Props Re-used

Discussion in 'Star Trek - The Original & Animated Series' started by Neroon, Jan 30, 2009.

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  1. Joe_Atari

    Joe_Atari Commander Red Shirt

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    Alchemist:

    Sorry to digress; this is a great thread!

    I don't think I've seen that TMP "sensor bee" still from your avatar. Do you have a larger version? If you have a bunch of unique ones (other than the ones on OTTENS' site) could you please post them in a separate thread?

    Thanks!
     
  2. DWF

    DWF Admiral Admiral

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    It's not a prop but the floor of the transporter on TOS became the ceiling of the transporter on TNG.
     
  3. GSchnitzer

    GSchnitzer Co-Executive Producer In Memoriam

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    One of those obscure props that shows up from time to time in Star Trek is what's called an "E-6B Flight Computer." Probably the best shot of this prop is from "The Naked Time" (where Mr. Spock uses the device to somehow help him calculate some of the details of the breakup of the planet Psi 2000):

    [​IMG]

    Its actual first appearance is in "The Corbomite Maneuver" where it can be seen lying on the table next to Mr. Scott as the senior officers gather in the Briefing Room to discuss options:

    [​IMG]

    It can also be seen in "Wolf In the Fold" where Mr. Spock uses the device to help him in making preparations to have the ship's computer calculate the value of Pi to the "last" digit:

    [​IMG]

    Of course, "E-6B Flight Computers" are real live slide-rule type devices. These are handheld devices used by pilots to help calculate such things as fuel burn, wind correction, time en route, and ground speed. Although they look kind of archaic, some pilots prefer to use them even today rather than more modern "Flight Computers" that resemble present day calculators. (These E-6B slide rules are lightweight and they don't run the risk of having batteries fail at an inopportune time!) There are measurements and scales on both the front of the device (called the "calculator side") and the back of the device (called the "wind side"), so an E-6B is two tools in one.

    At any rate, a number of aviation supply manufacturers over the years have produced E-6Bs. The one seen in these screen shots was manufactured in the 1950s by Jeppesen and Company in Denver, Colorado. Jeppesen called their particular brand of E-6B a "CSG" ("Slide Graphic Computer"). Jeppesen actually made two sizes of CSG (although they are identical in all ways other than size): a small "Pocket" CSG-1 and a larger "Navigator" CSG-2; the CSG-2 is actually the more popular size among pilots. (Its larger nine and half inch size probably makes it much easier to read than the six and half inch model. Apparently nine and half inches is better than six and half inches--and size does matter. Badda bing!)

    The one in these screen shots is the smaller "Pocket" CSG-1. Since both Gene Roddenberry and Star Trek Art Designer Matt Jefferies were accomplished pilots, the prop actually seen on the series very likely belonged to one of them. I suppose in 1966 and 1967, it looked very futuristic and looked like something that might be used in the 23rd century.

    I have some pictures of my 1950s vintage Jeppesen and Company "CSG-1 Flight Computer." Here are the front and back with the device disassembled into its two components:

    [​IMG]
    [​IMG]

    Front and back, properly assembled:

    [​IMG]
    [​IMG]

    What's not immediately obvious (unless you're a pilot, I suppose--and you look very carefully at the screen shot from "The Naked Time") is that the rectangular slide part of the CSG-1 Mr. Spock holds in "The Naked Time" has been completely removed from the round wheel part, flipped over face down, and then reinserted. So the "calculator side" of the wheel is trying to perform measurements on the "wind side" scales--and vice versa--which is all meaningless.

    So here are two shots of my Jeppesen and Company CSG-1 assembled incorrectly--just like Mr. Spock's:

    [​IMG]
    [​IMG]

    And just for good measure--a close up of some of the markings on the device:

    [​IMG]

    More about E-6Bs can be found at:

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E6B

    Greg Schnitzer
    Star Trek Phase II
     
    Morgan Primus likes this.
  4. alchemist

    alchemist Captain Captain

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    Thanks very much for the kudos!

    Uhm, let me see what I can do with regards to that avatar picture. It's kind of complicated, but the image comes from 2-1/2 minutes of assorted production footage of Kirk being attacked by the memory crystals in the trench. I need to get some permissions...
     
  5. alchemist

    alchemist Captain Captain

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    Some terrific info Greg! Let me also add that there was another, older model of this computer used as well, the "B-1," I believe. It appeared in "Mudd's Women" and "Who Mourns for Adonais:"

    [​IMG]


    [​IMG]
     
  6. GSchnitzer

    GSchnitzer Co-Executive Producer In Memoriam

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    Yes, indeed. Although we see in a couple of Star Trek episodes (notably "The Naked Time" and "Wolf In the Fold") that Mister Spock uses a small "CSG-1 Flight Computer" to help perform calculations...

