items of yore

[rogerzilla]

SOP with variable-choke carbs like SU is to bin them and replace with Webers 

[hatler]

What's the problem with a variable choke carb ?

[rogerzilla]

Tgey just have a reputation for being difficult to get running properly, especially when there is (as usually found on "classics" more than one of them. Clever design and theoretically has advantages over the fixed-choke type (constant depression, no need for compensating jets, emulsion tubes and stuff), but the fact that the needle is sort of wobbling about in free space makes them fussy.  The weirdest carb has to be the Ford VV, though, which has a hinged mechanically-variable venturi.

[hatler]

I ran a car with twin SUs and it was a fantastically easy car to start. Except when the choke cable became detached, then I had to hold the levers with my fingers for a couple of minutes until it was warm enough, or alternatively park on top of hill, bump start it and then hope I didn't have to stop.

[TheLurker]

Have we had telegrams?

Scrabbling through the assorted crap carefully curated memorabilia and bits that, "will come in useful one day" in my study and I found a bookmark from James Thin's.  The telegraphic address was, "Bookman, Edinburgh". 

I don't know about you, but it seems to me that there was a little more poetry about telegraphic addresses compared to URLs and e-mail addresses.  Heigh ho...

[robgul]

Transistor radios? - going through "stuff" I have the other day I came across a radio that I bought in about 1959 or 60.   Not sure when the technology moved on?



- it's in very good condition, complete with the leather case etc.  I haven't tested it as I don't have a battery but I'm guessing that the wavelength changes etc have made it obsolete.   My recollection of listening way back then is that we always won the cricket test matches 

Note to self:  See if it's saleable as a collector's item?

[Basil]

I sent a telegram from Birmingham to a girl in Paris c1980. Or maybe 81.
First and last I sent.
I only ever received one. Early 70s. Offering an immediate start date for a job.

[Canardly]

I remember being introduced to the wonders of a Facit calculator in the early 1970s.

[robgul]

I sent a telegram from Birmingham to a girl in Paris c1980. Or maybe 81.
First and last I sent.
I only ever received one. Early 70s. Offering an immediate start date for a job.

Just hang in there a while and you'll get one from Buck House 

[Kim]

Just hang in there a while and you'll get one from Buck House 

This is the only thing anyone's used telegrams for in my living memory.

[Beardy]

Just hang in there a while and you'll get one from Buck House 

This is the only thing anyone's used telegrams for in my living memory.

It used to be the norm for absent friends to send telegrams to newly wedded couples for the best man to read out before his speech. The post office tried to keep them alive for a while with the ‘telemessaging service, a sort of hybrid between telegrams and post.

One of my former colleagues started his GPO career as a telegram boy in Bradford at the age of 14 and after moving over to the ‘engineering’ side of the business worked his way up to Technical Officer in charge of the Telex Workshop. A jovial little chap who whistled when he spoke due to missing front teeth. His underling technician was a cyclist of great distances for fun and a cycle commuter of some 15 miles each day. They were a bit of a double act and great company way back then.

[cygnet]

Transistor radios? - going through "stuff" I have the other day I came across a radio that I bought in about 1959 or 60.   Not sure when the technology moved on?



- it's in very good condition, complete with the leather case etc.  I haven't tested it as I don't have a battery but I'm guessing that the wavelength changes etc have made it obsolete.   My recollection of listening way back then is that we always won the cricket test matches 

Note to self:  See if it's saleable as a collector's item?

Is that one of those things the ipod mk1 took its design cues from?

[Canardly]

That looks like the sort of thing you listened to Radio Caroline on, under the bedsheets.

[Kim]

If it hasn't had a battery leak all over it, there's a good chance that it still works.

[hellymedic]

I remember being introduced to the wonders of a Facit calculator in the early 1970s.

So do I.

then there were Hewlett  Packard calculators with Reverse Polish Notation….

[ElyDave]

My sister, who was in Russia at the time, sent me a telemessage on my 21st birthday

[Mr Larrington]

I think I may have had a Facit briefly but whatever it was, it died very quickly and was replaced with the ubiquitous Casio FX-29.

[TheLurker]

Transistor radios? - going through "stuff"....

The pocket sized one I found in my rummage through my clutter the other day dates from 1990 ish and has gone in the "small electrical devices for the tip" bag.

[rafletcher]

then there were Hewlett  Packard calculators with Reverse Polish Notation….

Which were brillaint durable tools, and appealed to my logical brain.

[robgul]

If it hasn't had a battery leak all over it, there's a good chance that it still works.

Correct - fitted one of those smoke alarm batteries with press-studs and hey presto! - sound from a few stations . . . a bit fuzzy on some but discernible, a couple clear as a bell.

The main dial (in old money) is Medium wave and there's one point on the dial where it received a pre-set station (Light programme) on Long wave.

[TheLurker]

Had a quick look back on the thread, couldn't fnd cigarette coupons.  Specifically, Kensitas*.

Only now does it occur to me to wonder why the Kensitas Catalogue (yes young people, really) had consumer goods in it rather than things like oxygen bottles, money off coupons for radical lung surgery or coffins.  You know, stuff that would be really useful after you'd smoked your way through the thousands of packets required to amass the necessary coupons.


*Reminded by old film on TV t'other day.  Advert for Kensitas fags outside a tobacconist.   Hmmm, tobacconist shops, you don't see many of those around these days either.

[Kim]

Hmmm, tobacconist shops, you don't see many of those around these days either.

They're the ones selling 18650 cells and vape liquids.

[hbunnet]

then there were Hewlett  Packard calculators with Reverse Polish Notation….

I'm still using one in addition to an emulator on smart phone.

[Mr Larrington]

Hmmm, tobacconist shops, you don't see many of those around these days either.

There was one until quite recently at the top of Walthamstow High Street but it's gorn now chiz.

[Canardly]

Green shield stamps/catalogue stores.