Message-id: <ca79fe0f-cb15-8c6d-0e00-4ca4252ef63a@wisc.edu> Date: Fri, 4 Feb 2022 14:40:28 -0600 Subject: Re: Obsolete Media Laboratory setup From: sara m steele <smsteele@wisc.edu>
Russ
Thank you so much for sharing. This is a great example of how one
person's ken interest and the expertise that he has built can help a lot
of us in two ways. 1 as a source of help as we run into less usual forms
of photographs and 2 as a resource we can refer the unique visitor who
is keenly interested in old photography related equipment to, I also
liked the idea of creating a Media Area if there is space.
However, I'm looking for somene like Russ who is keenly interested in
keeping digital photos. If we are able to capture any of the thousands
that smart phones are taking, is there a way of preserving them other
than printing a paper copy? How long will they keep on the external
drives now available" Is cloud a realistic location for material which
may not be used for 20,50, or even 100 years? What we preserve of
today's digital photos will become what 40 and 100 year old photographs
are to those who are focused on "old" history today
Sara.
.
On 2/2/2022 9:22 AM, russhanson wrote:
> At the Sterling Eureka and Laketown Historical Society Museum in
> uptown Cushing, WI (Polk Co NW Wisconsin) we have decided to create a
> small office room as our "Obsolete Media Laboratory."
>
> The question is -- what obsolete media should we be thinking about
> and what equipment will we need. We think much of the equipment may
> be available by donation from folks attics or buyable on Ebay or the
> thrift shop.
>
> Our idea came about when we finally got WIFI to our museum building
> and began in earnest to make use of it with our computer equipment.
> As the computer person for the group, and an old media conversion
> enthusiast, I looked at our equipment -- 2009 computer, printer and
> scanner with a couple of more modern laptops and two newer pieces of
> equipment, an large format negative scanner and a foot pedal operated
> camera on a stand for photographing items rapidly (i.e. old record
> books).
> Those last two are shared resources funded by the Wisconsin
> Historical Society mini-grants and are rarely actually at the museum,
> one being at the Burnett Co Historical Society this winter copying
> their slides and negatives and the other at the Luck Museum being used
> by the Polk Co Genealogical Society for old township record book
> copying. They give us photograph and document digitizing decently.
> Added to that is a donated stack scanner that does double-sided scans
> of regular or legal paper as well as 13x19 flatbed capabilities. It
> won't print, but scans fine!
>
> Anyway, the 2009 computer has a 3.5-inch floppy diskette drive in
> it, something that will read a type of obsolete media. Another old
> computer available will read 5.25-inch floppies. So we realized that
> we have the core of an "obsolete media" lab to digitize these old
> storage media.
>
> We think adding a reel-to-reel tape recorder, a cassette tape
> recorder, a mini-cassette tape recorder and maybe a record player deck
> will give us audio conversion capabilities. The earphone output can be
> connected directly to the microphone input on a computer and free
> audio software can clean it up well.
>
> We were given a 16mm projector with the 1970 movies to teach
> Driver's Ed from the local high school last year and so can play that
> kind of media. We hope to get an 8mm, Super 8mm movie projector too
> and a VHS/DVD player for video output. I tested projecting a movie in
> a completely dark room with a camera pointed at the movie screen on a
> tripod for recording it and conversion to digital and it was as good
> as the one we spent $125 for a professional conversion. So projectors
> are our inexpensive film movie conversion thought.
>
> We have to think about an old Macintosh computer with their media too.
>
> Our plan is to share it with other groups for processing their old
> media at either no cost or a minimal cost for the assistance if we
> need to do it for them. We hope to teach folks how to use the
> equipment we gather so they can do their own if they want.
>
> We do have a microfilm reader, a nonprinting one that was tossed our
> way too! With a new bulb and some adjustment of clutches, it works
> pretty well in a darkened room. Readable if not printable. I have
> tried photographing the projected images and it sort of works out, but
> not wonderfully, so am thinking about some better camera -- maybe a
> small phone type that could be velcro-ed into the projection box.
>
> What do you think? What do we need? And if you have some obsolete
> media or obsolete media players think of us before tossing it.
>
> A rather fun winter project for a retired computer professional who
> worked with just about any type of obsolete media ever invented from
> 8-inch floppies and paper tape, word processing magnetic strips and so
> on.
>
> I know we could hire this done, but my goodness the costs are high.
> About $5 for a floppy diskette!
> The photo attached is of a pristine loaded 2009 Windows XP computer,
> printer and scanner in the Obsolete Media Lab at the Cushing Museum.
> It has the 3.5 diskette drive in it, parallel and serial ports modem
> etc. State of the art for its time and works wonderfully!
>
>
> Russ Hanson
> Obsolete Media Laboratory
> Sterling Eureka and Laketown Historical Society
>
>