    [​IMG]

    ...we see that a slightly larger (about half again as large) flight calculator gets used a few times.

    Jeppesen and Company in Denver, Colorado makes the CSG-1 flight computer that is seen in "The Naked Time" and "Wolf In the Fold." (Vintage CSG-1s from the 1960s a little hard to find.) But they also make a larger size device--but otherwise identical in every way: the CSG-2. Those are easy to find. In fact, Jeppesen still makes CSG-2s even today. But the smaller-sized CSG-1s are less commonly found. But even the larger CSG-2 isn't the item we see in "Who Mourns for Adonais?" (and other episodes).

    The item that is probably the hardest to find is a third type of "flight computer." Specifically, we see a Model B-1 Slide Graphic Vector Computer lying on the table top near navigator Dave Bailey in "The Corbomite Maneuver." "The Corbomite Maneuver" is the B-1's first appearance.

    [​IMG]

    Like the CSG-1 and the CSG-2, this Model B-1 was made by Jeppesen & Company in Denver, Colorado. The Model B-1 Vector Computer was originally made by Warner Instruments in Chicago, Illinois in 1962, but Jeppsen bought the rights to the device and started making their own "Jeppesen Improved Model B-1 Computer"--which is what we see on Star Trek.

    We also see some unnamed Engineering-division crewwoman carrying one of these in the corridor in the same episode:

    [​IMG]

    It also shows up a third time in this episode when a Command-division ensign carries one on the bridge:

    [​IMG]

    We get a pretty good look at this device in "Mudd's Women" when Mister Spock uses it to make some computations:

    [​IMG]

    [​IMG]

    But probably the best look we get at this thing is in "Who Mourns for Adonais?:"

    [​IMG]

    ...and a blow up of the same view:

    [​IMG]

    (You can see the big "J" in Jeppesen's old corporate logo 'way down at the bottom of the device.)

    The Jeppesen Model B-1 Slide Graphic Vector Computer is much rarer than a CSG-2 or even a CSG-1. These things seldom show up on ebay.

    As has been mentioned in the past, both Gene Roddenberry and Matt Jefferies were accomplished pilots, so it's very likely this prop was actually one of their very own personal navigation piloting tools.

    What made the Model B-1 Slide Graphic Vector Computer nice as a prop--probably nicer than the CSG-1--was its larger size; also, it had a bright yellow ring--perfect for color televisions in 1966. The Model B-1 also has a red and black wind vector arm "spinner" on one side that adds a splash of color (although this "spinner" is really only barely visible in that one shot from "Mudd's Women").

    Here are some shots of my vintage Jeppesen Model B-1 Slide Graphic Vector Computer.

    First, here's a shot of the Vector Card sliding through the Circular Slide Rule "wheel," just as it does in "Who Mourns for Adonais?:"

    [​IMG]

    And here's a shot of the Vector Card inserted into the Circular Slide Rule "wheel" in a "flipped" (backwards) position--just as was accidentally done in "Mudd's Women:"

    [​IMG]

    I have a shot that compares a big sister CSG-2 (front and back) in the upper left, a Model B-1 (front and back) in the upper right, and a little sister CSG-1 (front and back) in the lower left). Keep in mind that Mister Spock never used a CSG-2 in Star Trek (although Lieutenant Sulu used one briefly in "The Deadly Years" (during the "Roll over, Chekov; breath deeply, Chekov" scene)--in what would appear to be the one and only appearance of the big CSG-2).

    [​IMG]

    Anyway, between the B-1, the CSG-1, the CSG-2, and the bluish colored push-button "Vulcan Calculator," we saw used in "That Which Survives," Mister Spock and the other Enterprise crewmembers have plenty of handheld doodads with which to keep themselves occupied as they go about their important Starfleet computational tasks.

    Slide show is at:

    http://www.flickr.com/photos/10901121@N06/...585422654/show/[/url]

    Greg Schnitzer
    Star Trek Phase II
     
  7. Albertese

    Albertese Commodore Commodore

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    If anyone cares to see the Saurian Brandy bottle in it's original George Dickel's livery:

    [​IMG]

    The embossed lettering that you can't make out in the picture says
    (vertically) "FIRST BOTTLING - OCTOBER 1964"
    (horizontally around the base) "SOUVENIR BOTTLE 27 YEARS OF STUBBORNNESS, BUT WE MADE IT."

    I found this bottle at a comic book show in Eugene, Oregon (home of the Ducks if there are any college football fans in the room). I asked the guy how much he wanted just out of morbid curiosity, and he said 20 bucks. I couldn't open my wallet fast enough.

