We take colour films for granted nowadays.

But there was a time when it was novel indeed.

This article at the BBC has a video showing the very first true colour films ever produced.  Made by pioneer Edward Raymond Turner from London who patented his colour process on 22 March 1899, these films used three different colour  filters and three cameras to film the same scene. Then a complicated projector displayed the three films through corresponding filters simultaneously giving the illusion of colour.  Prior to this colour films were created by painstakingly hand tinting each frame.



This is a similar system that was used for the original tests of Colour TV in the 50s.

Turner's process wasn't successful, not because the film didn't work as it obviously did, but because the mechanical projector system wasn't reliable enough

Hmmm...

Sounds like a great Steampunk tinkerers project to me

Keep your sightglass full, your firebox trimmed and your water iced.
KJ

I love these machines.



Lots of construction pictures and details here:
Crabfu Steam Beetle

Keep your sightglass full, your firebox trimmed and your water iced.
KJ

This will keep them moving!


From 1899.

Keep your sightglass full, your firebox trimmed and your water iced.
KJ

A recent acquisition.
(Literally two days ago)

And a real treasure!
This book, entitled simply "Airship Design" by Charles P. Burgess, originally published in 1927, was intended to be a TEXTBOOK on the design of rigid airships. This 300 page book is absolutely stuffed with engineering formulas, diagrams, tables, and in depth discussions of the design of rigid airships. There is information here that can be found nowhere else outside of original German documents from the time.

Burgess was an Aeronautical engineer  with the Bureau of Aeronautics, United States Navy. He was also Associate Professor of Aeronautical Engineering at MIT.  He attempted to collect in one place all the critical analysis necessary for the design of these aerial leviathans.  At the time the large rigid airship was considered to be one of the great modern inventions. The future of which was still very bright!

The US Navy had acquired the Los Angeles,ex LZ126, from Germany  as war reparations in 1924, and was in the process of designing its own large rigid airships the Macon and Akron. The destruction of the Shenandoah in a storm  in 1925 had only increased the interest in the design problems and this book was an exercise in making the current knowledge available for designers, inventors and students working in the field of rigid airship design.
 
My copy is a 2004 reprint by the University Press of  the Pacific in Hawaii, and is available here at Amazon. Reading through this book is fascinating, every page has some bit of information that just thrills the engineer in me.

For example, from a randomly chosen  page (104) under the heading Dynamic Lift:

Moderate inequalities of the static forces of weight and buoyancy may be compensated by aerodynamic forces imposed upon the hull and horizontal tail surfaces through controlled operation of the elevators. This dynamic lift varies as the square of the speed, and increases with the angle of attack up to large angles, provided the speed is constant; but the increase in drag with the angle of attack reduces the speed so rapidly that at any given horsepower, the maximum dynamic lift is obtained at about 8 degree pitch. Figure 30 shows curves of the speed and dynamic lift of the U.S.S. Los Angeles.

This book also contains diagrams and photos of the structural components of these ships, as well as the analysis and design calculations necessary to insure their structural stability.

A fabulous source of engineering information from a time when Airships truly were the masters of the sky.

Title
Airship Design

Author
Charles P. Burgess
Aeronautical engineer  with the Bureau of Aeronautics, United States Navy. He was also Associate Professor of Aeronautical Engineering at MIT.

Publisher
University Press f the Pacific
Honalulu, Hawaii, USA

Date
Originally 1927
Reprinted 2004

ISBN
1-4102-1173-8

Keep your sightglass full, your firebox trimmed and your water iced.
KJ

A neat little puzzle game.

This point and click puzzle game is a great way to spend some time in an alternate world.  A world of fantastic machines with lots of puzzles to solve. Just click on everything to see what happens.  There is a definite Steampunk feel to the art work.

Here is a promo video for the game which gives you a feel for the look and atmosphere:

The game is available for download for $10.00 from the website http://machinarium.net/demo/ where you can also play a free demo version in your browser.

Keep your sightglass full, your firebox trimmed and your water iced.
KJ

The Antikythera mechanism as a watch!



Hublot painstakingly recreates a mysterious, 2,100-year-old clockwork relic

Hublot's miniature replica of the Antikythera mechanism

Awesome!

Keep your sightglass full and your firebox trimmed.
KJ

This is a fabulous collection of information!

Her Majesty's Army; a descriptive account of the various regiments now comprising the Queen's forces, from their first establishment to the present time
(The "Present Time" in question being around 1890 )

I just downloaded this 4 volume masterwork by Walter Richards.
Each volume is a 10MB PDF file. I downloaded the the black and white ones because they load faster on my old laptop, but the originals include colour plates of the various units by the noted military artist G. D. Giles. These are included in the colour PDFs.

Here's an example of the plates:


The Armed forces of Her Imperial Britannic Majesty Queen Victoria were varied and diverse. From the formal archaic splendour of the Horse Guards to the ragged auxiliaries in the highlands of India and Afghanistan, every unit is included with descriptions of their history, famous battles, current dispositions, uniforms, honours and insignia and often legends of their formation.

You can download the PDFs and other ebook formats here:

Her Majesty's Army at The Internet Archive

Highly recommended reading for the Military buffs amongst us.

Keep your sightglass full, your firebox trimmed and your water iced.
KJ