What Is It? Game 124

It’s a very complex instrument of torture.

Hey, Russell, one guess per comment! Radio transmitter it is.

shortwave radio?

A prototype of Willy Wonka’s Wonkavision.

It is Madame Tousade’s peach sanitizer

It is for reading the thoughts of a dead man. The severed head was placed within the boundries of the electrical coil and the inner voice of the corpse was revealed, But only the last few moments. Usually the only thing that was heard was. “OH NO!! GOD NO!! DON’T CUT OFF MY HEAD!!!”

The prototype for Nikola Tesla’s version of the board game “Mouse Trap”.

The Electric Chair for chickens, prior to the electric deep fryer, instantly fried feathers off of chicken leaving a tasty carcass.

Looks like a strobe of some kind.

I’ve no idea what it is, but I want it.

It is a de-animator device. Plug it in and touch any part of it.

A faraday cage

I know exactly what this is – AWESOME!

Electro static generator.

it is a telegraph, or a morse code transmitter.

That’s a rotary spark-gap transmitter, used in the late 1800′s and early 1900′s for wireless telegraphy!

Its a panty static generator

I don’t know what it is, but it could be purchased at porn shops 100 years ago…

Teslas microwave oven.

It is an early instrument for measuring the speed of light.

It’s hard to be sure…. Microsoft aren’t very good at making things user-friendly!

It’s a 1918 Pavlovian rodent experimental device created by Johnson and Meadows for Columbia University. They made similar devices Yale and Andover.

Tweetys WORST nightmare!!!

Well, technically a Rotary spark-gap transmitter.
http://oak.cats.ohiou.edu/~postr/MRT/Tour1.htm

It’s what Apple is debuting at their next press day

Doc Browns Flux capacitor-prototype (With parts from 1885).

It is the internet before the tubes.

A failed perpetual motion machine?

This is the very machine that Pinky and the Brain tried to use once to try to take over the world and to let all people on it bow and grobble to their great and charismatic despot- The Brain.

…But as usual they failed miserably. Instead the machine made Bush Jr. President of the USA…

Wireless radio ?

This is a 1944 U.S. Navy Ratatosk Encryption Device, which used trained squirrels to transmit secure, unbreakable radio messages during World War II. The device was used for a few months on Navy battleships, but were phased out when other, more effective coding techniques became available.

The United States’ war effort in the Pacific required secure radio communications, but complex electromechanical devices like the German Enigma cipher machine did not fare well in the humid tropics and the oceanic salt air. Other methods of sending secure battle plans were needed.

Enter the famous behaviorist B. F. Skinner. After the collapse of the Guided Pigeon Bomb project, Skinner believed that he had more to offer the war effort. He trained several dozen American Gray Squirrels to recognize letters and numbers and to translate them into sounds only understandable by other squirrels. The transmitter squirrel would read a series of letters and transmit a series of squeaks and squeals into the microphone on top the squirrel cage, which would be transmitted over radio. The receiver squirrel would hear the squirrel ‘language’ and tap out the Morse code plaintext to a waiting radio operator, or, in later versions, on a large typewriter-like board that would record the message on paper.

In all, 76 squirrels were trained and proficient in cryptography and radio operation. They were inducted into the U.S. Navy, given the titular rank of Ensign or Lieutenent J.G., and were dispatched to the Pacific Theater. Contrary to some popular accounts, they were never issued tiny Navy uniforms. They initially saw service on battleships and aircraft carriers.

Unfortunately, the Navy didn’t forsee some frailities inherent in squirrels at war. Soon after they started service, the Navy discovered that squirrels became incredibly seasick and were often unable to function. Several squirrels were lost to fights with ship rats. Questions were raised about the loyalty of the Gray Squirrels to the United States when a handful were discovered to have friends and associates among the mistrusted Eurasian Red Squirrel community, though investigations never proved any of the accusations. Eventually the project was abandoned when it was discovered that Navajo Code Talkers were much more hardy and easier to use.

Most historians forget the brave sacrifice and service of the U.S. Navy Secret Squirrel Squad. No squirrels have received any honorary medals or citations for bravery. They have been forgotten by most, although not all. To this day, a small group of zoologists and PETA activists have unsuccessly lobbied for full veterans’ benefits to the surviving family of these loyal and interpid servicecreatures along with full burial rights in Arlington National Cemetery. Until the day when the U.S. Government recognizes their selfless devotion to their country, though, the brave squirrels will be mostly forgotten.