    Somehow though I can't bring myself to scrape off the stickers and paint the leather red.

    Reservedly,

    --Alex
     
  8. Gary7

    Gary7 Vice Admiral Admiral

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    Amazing thread... really beginning to appreciate the tremendous amount of prop reusing that took place on TOS. Funny coincidence on my post--a little more than 30 minutes after I posted about the trident scanner, Greg followed up with his far more detailed posting (we must have been thinking about it at the same time). ;) I've not been up to speed on Phase II. I'll have to start digging. :D
     
  9. M'Sharak

    M'Sharak Definitely Herbert. Maybe. Moderator

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    Sitting opposite Bailey, Scotty also appears to be holding a circular, scaled instrument of some kind. It's clearly not one of the same flight calculators you've been describing, but looks as if it could be another circular slide rule-type device.
     
  10. GSchnitzer

    GSchnitzer Co-Executive Producer In Memoriam

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    I've studied every kind of flight computer, slide rule, color wheel, radiation exposure meter, and, well, any round thing with a scale. So far I haven't been able to figure out what the thing is that Mr. Scott is holding. But I'm a patient man; I'll find it.

    Greg Schnitzer
    Star trek Phase II
     
  11. M'Sharak

    M'Sharak Definitely Herbert. Maybe. Moderator

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    Just for kicks, I did some poking around. I haven't turned up a near match, but I did keep running across mentions of a particular book about volvelles and wheel calculators. Perhaps you've already got it, but just in case:

    Reinventing the Wheel, by Jessica Helfand

    If nothing else, it looks like a nifty sort of book to have around.

    As an aside, it's not a flight calculator, but somewhere around this room I'm sitting in is an old circular slide rule I've had since high school chemistry class, back when elements were fewer and the dinosaurs roamed the Earth -- looks almost exactly like the one seen at the top of the page here, or on this page.
     
  12. Gary7

    Gary7 Vice Admiral Admiral

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    When you think about it, the slide rule is a very clever tool to have around. No energy required, no circuitry of any kind so it's 100% reliable. You just need to have the training to know how to use it properly, the mental flexibility to remember intermediate values calculated, and... a light source. ;)
     
  13. Captain Robert April

    Captain Robert April Vice Admiral Admiral

    I wouldn't be surprised if Spock could calculate faster than the computer with that thing.
     
  14. QuasarVM

    QuasarVM Fleet Captain Fleet Captain

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    I second, third, fourth, fifth, etc...Joe's request! :drool:
     
  15. Ronald Held

    Ronald Held Vice Admiral Admiral

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    A problem with slide rules is few significant digits.
     
  16. GSchnitzer

    GSchnitzer Co-Executive Producer In Memoriam

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    When you look at this mysterious, round disc slide rule thing Mr. Scott is holding, you can make out a couple of things: there appears to be a clear pie-shaped wedge thing at the twelve o'clock position, the scales/markings seem to be more prominent on the top half than the bottom half, there seems to be some red wording or a logo just above center, and there is a yellow section down at about the four o'clock postion. And the thing is big--maybe more than six inches in diameter.

    [​IMG]
    I found this radiation exposure calculator thing from the Nuclear Chicago Corporation--which is pretty close. But it's still not the right thing.

    [​IMG]

    Like I said: I'll find it eventually.

    Greg Schnitzer
    Star Trek Phase II

     
  17. FalTorPan

    FalTorPan Vice Admiral Admiral

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    Was a "Goes Nowhere, Does Nothing" label ever actually visible in a TOS episode?
     
  18. GSchnitzer

    GSchnitzer Co-Executive Producer In Memoriam

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    Crossposted from the Star trek Phase II forums:

    We've seen a large gray and orange hand-held device in a few episodes of Star Trek: The Original Series. Although it's never been identified exactly what this thing is, we first see it in "The Enemy Within." Mr. Scott uses it to scan Geological Technician Fisher's coveralls after Fisher is beamed up from the planet Alfa 177 with soft, yellowish, magnetic ore contaminating his coveralls. The script for "The Enemy Within" says simply:

    ANOTHER ANGLE
    As Scott joins Wilson and Fisher--has a scanning
    device in his hand--does a quick scan of Fisher.
    SCOTT
    (reading the scanner)
    Magnetic--decontaminate that uniform

    So, here's the "scanning device" that Mr. Scott uses to scan Fisher's coveralls:

    [​IMG]

    It was also used in a later scene in that same episode--a scene in Engineering that was shot but ultimately not used:

    [​IMG]

    We see it again--probably most famously--in "The Naked Time." Mister Spock brings the device with him down to the planet Psi 2000:

