FOCUS!

[drhardee]

As a middle school librarian, I can't tell you how many of those film strips and cassettes I've reluctantly thrown in the trash over the course of 15 years. You'd have to look HARD these days to find an AV repair person who'd know how to repair an old DuKane filmstrip projector or worse, an old Wollensak reel-to-reel tape player! I, like a lot of us, was the "AV nerd" at my school... Come to think of it, at age 42, I'm still the damned "AV nerd" at my school, only now it's all computerized and digitized.

As a matter of fact, the brand new school I opened a few months ago doesn't have the FIRST TV or overhead projector in it..all AV watching is carried out through classroom PC's and ceiling mounted video projectors and "Smart" boards. The technology budget (alone) for this school was 1.3 million dollars!

 

[selectomatic]

Luckily, not much goes wrong with filmstrip projectors.

Of course, the cassette decks are another matter. Belts and rollers and dirty heads and guides can all cause endless headaches.

Filmstrips are nice, but I always prefer 16mm film. We didn't use a lot of TV when I was in school, but we did watch quite a few movies.

Wollensaks were great machines to use, but they are a pain to repair.

-kevin

(btw Dave: you're 43 now. Time keeps on slipping into the future.)

 

[ironrite]

My compliments to you on your spectacular work! In my former career, I was a graphic artist, from the old wax and phototypesetting days, so I can well appreciate what you do! I still dabble with Photoshop and the video stuff, but it's finding the time. Now I'm trying my hand at digitizing sewing machine embroidery designs.

It's funny how smells can affect us. What I thought of when I saw this thread about the projectors was the huge opaque projector our grade school had. A large black box with, if I recall, about a 5 inch lens on the front and a fan that sounded like a jet engine. It scared the heck out of me the first time the teacher turned it on. And on more than one occasion it did start to smoke. Even when it was not about to catch fire, it had that hot metallic, ozone smell to it.

 

[maggie~hamilton]

Overhead Projectors are cool!

Hear at my church (I'm down here now, just having finished choir rehearsal), we still have - and use - a couple of overhead projectors, sometimes during the service but mostly for Church School classes.

But at the same time, the pastor is a real techno-geek and has all sorts of computer-driven projectors to display PowerPoint presentations and the like. It's fun stuff but it sure seems to take him a long time fuzting around to get it all set up and tweaked whenever he wants to use it.

And speaking of projectors, how many of y'all had a MAGNAJECTOR when you were kids?! I got one for Christmas one year and burned out light bulb after light bulb displaying my favorite comic strips and stuff on my bedroom wall!

I still have one stuck away in a closet somewhere, that I found at a yard sale one day - mint condition in the box, paid two dollars for it!

 

[djmjlcst]

Focus the projector please!

I still remember in school being the A/V geek that was fascinated by the 16mm projectors too. Anyone remember the Kodak Pageant? A classic projector with the belts on the take up and supply reel arms. I'm sure some of you threaded the films on this projector! I know I did when the teachers didn't know how to thread the projector! How about the old Bell & Howell manual and auto loads? When I was in high school in the mid 70's the projector that was all the rage was the green Eiki ST-O (I think) 16mm projector. Our high school purchased 3 of these projectors then the next year they purchased 21 of the blue RT model auto loads. I remember many faculty members having trouble rewinding the films because you had to keep the forward/reverse switch in the forward position and flip the lever by the first sprocket gear up for the rewind. Apparently this caused a drag on the take up reel that would wind the film nice and even back on the supply reel. Many times I had to wind and rewind films because faculty members had rewound the film on the reel the wrong way! I also remember finding film spilled all over the floor because someone didn't fasten the take up reel properly and it fell off in the projection booth! Boy, was that a mess to straighten out! How many times did you have that chattering sound when the projector lost the film loop just to stop the projector and reset it? In my current position as media services coordinator, back in 1989 I made sure that we purchased the Eiki SL-O SlimLine 16mm projectors. We purchased four of them and they still work great! We have just a small collection of 16mm films. The physics dept. uses the 1962 classic "Time Dilation: An Experiment with Mu-Mesons" almost every semester. This never made it to video - yet. OK, I'm through but thanks for sparking these memories for me! - Mike

 

[tolivac]

