| This thread has been locked, it will not receive new replies. |
|
Locked on 01/03/2008 6:41:54 PM PST by Admin Moderator, reason:
Please direct your comments here: |
Posted on 08/07/2007 7:52:15 AM PDT by HairOfTheDog
Welcome to The Hobbit Hole!
Sing hey! for the bath at close of day
That washes the weary mud away!
A loon is he that will not sing:
O! Water Hot is anoble thing!
O! Sweet is the sound of falling rain.
and the brook that leaps from hill to plain;
but better than rain or rippling streams
is Water Hot that smokes and steams.
O! Water cold we may pour at need
down a thirsty throat and be glad indeed;
but better is Beer, if drink we lack,
and Water Hot poured down the back.
O! Water is fair that leaps on high
in a fountain white beneath the sky;
but never did fountain sound so sweet
as splashing Hot Water with my feet!
Paper remained relatively expensive, at least in book-sized quantities, through the centuries, until the advent of steam-driven paper making machines in the 19th century, which could make paper with fibres from wood pulp. Although older machines predated it, the Fourdrinier paper making machine became the basis for most modern papermaking. Together with the invention of the practical fountain pen and the mass produced pencil of the same period, and in conjunction with the advent of the steam driven rotary printing press, wood based paper caused a major transformation of the 19th century economy and society in industrialized countries. With the introduction of cheaper paper, schoolbooks, fiction, non-fiction, and newspapers became gradually available to all the members of an industrial society by 1900. Cheap wood based paper also meant that keeping personal diaries or writing letters became universal. The clerk, or writer, ceased to be a high-status job, and by 1850 had nearly become an office worker or white-collar worker , which transformation can be considered as a part of the industrial revolution.
Unfortunately, the original wood-based paper was more acidic and more prone to disintegrate over time, through processes known as slow fires. Documents written on more expensive rag paper were more stable. Mass-market paperback books still use these cheaper mechanical papers (see below), but the more careful book publishers now use acid-free paper for hardback and trade paperback books.
<snicker>C'mon, Rosie, it's only fifteen screws to the mb ...!
Yeah...*only* ;-)
Not to mention...fifteen near-microscopic screws, in unpredictable places, and with various pieces that must be removed first...
The tech was just going to send the part, too. Didn’t even ask if I wanted someone to do it for us. I had to ask.
These books have been scattered hither and yon, and I'd like to have them still readable 150 years later (plot points). I know that Torahs are written on vellum (actually, on specially-prepared animal hide --- like vellum, but made by a more strict ritual) --- and some of them last 600 years or more, with care.
Quill pens in 1854, right?
From Wiki (what did we do before Wiki?):
The dip pen has certain advantages over a fountain pen. It can use waterproof pigmented (particle-and-binder-based) inks, such as so-called "India ink", drawing ink, or acrylic inks, which would destroy a fountain pen by clogging it up, as well as the traditional iron gall ink, which can cause corrosion in fountain pens. [Emphasis mine.]
Okay, I think I have a description of the journals (or volumes). It helps to have a starting point, y'know?
I've handled new vellum. Actually, it was pin-feed fan-fold vellum forms. The City of Detroit printed out its biannual tax rolls on hugh vellum sheets, one copy for itself, one for Lansing. They were stored in custom binders. Hundreds of thousands of pages per year, at $1.74 a page. And that was over 30 years ago.
I never knew that vellum computer paper even existed until I worked there. I learned a lot of other amazing (or depressing) things working there.
Fan-fold.
Vellum.
Ye Gods and little fishes.
So, I had to go find this stuff:
A-MAZ-ing.
I assume then that you don't want to hear about the 18 million punch cards used (in the mid 1970s) to generate those reports? Or how those cards in the 11th floor assessor's office threatened to send that office, and the ten underneath it, into the basement of the City-County building?
When I first entered elementary school, around the time of the Dewey - Truman election, my school had older desks, with openings for inkwells and dip pens. I first learned to write script using a dip pen. and remember the first ads for the new-fangled fountain pens. After a number of years we got cartridge fountain pens, then in high school ballpoint pens! Then we would take our clubs and go out to kill a mammoth for supper.
I took computer programming using a hollerith card punching machine to write our programs. In my first programming job we still used card punchers for the OS/MVT JCL cards. We also had to ask the operators not to submit a job with a sort in it until no other sorts were being run, since there was only 1 sort partition, and if 2 sorts were run at the same time, both jobs would fail.
You're almost as computer-ancient as I am. I started out with 1401 Fortran in the 10th grade. The year after that, I was doing crude computer graphics of chemical processes on a PDP-8 with a Bolex 16mm camera (a vey high-end camera) pointed at the round face of a vector graphics monitor.
My favorite job was MVT console commander on the midnight shift. On slow nights, I'd get out an IPL'able card deck that turned the multimillion dollar S360/50 with its 2250 engineering display into a video game.
I believe that this isn't as powerful as the smallest palm held computer these days.
Probably not, but those machines were designed to run massive amounts of I/O. IBM mainframes still run hugh disk plantations and do lots of back-end processing using gigantic databases. And it all fits into a couple of standard equipment racks.
Good Morning ALL -
OT: say that looks like a good match. I might suggest base
shoe instead of quarter round. Radius on base shoe is different and gives a bit more finished look to base board. Unless you have the quarter round already..:-)
In other news, the driveway looks good. Well, the part that was done anyway. Seems I’m about 2 feet short of getting it done, yup, ran out of driveway sealer. sigh.
No, it isn’t sold at the orange box place in one gallon cans just five gallon buckets. Well, looks like I’ll have a bit left over do to it again next spring.
After gypsygirl’s walk, it’ll be back to get another bucket.
Morning - the old punch cards brings back memories, not all good but some interesting. Someone had the bright idea of having field folks punch the cards themselves with stylus in a metal box thing, using a template. Supposed to be more efficient than transcribers taking our field books and punching them in the office. Not a really practical solution, thankfully the experiment only lasted for one timber sale cycle.
I used drafting eqpt. railroad pens, nibs, etc. on vellum making maps one season. When we got rapido-graphs pens it was remarkable improvement; another skill set that no longer in use, don’t even think it’s taught anymore.
Mornin’
Guess where we’re goin’ today.
:-(
No, haven’t got the quarter-rounds yet....and so far I haven’t found any in the garage.
Maybe I should just stick a 2x4 under there and paint it up to match. The sunroom is looking better and better! I’ve got lighting and the eyesore wall is just about finished.
Heheh...
Sucker.
Good morning :~)
Horses are fed and watered, dogs are fed and watered, all critters in the yard have been treed :~)
1: Good to see you!!!! How you been?
2:NaNo prep question ---
wahooooo!! I'm working subplots and villains today. And baking cookies for FIL's birthday.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.