    [​IMG]

    Here's a montage of shots from that episode:

    [​IMG]

    It shows up two other times in The Original Series. Lieutenant Elliot (John Copage) has one with him when he beams over to the U.S.S. Constellation as part of the damage control party. He uses the device and then reports that "radiation levels are normal." Here are two scenes from that episode:

    [​IMG]
    [​IMG]

    The last time we see this device in The Original Series, it's used by an Engineering division ensign to scan Ensign David Garrovick's cabin after the Di-Kironium "vampire cloud" creature entered Garrovick's cabin through the air vent in "Obsession:"

    [​IMG]

    Actually, there are a couple of other Original Series picture of this device: Jimmy Doohan posed with the device in front of the Jefferies Tube in a Star Trek publicity photo:

    [​IMG]

    And Kelly and Nimoy posed with it early in the First Season:

    [​IMG]

    So what is this device? Well, Star Trek prop aficionados have taken to calling this thing a "Spectrum Analyzer." (Mister Spock mentioned in "The Naked Time" that he did a spectral analysis while down on Psi 2000.) Like so many instruments in Star Trek, it appears to be able to do different things depending upon the needs of the script. It could determine that the ore on Fisher's uniform was magnetic and that it had (as Scotty indicated) "highly unusual properties;" it took some kind of readings on the planet Psi 2000 when Mister Spock used it; it detected that there was no radiation when Elliot used it on the Constellation; and, well, who knows what the ensign in "Obsession" was attempting to determine when using this device.

    Whatever this Spectrum Analyzer actually did on the show, it was, in real life, a modified Radiation Survey Meter. In particular, this Radiation Survey Meter was a Model 2586 "Cutie Pie" made in the early 1960s by the Nuclear-Chicago Corporation. Here's a picture of one in its original state:

    [​IMG]

    You can read a bit more about some of the specifications for a Model 2586 "Cutie Pie" here:

    http://www.orau.org/ptp/collection/surveym...chicago2586.htm[/url]

    Of course, it was modified a little for its appearances in Star Trek. Specifically, the handle and the black Geiger-Mueller Tube (the "barrel" of this gun-like device) as well as one of the two black knobs on the top were all painted bright orange--perfect for color TVs in the 1960s. The metal support legs were removed and the "Nuclear-Chicago" corporate logo was removed from the side of the device, too, of course.

    At any rate, here's my prop reproduction of an old "Cutie-Pie" appropriately painted and ready for Starfleet duty as a Spectrum Analyzer capable of scanning for, well, just about anything that needs to be scanned for according to the script:

    [​IMG]
    [​IMG]
    [​IMG]
    [​IMG]
    [​IMG]
    [​IMG]

    But the story of this prop doesn't end there, exactly. It had one more appearance in Star Trek--sort of.

    In Star Trek: The Animated Series, some engineering crewmembers work hard to free Mr. Scott--who had become trapped in the hatch to "the engineering core." An Engineering crewmember identifed in the script simply as "Engineer" used "cutter beams" to cut through the hinges of the hatch to free Mr. Scott. You can see from this image from the episode "Beyond the Farthest Star" that this "cutter beam" tool was drawn based largely on the "Cutie Pie" spectrum analyzer prop--although the details aren't gray and orange; they are a black and a more uniform silver grayish color:

    [​IMG]

    So, here is an additional "Cutie Pie" reproduction that I painted up to resemble the "cutter beam" tool from Star Trek: The Animated Series episode "Beyond The Farthest Star:"

    [​IMG]
    [​IMG]

    And here are the two props side by side:

    [​IMG]

    With these two props, our Star Trek: Phase II production has the ability not only to be consistent with a prop that was seen in The Original Series, but we also have the ability to incorporate another interesting engineering tool as seen in The Animated Series in order to fill out and expand the Star Trek universe a bit. This is a chance to bring some of the elements seen in The Animated Series "to life"--just as we have been doing with the old, aborted late '70s {i]Star Trek: Phase II [/i] series designs.

    Slide show is at:

    http://www.flickr.com/photos/10901121@N06/...910842536/show/[/url]
     
  19. WendellM

    WendellM Commodore Commodore

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    Another epic, informative post - thank you. Seeing all these slightly - if at all - modified versions of contemporary equipment in TOS makes me feel a bit better about the barcode scanners on ST XI's bridge. I'd always figured the simplistic-looking "Naked Time" scanner was just a hastily assembled bit of wood and plastic; finding out that it was an actual scientific/engineering device was quite interesting.
     
  20. TIN_MAN

    TIN_MAN Fleet Captain Fleet Captain

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    ^^Wasn't it in "The Cage" as well, or am I thinking of something else?
     
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