The Ampex Sign Is Coming Down (fastcompany.com) 153
harrymcc writes: If you ever watched anything on videotape, you have Silicon Valley pioneer Ampex -- which invented the technology -- to thank. And for years, the company's vintage sign has stood alongside Highway 101 as a tribute to its historical significance. But Stanford University, which owns the land the sign sits on, is in the process of dismantling it -- an act which Redwood City could have prevented but didn't. I wrote about this dismaying example of cultural shortsightedness at Fast Company.
Re:That's what it is (Score:5, Insightful)
People and organizations do important things all the time, much with a long range impact on the world. But for the most part it will go unnoticed and forgotten in history, say for a vague footnote in a research paper, if lucky.
Also if you are studying the history of something you will often find, that it wasn't made in a vacuum, or out of the blue. However it was an idea built upon previous ideas from different people and organizations.
The Ampex sign, is a local landmark. While Ampex may had done some important innovation, I wouldn't deem it historic, worthy of presentation. Landmarks change. The blue barn was just painted red, The sports stadium had changed sponsors. Just because something is well known or had done important things, doesn't mean it needs to be preserved for prosperity.
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My feelings are: why can't Ampex put their advertising sign on their own building?
Stanford shouldn't be beholden to advertise some private company for them. Surely there are better landmarks around there than a billboard.. As you said, not worthy of historical preservation. Sure, take a photo of it and put it in a film museum, but no need to keep the sign up.
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Are you paid by the comma?
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Y,e,s, b,u,t, I, d,o,n,',t, s,e,e, a,n,y, p,a,r,t,i,c,u,l,a,r, r,e,l,e,v,a,n,c,e, i,n, t,h,a,t, f,a,c,t,
Ugh now it's annoying me (Score:2)
Now that you pointed it out, all of Jellomizer's posts are really annoying to read.
Jellomizer:
A comma is used when you have a complete sentence and add a few additional words the clarify the sentence (but not completely change the meaning). The "few additional words" can't be a sentence on their own. Those two parts are called the "independent clause" (independent sentence) and the "dependent clause" (added words).
If the two parts are each complete sentences you separate them with a period. Occasionally you
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I drive past this sign fairly regularly and always liked the fact that it remained the same as I remember it from when I was a kid in the 1970s driving up 101 with my family. I'll be a little bit sad that a landmark from my younger days is gone, but not heartbroken.
What really makes me sad is the loss of Docktown Marina, on the other side of the freeway, where houseboat residents are being evicted. The Docktown Marina sign is still there, though not for long.
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I drive past this sign fairly regularly
I do as well. Actually I drive to the site several times a month. But the reason I go is to drive my wife to the Stanford Health clinic which was built on the property and now is in the process of greatly expanding. Given that her chemo seems to have saved her life I am OK with taking the sign down to get more facility to save others in similar situation.
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Historic in that it really was the first big high tech company in the Bay Area that wasn't a government contractor. Also that sign had been prominent along Highway 101 for half a century.
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No that isn't what I meant.
History is important. However we cannot and shouldn't preserve all historic things.
200 years in the future. People see an Ampex sign? They will go what is that, some crazed historian will tell about magnetic media.
So Rust on Scotch Tape, Got it.
Now what history needs more then a random sign, is basically the archives of the R&D work. Vs. a Helvetica font logo like all others on a road.
I live in a Historic Town, a lot of historic buildings, however very few of them kept thei
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And what doom will we face by this sign going down? What historical importance does the sign hold?
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Just what crucial information will be lost in time by the removal of this sign from the side of the 101 freeway? What important historical event are we doomed to repeat because of the removal of a corporate logo that the corporation that owns the mark doesn't even give a shit if it's there or not?
This whole thing is a tempest in a teapot, and doesn't deserve to have anything said about it, other than it being a footnote of history - Ampex used to be here, when they did something significant in advancing th
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People don't care what other people care about.
People care about what other people care about enough to PAY for.
How much are YOU willing to pay Stanford University to keep the sign up? Do you have ANY IDEA what the cost of land in Silicon Valley is?
The Ampex operation there is gone. The site is now one of the major multi-spcialized-clinic complexes of the Stanford Hospital. (The sleep clinic, where I had my severe sleep apnea diagnosed and treated, is one of them.) What are they expected to do if they
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Does Stanford University need to pay for the sign to be there? Are they going to build something right on top of it with no possibility of that something being somewhere else?
