Curated Hoarding

A laudable goal - The Collection may need a name? A tangible example of something likes How Things Work is a great idea. Making The Collection able to receive donations (hey, you don't think we'll stop Patroning even if you're not around?) would allow it to tick over. And if there's surplus, someone gets to wear your hat and take on your role to bring a little magic back to the world, and show the kids what humanity's ingenuity brought forth!

James R.C. Garry

God, I can't even get my head around a young person, especially an engineer, looking at the stuff you keep (not hoard - that's bullshit) and thinking that it's junk and should be tossed. As a kid I got into electronics and radio because of my grandfather. His basement was like a wonderland of mid-20th-century radios, components, workbenches, etc. Every time we visited him I loved going down there and seeing all that cool old stuff, despite not understanding what any of it was. Of course he loved having someone around who found it as fascinating as he did, so he'd give me radios and other things to take home. And no, I don't want to replace my software-defined radio with the Hallicrafters S38 that was my first shortwave radio, but I appreciate that old tech for what it was. And tuning a radio by spinning big knobs will never get old. I just got some parts today for a project to create an old-style tuning knob for SDR's, just because.

Circuitmike

Your comment about others not knowing what your stuff is, is a key one. I realised that back in 2006 when I had to deal with my dad's estate, so I now spend a lot of time (it seems too much) cataloguing everything into spreadsheets, including descriptions, why I have it, cost, and estimated sale value. (Yes the last bit will get rapidly out of date, but at least it will separate the desirable from the trash). Hopefully, if I keel over unexpectedly, this will make my executors' lives a whole lot simpler. But it is a lot of work though.

Ymir the Frost Giant

Actually, we DO "trace the pixel path" in digital cockpit instruments that display critical information. Well, to be accurate, we observe what's shown to the pilot, and independently verify its accuracy. Through a high-impedance interface we sample the LCD row and column signals, reconstruct the displayed pixels, interpret the information (OCR), then compare it to the same signal determined via independent means (separate hardware and software). When the two values disagree "too much", we disable the entire display. This typically forces another digital display instrument into "reversionary mode" to perform as a backup to the failed instrument, though in some cockpits (and for some information) it forces the pilot to use the "steam gauges".

BobC

Welcome aboard!

Fran Blanche

I was already funding archive.org organization for some time, might as well do the same for Franlab. :-) In a couple of 100 years, we will have created a new darkages if we don't preserve. The human race might just be Eloi like in H. G. Wells' The Time Machine and think the rings are just useless. But at least they will exists and they can maybe use it to rebuild.

autohmae

I admire your mission of Education Fran, for the record you are a few years younger than me, I believe. Before you Will has chance to be enacted, perhaps you could de-clutter by donating some items which will not be part of your "education program" to appropriate museums.

