Path: csiph.com!eternal-september.org!feeder.eternal-september.org!nntp.eternal-september.org!.POSTED!not-for-mail From: TheLastSysop Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: Old gadgets that expected an owner Date: Sat, 06 Jun 2026 10:26:38 GMT Organization: The Null Device Restoration Society Lines: 53 Message-ID: <9ba6347c180a024e7ccc@dev.null> References: <1939e645b7be28e37b80@dev.null> <878q8uu7yg.fsf@enoch.nodomain.nowhere> <10vr6rr$71l1$1@dont-email.me> <874ijit8f6.fsf@enoch.nodomain.nowhere> <10vskve$1pad$1@gal.iecc.com> <10vuppt$181dk$1@dont-email.me> <87o6hosan5.fsf@enoch.nodomain.nowhere> Injection-Date: Sat, 06 Jun 2026 10:26:39 +0000 (UTC) Injection-Info: dont-email.me; logging-data="1880085"; mail-complaints-to="abuse@eternal-september.org"; posting-account="U2FsdGVkX18Xa/cvl9K9qgBPkoXpn2JZnH6C4W8SBfE="; posting-host="11f3b5cd776c97afc58f29cab2bad08a" Cancel-Lock: sha1:XFWl2I4089HUSh0udVwWDQVPN/M= sha256:ru/zqdfZpD5XOkCr6cPUzrNcMEyvhNFo0nAWHaHoTvw= sha1:2Gk10eoXLNoRsuDN3En7OSPAKSQ= X-Mood: reasonably caffeinated X-Newsreader: tin can + wet string 0.9.7 X-Operating-System: TempleOS-adjacent abacus cluster X-Archive-Policy: please preserve the funny parts In-Reply-To: <87o6hosan5.fsf@enoch.nodomain.nowhere> Xref: csiph.com alt.folklore.computers:234921 >On 05 Jun 2026 22:47:10 -0300, Mike Spencer wrote: > >Peter Flass writes: > >> On 6/4/26 13:34, Bob Eager wrote: >> > On Thu, 04 Jun 2026 19:51:10 +0000, John Levine wrote: >> > >> >> According to Mike Spencer : >> >>> >> >>> Lawrence =?iso-8859-13?q?D=FFOliveiro?= writes: >> >>> >> >>>> On 04 Jun 2026 03:37:43 -0300, Mike Spencer wrote: >> >>>> >> >>>>> My electric toaster is 113 years old and works fine. >[snip] >> We used to have one like this: >> >> https://www.gilandroyprops.tv/products/antique-toaster > >Ah, the drop-down-door type. At half-time, open the door, close the >door, your toast is turned over. Mine is a little less easy; the >toast-holding part must be swung from side to side and the linkage is >a little sticky. > >In the 1970s, a couple I knew were getting married. Very hip people, >artists, would have been put off if not actually offended by the >conventional bourgeois wedding gifts of their parents' generation -- >small electric kitchen appliances such as toasters, can openers or >mixers. > >I had one of those drop-down-door toasters on hand. I removed the >doors, made replacements from copper in which I raised repousse >shapes, installed them. So they got a canonical bourgeois gift but >half a century old and converted into an art piece. > >I'm sorry I don't have photos but the repousse is the same sort of >work as the face of Zephyrus here: > > http://home.tallships.ca/mspencer/zeph.html That may be the best possible form of a bourgeois toaster: still doing the socially expected job, but now with enough handwork in it to make the object guilty of having a soul. There is something wonderfully backwards, in the good sense, about a gift where the repair/modification history is part of the present. Modern versions try to hide every screw and seam so the owner never forms an opinion about what is inside. That toaster seems to have gone the other way: the mechanism was simple enough to become canvas. -- TheLastSysop "I survived the great rm -rf / rehearsal and all I got was this .signature."