No clue.
My wife's a historian and we love to look at the old stuff - ghost towns, historic structures, "old roads" where newer highway alignments or freeway bypasses carry the current traffic, etc.
But we realize that it costs to keep this stuff in repair, and that keeping it all around for posterity would mean posterity would have a sh
Cultural shortsightedness (Score:5, Insightful)
is a vast overestimate of the sign's importance. It's nothing more than a bloody advertisement, and we need fewer ads in our life, not more.
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I can see that the company itself has historical significance, but it still exists, and FTA "The Ampex sign is going into storage in case somebody wants it. (The current incarnation of Ampex wasn’t interested.)". If Ampex itself isn't interested in the sign, then it's indeed probably time to let it go.
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I prefer it's original name, Hollywoodland Kingdom.
Can't beat the originals.
Meh, "The United Realms of Hollywoodland Kingdom By Sea" would have been a better name.
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Even if they don't, people *should* know about Ampex. Especially if they're engineers in Silicon Valley. History is important.
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Oh, so you've never heard of Stone Mountain, Georgia? Don't forget all those statues to confederate war criminals that were erected in the twentieth century as a reminder of white supremacy so that minorities wouldn't get too uppity.
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Those attributes are not mutually exclusive. If you can tell from the sight of a sign that you are at a certain place makes this sign a landmark.
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Let's google that quick...
So you are quite correct in your interpretation, however, the second definition of it is
which is what the article is referring to, to which I say that I have never heard of Ampex be
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And how is it a culturally significant landmark?
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Actually I think that might make for a rather neat attraction; especially given American's historic car culture.
I think it would be pretty neat if someone 1) bought some land in the AZ desert (affordable and the climate will keep the signs for deteriorating) 2) paved 20 or 40 miles of road thru it 3) Acquired historic signage from culturally significant organizations defunct and not 4) Made one of the GPS phone apps that reads out a little historic information about each sign when you get near it for people
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is a vast overestimate of the sign's importance. It's nothing more than a bloody advertisement, and we need fewer ads in our life, not more.
TFA even says its going into storage if someone wants ot, surely if it was a real item of cultural significance he could do a crowdfund to buy it and display it wherever, maybe donate it the lourve or something. He doesn't seem interested in the notion he might be able to buy it himself. But then again as you say, it's an advert so there are probably rules about that sort of thing.
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There are far more important landmarks that have been destroyed. For over a century, many statues in the Southern United States honoured soldiers who served the Confederate States of America in the Civil War and the Confederate leaders. SJWs got butthurt and destroyed part of our American cultural heritage. We lost far more with the destruction of those statues and desecrated memorials to those soldiers, yet people seem okay with it. This is just a damn sign. It pales in comparison to the statues. Who cares?
Weren't a lot of those statues actually put up in the 40s, 50s, or 60s? Hell, Stone Mountain in Georgia wasn't even completed until 1972! What was the big thing going on around then? Oh, yeah, the Civil Rights Movement. I'm all for statues honoring war dead, but those memorials don't need to be scattered all over the place; they should be in museums, Confederate cemeteries, or parks specifically for the purpose of Civil War remembrance (like Stone Mountain or battlefields). And I say this as a born and
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There was a lot of lies that Southerners told themselves over time and taught their children as well. Many of them honestly think the war was about preserving a way of life and that the confederate flag is about "heritage". And they taught themselves to look the other way when someone is beaten or lynched, and they taught themselves to rationalize Jim Crow laws. Overall, they never really accepted that the South was in the wrong in the Civil War, to many it's a chip they've held on their shoulders for 150
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Those traitors, who fought to preserve slavery, deserve a different kind of monument.
Take down the confederate statues. Grind them to powder. Mix them into porcelain.
And make confederate traitor monument toilets of them, to be placed in public rest areas throughout the country, for Americans to properly celebrate their legacy by shitting on them.
This sign marked human progress. Those statues mark the worst of humanity.
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No, you don't have it just right. These statues were put up long after the war was over, in the twenthieth century. They were not erected as war memorials, they were put up in order to promote white supremacy and as a reminder to minorities that they should not assume that they were equals. Stone Mountain was started initially to explicitly to honor the KKK, though it was redone after being started and morphed into a civil war design it was still intended to be a racist monument by the designers and buil
Re: Cultural shortsightedness (Score:1)
The Hollywood sign was put up to promote real estate in 'Hollywoodville.' Maybe it should come down, too.