Dr Andy Hill

The term "hoarder" is most closely linked to the TV shows that highlight the very worst of collecting things that are truly useless, Common items, like newspapers, garage sale damaged plastic items, lamps, whatever. But most of all, every show has to have a hoarder that has an extremely large amount BIOHAZARD content where animal infestations, food waste, insect infestations, feces from 50 cats, or whatever, that have completely ruined the structural integrity of the houses in which the hoarders reside. This "train wreck" kind of TV programing entertains by showing only the very worst of people with emotional issues and the massive messes they make out of their homes, bodies, relationships, etc. So the term "hoarding" is now connected to the worst-case diaper-filled bathroom and floor to ceiling clothing and living/dead animals. You don't have anything even resembling those TV shows about hoarding. There are no biohazards, unlimited cats or rats, or floor to ceiling food wastes in your lab. What you clearly "collect" are artifacts that humans have created which are extremely ingenious and/or represent the very cutting edge of human knowledge of exotic materials and how to make them work. What you collect does not show up at garage sales, thrift stores, or dumpsters. To make ingenious electro-mechanical, or electro-optical devices when it had to tangibly exit, be able to hold in your hand, and actually make it functional is preserving a technical art form that otherwise would be forgotten, or unappreciated. If you're a "hoarder" then I'm a "chronic, out of control, hoarder." Precision hand-made, super-comlplex, on the edge of the cutting edge of the time it was made, are artifacts that may not have the wide appeal, like the contents of King Tut's tomb, but for some people, like your patrons, are even more fascinating and exciting to see come to life. Most of what you have consists of items that were not mass-produced, are terribly difficult to find, and were at the very cutting edge of human creativity at the time they were created. Your artifacts are not a bunch of old water-damaged "Beanie Babies" in a moldy cardboard box. Equipment from NASA, the aerospace industry and the military represent the very BEST examples of human intellect and creativity. These man-made things were NEVER mass-produced due to their complexity, materials and effort to construct. Not to mention their cost. I work with modern avionics all the time and everything is typically displayed on LCD displays of all shapes and sizes fed by computers consisting of components that are nowhere near the quality of those used during the cold war era and are so small that you can't even tell what the dust-spec on the board is. And, yes, the technology is FAR superior to electro-machanical instruments, makes flying safer, and are flexible enough to be reprogrammed to present just about anything a pilot, or war fighter, could need. But you know what? When the power is turned off, these $80,000 displays show nothing but a blank, dark void. It's not "tangible". You can't follow the path from a single pixel on an LCD screen to a single part that makes that pixel turn on or off. No, the pixel goes to a one chip, then another and then another and nothing moves, and you can't hold the creativity in your hand to appreciate since the same damn parts go into every smart phone. Power off = the most boring black void you could have. If ind this current technology very unimpressive compared to the horrendously difficult hand-made life-critical electro-mechanical instruments used in the Apollo project al the way to the Space Shuttle. An "8 ball" attitude indicator that was removed from one of the space shuttles that underwent the "glass cockpit" upgrade recently sold at auction for $38,000. Yes, it's a flown space artifact, but the craftsmanship and ingenuity that went into its design can be found in the equally-complex primary attitude director indicator installed in the C-5A Galaxy cargo aircraft. The density of electronics, gears, tapes, flags, motors, servos, lighting technology, etc. was designed and built by Bendix in the late 60s. Of course, due to its complexity and age, it became a terribly difficult indicator to maintain in the decades since it was designed. But it's "tangible". When the power is off, the display is till there, typically froze in the last position it was in when power was removed. I first saw these C-5A instruments at work as we were installing a flight management system into the C-5A back in the early 90s. I could not believe they could actually get the attitude sphere to rotate 180 degrees to show a different scale on the front and still provide pitch and roll positioning was ingenious and incredible to me. I searched for years until I found one on eBay and I was finally able to open the case and see HOW they performed these mechanical miracles. It was "tangible" and the mixture of square and figure 8 shaped gears, along with all of the servos and electronics packed into that 5" x 5" X 10" case provided countless hours of poking and moving tiny mechanics and gear trains that would put a Swiss watch maker to shame. Then to power it up, send signals into it, and see how elegantly the indicator worked was extremely rewarding. Now I'm off on this tangent about the C-5A attitude director indicator for a reason. When the Air Force replaced most of the instruments in the C-5A cockpit, they naturally scrapped the legacy late 60s instruments. So, I looked up the instrument's part number in the government's inventory website and they had this instrument's DEMIL (Demilitarization code) set to "Destroy item so than no component can be utilized in any application." So this REALLY pissed me off! There is NO WAY a 1968 work of art poses ANY threat to US security in ANY way. But they destroyed them all. As a taxpayer it's just pissed me off to no end. So the only ones that survive are the ones that fell through the cracks, or were surplussed-out before the DEMIL code was changed. I know for a fact that if you took this indicator apart you would see the incredibly creative engineering that went into it and truly appreciate how they got all that mechanical functionally to work so well in such a small place. An you know what? If there is no power to it, IT'S TANGIBLE! You can take it apart and see how every precision part was designed. But, our wasteful government has no appreciation of technical history and destroys thousands of harmless, yet beautifully built, technologies that were cutting edge and hand-made masterpieces of the time. People like you, appreciate the era of hand-made electrical masterpieces like analog computers, optical devices and even the 100 year old bulb, which was cutting-edge at the time it was built. So, in closing, you are NOT a "hoarder" as defined on TV. As you said, you are a "curator" of a museum of hand-made "tangible" technologies from the era of the Apollo program that are STILL truly ingenious. So the thought of your inventory winding up in a dumpster is as offensive to me as the government destroying our technical heritage. This obviously touched a nerve with me since the term "hoarder" and what you "collect and maintain" just don't intersect. Period. End of story! We need more people like you, Fran, to hep us remember an era before technology was completely disposable. An era where something physically existed even when not powered up.

Matt Wietlispach

BTW - if you think you’ve got a daunting collection, check out Mr. Carlson’s Lab. Among other things, he has several Commercial Broadcast Transmitters that he has restored to operation.

