PC vs MAC

Back in the day when it didn't matter if you had a PC or a Mac, neither was cool.

Source: Flickr

Return to the Fold

If "sanity" means good adjustment to particular circumstance, it's a highly relative thing. But is it really that simple?

I don't know about sanity, but I do know about proportions, and even factoring in perspective, those hands are very big, and the face mask, the dude's head must have had a growth problem...

Source: analog, September, 1984.

Message Pad 2000

Introducing the Message Pad 2000, the only handheld computer you can actually use. If you have three hands.

Source: Flickr

Questar

Naked androgynous cavemen and evil plotting Egyptians were the stuff of historical fantasy in the late eighties. If you look closely (click on the image for a bigger look) you can see a female explorer pointing out the lack of reproductive organs...

Source: analog, May 1987.

Know Your Flea

Know Your Enemy - The Flea! Health warning poster from World War II.

Spontaneous Combustion

This photograph from 1916 is of a fire at the Treasury Dept.'s "Bureau of Engraving and Printing," presumably in Washington, D.C. Mysteriously, however, whomever labeled it described the fire as "spontaneous combustion."

Source: i09

The Future of the PC

In the beginning there was Jobs. Then Gates came along for a ride. Together they would create a new nirvana. Only Gates wanted to be a god so he was cast out into the fiery abyss to create Microsoft.

Source: Flickr

Cadbury Flake

Cadbury Flake gained some notoriety for its highly sensual advertising. In the UK, the adverts showed people - almost always women - enjoying a Flake whilst relaxing.

The Flake Girl became famous as a symbol of indulgence and secret pleasure. Her emphasis - voted third most memorable of all time - was on allowing herself a guilt-free luxury. However, many saw in the delicacy with which she nibbled the crumbly chocolate bar, more than a hint of sexual pleasure. That, of course, was why it was so successful.

In the 1970s, an advert was taken off air following complaints about the suggestive manner in which the woman bit into the bar.

C ...is for COOKIE!

C...is For Cookie is one in a series of character-centered Sesame Street albums released in 1974. Although some tracks are from the earlier Columbia and Warner Brothers albums, some tracks appear here for the first time.

Later versions of this album replace "The Birthday Cookie" with "We'll Do It Together". That version of the album was also released as part of the 2-LP set Just the Two of Us.

P.E.

As a good teacher once said. "Nobody can teach you anything. The best I can do is to help you learn."

Obviously the teacher wasn't helping the architects learn anything looking at that random staircase in the air...

Source: analog, July 1982.

Luftpost Zurich

The Element of Environment.

You can tell a lot from a job advert, such as, if you're having great difficulty in understanding what the advert is saying, then the job probably isn't for you. Looks like I won't be applying for any jobs in weapons engineering anytime soon.

Apple Logo

In the beginning there was Jobs. And Jobs had a logo. Then the logo became simpler, much simpler, thankfully.

Source: Flickr

Count Ferdinand von Zeppelin

Count Ferdinand von Zeppelin (1838-1917) was born in Konstanz, Baden on 8 April 1838 and was the first large-scale builder of the rigid dirigibles which eventually became synonymous with his name.

Count von Zeppelin's military career was somewhat varied. During a leave of absence from the Prussian army in 1863 he served with the Union army during the U.S. Civil War. More conventionally he served with the Prussian army in the Austro-Prussian War of 1866, and the Franco-Prussian War of 1870-71, during which he was commended for bravery.

He married, in 1869, to Isaballa Freiin von Wolff from Livonia; they had a daughter, Hella, born in Ulm in 1879.

Zeppelin first conducted balloon trials whilst in the U.S. as a military observer during the 1860s. He subsequently founded an airship factory at Friedrichshafen using his own funds, retiring from the army in 1891 with the position of lieutenant-general. Zeppelin proceeded to devote the remainder of his life to the design and construction of engine-powered dirigibles.

The first successful trial of one of his airships took place on 2 July 1900. Eight years later Zeppelins were making routine commercial mail and passenger flights over Germany, with a remarkable safety record despite the risks in using highly flammable hydrogen gas to inflate the airships.

Zeppelin successfully persuaded the German military of the potential of using airships during wartime. Consequently Zeppelin's LZ-3 model was accepted into German army service in March 1909 as the Zeppelin Luftschiff 1. In the event, during the First World War, the German military deployed 115 Zeppelins for a variety of missions including reconnaissance and bombing, despite their vulnerability to attack and bad weather.

Zeppelin aircraft were effectively removed from front line service at Verdun in 1916, as improved Allied aircraft succeeded in achieving a higher destruction rate. Even so, newer models were introduced that could fly higher and higher, although this impacted their bombing accuracy. Their use was more or less discontinued in 1917 as Allied bombers demonstrated a consistent ability to destroy the airships.

Ferdinand von Zeppelin died on 8 March 1917 in Berlin.

Old Family Photo

A family photo (not any one we know!) from 1904.

Source: Flickr.

How Far Can You Go?

Retro Triptych

Created with images found on Deviant Art.

To Boldly Go...

Before JJ Abrams there was Simon & Schuster, creating cutting edge Star Trek computer games for IBM, Apple and Commodore computers. Cutting edge, text based adventures...

Source: analog, April 1987.

Hot Waffles

Apple invents...

Apple invents the personal computer. Again. And again. And again. In fact, Steve Jobs will have you believe that he can invent the personal computer on a yearly basis. At least that's what he did before the iPhone.

Source: Flickr