Happy Halloween!
We hope you have all been doing well! We have two upcoming events this week—two screenings of classic horror films!
Halloween Screening!
To celebrate this Halloween, tomorrow at 12pm we’ll be watching Vampyr by Carl Theodor Dreyer. 😈
As always with our screenings, come down to ATEC 1.705 to watch it with us!
Movie Screening of the Month
The first Thursday of each month, we screen a classic film from our laserdisc collection. This Thursday, at 7pm on November 2nd, we will be screening Mad Monster Party.
Demo of the Week
Our first demo of the week is KidPix Studio Deluxe, which will be run on the Tangerine iMac G3 SE!
This is an art program similar to Microsoft Paint. It was a staple of early 2000s school computers so some of you may actually remember messing around on this program. Whether you are familiar with it or not, it is an interesting experience, and we invite you to visit us and mess around with it.
We will also be running Apple — Getting Down to Basic on the Apple //c.
This is a beginner friendly introduction to one of the oldest families of programming languages, BASIC, which was originally designed in 1963. The branch of BASIC the Apple //c uses may be over 40 years old, but you will find many of the same programming concepts used today present in this archaic program.
Object of the Week
Our object of the week this week is the Oscilloscope.
An oscilloscope is an instrument that graphically displays voltage electrical signals and shows how those signals change over time. It measures these signals by connecting with a sensor, which is a device that creates an electrical signal in response to physical stimuli like sound, light, and heat. For instance, a microphone is a sensor that converts sound into an electrical signal. They are often used when designing, manufacturing, or repairing electronic equipment. Engineers use an oscilloscope to measure electrical phenomena and solve measurement challenges quickly and accurately to verify their designs or confirm that a sensor is working properly.
Here at the lab, we use older CRT versions of the devices to display music in ways not often seen before. Oscilloscope Music is audiovisual music, where the visuals are drawn by the sound. In order to get the closest possible correlation between image and sound, the exact same signal that is connected to the left and right speakers is also connected to an analog oscilloscope’s X and Y inputs, producing complex Lissajous images. For the past 10 years, Jerobeam Fenderson and Hansi3D have been creating Oscilloscope Music and techniques in the largely uncharted field of audiovisual music. You can find more about Oscilloscope Music here.
If you’re interested in the Oscilloscope in particular, come to the lab and ask for Kyle. Several of our researchers also generally know how to turn it on and focus it, so if you simply want it on, feel free to ask!
Lab Hours and Room Number
We are located in ATEC 1.705, right next to ATEC’s welcome center. Our open lab hours are:
Tuesday: 10:00am-5:00pm
Wednesday: 2:00pm-6:00pm
Thursday: 10:00am-4:00pm
Thank you for reading our newsletter! We wish you a happy Halloween as well as some scary good luck with your exams! 😊
Sincerely,
The Media Archeology Lab
The University of Texas at Dallas
