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The Ampex Sign Is Coming Down (fastcompany.com)
harrymcc writes: If you ever watched anything on videotape, you have Silicon Valley pioneer Ampex -- which invented the technology -- to thank. And for years, the company's vintage sign has stood alongside Highway 101 as a tribute to its historical significance. But Stanford University, which owns the land the sign sits on, is in the process of dismantling it -- an act which Redwood City could have prevented but didn't. I wrote about this dismaying example of cultural shortsightedness at Fast Company.
People don't care what other people care about.
is a vast overestimate of the sign's importance. It's nothing more than a bloody advertisement, and we need fewer ads in our life, not more.
How about some road or other where we put up giant advertising signs of (significant but) dead companies?
AMPEX next to d|i|g|i|t|a|l next to [||] DRI next to /|\ ATARI next to C= next to ...
About 25 years ago, I worked for a radio station as a sound engineer. They used open-reel tape decks as their main recording medium, and we had loads of Ampex 456 reels in use.
Now most tape manufacturers sold their tape on plastic reels. Ampex however used reels with aluminium flanges. Because we were always in a hurry when doing live radio, we engineers had the habit of braking the reels by hand when rewinding them. When doing that on a plastic spool, the worst that could happen was overheated fingers from the friction. On the Ampex reels however you had to beware of the 3 large holes in the flange; if you caught one of those, the aluminium would cut right through your fingers.
They'll get round to using it again one day. Just like all those VHS tapes in my cupboard!
Does the term "landmark" mean anything to you clods? I worked for an Ampex spinoff (Accom) back in the late 90s, so of course the sign means something to me. Millennials!
It'll be great for a coffee table book 20 years from now.
(... assuming anyone still publishes books anymore.)
Harry, why don't you get the shitty advertising sign and put it up in your back yard if you love it so much? Literally no-one gives a shit about this sign except you.
Some symbol of capitalism is coming down! Oh no! What a blow to Western culture! My tears may never cease. How short-sighted we are!
Optical sensing has advanced greatly but professional camera lens technology has not. If you really look at some of the great images taken by Ansel Adams you see the levels of resolution he used to create his photographic art, digital up until now has paled in comparison.
In the same vein, some of the great recordings done in the in the late 1950 and early 1960 by DGG, Columbia Master Works and Phillips optical audio to film tape you see the same quality of detailed sound that is only starting to become possible now with digital recording.
The combination of great analogue tech that is not stagnant with digital is the way forward. For instance advanced large size reflex ribbon mics with miniature electronics are just starting to happen and become affordable for the pro as are large size high density and sensitivity ccd based cameras that can take large lenses and produce close to what Ansel Adams did. Ansel was certainly not alone and owed a dept to some of the great photographers that showed the way some of whom were American. Here we can clearly see that fine grained analogue photography was starting to make leaps and bounds until the first world war really screwed up things for a while. France, England, Germany started to take the technology and keep it secretly in the military. The same bullshit happened during the second world war and during the cold war. Both advanced miniaturized audio recording technology and miniaturized high resolution camera technology has if anything been held back by war.
The great analogue technologies which ampex helped introduce to the public, essentially during times of peace, are very important and the sign is a reminder of this fact. It should stay or at least not fade into the dust of what we perceive as progress! If the young of today and our antecedents cannot learn from the past then American society is doomed.
This message was not sent from an iPhone because Peter Sellers really was a deviated prevert without a dime for the call
of Silicone Valley from far, far away.... I had no idea this was there or even a big deal.
While we're at it, can we take the blog that styles itself as a relevant media outlet called "Fast Company"? (I was surprised that thing survived the dotcom implosion - haven't heard anything from it in 15 years.)
The future should not be held hostage by the past. Otherwise we become Italy.
E Proelio Veritas.
This is just an ad to make us go to his website.
good point. people don't care about your hosts file spam either.
If you like the view, buy the view.
If you liked how the sign looked, you should have bought it and maintained it. If it's as important as you say it is, I'm sure you could have put a save the Ampex sign campaign together to collect a moderate sum from like minded parties and bought it.
Reminds me of neighbours that bitch their view has been spoiled when the city sells unused land for a condo development. If you liked that view, why didn't YOU buy it FIRST? Oh, couldn't afford it? That's life. You can't even argue a view is an essential human right/necessity.
Not to seem snide but since I don't live there and have never even heard of the company, please explain to me why I (or anyone else) should care about some random bit of signage for a company just because it's been there a long time. I looked up some pictures and whatever significance this thing has to locals is utterly lost on me. It looks like a typical boring and wasteful company sign. Is this another example of people on the coasts thinking what happens in their city is somehow special and important even to people who don't live there? (NYC is notorious for this...)
Now that you pointed it out, all of Jellomizer's posts are really annoying to read.
