What's with all the "view masters"

[Christopher]

The first thirty times i saw the infamous ST bloopers, they were of such poor quality that it took a much cleaner print, and a 31st viewing, before I realised that Spock (from "The Naked Now") is "watching" Vina as an Orion (from "The Menagerie") in his little hooded viewer - and getting sweaty palms from doing so.

"The Naked Now" is a TNG episode. You mean "The Naked Time." (I keep coming across that mistake lately, and I find it strange. "The Naked Now" is a title that's total gibberish except as a reference to the episode it's a sequel/remake to, "The Naked Time" -- i.e. "It's 'The Naked Time' updated for 'Now'." So it seems to me it should be easy to remember which title is for the original and which is for the followup.)


Meanwhile, I have to question the use of "Viewmaster" as an analogy for the hooded viewers. A Viewmaster was a toy/device designed for viewing 3D images, a handheld stereoscopic viewer. The hooded viewers in TOS were not stereoscopic or handheld.

 

[Braindeer]

I assumed that it was because in the 60s you would have needed a hood to view radar screens because the screens weren't bright enough to view properly in regular light. Actually, I'm sure I read that somewhere.

[cue search...]

Aha! Here it is:

"Jeffries also mentioned that Spock's sensor hood is a tip of the hat to early radar used by World War II battleships. Ambient room light would wash out the weak signals of early radar imagery, so hoods were used to cover radar screens. Because modern radar imagery is brighter, viewing hoods are no longer needed."

http://memory-alpha.org/en/wiki/Constitution_class

 

[Redfern]

Ah, Braindeer, you beat me to the "theory" I was going to propose, but I'm glad you were able to provide a quote to back it up. I remember watching an oceanic documentary which depicted someone upon the bridge gazing into a hooded viewer. I thought, "That's got to be the inspiration for Spock's viewer!" As you pointed out, CRT and LCD technologies have improved beyond the need for such shading devices, but in the mid 60s, it was a bit of naval acknowlegement and as pointed out by earlier posters, a bit of budgetary "shorthand" getting around the expense of creating dynamic readouts for each new condition they encountered. In the "Wrath of Khan", they did away with the "hood", but Spock did lean over a "screen" mounted within his console that shined the distinctive blue glow upon his face.

Sincerely,

Bill

 

[Hober Mallow]

Annnnd...it's more interesting, because the graphics he's viewing never go out of date.

And remain tantalizingly mysterious. When I was a kid I always wanted to know what he was looking at.

 

[plynch]

I think mem-alpha calls the viewmasters "scopes." Dull.

Perhaps they still have viewmasters in the 23rd century, though? . . .

http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_6JPrNHnRVZI/RrNlKhXB6oI/AAAAAAAAAkg/mosrxguG18U/s320/spock+red+visor.jpg

 

[DonIago]

No, that's an early version of Geordi's VISOR.

 

[Anticitizen]

Fanwank: They project data directly onto the photoreceptors of the eye, simulating a gigantic viewscreen and therefore capable of representing far more data than on a typical 19' monitor.

 

[darkwing_duck1]

In addition to being nods to radar "hoods", they also sylistically echo the periscopes on submarines.