A Steampunk DJ Desk, Adventures in GPS Hacking and a Pen & Ink report

Here's another interesting thing I spotted at North Goodwill, can you guess what it is?

Here’s another interesting thing I spotted at North Goodwill, can you guess what it is?

2014-03-25-a IMAG1248 IMAG1254 2014-03-25-b

Turntable, Amp and Speakers already removed. If I had the room, I'd totally turn this into a Steampunk DJ Deck. Alas, like the Leslies, the Sherman Clay Radiola had to be passed up.

Turntable, Amp and Speakers already removed. If I had the room, I’d totally turn this into a Steampunk DJ Deck. Alas, like the Leslies, the Sherman Clay Radiola had to be passed up.

Found this in the case lining of a Hanimex (Cosina) SLR that Key Snap clued me onto this morning. This little camera shop is long gone, but was just down the street from the Mesa Typewriter Exchange.

Found this in the case lining of a Hanimex (Cosina) SLR that Key Snap clued me onto this morning. This little camera shop is long gone, but was just down the street from the Mesa Typewriter Exchange.

Updated: March 26, 2014 — 10:51 pm

11 Comments

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  1. Good to see you are having fun with your Garmin.
    I’ve not done much with GPS since I am still topo map minded. Someting about unfolding a nice USGS Topo Map.

    Neat old cabinet.

    1. There’s free topo maps too:
      http://www.gpsfiledepot.com/

      no address-finding in those, either, tho (:

  2. Wow – MacDonald used to be the hipster row of Mesa!

  3. I was being harangued the other day for not having a GPS at all. I had to reply that I always knew where I was and had a fairly good idea of where I was going and always get there… eventually. OSM is a real find though, I hadn’t heard of it.

    1. I have to have a GPS for driving. I have no relational sense to where anything actually is, even though I’ve lived here my entire life. I have a higher-end Garmin that someone gave me for christmas one year, but it was expensive and has a large, delicate screen, so I’ve always been nervous about leaving it in the car, and thus it’s never there when I need it. With a $2 unit, I have no such apprehension, and can mount it in the car without fear. Heh, even left the price tag on. Hopefully nobody wants to break a window to get at something that’s only worth $2 :D

      However, This experiment is making me keep my eye out for one of the hand-held hiking GPS units. That free Topo map of the state would work pretty well in one of those.

  4. That is pretty slick. I have only had handhelds from my geocaching days. All i had to do was find my destination and look up a cache nearby. If I had time I would even try to log the find. On another note, I thought Sherman, Clay was up here in Seattle. Did they have an outlet down there or did someone move?

    1. I seem to remember Sherman Clay as an imported middle high-end furniture line that was pretty big up until maybe to 70’s-80’s in classy Scottsdale homes. Maybe they had distribution channels in Phoenix?

      A Panatrope with Radiola. Now that’s a classy name for a steampunk DJ deck. Appears on light research to be a 1920’s thing. Check it:
      http://www.pickapack.com/about.htm

      1. “In 1926 Brunswick produced an acoustic phonograph for playing new electrically recorded 78s. Its reproducer was similar in ways to Victor’s Orthophonic soundbox. To create publicity for the new machine, Brunswick held a contest for the best name and slogan. When one Mildred Bux of Melrose Park, Pennsylvania, submitted the name and slogan “Prismatone” and “The instrument of colorful music,” Brunswick executives gave her the $5,000 prize and then ignored her suggestions, instead naming it the Panatrope. It may be Brunswick’s finest phonograph.”

        1. “In 1925, Brunswick announced that it would produce a revolutionary new type of phonograph that used vacuum tubes and electricity to amplify phonograph records. The amplifier electronics were designed and supplied to Brunswick by RCA. The Brunswick Panatrope was displayed in concert throughout the United States and created a sensation when demonstrated. The first units were shipped in early 1926 at about the same time as similar machines from Victor. Some of the Panatropes contained only a phonograph, and other models were offered in combination with RCA Radiolas. … It cost a staggering $1275 when new.”

          http://www.pickapack.com/more.htm

          1. Oh, Jebus! I just had to go to the root domain, didn’t I:
            http://www.pickapack.com/

  5. I’ve never wanted a GPS since the databases seem to be wrong much of the time. Here where I live, no one can find an address with a GPS. They always take you about 1/4 mile away or down a street that doesn’t exist. The whole town has had the problem for years and although it’s been reported by me an others to every database, no one seems to be interested in fixing it. Seems that no one wants to recompile the address/coordinate info and each time a new database comes out, it’s just a copy of the old one.

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