Jellomizer:
A comma is used when you have a complete sentence and add a few additional words the clarify the sentence (but not completely change the meaning). The "few additional words" can't be a sentence on their own. Those two parts are called the "independent clause" (independent sentence) and the "dependent clause" (added words).
If the two parts are each complete sentences you separate them with a period. Occasionally you can use a semicolon when grammatically they could be separate but you want to put them together.
For example only one of commas should be there
--
The Ampex sign, is a local landmark. While Ampex may had done some important innovation, I wouldn't deem it historic, worthy of presentation. Landmarks change. The blue barn was just painted red, The sports stadium had changed sponsors. Just because something is well known or had done important things, doesn't mean it needs to be preserved for prosperity.
--
"The Ampex sign is a local landmark."
Not
"The Ampex sign, is a local landmark."
That's because neither "the Ampex sign" nor "is a local landmark" is a sentence.
"change. The blue barn was just painted red, The sports stadium had changed sponsors."
Two separate sentences. Use a period. The parallel structure here indicates this might be intended to be basically a short poem so a semicolon could be used to separate the two "lines" of the poem.
"While Ampex may had done some important innovation, I wouldn't deem it historic, worthy of presentation."
Here is the one place a comma makes sense. "While Ampex may had done some important innovation, I wouldn't deem it historic" is a complete sentence. Adding "worthy of presentation" enhances the meaning so it should be separated by a comma.
One should not forget that Ampex got the idea from the Germans, when the US Army came across them using magnetic tape recording, albeit in a less developed state. This was passed on to Ampex, who then improved it a lot to the point of being used as a standard for recording in the TV industry for many years.
"He who forgets history is destined to repeat it". Otherwise we become every country and person that ever existed.
Re-use the letters for something else.
Should be in all caps, but in order not to be chastised for shouting:
exam
ape
pea
map
max
Pam
axe
amp
I live in flyover country now and people here are if anything more obsessed with propping up obsolete historical or otherwise noteable knickknacks.
Perhaps but they don't waste the time of a bunch of people posting stories about local news on a globally read website. While I'm sure slashdot has a fair number of bay area readers, I'm comfortable stating that almost everyone here has never heard of the sign or probably the company. I cannot imagine why the slashdot editors thought this would be of general interest to slashdot readers...
AMPEX was IBM before IBM. IBM was Apple before Apple. Sad to see greatness fade, but capitalists have poor memories.
If we consistently, willingly forget where we have been and thus forget how we got here, that makes it more difficult to remember where we are going and why, which makes it more difficult to get there.
This explains a lot about the state of society, politics, and economics in the United States today.
Can't they just give it to one of the many sign museums?
$5 / month hosted VPS on linux = awesome!
Who cares? Are we supposed to hold on to everything, forever, because it tickles some neurons of your memory from 40 years ago? Again, WTF cares? They're dead, not relevant, didn't mean shit, didn't do shit, good riddance. What are we gonna do next, reminisce at all those CBS outdoor billboards next? Ooooohhh, there's another one! Remember when it had the advert for Captain Morgan on it last year? Sigh... those were the days. :(
But if you were more than 12 years old, you'd understand why people believe that their contribution to technological history deserves to be remembered.
WTF does that have to do with the stupid sign? If their contributions to technology were significant then they will stand on their own merits. We don't need a billboard to remind us of that fact long after the company has faded from relevance and memory. There are better ways to remind ourselves of our heritage than preserving irrelevant street signs.
I recall many years ago (I think early 70s) listening to a radio program that announced that the richest actor in Hollywood turned out to be Fred MacMurray. The reason was that he was an early investor in Ampex.
However looking now (wikipedia, etc) I see no mention of this. Can anyone here say if that is true or if I just mis-remembered it somehow?
"I resisted the temptation to chain myself to the baseâ"I wish Iâ(TM)d thought to bring the necessary equipmentâ"but did pay my respects and take some photos."
ROFL at the lunacy.
A university in Toronto tore down the historic Sam The Record Man building, and promised to reinstall its beloved sign elsewhere. It took them 8 years, but they finally installed it over a major public square.
Does it make you happy you're so strange?
But if you were more than 12 years old, you'd understand why people believe that their contribution to technological history deserves to be remembered.
WTF does that have to do with the stupid sign? If their contributions to technology were significant then they will stand on their own merits. We don't need a billboard to remind us of that fact long after the company has faded from relevance and memory. There are better ways to remind ourselves of our heritage than preserving irrelevant street signs.
Name 3.
Up here in LA, where the 101 runs through City of Industry, Tascam had an office and repair center with an enormous sign you could see from the fwy. Several years ago it was changed to advertise a cleaning supply company (while keeping the same shape). Obv reflecting the new tenants of the bldg. Closer to my house is a run-down sign next to a strip mall for a bank that hasn't been there for 20+ yrs. I hope it stays up forever.
For you youngsters wondering "What is Ampex?", here's a "folksy" history of the early days of the company.