Real Names of Disc Jockeys and other tales...

[Linc Reed-Nickerson]

At WKIP in Poughkeepsie there was Johnny Walker, I. W. Harper, and other 
alcohol based names. even Bill Booze on the weekends (Ed Wroblewski), 
"Music and News with Bill Booze."  I thought the name was funny until I 
met a man who really is Bill Boos.  The fellow at WKIP got fired for 
playing sound effects during the religious transcriptions...  yes, they 
really were 16" diameter E T's.  When E T meant electrical Transcription.

On another of topic, I dropped into our local theater tonight to witness 
the new video projector....  I was a projectionist back in the days of 
Carbon Arcs and Reel Changes, I even worked in one booth that still had 
a turntable run by a shaft and flexible couplings from the days when 
sound was on 16" E.T's.  The first time I was in a booth with Dolby CD's 
synced to the time code on the film I marveled at how we had come full 
circle.

One of my high school science fair projects (1962) was "Video Disc 
Recording."  I didn't win, it was considered impracticable if not 
impossible, and no one could see a use for such a device.   I built a 
crude very low resolution system using an old record lathe arm to move 
the magnetic head across the spinning media.  I got media in sheet form 
from 3M,  it would run backwards, and sort of freeze frame if I got 
lucky.....  it did spend a lot of time out-of-lock and would tear up 
media.  Less than a decade later I was operating an Ampex Slo-Mo device 
that was very similar, damn I wish I had known about intellectual 
property back then.

Another idea, a moving map display for your car, but my version would 
have required marker transmitters every 10th of a mile or so.... That 
idea was even earlier, I'd guess about 1956 or 7.  That never went 
beyond some crude drawings in my notebook when I should have been doing 
schoolwork.  No matter, it is great to see your dreams turn into realities.

I wax nostalgic ;-)