From laszlo@alpha1.csd.uwm.edu Sat May  8 18:14:32 1999
Date: 5 Mar 1995 22:45:39 GMT
From: Tyson F Nuss <laszlo@alpha1.csd.uwm.edu>
Newsgroups: alt.gothic
Subject: Anachronistic technology (was: Overheard @ Club #5)

>From article <3jbsaa$gbh@ixnews3.ix.netcom.com>, by kaj@ix.netcom.com (K.Nightman):
> I had a similar thought at A Winter Gone By on Xmas Eve. There are 
> several who dress in victorian fashion, including the aquaintance I was 
> speaking to when his pager went off...

	I've been thinking lately about the concept of high-tech items
which *seem* like old-fashioned items.  Not merely the high-tech claoked
in a neoclassical shell (as with some of those chintzy Art Deco 'phones
I see around), but a *melding* of the old and new.  Somewhat inspired
by the movies "Brazil" and "1984".

	For instance, remember those old-fashioned manual typewriters,
the really old black ones with the glass-windowed keys and the spidery
levers going from the keys back into the works?  How about a computer
keyboard like that?  You'd have the windowed keys and the levers and
all, but the levers would activate hidden switches to send standard
keyboard signals.  I like to imagine the keyboard configured like
Apple's ergonomic "broken" keyboard (pivots apart at the top, between
the 6 and 7), for extra weirdness as well as comfort.  Hmm, mebbe a
black-leather wrist-pad, too...  Of course, the mouse would look like
it were a half-egg of black, vulcanized hard-rubber (like an old telephone)
with a metal arm sticking out one end with a round, cup-shaped button
(like an old telegraph breaker switch).

	Now, to the matter which got me started on this whole thing,
the guy with the Victorian dress and the pager.  I envision a pager
with an actual *chime* in it, not a piezoelectric beeper.  The body
could be made of varnished cherry-wood, perhaps with a couple brass
straps wrapped around it, and a *visible* electric chiming mechanism
at one end (see the striking-arm and the copper coil which activates it).
Just think, you pager goes off, and you hear a soft *ting-ting-ting*,
instead of an annoying *BEEP-BEEP*.

...just my 2p...

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