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There's a difference between original purpose, and attained cultural status. And you know it.
The Hollywood sign has taken on far more significance through it's history than this sign - it's a true landmark, and an iconic image that practically everyone in the developed world recognizes instantly. The sign in question in TFA is the equivalent of keeping up one of those 80-foot-tall Denny's signs at a freeway offramp long after the Denny's has been torn down because Steve McQueen once had a scram slam there
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Yeah, except there is $$$ involved with the Hollywood sign.
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And clearly as you are the Emperor of All the Things, what you give a shit about (or don't) is the final say in what actually happens. All hail the Emperor!
No wait, you are the Emperor of the Square Root of Jack Shit, and nobody cares what you think.
The sign stays.
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Give it a few days and I will have forgotten who Ampex is again!
Today's Decree (Score:2)
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Hear ye! From this day forward, any monument or landmark unknown to Cultural Significance Minister Kalarius will have its status removed and any physical marker shall be decommissioned as soon as is logistically convenient. All current or future restoration projects are now cancelled to repair or renovate all monuments or landmarks that have been determined to look "worn and kinda crappy."
We must never change anything lest we trample all over someone's nostalgia! In any case, your examples could be (or are being) renovated and refurbished so that future generations can enjoy them, this is a bloody sign for a business that isn't even at that location anymore, I think the vast majority of people that drive on 101 aren't going to miss it. If it's so culturally significant, why doesn't someone pay to fix it up and move it to a museum?
Also, I kinda like the title, maybe I'll add it to my sig ;
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It's also a piece of history. It's the start of high tech in the Silicon Valley area. The modern nerds seem to have zero interest in history anymore. And there's barely any silicon companies left as most high tech companies in the area are really in advertising and social media.
I worked across the street from the sign for 7 years in buildings that I presume used to be Ampex. So it's sad that it's all been torn down now.
Cutting edge (Score:5, Interesting)
About 25 years ago, I worked for a radio station as a sound engineer. They used open-reel tape decks as their main recording medium, and we had loads of Ampex 456 reels in use.
Now most tape manufacturers sold their tape on plastic reels. Ampex however used reels with aluminium flanges. Because we were always in a hurry when doing live radio, we engineers had the habit of braking the reels by hand when rewinding them. When doing that on a plastic spool, the worst that could happen was overheated fingers from the friction. On the Ampex reels however you had to beware of the 3 large holes in the flange; if you caught one of those, the aluminium would cut right through your fingers.
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I'm another who knows what Ampex means. My father worked for the BBC engineering dept in the 1950's and was closely involved in developing VERA, the BBC's own video recorder. It recorded linearly using huge high-speed tape reels. However the Ampex spinning head technology, developed about the same time, was adopted instead as it allowed a slow tape speed and smaller reels. VERA was scrapped but I still have bits of it at home, and there is a reel that my father probably made [sciencemuseum.org.uk] in the London Science Museum.
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We had Studer PR99s. The brakes were probably worn - dynamic braking (by switching from REW to FF) was faster than just hitting STOP.
These decks lifted the heads automatically (or rather, they lifted the tape away from the stationary heads), but still there were noticeable grooves in the heads because the decks were used constantly.
It's ok (Score:1)
They'll get round to using it again one day. Just like all those VHS tapes in my cupboard!
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Technically I think Stanford was the most influential about this, and probably Shockley being at Stanford. But Ampex was a big place for engineers that wasn't a defense contractor and it probably made it much more likely to see the area as a viable place for technology, and an alternative to the tech hubs on the east coast.
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My father was a truck driver for over 40 years. When teaching me how to dive as a kid he would state Landmarks change, street name change, route numbers same.
Just because it may mean something to you, what does it mean to society. A lighted sign with boring Helvetica Text like all other corporate logos.
Heck where I work, I am near a building with a 20 foot tall Nipper (the RCA Dog) on top. Now that is a landmark. For people who don't know what RCA is or what they did, they will still go, look a big dog.
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Interstate exits actually are numbered by mile marker. Go over a state border on a main (1 or 2 digit interstate route) and the exit numbering resets all of a sudden, because the mile markers are measured from state borders.
This is why in cities you have exit 12A 12B 12C etc - they all exist within road mile 12.
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You can't see anything from Alabama - it's been proven by modern science. It's sort of like there not really being a South Dakota. I mean, anyone who's seen North Dakota knows you only need ONE Dakota and they made up the other one. And don't get me started on Indiana.
