Subject: RE: Image attachments to ASCII RFCs (was: Re: Last Call: 'Proposed Experiment: Normative Format in Addition to ASCII Text' to Experimental RFC (draft-ash-alt-formats))

From: "Hallam-Baker, Phillip" <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 17 Jun 2006 15:55:38 -0700

> From: Marshall Eubanks [mailto:[email-masked]] 

> > Nine track was effectively obsolete a decade ago.
> 
> I disagree. In my past employment, whenever we would have 
> press attention, the TV guys would want pictures of spinning 
> tape drives to show how scientifically and technically 
> advanced we were. The last time this happened, we had to hunt 
> around to find someone who could get an old 9 track running 
> for the photo-op.
> 
> I see no adequate replacement for this from new technology.

Try a bank of flashing LEDS.

If you really want to look high tech make a Jacob's ladder. All you need is two pieces of wire, a high tension supply and an insulating backboard.

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From: "Anthony G. Atkielski" <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 18 Jun 2006 02:20:50 +0200

> Try a bank of flashing LEDS.

Even banks of flashing LEDs are rare these days.  I recall mainframes
with large control panels that were awash in LEDs (or small neon
lamps, earlier on), and I thought they were exceedingly cool (and
still do).  But they were very expensive and weren't used very often,
and so they went away.  Banks of switches disappeared a bit earlier.

Spinning tape drives should always be shot from low oblique angles,
with the computer room lights turned off and replaced by carefully
placed colored spotlights (the ones in the back have to be blue or
green).  Test and diagnostic software that zips through tapes at high
speed can be very handy.  Or you can run tape copies with delay loops
or on a heavily-loaded system so that the tapes screech to a halt
every few seconds.

For still photography, make sure someone dressed for a board
meeting is extending an index finger towards a button on the equipment
somewhere.  In fact, the person pushing the button should be a woman,
and there should be a man in conservative dress behind her standing
with a clipboard, looking on with authority and approval.  In the
U.S., they must not both be WASPs, but one should be.

If you must shoot screens, keep them monochrome and run listings of
program source code (any language will do).  Memory dumps can work
too, although they are a bit less varied.

It used to be that there had to be an oscilloscope somewhere in the
frame, but that's not necessary now.