(no subject)

[ffutures]

An early attempt to develop a long-range death ray.




Anyone care to guess what this really is?

I think colourised, and with a nice green beam, it will be rather cool...

Comments

[ggreig]

Radio teletype or fax receiver? I'm guessing it's more likely to be a receiver than a transmitter of [whatever] since it appears to be pointing fairly indiscriminately at the sky, but then I'm not sure what the pedal and levers would be for.

[ffutures.livejournal.com]

Answers later. I want to see if anyone gets it right first.

[jeriendhal.livejournal.com]

Early experiment with solar powered steam generators, focusing light and heat on the tube to run a turbine?

[ffutures.livejournal.com]

Not a turbine, there's a piston arrangement, but otherwise exactly right - it's a solar-powered steam engine. But what the power being used for?

[jeriendhal.livejournal.com]

Looks to be a printing press of all things or something. Telegraphy transmitted images perhaps.

[ffutures.livejournal.com]

No, just a bog standard printing press - demonstrated in Paris in (I think) 1893. It's from an early 1894 magazine and doesn't give a date. Have a virtual cookie!

[ggreig]

Funny how used we are to transmission of data happening "magically" and invisibly. I did the same thing in my guess - but looking again at the picture, there's only one thing that can possibly be transmitted from one side to the other which is power (via the belt). Modulation of the belt speed would be a way to transmit information, but not a very practical one.

[dsample.livejournal.com]

A solar powered printing press.

[ffutures.livejournal.com]

Yup. Have a virtual Jaffa cake.

[draconin.livejournal.com]

I'm assuming from "what it really is" that you mean "what is the image actually built from"? If so, I'm going to guess that the central 'shaft/electrode' is actually an image of a lipstick. :-) Probably completely wrong.

[ffutures.livejournal.com]

Nope, it's a real picture from 1893-4, see the other comments.

[robertprior.livejournal.com]

Steam-powered machine of some sort. Obviously a water boiler on the left, with a parabolic mirror. Looks like a single piston driving a belt.

Machine on right looks a bit like a loom, although I don't see any warp. Might be a printing press (my memory's a bit fuzzy on the details of a press, and I feel looking it up would be cheating).

So, solar-powered loom or solar-powered printing press would be my guess.

[ffutures.livejournal.com]

Have a virtual Jaffa cake - solar-powered printing is right.

[ffutures.livejournal.com]

I think that in the game it will be a communications system for contacting the Imperial Fleet en route to Sirius. I'll edit in a few more cables etc.