Simulating "Magic Eye" with spinning green LED array (video)

[dave]

http://kq2rp.tumblr.com/post/50091476527/simulating-magic-eye-tubes-with-spinning-leds-and

[BDK]

In article <ioqdnRJxXoNTkRDM...@earthlink.com>,
rick...@earthlink.net says...
>
> http://kq2rp.tumblr.com/post/50091476527/simulating-magic-eye-tubes-with-spinning-leds-and

Well, kind of neat, but I think it would be easier to do without a
motor, using two "arcs" of many adjacent LEDs (like ( ) (Like a circle)
with a common beginning point at the top to simulate the green screen.
It would open and close on both sides like a real one as the level went
up and down and look more realistic than this one and have no moving
parts to fail, and speed would be pretty much instantaneous.

just thinking about it...

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BDK- Head FUD-Master Blaster. Friend to all kOOkbashers.

[philo]

Yep, I thought it clever too, but a motor would hardly be needed if
several leds were used, possibly behind a frosted glass

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https://www.createspace.com/3707686

[William Sommerwerck]

> Well, kind of neat, but I think it would be easier to do without a
> motor, using two "arcs" of many adjacent LEDs (like ( ) (Like a circle)
> with a common beginning point at the top to simulate the green screen.
> It would open and close on both sides like a real one as the level went
> up and down and look more realistic than this one and have no moving
> parts to fail, and speed would be pretty much instantaneous.

True, but then you'd have a digital display, rather than an analog one.

By the way, eye tubes (with a "rectangular") format were made into at least
the 60s. My father had a tape recorder that used them to set recording level.
And, of course, Dyna made a tuner in which one of these was used for tuning,
the other as a stereo indicator.

[Carter]

On 5/10/2013 12:51 PM, William Sommerwerck wrote:

> By the way, eye tubes (with a "rectangular") format were made into at
> least the 60s. My father had a tape recorder that used them to set
> recording level. And, of course, Dyna made a tuner in which one of these
> was used for tuning, the other as a stereo indicator.

I built a ham radio slow scan TV receiver* in the early 70s that used
one as a tuning indicator and no problem in getting the "rectangular"
eye tube from my local electronic parts supply house.

Memory? We don't need no stinkin' memory. The P7 phosphor in the 5FP7
CRT was the "memory". (for those unfamiliar with SSTV, each frame was 8
seconds long. As the last line was being painted, the first line of the
frame was just starting to fade.)

[BDK]

In article <kmj8cp$oof$1...@dont-email.me>, grizzle...@comcast.net
says...

>
> > Well, kind of neat, but I think it would be easier to do without a
> > motor, using two "arcs" of many adjacent LEDs (like ( ) (Like a circle)
> > with a common beginning point at the top to simulate the green screen.
> > It would open and close on both sides like a real one as the level went
> > up and down and look more realistic than this one and have no moving
> > parts to fail, and speed would be pretty much instantaneous.
>
> True, but then you'd have a digital display, rather than an analog one.

Well, the spinning LED one isn't analog either, and doesn't move the
same way. At least my version would. Put a lot of LEDs in the thing and
it would mimic the analog one pretty well.

>
> By the way, eye tubes (with a "rectangular") format were made into at least
> the 60s. My father had a tape recorder that used them to set recording level.
> And, of course, Dyna made a tuner in which one of these was used for tuning,
> the other as a stereo indicator.

I remember the one tape recorder at school had one, it was a early
cassette deck, but all the otherwise identical ones had meters. The
green magic eye was the only thing that wasn't black, white, or grey on
it.

[William Sommerwerck]

>> By the way, eye tubes (with a "rectangular" format) were

>> made into at least the 60s. My father had a tape recorder
>> that used them to set recording level.

> I remember the one tape recorder at school had one, it was

> an early cassette deck, but all the otherwise identical ones

> had meters. The green magic eye was the only thing that
> wasn't black, white, or grey on it.

That's odd, because adding a magic eye to an otherwise solid-state product
would (probably) have cost more than meters.

[BDK]

In article <kmjkj0$45s$1...@dont-email.me>, grizzle...@comcast.net
says...

It looked like they took the old reel to reel chassis and plopped a
casette drive into it without changing anything else. Ugly, even back
then. Must have weighed about 20 pounds with a big 6X9 speaker in the
front. Aluminum case too, those were built to take abuse.