Oh yes-the reading comprehension and speed read tests-remember me and a good freind HAD to take a reading class as part of our courses-it was mandatory.During the tests the instructor set the reading machine projector at its highest speed and me and my freind were able to keep up.So the instructor let us mess around with the machine all we wanted and also use the class as a "study Hall" the instructor felt we didn't need the course.That reading machine projector was kinda fun to play around with-a modified fimstrip projector with the masking device that you could adjust its speed in masking the print projected to read.I have a 3M overhead projector I got at a yard sale some time back.The seller at the sale was a former teacher.Yes I also used opaque projectors at school-these things did run VERY hot due to their high wattage lamps shining light on the object to be projected and reflecting off the object onto the screen.You couldn't leave the item in the machine for more than a few minutes or it will BURN!I used it to project pictures from a book during a speech I did in Social studies class-that book sure got HOT for the couple minutes it was under the projector.It was a monsterous thing with the loud blower.when you put a book or other paper item in the machine-you clamped down a glass platen over it to prevent the blower's air blast from riffling the book pages.

 

[paulg]

Yeah, me too.

I was in the Catholic School system and yes I was the AV nerd bar none.
Viewlex, DuKane, Kodak Pageant. We had it. We also had VM open reels with the headphone extenders so 20 people could listen. Our TVs were Zenith 23" b&w metal cabinet tube sets. Phonos were Admiral suitcase units. EVERYTHING was durable.
Does anyone remember the "Language Master" machine? It had a word or phrase printed on a rectangular card with magnetic strip. You inserted into the reader and it zipped from left to right speaking one word or phrase ex: "...NOSTALGIA....NOSTALGIA...."

 

[tolivac]

Come to think of it I have a Kodak Pagent projector-found it at the dump out here-its missing a speaker-the mechanism does run.The amp tubes do light up.I have a small collection of 16mm projectors.I have a Bell-Howell and a US Army Signal Corps Devry projector.The Devry and Bell-Howell work.I have 3 films-one on WW2 First Aid-and two others unknown.got the unknown ones from a swap shop.Will have to play them.

 

[charbee]

Magnajectors Rock!

Lordy, that brings back memories...had one of those as a kid, used it all the time to draw stuff...actually used it to take the tiny, tiny map in the front of the paperback "Lord of the Rings" books and blow it up to 8' x 6' so it would nearly cover one of the walls in my room...ah...thanks for that little jog down memory lane!

 

[pturo]

It is funny how everyone remembers smell of old things in school. I read where it is the human sense most tied to memory, more than sight.

 

[jeff_adelphi]

Anyone rember these?

That wonderful green fiberglass case.

 

[jeff_adelphi]

My favorite memory from the school A-V closet, the Bell & Howell Film-O-Sound 16mm projecter.

 

[jeff_adelphi]

Close-up view. I would love to find some appliance films to show with this.

 

[gansky1]

Did someone say Frigidaire Flix?

First the projectors, a Magnavox Illustravox from the late 30's with a platen and tone-arm to play 16" records and an Elmo film projector.

 

[gansky1]

For some sales tips...

1940's Multi-Media presentation

 

[gansky1]

For some sales tips...

1940's Frigidaire Multi-Media Washdays Can Be Fun and on the right, how to rejuvenate and sell used appliances in your Frigidaire dealership!

 

[gansky1]

Now for our Feature Presentation

"What Makes it Tick?" on the red record w/filmstrip. 47 minutes of a tour through the Frigidaire factory to see the Unimatic mechanism being built, tested and explained. There instructional filmstrips for every one of the Frigidaire appliances offered, including water heaters and air conditioners.

As an added bonus; three filmstrips & audio about the Bendix Automatic Home Laundry!

Grab the popcorn and let's have a slumber-party!

 

[selectomatic]

B&H Autoload Filmosounds

Jeff,

The Bell and Howell machines were always my favorites as an A/V type. Most of the machines in our school system were Graflex (Yuck!), some few were RCA 500-series machines, and the rest were Bell and Howell. I never worked with Kodak Pageants until relatively recently.

The Bell and Howells were always my favorites. Even the one oddball manual load machine was fun to run, but I always loved the Autoloads.

I currently have four of them, and it's always fun to drag them out and watch one of my (fairly small) collection of 16mm films.

Oh yeah, in addition to the machines and a couple of different focal-length lenses, I also have a Bell and Howell Filmovara lens (a zoom attachment that screws into the front of standard B&H lenses) and an aftermarket Cinemascope Adapter (2:1 anamorphic attachment for widescreen presentation).

-kevin