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Dead Media Project
Working Notes arranged by category
This highly flawed index (in both concept and execution) immediately
shows just how stupid it is to try to classify media in any way.
Which of course makes the job even more interesting. The only
definition for media I can come up with is "a method or artifact
for storing or generating or transmiting human sensory stimulus"
which is so broad it means nothing. Any less and some damned thing
gets left out. There has been some discussion of this, see the meta-historical
Notes for some further thoughts.
So in this futile attempt to categorize "dead media"
I try to stick things in vague categories derived from the human
senses. But even this fails as you will see. This is one of those
tasks where I discourage suggestions and encourage action; if you
can come up with a better scheme (which means: email me an edited
copy of this HTML index file!) by all means do so.
Here is the list of new, uncategorized
Notes most recently submitted to the list. They will later be
hand-placed in this index.
Most recent update:
4 January 2001
TABLE OF CATEGORIES:
VISUAL CATEGORIES: Media that appeals directly to
the human eye, essentially, for the generation or transmission or
storage of visual images. The idea is that images are moved/stored
via analogy rather than symbolically; eg. photography. Visual "data"
such as text or writing is probably contained in the SYMBOLIC
categories.
SYMBOLIC CATEGORIES: Media that transmits sensory
data after some transformation, such as schemes to store or send
writing abstractly as symbols, rather than in toto.
AURAL CATEGORIES: In general, things that move audible sounds in place and/or time.
Somehow it seems there should be many more of these than there are.
PHYSICAL CATEGORIES: A seemingly simple category, but fraught with dangers.
as-yet UNCATEGORIZABLE CATEGORIES
Categorized dead media Notes
As-yet unclassified
"Childrens" media
Mechanical calculating or measuring (is this media?!)
Anachronisms
18th/19th century contrivances with foolish names (usually inventor ego-stroking)
Electrical/electronic aural
Electrical/electronic symbolic information systems including codes
Electrical/electronic tele-communications (non-internet)
Electrical/electronic visual
Electrical/electronic writing systems (broadly defined)
Obviously foolish technology misuse (aka boy-with-hammer syndrome)
Historical revisionism
Metahistorical
23.8 Definitions and Connections
23.9 Definitions and Connections
24.6 Dead Media 1897: The Consumer Context
30.6 Age-Specific Media
37.9 Media History as Contingency
44.8 Dead Media Collectors
Victims of Moore's Law
Non or pre-computer technological symbolic machinery
Non-electrical/electronic aural
Non-electrical/electronic visual
Pre-industrial-age communication
Physical transport "media" (movement of objects)
Writing systems (NOTA)
34.4 Barlow's Potatograph
40.1 Bibliocadavers
02.5 Copy Press, the Hektograph, Edison's Electric Pen, Zuccato's Trypograph, Gestetner's Cyclostyle, Dick-Edison Mimeograph, Gammeter aka Multigraph, Varityper, IBM Selectric
24.4 Edison Electric Pen Stencil
13.2 Edison Electric Pen, pneumatic pen, magnetic pen, and foot-powered pen
18.5 Popular fiction formats
24.5 Poster Stamps
33.1 Ramelli's Book Wheel
33.2 Ramelli's Book Wheel
40.8 Spirit Duplicators
26.2 Tattoos as media
18.6 library card catalog
18.7 library card catalog
Not 'dead media'
Money
Electronic computers and calculators
19.1 Baby Mark I Computer
11.0 CHIPS: Dead Software, Dead Platforms
01.7 Comparator; Rapid Selector
36.8 Computer Game Designer Dies Young, But Outlives Own Games
28.3 Computer Game Emulators
08.3 Computer Games Are Dead (Part 1)
08.4 Computer Games Are Dead (Part 2)
08.5 Computer Games Are Dead (Part 3)
08.6 Computer Games Are Dead (Part 4)
27.1 Computer Jukebox
14.8 Computer Museum History Center; the Adidas Micropacer, the Whirlwind flight simulator, the Apricot Xi, the Cray NTDS
48.5 Computer media becomes obsolete
41.4 Dead Binary Digital Computer (The Manchester Small Scale Experimental Machine--"The Baby")
21.9 Dead Computer Operating Systems
18.8 Dead Digital Documents (Part One)
18.9 Dead Digital Documents (Part Two)
29.8 Dead Digital Documents
32.4 Dead Digital Documents
11.3 Dead Personal Computers and Typewriters: Some Recommended Books
00.5 Dead Personal Computers
00.6 Dead computational platforms, dead mainframes, and their dates
00.9 Dead computer languages