Mike O'Dell

An engineer with no knowledge of what has come before on the road to Now is doomed to reinvent it, usually very poorly. The GOOG has made this affliction so much worse because if it doesn’t show up in a GOOG search it *must* be original! Even before the erasure of the past by GOOG, one of the big reasons we started the “Computing Systems” journal was to document the “less than completely successful” efforts as well as what finally worked. Far too many times have I seen people argue “reductio ad absurdum” for their divine right to reinvent the flat fire. More importantly, some things that didn’t quite work out the first time often have a new life if technical progress has moved the bottleneck to somewhere less troubling. Tom Duff, one of the original luminaries at Pixar, advises “Don’t waste time having a good idea if you can steal a better one!” Your taste in hoarding is exquisite.

Mike O'Dell

First, I can see your floor; you're not a hoarder. Second, I predict you'll be the next Vivian Maier but of electronic history instead of photography. Third, someone once said that the two most traumatic experiences in life are being born and moving. But moving is worse because you have to pack.

What you do is important. I never felt so old as I did the day I was asked about 5 years ago by a 21 year old “Do you know how a record player works?” I thought at first I was being pranked but he was asking in all sincerity. As a boy I was lucky to get to go to Greenfield Village and the Henry Ford Museum in Dearborn Michigan where I stood in Thomas Edison’s laboratory and the Wright Brothers bicycle shop. All the technology was of course outdated by even the standards of the 1970’s but it offered you the opportunity to see how and where it all started. Go Fran! Go! Keep doing what you do! We need our past to appreciate how far we have come and to remind people that skilled humans with only their imaginations can make technological miracles.

You save the great stuff, Fran. It is NOT hoarding….

To me, a collection versus a hoarder lies in the significance of the contents: 100+ year old incandescent lamps, vacuum tube microphones, great audio amps from as recently as the 1990s are all worth caring for. The evolution and types of video tape formats alone, from beginning to end of my 26 years in “broadcast” TV alone are sobering:” tape maintenance” began for me with the end of “quadruplex 2 inch” , finished with digital. Anyone need their Type C helical scan or Digi-Betacam transports overhauled?

To me, a museum, be it public or private, displayed or packed away, requires a muse. A focus and goal, frequently viewed with a sharp eye. What you rightly call "curation" of a collection. I want to separate hoarding from the middle ground, which we could call "gathering". To me, hoarding has the chief negative connotation not of accumulation, but of being unable to dispose of anything. Early this year I started an oft-delayed remodel of my home. The first step was getting my stuff out of the way. Turns out I had negligently accumulated a TON of stuff over the three decades I've been in my home. I was a de-facto hoarder, and never noticed it until I had to deal with it. It took me THREE MONTHS to whittle thing down to a manageable level (about 25 totes). So many full trashcans. In the process, I also found many things I had thought were long lost, including some real treasures. There were also some shamefully amusing moments. I still had ALL the boxes I used to move in over 30 years ago! Talk about a fire hazard. I found I had never thrown out any mobile phone I have ever owned, nearly a dozen of them! The electronics recycling run I did completely filled my car to overflowing, largely with broken devices I knew I would repair "someday". The list goes on. You get the idea. I was a negligent hoarder. You are a curator with a muse!

BobC

Lot's and lot's of tools, parts, materials, shop supplies, cast-offs, bits and pieces, hardware, test equipment and anything else I forgot- - - That's not a hoard, that's heaven. Organization and curating is key.

Bruce Rose

Great video, Fran! My 16 year old grandson was stunned watching me convert 8mm and Super 8mm films from my old B&H projector to digital media. He was even more shocked to see my 3 VHS players and my VHS collection.

Ah Clem

the minimalist movement lately really upsets me, I dont care what an individual wants to do, but telling someone else that their "things" are a waste is extremely damaging. Your point on "curation" is important, you have to organize, and preserve the "things" you have, whatever that may be, not just buy buy buy buy and stuff it into boxes in back room or storage lockers.

BiggieJohn

If you had pizza boxes and a plastic bag collection you would be a hoarder. If you stock up on interesting, useful and historical items you are a collector. Just don't start making corridors out of newspaper stacks. You don't want to end up like the Collyer brothers...

It would be great to think of a FranLab Museum in the future. For the moment, keep the telecine rolling.

Bob Pockney

Don't listen to the naysayers! Keep on collecting/hoarding.

David Peaker