A BABY TO THE STRANGE old Electromechanical "Flip Dot" Display. How Does It Work?

[@vicgreen8937]

The totalisator equipment you are talking about came from the Perry Barr Stadium in Birmingham which opened in 1928. The ticket machine is from the original HiSpeed tote system which was superseded by the Union Multispeed machines in 1951, the stuff in Gloucestershire (ticket machines, flaps, aggregators etc.) are from this system. My father worked on this machinery from 1951 onwards, I worked with him for a while at Perry Barr and also on the HiSpeed system we installed on a small track at Norton Canes.

[@THISMUSEUMISNOTOBSOLETE]

hello thanks for the information. sadly its not at gloucestershire anymore. since 2010 it was moved and split between two storage aread merged in with a bunch of other stuff. the challenge is making sure we wont miss anything. as the person who put it there has sadly passed away. is there any more information you know of? or pictures? thanks!!!

[@BerikVisschers]

It could be a “hours until the museum closes” sign. Or another idea, it could be made so that you can call the display from any of the museum phones and change its current digit using the phones rotary selector. Would be an interesting build if there are no arduinos involved!

[@mal2ksc]

It's not very good at counting backward though, making it not ideal for a countdown-to-close. It would have to rotate through the entire display once an hour. I mean if that's the point, having an excuse to flip through all the numbers every hour, then cool, go for it. But it will never be completely smooth or quiet (it wasn't designed to be, it didn't need to be), so it's probably better suited for counting up, or carrying fixed data.

[@vetramiga1]

this is some of the most genius engineering to make a large display in a simple manner. so rad.

[@derkeksinator17]

Dunno, I'd consider a ribbon or drum, that just spins, simpler than this.

[@NeungView]

Congratulations on understanding a 200 year old idea. You must be so proud.

[@positronalpha]

​@@derkeksinator17 A drum would take up a _lot_ more space, a ribbon would wear out and get stuck. This thing is robust, compact and easy to maintain.

[@christianelzey9703]

Can't wait to see the actual totalizer "accumulator". Absolutely genius mechanical computer engineering.

[@arjovenzia]

They remind me of what I imagined "the Clacks" system described in Terry Pratchetts excellent Going Postal would look and operate like. Its a complex semaphore system spread across the land, and is used to comment on modern internet and telecommunications, and how that effects everything from social interactions, commerce, monopolies, governments. an array of shutters opening and closing on huge towers could transmit large amounts of data relatively quickly, with a great cacophony of clacking each time it changed state, hence, the clacks. one of my favourites in the discworld series. I wouldn't be surprised if the totaliser display served as direct inspiration for the concept.

[@Scodiddly]

Or the book "The Difference Engine" by William Gibson and Bruce Sterling. A particular entertainment was to go watch high-resolution versions of that and to see what clever tricks a touring "clacker" was able to do on the mechanical display.

[@kaitlyn__L]

The most direct inspiration was the French pre-electric telegraph system. They did in fact test a system with a grid of shutters nigh-identical to the clacks shown in the TV film. Although the final production system used more-standard semaphore flags. Pratchett always loved silly and impractical mechanisms, so he went for that more-complex prototype instead of the simpler final-production :)

[@theelmonk]

With a telephone dial and a uniselector it could add (modulo 10)

[@AppliedCryogenics]

Thumbs up for that closing tune!

[@scaredyfish]

Connect it to a rotary phone dial for people to select the number to view

[@DISCOTECHS]

I was involved in the recovery of the Tote Equipment. Andrew Emerson was informed about it, and I passed the info to Lucien. We arranged to collect it from a house on the outskirts of Cheltenham. Lucien too k every part that was available at the time. If you don't have the old owners name and address, I may be able to find it. If not by emails, possibly by recognising the house on Google earth. Dave Cope was also present on that day, but I don't think he recorded the address, but you never know.

[@berndeckenfels]

I like that it does not just let the flaps active from one number to the next but it dims and displays all at the same time

[@WolfClinton1]

While watching, I kept smelling WD40 ! Strange. Your museum is only going to get more precious as the years pass :-)

[@GothGuy885]

Ive had that happen b4 also. I was watching a you tube video about an electronics project gone wrong. and started smelling burning electronics. I sniffed around my laptop and sound system. and realized it was just a very strange illusion trick that my mind played on me

[@kaitlyn__L]

@@GothGuy885 the part of the brain that processes scents and smells is closest to the memory centre, so that makes sense!