03.7 Dead memory systems
37.1 Dead supercomputers become furniture
28.4 Mattel Intellivision I/II/III, Tandyvision One, Super Video Arcade, Mattel Entertainment Computer System, INTV System III/IV, and Super Pro System
28.5 Mattel Intellivision I/II/III, Tandyvision One, Super Video Arcade, Mattel Entertainment Computer System, INTV System III/IV, and Super Pro System
47.1 Mechanical Memories (rotating disk, movable pins)
12.6 Nintendo Virtual Boy, the Logitech Cyberman 3D mouse, the Nintendo Power Glove
19.0 Officially Deleted Digital Documents
46.3 Old Hard Drives
46.2 Radio Shack TRS-80 Model 100
49.2 Recycling obsolete computer hardware II (Redundant Technology Initiative)
48.9 Recycling obsolete computer hardware
45.4 Shoup and Smith on early computer 'paint' systems, NASA Date: Thu, Jan 6, 2000, 07:52 PM
26.9 Typewriter Ribbon Tins Revived by Computer
42.3 Wind-Up Powerbook
42.3 Wind-Up Powerbook
03.4 Zuse Ziffernrechner; V1, Z1, Z2, Z3 and Z4 program-controlled electromechanical digital computers; the death of Konrad Zuse
Thomas Alva Edison
02.5 Copy Press, Hektograph, Edison's Electric Pen, Zuccato's Trypograph, Gestetner's Cyclostyle, Dick-Edison Mimeograph, Gammeter aka Multigraph, Varityper, IBM Selectric
24.4 Edison Electric Pen Stencil
13.3 Edison Electric Pen, Reed pen, and Music Ruling Pen
13.4 Edison Electric Pen
14.4 Edison Wax Cylinder
16.0 Edison's Vertical-Cut Records
46.8 Undead Media - The Edison Stock Ticker
Internet related (tread carefully here)
The magic-lantern and variants
Camera obscura and variants
Panorama (more of a cultural phenomenon than a medium, per se)
Telephony
03.2 Phonographic Dolls
03.8 Kinetophone; "Kinetophone Project"
04.8 Miniature Recording Phonograph, Neophone Records, Poulsen's Telegraphone, Multiplex Grand Graphophone and Photophone.
06.8 Popular Science 1932: Naumburg's Visagraph, Electric Eye Linotype, Ordering Music by Phone
07.8 PhoneVision
09.5 Museum of the Moving Image: Jenkins Radiovisor, Bell Picture Telephone, RGA/Oxberry CompuQuad,
09.6 Theatrophone; electrophone
09.7 Theatrophone; electrophone
10.1 Telephonic Jukeboxes: Shyvers Multiphone, Phonette Melody Lane, AMI Automatic
12.4 Theatrophone, electrophone
16.2 Flame Organ; Burning Harmonica; Chemical Harmonica; Kastner's Pyrophone
16.5 Phonograph History Part 1
16.6 Phonograph History Part 2
16.7 Phonograph History Part 3
25.2 Mobile Cavalry Telephone
21.3 Mechanical and string telephony
21.5 Mechanical Telephony
28.2 Organetta, Organette, Aurephone, Cecilla, Organina Cabineto, Tournaphone, Cabinetto, Melodia, Musical Casket, Gately Automatic Organ, Tanzbar, Seraphone, and Celestina
30.7 AT&T Telephotography; AT&T Picturephone
31.7 Phonovid Vinyl Video
39.2 Flowers's Phonoscribe; Flowers's Phonetic Alphabet
43.6 Acoustic telephone
45.8 Telegraphone
Photography and non-electrical/electronic still-image recording and reproduction
Pigeons pigeons pigeons!
Pneumatic tubes
Radio
Sirens and large-scale public aural signals
Electronic musical
Telegraphy
19.5 Bain's Facsimile Telegraphy
38.2 British Foreign Office Abandons Telegrams
19.3 Caselli's Pantelegraph (Part One)
19.4 Caselli's Pantelegraph (Part Two)
20.5 Fire Alarms, Burglar Alarms, Railroad-Signal Systems, Hotel Annunciators, District Messenger Services
02.6 Military Telegraphy, Balloon Semaphore
02.7 Mirror Telegraphy: The Heliograph, the Helioscope, the Heliostat, the Heliotrope
32.9 Optical Telegraphy; Heliography
32.0 State-supported dead media; causes of media mortality; Roman relay runners, Mongol horse post, Polybius's fire signals, British Naval Howe Code, Pony Express, Aztec signals, optical telegraphy
20.4 Telegraph: Bain's Chemical Telegraph, the telegraph, quadruplex telegraph, House's Printing Telegraph, Hughes's Printing Telegraph, Phelps's Printing Telegraph, Bakewell's Fac Simile Telegraph, Dial Telegraph
20.7 Telegraph: Inductive Telegraphy
20.3 Telegraph: Morse Pendulum Instrument, Morse Register
22.2 Telegraph: Wheatstone's Telegraphic Meterometer; *Scientific American* Dead Media References 1867-1875
20.8 Telegraph
39.4 Telegraphic Paper Tape; Digital Paper Tape; Baudot Code; Dead Encoding Formats; ILLIAC; TTY
17.1 Telegraphy Bibliography
25.7 Telegraphy: Cablese, Wirespeak, Phillips Code, Morse Code
29.7 Telegraphy
22.4 Teleplex Morse Code Recorder
05.5 'Writing telegraph;' Gray's Telautograph; military telautograph; telewriter; the telescriber
08.0 Union telegraph balloons, Confederate microfilm
Television
Typewriter 