an electronic pencil sensible to pressure that tracks its position in space by acelerometers like wii controller

screens as a virtual window or portal looking through which you cant tell difference from looking at reality through a window

guitar hero becoming a real instrument by asigning different notes to diferent frets combinations

transportable electronic magnetic paper in colour

so who cares being rich or poor if in neither case i can have this

quote:

Originally posted by raaaid:
an electronic pencil sensible to pressure that tracks its position in space by acelerometers like wii controller

Reminds of what I think might be an urban legend..

NASA spent millions on developing a pen that worked in zero gravity of outerspace. Sometime after the Berlin wall came down the one NASA engineer was explaining this to a Russian space engineer, who replied 'We just used a pencil'

It *is* an urban legend, because I was guilty of repeating it.

Fisher came up with the pen on his own, and sold it to NASA. The Russians used it too.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_Pen

Most importantly, *I* use one.

All i need are some names of the creators so i can look into these things.

It makes me wonder where we could/might be.
With all the advances in technology and how available it is in this day and age.

And to think only 50 years ago,
a man might live as long as me today,
but with all the tools and tech he could play with 50 years ago
he might've only had access or been capable of knowing a tiny fraction
of what i can learn using the tools of tomorrow.


Bill

quote:

Originally posted by K_Freddie:
NASA spent millions on developing a pen that worked in zero gravity of outerspace. Sometime after the Berlin wall came down the one NASA engineer was explaining this to a Russian space engineer, who replied 'We just used a pencil'

the reason you wouldnt want to use a pencil in a high tech zero gravity enclosed environment is that the pencil is made of graphite. as you write small bits of the pencil tip can flake off, break or be released as graphite dust. since graphite is a good conductor, in theory it could float/land on some sensitive electronic components

as an illustration, the early amd duron cpu's had small connector pins on the back of the chip, and you could bridge those by tracing a line between them with a pencil, to overclock the cpu and set it to a higher frequency. worked very well, and a nice simple effective method

using normal pens in space (or under different atmospheric pressure conditions) is also a problem because they often start leaking, so joke or not, a pen had to be made which could function in space given the russians history of using simple low tech solutions to complex problems, it is quite possible some of their first astronauts had pencils with them. once the usa taxpayer paid for a high tech solution to be developed, the russians probably just ordered a few boxes of the same pens from the manufacturer instead of designing their own version.

Yeah, I'd thought of that... it probably was a pencil crayon, similar to the one scuba divers would use

or maybe even one of the softer grade normal pencils

the hardest pencils (HH ?) are pure graphite and often chip or bits flake off. when you write with them there is also a fine powder residue. the softer normal pencils (HB etc ?) are made of graphite mixed with some type of greasy substance which makes it stick to the paper better and is easier to write with (and hence doesnt have the chipping/flaking/dust problems as much).

i still think it is quite likely the early russian cosmonauts used pencils as writing tools, unless somebody looked into this in depth and specifically disproved it

their spacecrafts were essentially tin cans with a rocket strapped to it to get it high enough into orbit, and their electronics were very low tech (no circuit boards etc in the earliest versions even ?). in good old soviet style reasoning, once something was shown to work correctly, very little further changes were made, and their technology changed very little in 30 yrs (as opposed to the american systems which were a constant evolution of leading edge technology)

quote:

Originally posted by grifter2u:

the hardest pencils (HH ?) are pure graphite and often chip or bits flake off. when you write with them there is also a fine powder residue. the softer normal pencils (HB etc ?) are made of graphite mixed with some type of greasy substance which makes it stick to the paper better and is easier to write with (and hence doesnt have the chipping/flaking/dust problems as much).

Does anyone here remember the practical joke of loading up a sandpaper sharpening pad with drafting pencil graphite, and then thumping the pad against the seat of the stool of a fellow classmate's drafting table?

That's why everybody caught on sooner or later about not to wear white pants to school.