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Whatever Happened To......?

T

TheBeast17

Gone But Not Forgotten
(ACCOUNT RETIRED)
Joined
Aug 2, 2001
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191
I've just read the thread about GINGER, and the whens, whys, and whats, have got me thinking about other 'Cutting Edge' inventions that never quite made it.

One that springs readily to mind is The American Computer Company's 'Trans-Capacitor'.

This 'revolutionary' piece of kit was supposed to have been engineered using instructions found amongst papers, supposedly, arising from the Roswell crash. Working at a molecular level it was alleged that this piece of equipment could transfer information so fast that it could only be measured in Femto-seconds (or quadrillionths of a second).

It was going to make computers smaller, faster than today's supercomputers, cheaper, and more energy efficient.

They were all set to launch a huge solid state hard disk drive (sorry, can't remember the exact capacity) based around this technology, a couple of years ago, but didn't.

I remember hearing a news report about the non-launch of this drive, but that was it.

What happened to the Trans-capacitor?

Was it all hype? A practical joke by the American Computer Company? A real piece of kit that just had a lot of teething trouble?

I've tried to locate info, on it but everything I find is about 1 1/2 to 2 years old. If any one can point towards finding more info on what happened to this white elephant of the computer industry it would been a real help.

Does anyone else remember any hyped inventions that either failed to deliver, or just never materialised?
 
I seem to remember that the company was built solely around this claim... prolly to try and sell inferior "futuristic" goods... Anyone got any other info on this company?... I'll try and dig something up
 
Cheers!

As far as I know, they are a legitimate computer retailer, but thats about all I know.

I just lost my virginity, but I think I still have the box it came in.
Click to expand...
 
On the subject of revolutionary technology that seem to have droped off the radar. Whatever happened to cold fusion. Anyone know?
 
I believe the cold fusion debate is still alive and kicking, I saw some references to new evidence in the breaking news section, I think our old friend Art C. Clarke is supporting it.

As for this trans-capacitor thing, I heard about it too, and something about them getting faxes from a military satellite?
 
Ginger

OK, perhaps I'm hearing things, but Monday morning, about 630, I'm sure somebody was talking about Ginger on Radio 4 (I was just waking up at the time). Anybody hear the article? Or was I dreaming?:eek!!!!:
 
The "Whatever Happened to...." Thread

Many different threads have asked for information about technology or concepts that were hailed as being major breakthroughs at the time, that then fizzled out never to be seen again.

I thought I'd dedicate a thread to such missing technology and ideas, and to start things off I'd like to know what happened to:

The Artificial muscle
It was shown on Tomorrows World or Beyond 2000 or some show like that and was small and leech-like in appearance. It worked as a sort of tail by bending in one direction when a certain chemical was added, as it reached the full extent of the bend another chemical was released making it bend the other way. I remember seeing it 'swimming' through a tank, and feeling rather creeped out by the fact that it looked biological and was actually completely sythentic.

It was supposed to be a revolution in the artificial limb sector and had applications in boat propulsion, yet it seems to have died out.

Does anyone else remember this?

Does anyone else have anything they'd like info. on?
 
The curse of Baxter

Surely it's a well-known fact that pretty much everything on
Tomorrow's World disappeared, never to be heard of again.

For instance, there was an automatic transmission for bicycles. And a Japanese car that could go sideways for easier parking.

OK, they did demo CDs on there, so it's not a 100% rule....
 
What is it with cds anyhow ... when they were being hyped up and shown on tomorrows world etc you had people drilling holes in them and smearing them with jam and stuff like that and showing that they still played ..... but in my experience you only need to put one face down on the table a couple of times and it jumps and skips or won't play at all.
So my question would be "whatever happened to...." seemingly indistructable cds??!!
Of course, we lizards are all solid state now, mp3 players are way better.
 
lizard23 said:
What is it with cds anyhow ... when they were being hyped up and shown on tomorrows world etc you had people drilling holes in them and smearing them with jam and stuff like that and showing that they still played ..... but in my experience you only need to put one face down on the table a couple of times and it jumps and skips or won't play at all.
So my question would be "whatever happened to...." seemingly indistructable cds??!!
Of course, we lizards are all solid state now, mp3 players are way better.
Click to expand...

I believe (correct me if I'm wrong) that CDs are now made to a different spec than they were in the early days. Perhaps they were more robust then...
 
Scatches on the plastic surface of CDs can be polished out using
metal polish. It can make some CDs track which would otherwise
be written off - even Library ones that seem to have been used
as plates.

Error correction on CD players varies from model to model and I have
a number of discs with "pin-pricks" in the metal layer which play
without difficulty. Computers, for obvious reasons, do not read
over errors by duplicating bytes of data, even when playing music
CDs.