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Then go buy it. It's going into storage.
Oh, doesn't mean that much to you now, does it, Anonymous Coward?
Not so fast to discard tape technology (Score:3)
Optical sensing has advanced greatly but professional camera lens technology has not. If you really look at some of the great images taken by Ansel Adams you see the levels of resolution he used to create his photographic art, digital up until now has paled in comparison.
In the same vein, some of the great recordings done in the in the late 1950 and early 1960 by DGG, Columbia Master Works and Phillips optical audio to film tape you see the same quality of detailed sound that is only starting to become possible now with digital recording.
The combination of great analogue tech that is not stagnant with digital is the way forward. For instance advanced large size reflex ribbon mics with miniature electronics are just starting to happen and become affordable for the pro as are large size high density and sensitivity ccd based cameras that can take large lenses and produce close to what Ansel Adams did. Ansel was certainly not alone and owed a dept to some of the great photographers that showed the way some of whom were American. Here we can clearly see that fine grained analogue photography [europeana.eu] was starting to make leaps and bounds until the first world war really screwed up things for a while. France, England, Germany started to take the technology and keep it secretly in the military. The same bullshit happened during the second world war and during the cold war. Both advanced miniaturized audio recording technology and miniaturized high resolution camera technology has if anything been held back by war.
The great analogue technologies which ampex helped introduce to the public, essentially during times of peace, are very important and the sign is a reminder of this fact. It should stay or at least not fade into the dust of what we perceive as progress! If the young of today and our antecedents cannot learn from the past then American society is doomed.
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It's actually YOU that missed the point - Ampex didn't have a clue about tape recorder technology until it was able to examine tape machines brought back from Germany. The Nazis used wire recorders in the field, but it was (I think) Telefunken that designed and built large orchestra quality tape machines that the Nazis played back 24/7 over the air. An article back in the 70's examined this, and mentioned the the Allies couldn't believe that Hitler would keep orchestras playing on the air all night long.
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the Allies couldn't believe that Hitler would keep orchestras playing on the air all night long
Don't need a tape recorder for that. Didn't it occur to the Allies that Hitler could have been playing records?
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The reason these things haven't advanced much is because they don't need to. Microphones have been able to capture sounds in a wider spectrum than our ears can hear, with better dynamics response too for a long time now. There is no point in recording any better because you cant hear the difference. Same for speakers, headphones, the recording media itself. A CD could already play back sounds outside of the human range of hearing back in the 80's. You don't need a better microphone.
The same applies for lens
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Don't worry. It's not there anymore, and it was never a big deal.
Fast Company (Score:2)
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Well, Fucked Company was a parody of Fast Company.
But, really, how the fuck did Fast Company survive? The magazine was created to promote the pump-and-dump schemes of the dot-com era. I can imagine the articles are still all "this college dropout's company is going to CHANGE THE WORLD" is given venture capital funding and is promptly never heard from again.
Well, good for them (Score:2, Troll)
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The future should not be held hostage by the past.
Quite. That damned Ampex sign has held me hostage for long enough.
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I feel like this was the accidental real message behind Ready Player One. Endless nostalgia is ultimately self-serving, and leads leads to a crapsack world.
The movie would have been much more fulfilling if it wasn't just a big Hollywood and Spielberg wank-fest.
Why should anyone care? (Score:2)
Not to seem snide but since I don't live there and have never even heard of the company, please explain to me why I (or anyone else) should care about some random bit of signage for a company just because it's been there a long time. I looked up some pictures and whatever significance this thing has to locals is utterly lost on me. It looks like a typical boring and wasteful company sign. Is this another example of people on the coasts thinking what happens in their city is somehow special and important
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I was born in Redwood City, lived half my life in the Bay Area and have worked in tech since 1999. I’d never heard if this sign and couldn’t care less that it is going away. If it is iconic, a museum or collector would have snapped it up.
As for preservation being a “coastal” thing, that is nonsense. I live in flyover country now and people here are if anything more obsessed with propping up obsolete historical or otherwise noteable knickknacks.
Local news posted globally (Score:2)
I live in flyover country now and people here are if anything more obsessed with propping up obsolete historical or otherwise noteable knickknacks.
Perhaps but they don't waste the time of a bunch of people posting stories about local news on a globally read website. While I'm sure slashdot has a fair number of bay area readers, I'm comfortable stating that almost everyone here has never heard of the sign or probably the company. I cannot imagine why the slashdot editors thought this would be of general interest to slashdot readers...