[@GothGuy885]

the cam and follower method is what Disney used for their early Animatronics in the Disneyland Ca theme park now I think its all computer controlled servo motors for the most part, with ULED screens for faces.

[@csudsuindustries]

An idea for the single digit would be a display on the number of concurrent calls being serviced by the telephone switch.

[@dedicatedspuddler7641]

Very cool.

[@KeritechElectronics]

Up-counter automaton with lots of cams and followers, eh? Beauty in simplicity. Looking forward to the moment when you put the whole system back together and... Fire To The Wire!

[@kaisersozeh7845]

How many rhythms on the OG valve drum machine thing? Could be a display for that? That was missing a noise source for a snare/hats -might I suggest tuneable squarewave oscillators feeding a xnor logic gate - all doable via valve. Big display - have a public hymnbook of 1000 organ classics - use big numbers to show which "hymn" is playing.

[@padders1068]

Sam! Great video, I just love this kind of old electromechanical stuff! Thanks for sharing and keep up the good work mate! 🙂😎🤓❤

[@samphillips4925]

So cool!

[@traumgeist]

Since it’s an orphaned unit and not in top shape I think it’s a good candidate for a “Will it music?” video.

[@gerardstrik2555]

Maybe you can display the number of hours till closing the museum. Or number of visitors (times a multiplier perhaps). Or, last one, rating of the museum by the people at the museum that can voluntarily cast a vote/score at a terminal in the museum. Daily refreshed mean score.

[@leopiipponen7693]

Old mechanical displays are interesting. It would be great if they were still made. Maybe 3D printables...

[@dxhacksaw]

i love all this old tech its super interesting how they did it and made it reliable anddddd massive hahahahah

[@DanielvanKATWIJK]

You could use the smaller digits to display after the coma for example

[@codebeat4192]

The biggest question is now, how did they (or the electronics) know the position of the numbers or what number is on the display? It is not a servo motor and it is not a stepper motor and I cannot see any sensors.

[@LOOKMUMNOCOMPUTER]

the selector at the top. It's shown later in the vid

[@loopinnerthe]

Sam you recently got a whole load of rev counters, hundreds of them, made me think. Why not have a handle that people can wind. A rev counter measures how fast they are turning the handle and shows a number between 0 and 9 on the display. Anyone reaching a speed of nine tings a bell. The electronics need to be clever. A contact on the handle (like the distributor in your mini) sends pulses to a R/C circuit so the faster you turn, the higher the voltage in the capacitor. Voltage to number.... compare the voltage against a resistor ladder and use it to turn on one of 10 transistors these activate the motor until their selected contact is made. Thing is reversing the motor would be hard I guess they are designed to go in one direction only, as the speed drops it would need to count down.... ..well its 1/3 of an idea but an Arduino would do it easy peasy but thats cheating. Telephone dial and a uniselector and then you can just dial a number that would be simple and fun....

[@deltree711]

I noticed in the last video that the larger machine looked almost like stop-motion animation when it was running, but this one seems to be running more smoothly. Is there a difference between how the two operate that explains this?

[@UberAlphaSirus]

cool mechanism.

[@mfx1]

I didn't know little paul had a KZbin channel, haven't seen him for years.

[@BLenz-114]

Can you imagine the noise when you had a whole display board of these running simultaneously? Yikes!

[@asn413]

i think fran (franlab) would find this quite interesting

[@johnpowell5433]

Are you sure that those aggregators aren't clockodials?

[@BENBOI_1]

This really reminds me of a “apocalypse run-down future”

[@PhilR0gers]

How about a random number generator? The motor runs for a random amount of time on the push of a button.

[@paulbolus9399]

Make it a random number selecter :)

[@eksunflower]

Thingamagoops 🥳

[@curtishoffmann6956]

Cam-driven? That's a step in the right direction, I guess.

[@chrisprobert6]

Have a luverly time yourself, me old china😅

[@cliff_young]

Ah yes, 42 that's the answer

[@asn413]

hook into telephone exchange?

[@voltare2amstereo]

Subscriber counter?

[@nrdesign1991]

oh well, 2010 isn't so far a- ...it's been 14 years...

[@Scodiddly]

Imagine yourself in the old days, looking up at that display and wondering how your dog/team/wager did... and it's not just a matter of the numbers appearing, they have to step through to the final value. Your number comes up... then continues past! Argh!

[@kakurerud7516]

giant calculator

[@theelmonk]

you're talking without moving your lips !

[@electricalguy]

Very cool.