As a confessed vinyl junkie, I have never bonded with the CD as a
music carrier. When you do hit a scratch on a CD, the disruption to
the music is truly horrible! :cross eye
 
Well, that first thing, I have heard of somehting similar. I don't see what good it should be to use some chemicals to get something like that to move around. Electricity through heat-contracting materials should probably be able to do the same. But I saw in a science mag a guy who had made this little plastic fish. He had then put some frog muscles inside and could then have them contract and expand by sending a current through them like in a real creature. So the "fish" was swimming with real muscles.
 
What ever happened to those knitted ties (that looked like socks)that were invented by Marks and Spencer C1985 ??

I remember that my maths teacher used to wear one...
 
They were earlier than 1985 HAARP.

I had, (to my shame), some knitted ties which I purchased in the mid 1960's. One could even purchase crochet patterns which, (horror of horror's), showed you how to make them!!!!!

Mine were painlessly euthanased in the mid 1990's, after many years of pitiful suffering!!!!!!
 
Sounds like that was the best thing that could have happened to those ties David - they've probably gone to a better place !

Plus I always wonder what happened to the Soda Stream ... I used to quite like messing about with mine in years gone by, but later got bored and reverted to buying cans again...

Do you think you can still but the C02 canisters for them ?? Or the hideous concentrated drink flavours that were meant to taste like lemonade or coca cola ??
 
Soda stream is still available - I have seen them in the Sava center (big Sainsbury supermarket) near us.
 
David said:
They were earlier than 1985 HAARP.

I had, (to my shame), some knitted ties which I purchased in the mid 1960's. One could even purchase crochet patterns which, (horror of horror's), showed you how to make them!!!!!

Mine were painlessly euthanased in the mid 1990's, after many years of pitiful suffering!!!!!!
Click to expand...

Bet they weren't as bad as those psychadelic kipper ties of the 70s, David! It was fashionable to tie them with a huge, fat knot which someone once described as 'the size of a chicken samosa'.

Carole
 
The kipper tie, (or rather the fact that I hated them), was why I nursed my knitted ties along for so long, carole!!!!!

I can remember blokes putting a match into the knot of their kipper ties, so that it stayed really wide & therefore fashionable!!!
Although, some blokes were convinced that girls believed that a wide knot, showed that they were generous & worthy of going out with.

In their case a brain transplant, might have proved more useful.:D
 
Well I've recently been trying to persuade the buyers in the menswear company I work for that they should go with some of the knitted tie samples sent in by an Italian manufacturer, but they wouldn't play ball. I now feel inspired to redouble my efforts.
 
dead flag said:
Well I've recently been trying to persuade the buyers in the menswear company I work for that they should go with some of the knitted tie samples sent in by an Italian manufacturer, but they wouldn't play ball. I now feel inspired to redouble my efforts.
Click to expand...

Yes Go on !!! and don't feel guilty about it either ...
 
Ties..i remeber the dep head railing about the size of our tie knots at school. he said they looked like crevats (like we knew what crevats were!!)


i think the CD thing was a huge con..last for ever?...well no..robust?..well no..

what happened to the pezo electric motor?... u know electronic lighters right?..the spark comes from a crystal that sparks when pressure is aplied... well aparently it works the other way round too and u can make a motor with one ring with rachet teeth on top of another with teeth that wizes round (true a bit sparky but simple)... two moveing parts?...sounds good... must have been a big problem with it tho? anyone know anything?
 
it says 'Peizo ignition' on the side of the box my blowtorch came in - I hope that doesn't mean it's dodgy ?? !!!

It always seems to work for me... from stripping paint to making chargrilled tuna !!
 
HAARP said:
'Peizo ignition' .....<snip>....from stripping paint to making chargrilled tuna !!
Click to expand...

Peizo is a crystal that produces a small charge of electricity when pressure is applies.

Chargrilling Tuna with a blow torch, now that's inventive:D
 
Probably not due to the amount of energy needed to pruduce the small charge. But I am guessing.
 
More because all you do it take one form of energy and turn it into another. And there's some waste there. You don't take some unused material and turn it into energy like you do with oil.
 
it looked good on telly...but then anything can ah!... there must be aplications for a simple motor that dont need outside attachments tho... i just wonderd... i dont think its been bought up by big biz and buried tho.
 
A small charge from a piezo crystal?

You must be joking!!!!!

I got wacked with a shock from one of them once & was counting my fingers!!!!!!

It was the same as sticking my fingers close to the ignition system on a car.:(
 
Well, it is a small charge compared to whacking your hand into the mains:D Car voltage is nasty, low voltage high amps. Not funny.
 
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