Fullscreen HTML5Med Res (??MB)HTML4

Tomorrow’s World Today Techno Talk I used to avidly watch the weekly Tomorrow’s World TV program in the 1970s. I remember being blown away by things like pocket calculators and digital watches. I can’t imagine what the presenters of that program would have thought about today’s technologies! I t’s funny the things you remember from decades ago. It’s also scary how many things you forget. Then again, maybe I’ve forgotten how many things I’ve forgotten – that would be even worse! now, it was extraordinary for the time. It inspired a desire in me to work with computers and robots, and it’s a memory that will remain with me so long as I manage to maintain a corporeal presence on this plane of existence. Dino dreams They won’t believe you As an example of one of the things that has mysteriously stuck in my mind, there used to be a television series called Tomorrow’s World when I was a brighteyed, bushy-tailed young man. First transmitted in 1965 on BBC1, this program introduced the British public to contemporary developments in science and technology. Some key technologies presented on Tomorrow’s World that subsequently became commonplace include breathalysers, home computers, audio syn­­­thesisers, pocket calculators, digital watches… the list goes on. I remember watching one program that featured a gigantic robotic dinosaur that looked a bit like a brontosaurus standing in the middle of the TV studio. This sounds much grander than it was. In fact, this ‘dinosaur’ involved a simplistic static skeleton-like metal framework for the legs and tail. A hydraulic-powered neck was attached to this base. This neck could move side-to-side and up and down. The ‘head’ basically involved four tennis-ball-sized microphones mounted in a diamond formation. A computer used a rudimentary form of digital signal processing (DSP) to determine the direction of origin of any sounds based on their time of arrival at the different microphones. I think this must have taken place close to Christmas circa the mid-1970s because they brought a choir into the studio. Standing in an arc in front of the dinosaur, the choir started singing, quietly at first, then gradually building in volume. They were singing Silent Night as I recall, although I may be mistaken. The dinosaur reacted as soon as the first notes sounded, lowering its head to the height of the singers and extending its neck as far as it could. It’s head then traversed back and forth to the left and right as different portions of the choir increased or decreased in volume. Although this sounds rather pathetic 48 If you’ve ever designed a printed circuit board (PCB), you will have heard of the “Gerber format”. This open, ASCII, vector format is the de facto standard used by PCB design software to describe the printed circuit board images: copper layers, solder mask, legend, drill data etc. I never really thought about the origin of this format’s name until I became acquainted with David Gerber around 10 years ago. David had just published a book called The Inventor’s Dilemma about his father, Holocaust survivor Heinz Joseph Gerber. Heinz was a prodigious inventor. After immigrating to America, he revolutionised antiquated industries and created new ones, like digital plotters. Since there was no infrastructure for this sort of thing, Heinz had to create everything from the ground up, including the Gerber format he used to represent the plots inside the computer. Compared to Heinz, makers these days have things easy. Rather than being obliged to build everything from scratch, we can take advantage of offthe-shelf platforms like the Arduino or Raspberry Pi. We have access to small, incredibly accurate, inexpensive microelectromechanical systems (MEMS)-based sensors like three-axis accelerometers and three-axis gyroscopes. We can use open-source languages and file formats to share programs and data with others. The list goes on. Just the fact that we have immediate access to application notes, data sheets, tutorials, and other documentation via the internet is mind-boggling to people of my generation. Today’s younger makers don’t realise how lucky they are! I hail from Yorkshire. I’m reminded of the classic Four Yorkshiremen sketch by Monty Python that ends with “… Max the Magnificent and if you tell that to the young people today, they won’t believe you!” It’s true. They don’t! Everyone and everything Speaking of things that are difficult to believe, implementing things like Wi-Fi, cellular and satellite communications in hobby or professional projects used to be incredibly complex and expensive, but times have changed. About 10 years ago, a startup called Particle.io introduced their Spark Core Arduino-compatible Wi-Fi-enabled cloud-powered development platform that made creating internet-connected hardware easy and affordable. A couple of years later, they did something similar with their Electron cellular development kit that came equipped with a SIM card and a global data plan, costing only a few dollars a month. Just a few months ago, they introduced a dev kit that supports Wi-Fi, Cellular, LoRaWAN and Satellite communications. And, just a few days ago, they… well, we’ll save that for a future column. Did the ground just move? In my previous Techno Talk column, I made mention of the fact that weather forecasts were something of a hit-andmiss affair when I was a kid in the 1960s. Recently, while watching the news on TV, I saw a report on an earthquake that had just occurred somewhere in Asia. It reminded me of a time in the mid-1980s when I found myself in a hotel room high up in a skyscraper hotel in Tokyo. I think I was on the 23rd floor. First, the windows started making strange sounds, then the walls started creaking, and the room started shaking, then the whole hotel started swaying. All I can say is that it was an interesting experience. The reason I mention it is that my wife (Gina the Gorgeous) has iPad apps that allow her to watch graphical depictions of lightning strikes and earthquakes occurring around the world in real time. I can only imagine what the meteorologists and seismologists back in the 1960s will say when I finally get my time machine working and show them PE where technology will take us! Practical Electronics | December | 2024