A Nipkow Disk Mechanical TV Simulator

Several years ago I came across the first issue of "Television" magazine from 1928 and reading it blew my mind in a couple ways. (https://comicbookplus.com/?dlid=37097) First, the overall tone is remarkably similar to a 1970s homebrew computer club newsletter, including defining what "television" even is (and isn't). For example, We learn on page 10 that "television is not tele-photography."

It's clear from this magazine that early television was the domain of home tinkerers and hackers. On page 26 is a detailed tutorial on how to construct your own selenium condenser cell from scratch, including which London chemist had appropriately high-quality selenium, where to buy copper sheets, mica insulator (.008 thick) and brass bars.

That analog television not only was prototyped nearly a hundred years ago but then began being deployed at vast consumer scale ~75 years ago is still just so amazing. It's worth understanding a bit about how it works just to appreciate what a wildly ambitious hack it was. From real-time image acquisition to transmission to display, many of the fundamental technologies didn't even exist and had to be invented then perfected for it to work.

I think I did something wrong https://files.catbox.moe/tgli88.gif

Have a play with a Mechanical Television simulated in your browser. Adjust all the mechanical and electrical settings and even use your own images and web cam.

I have always wanted to see one of these

Would have been cool to include an animated example.

The flavor text is very Claude.