back to article Building a better society from the Czechs' version of Meccano

To move a little off the normal sort of subject around here, something from an exhibition just around the corner here in Usti nad Labem in the Czech Republic. The lads I hang out with here are 40ish professionals and they were terribly excited about an exhibition being put on of “Merkur”. They had to explain it to me a couple …

  1. Harry the Bastard

    the mere sight of the caterpillar tracks makes me want to buy that set

    i would need to add radio control

    and lasers

    1. Steve Davies 3 Silver badge
      Coat

      Plus.

      an 8.8mm Canon to shoot down all those pesky new fangled drones.

      Mine's the one with some 'Bayko' building blocks in the pocket. (plus a box of elastoplasts)

      1. David 132 Silver badge
        Coat

        Re: Plus.

        > an 8.8mm Canon to shoot down all those pesky new fangled drones.

        An ore-mining machine with a very tiny clergyman? I am intrigued by your ideas and wish to subscribe to your newsletter.

        The fact that I don't have this kit makes my deacon blue.

      2. The Indomitable Gall

        @Steve Davies 3

        " an 8.8mm Canon "

        I prefer 35mm Canons, but I'll settle for a micro-four-thirds digital model.

      3. Nigel 11

        Re: Plus.

        Mine's the one with some 'Bayko' building blocks in the pocket.

        Yes, I remember Bayko. A product that had the reverse influence on young architects, to that of Meccano on young engineers. They grew up, and started building with factory-manufactured brick- and tile-patterned panels, held together with steel bars, instead of real bricks and tiles. And within a few decades we are tearing down these horrid mouldering and disintegrating constructions, built of materials with no track record and as we now know, no staying power.

        Please, somebody tell me that the Commies invented Bayko, in a half-successful attempt to cause the home of capitalism to sabotage its own future. I suspect it was an own goal, though.

        PS anyone remember Architex? Same comments apply, with respect to system-built tower blocks.

    2. This post has been deleted by its author

      1. Roland6 Silver badge

        Re; To make a wi-fi enabled laser printer?

        Depends upon the size of canvas - can't see a traditional printer being fit for purpose if you are doing a custom print job on a football pitch...

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: Re; To make a wi-fi enabled laser printer?

          "Depends upon the size of canvas [...]"

          Stained glass artists with a big window project need something like that to lay out their final full-size drawing accurately. They then peg the lead mouldings along the lines. Basically it's a Logo "turtle".

    3. Yet Another Anonymous coward Silver badge

      That's not a mining machine

      ... this is a mining machine.

      It's designed for the capitalist alternative system - which is dig up coal to dig up steel to make BMWs and then lend people the money to buy them and then bailout the banks when the people didn't pay the loans back.

      An alternate theory is that the Germans have learned from their mistakes and next time they invade a country they intend to dig it up and take it back with them.

      Another sillier theory is that they are strip mining the low quality lignite from half the country to burn to make electricity so they can close all their nuclear power stations to keep the Greens happy - but nobody believes that.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: That's not a mining machine

        I've seen that beast and it is truly huge. We were able to get pretty close to the edge of the surface and watch the huge buckets simply rip up lumps of earth in car sized chunks.

        Luckily, after they gouge huge holes in the planet, they simply backfill with unicorn poo and Gaia is happy once again. Well that was the take-away message from the visitor centre.

        Cheers

        Jon

      2. Lars Silver badge
        Happy

        Re: That's not a mining machine

        @ Yet Another Anonymous coward, slight memory problem there, yes, Yet Another Anonymous coward.

        While I assume you are not responsible for what ever happened in the past don't ask anybody else to feel different, that would be dumb, rather try to understand the presence.

  2. Tim Worstal

    Just to add one

    A bloke has actually built a 1,200 kg version of Jules Verne's "Iron City" out of the stuff. At the factory museum these days:

    http://www.merkurpolice.cz/ocelove-mesto-rok-2000-az-2010#lightbox

    1. Destroy All Monsters Silver badge
      Devil

      Re: Just to add one

      Isn't that "Stahlstadt" (Steel City)?

