly into Bryce, thus making it easier to have human figures in Bryce scenes.
HI-FI
It comes with a CD and cassette player. The cassette player was the main reason I asked for it, that being I wanted to listen to the tapes belonging to my family which I had accumulated beforehand.
Such is the case with the tape to the left. It belonged to my mother, who received it in 1993.
I am looking into getting more cassettes. They're fun to listen to and the mechanics of the cassette player are very intriguing.
Okay it's a pretty pathetic excuse for a hi-fi system, but it was free so that's nice.
Dave Clark's TIME
This does sort of intertwine with the section above. However, I still think this is pretty cool and deserves a section of its own.
I found the cassette pack (two cassettes, and a booklet with lyrics and other interesting designs) at a charity shop for £1. The entire pack can cost upwards of £20 online; so I got a pretty good score.
For it to be named an 'album' just doesn't cut it for me; it's more like a story: The first two songs, named Born to Rock n' Roll and Time Talks are like a snippet from a concert, with crowds cheering at the beginning and ends of each song. However, by the end of the third song (which is made by no other than Freddy Mercury) you - the listener - are teleported to a courtroom with a space council or something of the likes in the Andromeda Galaxy, who, as overseen by judge and jury, decide whether Earth's inhabitants should be allowed to advance technologically and become part of an intergalactic empire currently unbeknownst to them - or to instead destroy all human life in the danger that humanity, due to their destructive and violent nature towards each other, will jeopardise intergalactic peace.
Each song thereafter is tailored to this storyline, where an intergalactic court undergoes under the aid of divine characters who've lived since the beginning of time - or so I remember. In-between most songs, there is a dialogue said by a deep voice who narrates and gives opinions to the undergoing trial. By the end of the tape, with the help of a mysterious benefactor (barrister?), humanity is allowed to continue technological advancements that will eventually lead to the discovery of the aforementioned intergalactic empires rather than Earth being destroyed.
That face - the multi-coloured one in the top left corner - is holographic(?) in the sense that the face changes angle according to which direction you look at it; basically like those novelty prints you can get which make the image look three-dimensional. How they made the face do this is beyond me; the image feels like it is made of the same cardboard that made up the case of the pack.
In the story of the album, the main accusations against humanity revolve around our insatiable lust for violence against each other; from race against race, religion against religion, countries against countries to ideologies against ideologies. As a result, we are deemed unfit to partake in a peaceful galactic empire and risk causing conflict.
The story is like a criticism to our nature, humbling ourselves to territorial animals in the face of omniscient god-like figures from space.
For this reason, this is easily my favourite cassette album.
RECORDS
I got a turntable recently; a LENCO LBT-188. It is connected to my HI-FI system (see above) and takes up 50% of my desk (I will get a new, larger desk eventually)
Alongside my weird tantalising desire to acquire more outdated technology, I also wanted to listen to a collection of records that were already in our possession, which, until recently, could not be played.
A certain set of records - communist ones from my mother's childhood - sent me down a deep rabbit hole of Wikipedia articles and, subsequently, my own theories.
Bought by one of my older relatives, a series of two records titled "Let's Talk in English" (Sa Conversam In Inglesa) had a collection of relatively simple English conversations, all themed around different situations.
For a record purchased in the 90s (soon after the revolution and during the downfall of the USSR), I thought that the recordings themselves seemed outdated. One section, for example, was themed around a Telegrams office; a form of communication that was most prevalent in the 1920s-1940s.
It turns out that yes, indeed, the recording itself originated from the 1930s-40s, only being recycled for a 90s crowd; the English language and western culture overall had become trendy in Eastern Europe after the fall of the USSR - and so I theorise that the company who printed the record jumped onto the trend by digging out an old educational English recording - perhaps in the form of a master record which had been (as I like to imagine) in storage for decades.
P.S.
I have recorded some of the vinyls I own:
Dire Straits full album "Brothers in Arms"
Dire Straits good songs side 1
Dire Straits good songs side 2
(If you do intend to listen to these, they may take a while to load)
Records degrade over time; some more than others depending on the amount of times that given record is played. Unfortunately, you will hear cracks and pops in the recordings from dust and general use.
These aren't supposed to be immaculate - I just so happened to find out that I could record records.
Page updated
Google Sites
Report abuse