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healthtip.mp3
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Health tip
Voice and writer: Pete Samson. (Stupid health tips from the American Medical Association were among some of the obnoxious public service announcements we used to run to fill time).
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na02markiidynadigitron.mp3
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Digicomputronimatics
Voice and writer: Pete Samson. "Asynchronous design techniques" were used in the Digital Equipment Corporation PDP-6 (which thus did not have the usual "clock.").
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na01markiiadynadigitron.mp3
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Digicomputronimatics Introduces the Mark IIa
Voice and writer: Pete Samson. Portability: this was roughly the time of Digital's introduction of the PDP-8, which could possibly have been carried in the back of a station wagon...
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na03leader.mp3
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Leader of the Industry
Voice and writer: Pete Samson
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na04flexo.mp3
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Flexopneumohydroservosystematization & Control
Voice and writer: Brian D. Hanson. Cable addresses: when you needed to communicate rapidly in writing with an overseas business in the sixties, you sent a cablegram. My recollection is that they cost in the ballpark of fifty cents a word. Businesses were assigned short, code-like cable addresses--usually single, short "words," rather similar to today's node names in fact.
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na05flexo2.mp3
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Flexo's Model R Systemat
Voice and writer: Brian D. Hanson. Actually, I think that "Popocatepetl" is pronounced with the accent on the fourth syllable, but it would be cavilling to mention it. "Early Bird" was an early communications satellite. Communication satellites were pretty new at the time. The first communications satellite, Telstar, had been launched in 1962. I watched the inaugural broadcast (live television from France!) feeling that it was an important historic event. Of course it consisted of pompous speeches and boring "entertainment." Telstar didn't last long (it got fried by radiation from bomb tests). Early Bird was launched in 1965 and was the first of the Intelsats. I'd love to know whether the "channel number" is authentic.
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na06nocturnaldefense.mp3
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Noctural Defense Laboratories
Voice and writer: Pete Samson
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na07nocturnals13divisions.mp3
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Nocturnal's Thirteen Divisions
Voice and writer: Pete Samson. You should be able to see the punch line coming a mile away—if, that is, you know anything about college students, which you probably do, and about vacuum tubes, which you possibly may not. Echo effect: WTBS was equipped with the classic professional tape recorders of the day, Ampex 350's. These 3-head reel-to-reel tape decks could record and play back at the same time. Due to the separation of the record and playback heads, the playback was delayed by about a tenth of a second--more or less depending on the tape speed. Mixing the delayed playback into the record input, produced an endlessly fascinating echo effect, used—possibly overused?—in the Apple Gunkies ads. It was also fun to feed the delayed playback into an announcer's headphones, which induced stuttering and other speech impediments in the most articulate speakers.
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na08recruit.mp3
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Nocturnal will have a representative on campus soon...
Voice and writer: Pete Samson
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na09halfprice.mp3
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Half price! on National Ornithoper Airways
Voice: Saffron Whitehead; writer: Dan Smith. "Standby" airline tickets, at half price, were being heavily promoted to college students at the time, and were very exciting in the days before air fares were deregulated. I had just had a very bad experience with such a deal.
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na10mammarri2469.mp3
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The Mamarri 2469
Voice: Saffron Whitehead. Writer: Charles Marantz.
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