      I feel a righteous germanic desire of wanting to suppress and mercilessly exploit the freedom-and-beauty-loving elvesfrench next door, they and their effete France-Ville.

      1. Tim Worstal

        Re: Just to add one

        Probably, my Czech's not very good and I was working from spoken (translated) conversations. So, steel and iron could well have got mixed up. And probably have actually. That URL is oce-something and iron is zelezno (or summat similar in all slavics).

  3. Tim Worstal

    And....

    Video here:

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yIgngTXg4JE

    Couldn't use that in the piece of course as the copyrights aren't ours.

    1. Mark 85

      Re: And....

      So "fair use" doesn't apply over there? Hmmm.... all the IP swapping/stealing/borrowing and for a bit of free publicity you couldn't link to it in the article? Strange civilization we live in these days.

      1. Mage Silver badge

        Re: And....

        Worstal isn't American.

        They still are not properly paying performance royalties on radio.

        1887: Dry battery in Europe.

        1898: An English man registers patent in US for same design and sells it to founder of US Eveready.

        US Patent office still just issues stuff, their system seems to be to contest it later in court.

        Apple Inc: Copy logo and name from Beatles Apple Corp. Taken to court twice. iPad and iPhone names already in use by Fujitsu and Cisco.

        1. Dave 126 Silver badge

          Re: And....

          Trademarks are held in different categories - Apple Computers weren't in the same business as the Beatles' Apple Corp for many years. Once they were, courts were used to come to a settlement everyone was happy with. Nintendo didn't start with video games, Nokia didn't start with phones- it is not always clear what areas a company will work within at their outset.

          You forgot the iPod name - first filed in the early nineties, later used for Internet kiosks.

          1. J.G.Harston Silver badge

            Re: And....

            Vax and Vax had to come to an agreement that Vax wouldn't manufacture vacuum cleaners and Vax wouldn't manufacture computers.

      2. Voland's right hand Silver badge

        Re: And....

        So "fair use" doesn't apply over there? Hmmm.... all the IP swapping/stealing/borrowing

        What fecking IP stealing borrowing? Meccano as a concept (and its Czech, German, Russian, etc analogues is older than any terms allowed by normal patents, design patents and copyright. It is more than 100 years old. In any case, quite a lot of it is is basic metalworking and engineering and that pre-dates meccano by centuries.

        By the way - that towel and paper are ~ 50-es or thereabouts. In those days the towels on both sides of the iron curtain were not disposable and did not have wings just yet. Especially during the post-war economic slump. Ask your grandma if you do not believe me (if you have a grandma that is old enough to have needed one during the post-war decade).

        Also, if memory serves me right Usti Nad Ladem was German till 1945 and were they "kicked out" or "it was taken from them by force" is something where the opinions may vary. Depends which side of the border you ask the question. It is a very nice area. Beautiful scenery (dunno about mines, have not seen any), clean air, mineral water in nearly every town.

        1. Tim Worstal

          Re: And....

          "By the way - that towel and paper are ~ 50-es or thereabouts."

          The 39 year old Czech guy I went around the exhib with (and who took the photos) clearly remembers both from his own childhood. On that mental list of "if you see these things, buy them" on the grounds that you never knew when you would be able to buy them.

          And that they were also made in the 50s is rather the point. There wasn't much development of such consumer goods from the 50s through to the 80s.

          BTW, the towel packet actually has "1988" written on it. But I don't know whether that is the year or not.

          "Also, if memory serves me right Usti Nad Ladem was German till 1945 and were they "kicked out" or "it was taken from them by force" is something where the opinions may vary. Depends which side of the border you ask the question. It is a very nice area. Beautiful scenery (dunno about mines, have not seen any), clean air, mineral water in nearly every town."

