I managed to get an Enigma simulator into the AppStore http://ricks-thoughts.denhaven... The bombe is orders of magnitude harder,I'm sure.

I just checked Sotheby's web site and the description says that only Rotors I, II, and III are included, IV and V are missing. Not surprising that, I don't think many intact Enigma machines still exist. But if you have an iPad and a buck, have I got a deal for you. http://ricks-thoughts.denhaven... on an introductory sale price this week.

I recently went to a show at the Morehead Planetarium at the University of North Carolina. They recently retired their Zeiss projector. It was still there, until they figure out where it's going and how to get it out of the building, but the show used digital projectors. The Morehead Planetarium holds a place in the history of the US manned space program, all of the Astronauts from the Mercury program, through Gemini, Apollo, and Skylab were trained on astronavigation at Morehead, albeit the planetarium at that time had an even earlier Zeiss projector, which I was told is now somewhare in Texas after being replaced in the 1970s IIRC. In the basement there's a display about the astronaut's use of Morehead, and the contrast in technology is striking. For example on display are:

• The wooden 'hood' used to simulate the astronaut's view through the small window of the Mercury spacecraft.
• The device used to project an orbital track on the planetarium dome, which was made from a food can with a slit holding a light bulb.
• A wooden low fidelity mockup of the seats and windows of the Gemini spacecraft. This is available for patrons to sit in.

And my favorite, A device used to simulate the blinking light on the Agena which was used in the Gemini project for rendevous and docking. This was a light with a rotating shutter, who needs 'fancy' electronics.

When I was home for Christmas, my octogenarian Mom asked me about the converters. She has two TVs already on cable, but uses an old color OTA set in her kitchen. I helped her apply for a coupon. But when I looked at the info about the box, it seems that it only had composite video outputs, I didn't even see a coax connection, so I told her it probably wouldn't work with her set which only has a 300 ohm "rabbit ear" antenna connection. So does this mean that she'd also need an RF modulator as well?

For some reason, reading that Wikipedia article makes me think of the untitled e.e. cummings poem that starts with:

Buffalo Bill's
defunct