[Michael Black]

On Fri, 10 May 2013, Carter wrote:

> On 5/10/2013 12:51 PM, William Sommerwerck wrote:
>
>> By the way, eye tubes (with a "rectangular") format were made into at
>> least the 60s. My father had a tape recorder that used them to set
>> recording level. And, of course, Dyna made a tuner in which one of these
>> was used for tuning, the other as a stereo indicator.
>
> I built a ham radio slow scan TV receiver* in the early 70s that used one as
> a tuning indicator and no problem in getting the "rectangular" eye tube from
> my local electronic parts supply house.
>

Now that you mention it, I can almost picture one of the commercial SSTV
receivers having a tuning eye.

There seems to be no real reason for using a tuning eye or not. except
maybe when used in radios they were seen as more "consumer" oriented.
I'm sure in the days of tubes, there wasn't really any price difference
using a meter or a tuning eye tube, the latter having the advantage of
including a stage of amplification in at least some cases. THose tiny
"tuning meters" that appeared in various equipment at the time surely
didnt' tell anything more than a tuning eye meter, it's not like either
was an absolute indicator (and neither was an absolute indicator needed).

I'm sure in some cases, the tuning eye was picked because it wsa
different, helping the product to stand out.

> Memory? We don't need no stinkin' memory. The P7 phosphor in the 5FP7 CRT was
> the "memory". (for those unfamiliar with SSTV, each frame was 8 seconds long.
> As the last line was being painted, the first line of the frame was just
> starting to fade.)
>

It's interesting. SSTV came along about 1958, then took about a decade to
become "legal"; for most of that first decade you had to get special
approval. Then the rules changed in 1968 and Robot came along shortly
after (and forty years later, I can't remember what year Robot arrived,
the ads were there in 1971 when I first started reading QST).

But then soon after, people were playing with digitized SSTV. Memory did
come along, even if it was long shift register memory, so the field could
change in 1973 or 74, even if the surplus memory was in such short supply
(especially considering the amount needed at the time, it was such low
density) that not everyone could go digital even if they'd wanted to. A
sampler for a regular tv camera wsa more common than a digital display.

Michael

[gregz]

I had an EICO tuner with some type of exclamation point eye.

Greg

[Brenda Dyer]

"gregz" wrote in message
news:1005230240390003148.4...@news.eternal-september.org...

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I think those were actually a plasma 'display', as opposed to a cathode ray
tube. Similar to the clock displays on most VCRs.

[N_Cook]

dave <rick...@earthlink.net> wrote in message
news:ioqdnRJxXoNTkRDM...@earthlink.com...
>
http://kq2rp.tumblr.com/post/50091476527/simulating-magic-eye-tubes-with-spi
nning-leds-and


At a recent radio rally I picked up a handful of green neons, no idea of
make or supplier . They are the small blob neons of mains-on indicators but
have an internal flourescent coating that converts the colour to green. I
thought a cluster of them , with suitable driving could make something like
a magic eye

[N_Cook]

N_Cook <div...@tcp.co.uk> wrote in message
news:kmngdd$ifn$1...@dont-email.me...

googling turned up these
http://www.ecvery.com/neon-bulbs-tubes-products/p384866/neon-lamp-green-swit
ches-indicator-electrical-mosquito-mats-indicator.html

[Jim Mueller]

No, it's an actual tuning eye, although not in eye shape. They are type
numbers 1M3/DM70 (wire leads) and 1N3/DM71 (pins to plug into a socket).

http://www.mif.pg.gda.pl/homepages/frank/sheets/035/1/1M3.pdf
http://www.mif.pg.gda.pl/homepages/frank/sheets/030/d/DM71.pdf.

If I remember right, the drawings in these data sheets are wrong; the
shadow forms between the bottom of the "exclamation point" bar and the
dot, not at the top like they show.

Most VCRs that I have seen don't use a plasma display, they use a vacuum
fluorescent display. This is another special type of CRT. The glass is
frequently tinted blue or green or it is placed behind a blue or green
filter to hide the glow of the filament (which isn't very bright
anyway). These are very versatile since the anodes can be made in any
shape and they can be coated with different phosphors so that multi-color
displays are possible. The anode voltage is quite low, frequently 20 to
30 volts, so they work nicely with semiconductors.

Plasma displays are gas filled (usually neon) so are generally red-orange
in color. The high voltage required for the gas discharge limited their
use in solid-state equipment. An early plasma display was the Nixie tube.

--
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To get my real email address, replace wrongname with dadoheadman.
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