Early Angel Investor (Score:2)
I recall many years ago (I think early 70s) listening to a radio program that announced that the richest actor in Hollywood turned out to be Fred MacMurray. The reason was that he was an early investor in Ampex.
However looking now (wikipedia, etc) I see no mention of this. Can anyone here say if that is true or if I just mis-remembered it somehow?
"I resisted the temptation to chain myself" (Score:1)
"I resisted the temptation to chain myself to the baseâ"I wish Iâ(TM)d thought to bring the necessary equipmentâ"but did pay my respects and take some photos."
ROFL at the lunacy.
Move It (Score:2)
A university in Toronto tore down the historic Sam The Record Man building, and promised to reinstall its beloved sign elsewhere. It took them 8 years, but they finally installed it over a major public square.
Tascam sign (Score:1)
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Who cares? Are we supposed to hold on to everything, forever, because it tickles some neurons of your memory from 40 years ago? Again, WTF cares? They're dead, not relevant, didn't mean shit, didn't do shit, good riddance. What are we gonna do next, reminisce at all those CBS outdoor billboards next? Ooooohhh, there's another one! Remember when it had the advert for Captain Morgan on it last year? Sigh... those were the days. :(
From the late 1940s to about 2005, Ampex DID "do shit", they WERE undeniably relevant, as every utterance and every image that was recorded on magnetic tape from that SIX DECADE time period owes its very existence to the pioneering research spearheaded and financed by singer Bing Crosby and perfected by the scientists at Ampex; but unfortunately for them, recording tape has all but been replaced by other forms of storage media. But if you were more than 12 years old, you'd understand why people believe that
It's a sign. Who cares? (Score:2)
But if you were more than 12 years old, you'd understand why people believe that their contribution to technological history deserves to be remembered.
WTF does that have to do with the stupid sign? If their contributions to technology were significant then they will stand on their own merits. We don't need a billboard to remind us of that fact long after the company has faded from relevance and memory. There are better ways to remind ourselves of our heritage than preserving irrelevant street signs.
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But if you were more than 12 years old, you'd understand why people believe that their contribution to technological history deserves to be remembered.
WTF does that have to do with the stupid sign? If their contributions to technology were significant then they will stand on their own merits. We don't need a billboard to remind us of that fact long after the company has faded from relevance and memory. There are better ways to remind ourselves of our heritage than preserving irrelevant street signs.
Name 3.
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From the late 1940s to about 2005, Ampex DID "do shit", they WERE undeniably relevant, as every utterance and every image that was recorded on magnetic tape from that SIX DECADE time period owes its very existence to the pioneering research spearheaded and financed by singer Bing Crosby and perfected by the scientists at Ampex; but unfortunately for them, recording tape has all but been replaced by other forms of storage media. But if you were more than 12 years old, you'd understand why people believe that their contribution to technological history deserves to be remembered.
Not only that, not only the vast legacy of classic songs recorded on 406 and 456 tape, but computers used tape as backing store until the 80s. Digital audio was only viable because of their videotape systems - it was the only medium we had with enough capacity and bandwidth to make it work. And while we have since moved on to better things, none of this would have happened without the intermediate step that Ampex made possible.
I rather doubt we'd have an internet to discuss and argue on without Ampex.
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From the late 1940s to about 2005, Ampex DID "do shit", they WERE undeniably relevant, as every utterance and every image that was recorded on magnetic tape from that SIX DECADE time period owes its very existence to the pioneering research spearheaded and financed by singer Bing Crosby and perfected by the scientists at Ampex; but unfortunately for them, recording tape has all but been replaced by other forms of storage media. But if you were more than 12 years old, you'd understand why people believe that their contribution to technological history deserves to be remembered.
Not only that, not only the vast legacy of classic songs recorded on 406 and 456 tape, but computers used tape as backing store until the 80s. Digital audio was only viable because of their videotape systems - it was the only medium we had with enough capacity and bandwidth to make it work. And while we have since moved on to better things, none of this would have happened without the intermediate step that Ampex made possible.
I rather doubt we'd have an internet to discuss and argue on without Ampex.
I quite agree.
Heck, DAT tapes and DLP Cartridges (what a joke THE DLP tapes were!) were used as Computer Backups WELL into the 1990s!
Some people just don't get it.