Sniper Scopes

Randomiser wrote:Now it's been mentioned I'm surprised they don't have typewriters already. They've had type and a print industry for a long time, maybe forever, and manual typewriters are muscle powered machines which don't go near the proscriptions. I guess they might have been very expensive to produce on a craft basis.

AirTech wrote:Bicycle's are more efficient (and faster too). Bicycles have military applications as well as a cyclist can carry more weight, faster than a cavalryman, on good roads, for a lower cost (off road the horse has a small advantage but needs food). It does require good quality steel tube to make it happen but Charis should be on the edge of this now.
A cyclist can deliver a round couple of hundred kilos whilst riding a bike on good roads and move the same amount on rough tracks whilst walking the bike. The NVA demonstrated this a few million times during the Vietnam War and other armies have used them repeatedly as an alternative to motorized transport (the US Army is not one of them - the lack of good (or any)roads scuppered the attempt). Safehold, by the textev, indicates the roads are present so bicycles are definitely an option. (Anywhere you can take a wagon train you can take a bicycle, particularly after the wagon has just gone through).
A Tour de Charis could be on the horizon.

AirTech wrote:

Randomiser wrote:Now it's been mentioned I'm surprised they don't have typewriters already. They've had type and a print industry for a long time, maybe forever, and manual typewriters are muscle powered machines which don't go near the proscriptions. I guess they might have been very expensive to produce on a craft basis.

Typewriters are precision heavily loaded machines, the same technology is required for repeating fire arms and for typewriters (see Remington). Charis could make them, most of the rest of Safehold would require a watchmakers efforts in steel, rather than their more familiar brass. Sewing machines also require similar technologies. (ditto Remington). Dahak brand sewing machines and typewriters?
Both would have a massive impact on productivity.

Highjohn wrote:It won't happen. Aside from the problem of doing that in the real world much less Safehold, you need to remember the time constraints. In twenty years everything is probably going to be decided(See return of the Archangels), laying thousands of miles of pipe all over the ocean floor is a decades long task, and couldn't even be considered except in peace time, which is years away at best.

Zakharra wrote:Heh. Yeah. I didn't even think of the vacuum air tubes, but the electronic vacuum tubes.

Highjohn wrote:It won't happen. Aside from the problem of doing that in the real world much less Safehold, you need to remember the time constraints. In twenty years everything is probably going to be decided(See return of the Archangels), laying thousands of miles of pipe all over the ocean floor is a decades long task, and couldn't even be considered except in peace time, which is years away at best.

I don't see that as being feasible. Maintaining enough air pressure to push small parcels containing messages across thousands of miles of tubing would be undoable. Not to mention repairing it would be pretty much impossible. It would be easier, safer and more reliable to have small fast courier ships carrying important messages.

ksandgren wrote:I believe our newcomer is referring to vacuum tubes as pneumatic message transport that was common between different floors in old skyscrapers - not to vacuum filled electronics of the early radio or tv.

TN4994 wrote:

AirTech wrote:Typewriters are precision heavily loaded machines, the same technology is required for repeating fire arms and for typewriters (see Remington). Charis could make them, most of the rest of Safehold would require a watchmakers efforts in steel, rather than their more familiar brass. Sewing machines also require similar technologies. (ditto Remington). Dahak brand sewing machines and typewriters?
Both would have a massive impact on productivity.

Not familiar with Dahak. The old Singer foot power model maybe?

Joat42 wrote:

TN4994 wrote:Not familiar with Dahak. The old Singer foot power model maybe?

He was making a pun, see David Webers Dahak series.

AirTech wrote:

Randomiser wrote:Now it's been mentioned I'm surprised they don't have typewriters already. They've had type and a print industry for a long time, maybe forever, and manual typewriters are muscle powered machines which don't go near the proscriptions. I guess they might have been very expensive to produce on a craft basis.

Typewriters are precision heavily loaded machines, the same technology is required for repeating fire arms and for typewriters (see Remington). Charis could make them, most of the rest of Safehold would require a watchmakers efforts in steel, rather than their more familiar brass. Sewing machines also require similar technologies. (ditto Remington). Dahak brand sewing machines and typewriters?
Both would have a massive impact on productivity.

Hildum wrote:

ksandgren wrote:I believe our newcomer is referring to vacuum tubes as pneumatic message transport that was common between different floors in old skyscrapers - not to vacuum filled electronics of the early radio or tv.

Actually, the systems are still in common use and you can buy new installations today. There are a couple of vendors.