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John Peralta Explodes Historic Technology into Three-Dimensional Diagrams thisiscolossal.com

rwmj4 months ago

If an article ever needed more, larger photographs it'd be this one.

On a related topic, I have a really cool book from the 1970s which contains beautiful cutaway drawings of high technology from the era (everything from telephones to Advanced Gas-Cooled Reactors). Edit: How Things Work, Volumes I & II published by Paladdin. There's a borrowable copy of Vol II at the IA: https://archive.org/details/howthingsworkuni00vana/page/n595... (can't find if they have Vol I).

jgrahamc4 months ago

As a child I had the book "What makes it go?" which was full of illustrations of how machines work: https://www.amazon.com/What-Makes-Go-Joe-Kaufman/dp/06003926...

itishappy4 months ago

Anybody here have "The Way Things Work" or "The New Way Things Work"?

Haven't opened it in 20 years, but I don't think I've poured over a book the same way since.

https://www.amazon.com/Way-Things-Work-David-Macaulay/dp/039...

https://www.amazon.com/New-Way-Things-Work/dp/0395938473

mhandley4 months ago

There's a blast from the past - I had that book too and absolutely loved it. I'm glad I grew up in an era when a child had some hope of thinking they could understand all the technology around them (even though with hindsight, I know that knowledge was extremely superficial).

nbernard4 months ago

How Things Work was published in the US by Simon & Schuster as The Way Things Work: An Illustrated Encyclopedia of Technology, which is on the IA:

vol 1: https://archive.org/details/waythingsworki00cvan

vol 2: https://archive.org/details/waythingsworki02cvan

Molitor59014 months ago

Better photos on his website: http://www.johnperaltafineart.com/

motohagiography4 months ago

these are amazing and beautiful. the singer sewing machine is particularly useful as I use a standing one as a modular synth workstation, but there is a full sewing machine inside it I've never used.

midenginedcoupe4 months ago

Mercedes World have a Formula 1 car exploded like this. It's fab.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wyAWi1dh8Fs

lrivers4 months ago

What a great use case for a 3D representation

Loughla4 months ago

I'm kind of disappointed that it's only broken into major components.

They're still super cool, but to see every little spring and cog and switch represented by their own monofilament would be pretty neat.

rwmj4 months ago

Along those lines, this is a neat TV series with James May (of Top Gear fame):

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_May:_The_Reassembler

rmholt4 months ago

Has he ever worked on pagers by a chance

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