          It is all rather complex as you say. German name is "Aussig" and I've seen a road sign or two on the German side of the border with that even today. And the city was largely (possibly even majority) German before 1945. And part of the Sudetenland that Hitler took in 1938. Before that part of the first republic of Czechoslovakia.

          Kicked out and force, well, definitely force was used. The various populations of this area were violently moved around in 1945 and following. Germany extend a couple of hundred miles further into Poland than it does now, Poland same into Ukraine than it does now. All shifted westward....but not just the borders. Ethnic Poles were kicked out ("forced") of Ukraine and dumped in Poland, the Ukrainian population of Poland vice versa. Germans in Poland (and the Baltics, and here) all shifted into Germany. A very bloody time and one of the largest mass movements of populations ever by some accounts.

          Dresden, 30 minutes up the road, copped it badly in the closing days of the war, as we all know. Here, there wasn't really any fighting or bombing during the war. The violence was mostly in 1938 and 1945 and 6 (excepting the Holocaust of course, Terezin (Theresienstadt) is only 15 minutes away).

        2. Tim Worstal

          Re: And....

          Sorry, should have added about the mines. The mountains that are today's border are the "Ore Mountains", Erzgebirge or Krusny Hory, dependent upon language. Continental Europe's major sources of tin (as Cornwall was for us) for near a millennium and then later of tungsten. This is actually where the Germanic name for tungsten, comes from, "wolfram". The ore is a mixed cassiterite/wolframite/scheelite, depends upon the mine. Different proportions around the place. And when you process such a mixed ore the tungsten takes a significant portion of the tin with it: it's the wolf that eats the tin.

          And I'm here because the five historic mines in the area have some of the highest scandium levels of such ores. And the building I'm sitting in right now is where people first worked out how to extract the Sc from the wastes of the tungsten processing....

  4. This post has been deleted by its author

    1. slack

      I'm glad I'm not the only one who saw the plotter and immediately thought: WANT!!!

  5. This post has been deleted by its author

    1. Tim Worstal

      Don't tell the subs

      They'll all want one for Christmas

  6. Zog_but_not_the_first
    Thumb Up

    Excellent

    That was brilliant. Thanks Tim

  7. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    "an 8.8mm Canon to shoot down all those pesky new fangled drones"

    Wouldn't an 8.8mm Canon shoot pics of all those pesky new fangled drones?

    Wonder if anyone has ever built a remote controlled A-10; now that's a cannon ..

  8. PhilipN Silver badge

    Thanks

    Good article.

    And thanks (not!) for the reminder for Izal toilet tissue which needless to say handled very well as tracing paper but not (along with Jeyes) for its intended use.

    Those who remember the gruesome nature of the article will readily understand how it might have sustained a Four Yorkshireman sketch all of its own. "Kleenex?? - Luxury!"

    1. Tim Worstal

      Re: Thanks

      Showing my age here but there was a lovely Ruby Wax stand up joke where she plays the newly arrived American and asks, well, what is it with this British toilet paper? It just moves the moisture from side to side! Well (rubs her thighs together) I can do that myself!

    2. Sarah Balfour

      Re: Thanks

      Izal - or Jeyes - was the only bog roll my great-grandad - my dad's maternal grandad - would use and, when he went to live with my grandparents, my granny would buy nowt else, which necessitated us having a box of tissues handy at all times when we visited.

      It's a horrible thing to say - and I'm ashamed of myself for even thinking it - but I was almost glad when he went!

      I also recall having Izal at school - the nuns obviously wanted us to be eternally thankful that we'd been permitted bog roll at all. Cheers, Tim, for bringing back long-buried painful memories. Building's still there, but the school itself closed about 15 years ago.

      Well, /most/ of it…

    3. Pedigree-Pete

      Anyone for Skiffle...

      Izal also has a fun use when combined with a plastic comb. Try it, if you can still find any. (wrap the comb in a sheet, place on slightly open mouth & blow).

