Angst Lesspork

[Hugh Norwood]

Just had my first look at Angst - can't imagine how I missed a layout with such a name! Where did it come from?

A great combination of imagination, nice modelling (I especially like your structures) and a good sense of fun. The harbour/river has some nice views. Who said all modelling must be serious?

Many thanks for your comments, Ted.
Angst-Lesspork is a play on "Ankh-Morpork", greatest city on the plains on the Discworld, a fantasy location created by Terry Pratchett. See http://www.terrypratchett.co.uk/ for instance.

And yes, it is twinned with Wincanton!

Best wishes

[Hugh Norwood]

I have been toying with the semaphore idea and after some research (including reading Pavanne by Keith Roberts - thanks, Jim) I have built a light box with 6 LEDs and have drafted a design for a light-semaphore tower.

I have also drafted a two-arm semaphore pole to scale. I must say I prefer the arm idea, but I don't think I can get it to work in 4mm scale.

Why six lights? well there was a six-paddle semaphore system so there is a precedence, and you get 64 combinations of on-off, so that's ample for numbers, letters and other characters.

Here's a diagram (Don't know if it will be done by Shepton, however)

[Darren Hedges]

I like the idea of the light tower, just a couple of questions though.

In the dark how will the next tower in the chain tell which lights are lit and which are not?

Wouldn't it be hard to tell, for example, whether it's left, middle or right is lit, or for that matter, top or bottom? or will there allways be two or more lamps lit? Maybe a couple of coloured marker lamps either side for orientaion purposes? Unless the lamps were spaced far enough apart wouldn't they just blur into one at a distance?

Of course, if the operator is watching the tower through a sutaible telescope that might not be a problem.

Darren.

[Hugh Norwood]

Yup, I've been thinking about that. There's enough redundancy in the system to have at least one of the (say) left-most lights "on" for each character - it cuts the number of combinations. Another option is as you say for a pilot light.

As to how do you see the lights - you use a telescope of course; the towers would be just under the limit distance for a given telescope. Bigger distances would have bigger lights. All that would be hammered out between the engineers and the accountants!

I think 6 is probably the limit for the number of lights (or paddles); any more would make it difficult to "read" each combination fast enough and accurately enough for the system to work (I think the 4x4 matrix used in Sky's "Going Postal" was a bit over the top - even now the Internet still only uses 8-bit (equates to 2x4) and that's computers. [OK OK it's often 7bit plus parity]

[Graeme Dunbar]

A fascinating problem! From a modelling point of view, perhaps making patterns that are easily recognised than going for code efficiency might add a level of interest. It would need some electronics to display messages, but I can imagine a sheet showing the cipher and a challenge to read the message(s).

The image of the dots on a die (as in dice) and also the "pig pen" or Masonic  cipher popped into my head:
http://www.dummies.com/how-to/content/easy-masonic-ciphers-to-figure-out.html


Going off into flights of fancy, I wonder if the shapes on a 3 x 3 LED square would be sufficiently recognizable? I've doodled a number of them. Rather than the dots in the "pig pen" shapes |_ (4 rotations), |_| (4 rotations), I've used the shapes T, H, V, X, +, Y and triangles in their various rotations. Hmm, it would make an interesting project for an Arduino microcontroller......  :)

[tedp]

As a former professional sailor and a present leisure sailor, I would say the light pattern on a LED semaphore is recognisable provided you use separate LEDs on a rig of adequate dimensions, like present-day harbour semaphores. There are various examples in Channel ports. These use coloured and white lights, but the positions can be made out provided they are far enough apart. I'm afraid on the rig you sketched the lights are too close together.

[Graeme Dunbar]

Valid reasons for using a compact lamp display in this situation could be found. This clacks tower is down by the harbour and might be a "local exchange" relaying messages to the financial and commercial districts a few hundred metres away, giving the latest ship and cargo arrivals, I imagine.

I anticipate there would be a trade-off between transmission speed * and distance with large arrays being used for long distance transmission at the cost of heavier and stiffer operating mechanisms.

(* no doubt called the "board rate" - a pun that only works if you are English. As Daphne in 'Frazier' said: "being English I never know what to do with my R's"  ;D )

[tedp]

I suppose board rate doesn't work for Scots seeing it only works if you're English?  ;D

Anyway there's boards and boards. And board rates.  ::)

As to local message exchange, perhaps a pigeon might work better. Or a boy on a bicycle!

[Hugh Norwood]

Baud rate comes of course from Baudot (E(acute)mile) the French Telegraph engineer - look him up on Wikipedia.

Sad as it may seem, I used to be able to read some of the codes on teletype 8-column paper tape. Back when I worked in Cosmic Ray research a lot of our data was put on punched tape, and a quick eye-ball of the tape was useful in looking for problems.

[Graeme Dunbar]

I have visions of the contraption being operated like a carrilon with multiple keys being pressed together as on a stenograph. Probably using fists, forearms and feet.

My "researchers" are investigating coding schemes.

:laugh:

[tedp]

Ah, it was baud rate you meant. Well that's phonetically nearly similar to board rate. Board rate I recognise, baud rate as well, but not the connection. Pulling my leg and caught me out, you so-and-so!  :P  I should have known, having been in IT for many years!  ;D

[Graeme Dunbar]

Ah, it was baud rate you meant. Well that's phonetically nearly similar to board rate. Board rate I recognise, baud rate as well, but not the connection. Pulling my leg and caught me out, you so-and-so!  :P  I should have known, having been in IT for many years!  ;D

I realized I'd gone off at a tangent into flights of fancy and also referred to the display as an array rather than a board as I intended to.  :D

I was watching the tail lights of the cars this evening to see how far away I could resolve them!  I've just found values for optical resolution for the human eye ranging from 0.7 to 2 arc-seconds. Given the somewhat unique physics of Discworld I reckon the clacks tower could be seen from quite some distance.

[Hugh Norwood]

I was watching the tail lights of the cars this evening to see how far away I could resolve them! 

What a good excuse! I'll have to remember that one if I'm ever pulled over by the Boys in Blue!

[tedp]

Try watching an array of lights, each a few metres apart, at a distance of a few miles, through binoculars, against a background of other shore illumination. To begin with you won't even know what to look at, let alone decypher the actual 'aspect' shown by the array.  ;D

[Graeme Dunbar]

Ted,
I appreciate the impracticalities of such a system, but you are applying a rigorousness that is often not found on layouts purporting to be inspired by real locations. The inspiration for Hugh's layout is a fantasy flat world set on the back of a space-faring turtle with a sun that goes round it and light that can be dammed like water!

Back to justifying the unjustifiable  ;) The towers are fixed (transmission is between towers, they do not broadcast), buildings other than the university are not tall and the main source of (non-magical) light would appear to be dribbly candles. Possibly a "viewing tube" pointing in the right direction to the next tower, to cut out stray light, without any optics, would be more than adequate. A more urgent problem in the city would be lack of range due to fog from thousands of domestic fires. Down by the river I wouldn't be surprised if the smell alone did not bend light.  :laugh:

I am enchanted by the layout. The references to the source material are subtle. I find it amusing that Hugh has taken an nonsensical situation and applied a logic to it. I do hope I can see it some day!  :)