[sdiy] Re: WAY OT humour - New synth DIY site ?

[cyborgzero at comcast.net]

Yes, I did an experiment for a plasma tweeter, its the same idea..

Another interesting story:

My boss used to work at a BBC station. One very foggy day, he looks
out and it looks like he is seeing a ghost. A woman approaches,
talking about God has talked to her and all this, and it scares him
out of his wits. Well, after he calms himself, he asks the woman where
she had heard this.

She walks him to a valley out in the woods nearby where the fog is
*very* thick, and he starts to notice that, sure enough, he is hearing
some faint speech.

Well, just when he is about ready to believe in ghosts, he hears
something that is vaguely familiar: the station ID of the station he
works for!

So, after looking around for an errant radio thats been left out, he
realizes that the sound is coming from about 8 feet above them!

The fog bank was somehow able to rectify the AM signal and they were
hearing the fog being modulated!

And, of course, it was a Sunday morning, and they were simulcasting
the church services, and lo and behold, there was all talk about
repenting and such. heheheh..

Rob

----- Original Message -----
From: <oleavitt at ix.netcom.com>
To: "Synth DIY List" <synth-diy at dropmix.xs4all.nl>
Sent: Wednesday, May 01, 2002 4:37 PM
Subject: Re: [sdiy] Re: WAY OT humour - New synth DIY site ?


>
> While on the subject of mad science...
>
> I have been able to make a candle flame 'sing' by placing it between
a pair of metal plates connected to the secondary of of a step up
transformer (such as a TV flyback) with it's primary connected to the
output of an amplifier.
> If you apply high voltage DC to the plates the flame will lean to
one plate or the other depending on polarity. Apply AC and the flame
will vibrate wildly and make noise.
> I have also tinkered around with making electric arcs sing - Kind of
fun, as the arc changes shape at different frequencies.
> Singing Jacob's Ladder:
> (osc->amp->transformer->pair of carbon rods)
>
> Check out the Telharmonium:
> http://www.synthmuseum.com/magazine/0102jw.html
>
> There's more good stuff here:
> http://www.synthmuseum.com/magazine/time0010.html
>
> Oren
>
>
> On Wed, 1 May 2002 21:09:13 +0100 Paul Maddox
<Paul.Maddox at Wavesynth.com> wrote:
>
> Rainer,
>
> > > I've heard of people programming other things to play tunes
on,,,
> > > stepper motors etc?
> >
> > Ah, well, just remember the 1541 drive music for good old
Commodore disk
> > drives :)
>
> me too,
> you havent lived unitl you've heard this!!!
>
> Wanna know how it worked?
>
> The commodore drives were designed SOO cheapily they had no home
sensor,
> So when you switched the drive on, it would pull the head back one
track 40
> times (40 tracks on a disk),
> even if the head was on track 1, so you would hear 39 knocks...
>
> You could change the speed (hence pitch) by forceing the head
forward the
> correct number of tracks then back again,
> It was crude but I got mine to play twinkle twinkle little star!
>
> Amazingly the drives seemed to still work!
>
> Paul
>
>