  9. Salamander

    I remember that medicated Izal toilet paper

    It was one of the banes of my existence when I was at school, along with the bastard rugby teachers who believed that the school existed solely for their pathetic rugby team fantasies.

    I had better stop thinking about my school days.

    1. Paul Crawford Silver badge

      Re: I remember that medicated Izal toilet paper

      You have to add those moulded plastic seats that made everyone's arse sweaty and uncomfortable even up in less-than-tropical Scotland.

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: I remember that medicated Izal toilet paper

      We had toilet paper that gave you something to read while you were sitting there. However the text was often continued on a non-contiguous sheet - or had a hole through it.

  10. Chris Holford
    Boffin

    IT content!

    ISTR seeing a tide-predicting analogue computer made from Meccano.

    1. BoldMan

      Re: IT content!

      Analogue computers were regularly (and still are) built from Meccano. Barnes Wallis built one to help solve some of the equations for the Bouncing Bomb and other problems.

  11. Sgt_Oddball

    Ugh hated that medicated loo roll (single sheets too what was with that?) thankfully it was only when I was in primary school. Secondary scschool(s) had proper single ply. Still crap but at least it didn't smear it all over instead.

    I still to this day want to know just what the hell they where medicated for?

    1. hplasm
      Alert

      "I still to this day want to know just what the hell they where medicated for?"

      To prevent mould from the damp seats growing in the raw arse-scratches the crinkled shiny loo-paper would inflict...

      1. graeme leggett Silver badge

        Re: "I still to this day want to know just what the hell they where medicated for?"

        Or protect you from whatever grew on, or in, those bits of wood bolted to the ceramic rim in lieu (see what I did there?) of a proper lifting seat.

  12. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Had the pleasure of working with Russians trained in tne 80s

    A couple of years back. Their formative years in computing consisted of local knock offs of the ZX Spectrum, which they'd bought in kit form. Clever guys, with that great Russian sense of humour ("We've never met anyone who claimed to vote for Putin"). The Soviet system produced some clever, resourceful people but, as Tim says, rubbish at consumer goods (and they still are rubbish at consumer goods).

    1. Tim Worstal

      Re: Had the pleasure of working with Russians trained in tne 80s

      I was actually working with such guys in 1990 and onwards in Moscow.....we ported "Another World" over from DOS to Windows. Everyone thought it couldn't be done but people who could make rocket systems work on those ZX knockoffs were able to handle the code.

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Had the pleasure of working with Russians trained in tne 80s

      You are right about Russian resourcefulness. There was a great documentary a few years ago about the influence of the Beatles behind the Iron Curtain.

      Russian teenagers, like everyone else at the time, wanted a piece of this new sound but obviously couldn't get hold of electric guitars. It was easy enough to make the wooden bit, but they were stuck for the pickup coils until somebody realised that telephones had them. Within days, every public phone box in town was mysteriously non-functional.

      With that problem solved, of course next you need an amplifier and speaker. Luckily, the Soviet government had thoughtfully installed public address systems at every major intersection so that they could keep the local populace updated on the latest tractor production figures and also provide a bit of uplifting patriotic music to keep everyone's spirits up.

      You can see where this is going really...

    3. Solmyr ibn Wali Barad

      Re: Had the pleasure of working with Russians trained in tne 80s

      "The Soviet system produced some clever, resourceful people"

      It's hardly the Soviet system as such, but rather an eternal deficit of, well, everything. Rough times make people creative. And in Russia, there has never been a time that was not rough on the people.

      Although an education system that was heavily biased towards industrial skills certainly played a part.

  13. wx666z
    Thumb Up

    Excellent!

    Thanks! Excellent article, reminded me of the good times with an Erector Set. if you have not watched the YouTube video yet, I recommend it highly. Not only for the Merkur display, which is impressive, there are model trains as well! So good, I read the article twice and watched the video twice.

  14. Mike 16

    The I.T. Angle

    Tim Robinson's Meccano Computing Machinery website:

    http://www.meccano.us/

  15. martinusher Silver badge

    Bits of metal with holes in it....

    ..isn't really IP in the 21st century because its been around for 100+ years. But its the modern thing -- the notion that you can possess an idea and somehow milk it for not just 21 years but literally for ever.

    Currently the holes-in-metal thing is part of the Vex robotics kit. The manufacturers of this kit are smart enough to make sure that its not compatible with Meccano or Erector (hole spacing) and their competition rules state that literally everything has to be bought from them ( at inflated prices, of course).

    One interesting use for Meccano is Tim Robinson's model of the Babbage difference engine. (Try building something like that with Lego.....)

    1. SteveastroUk

      Re: Bits of metal with holes in it....

      You sure ? I thought Vex used 12.7mm spacing, just like Meccano

  16. JaitcH
    Happy

    Memories of Meccano

    Christmas was Meccano upgrade time, in my youth, when you hoped that you would get a big enough set to make the impossible come true.

    Decades later Meccano has new uses such as mechanical prototypes but it's getting harder to find out here in Indochina.

    The Chinese are making one, out of plastic, which is still great for prototypes except it has little strength. Still, it's rewarding that today's e-generation still has a fascination and will lay down all their electronic goodies to get 'back to basics'.

  17. Solmyr ibn Wali Barad

    Re: standard economic joke about Soviet-style socialism

    "it was a system to dig up the coal and ore to make steel out of which to build the machines to dig up coal and ore for steel."

    That's the nicer one. Another standard joke was "steal a crate of vodka, sell it, and spend the money on getting drunk".

  18. Wemb

    Metal with holes in porn...

    Taking this back to the IT side, for fans of metal strips with holes in, might enjoy this implementation of the difference engine... Impressive stuff.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KL_wy-CxBP8

    1. Peter Simpson 1
      Holmes

      Re: Metal with holes in porn...

      I've seen the real one in operation at the Computer History Museum in California.

      The best part is, it's got a bloody big crank on one end, and while the boffin comes out to explain what's going on, from the other side, a weightlifter type guy comes out and applies himself to the crank to make it all go.

      Oh... and I'll see your Difference Engine, and raise you a Meccano Differential Analyzer:

      http://www.marshall.edu/pressrelease.asp?ID=1636

      Video:

      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NmX151Jd3_o

      1. Mike 16

        Re: Metal with holes in porn...

        BTW: The Tim Robinson Difference engine is described in detail at the link I gave. And it has also been at the Computer History Museum. Several times. Along with his other machines.

        As for "Weightlifters", AFAIK, non of the DE operators lift weights regularly (Tim Robinson is one of them, BTW.).That's why there's a 4:1 reduction gear on that crank. Either Babbage slipped a decimal point in calculating the effort required, or he was expecting to go down to the docks and hire a couople of those Navvies who stroll off the ships with a hogshead on each shoulder. Well, really, the trick, at least with the reduction gear, is not making it trun at all, but making it turn at a steady speed despite varying load (both timng dependent and to a lesser extent problem dependent. No, I don't lift weights.

        1. Peter Simpson 1
          Holmes

          Re: Metal with holes in porn...

          I should have been clearer in my previous post. When I said "real", I was referring to the Science Museum reconstruction of the Babbage machine. There were two built, the one built for Nathan Mhyrvold is on loan to the Computer History Museum.

          The gentleman turning the crank on that machine was, if not a weightlifter, in very good shape, and exerting a good amount of effort.

          I have done some reading, and it seems that the Missouri Meccano Differential Analyzer to which I linked was built under the guidance of Mr. Robinson. He appears to be the go-to man for mathematical mechanisms in Meccano :-)

          1. Mike 16

            Re: Metal with holes in porn...

            Meh. It only looks hard, physically. The real stress is thinking "If I screw up and over-or-under-speed,

            I could break something that cost more than my house".

            Tim is definitely "that guy", and a heck of a nice person, too.

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