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The Military Idle

The Tech Secrets Behind Disneyland's 'Enchanted Tiki Room' (sfgate.com) 76

SFGate spills the secrets of Disneyland's "Enchanted Tiki Room" and its lifelike animatronic singing birds — Jose, Fritz, Michael and Pierre — "whose movements were perfectly synced with the audio track." "Beneath the room, the heartbeat of the attraction is a $1 million installation of electronics equipment, operated by a roll of 14-channel magnetic tape," the Orange County Register wrote upon its opening. "It is the same system which programs the U.S. military's polaris missile." That system also ran very hot. To keep guests from overheating, air conditioning was installed throughout the building, making the Tiki Room Disneyland's first attraction to be fully air conditioned...
Or, as another article puts it, "While Disney did not delve into the speculative science of cryogenics to preserve his life, he did borrow the mechanical brain of a nuclear missile to simulate life, creating a new type of entertainment in the process."

The article remembers how Wernher Von Braun became a technical advisor (and on-camera presenter) for three Disney-produced TV episodes about space travel — at the same time Von Braun was working as technical director for the U.S. Army rocket program that produced the world's first long-range guided ballistic missile, plus the first submarine-launched ballistic missile with its ground-breaking launch control mechanism: An important aspect of the Polaris launch system hinged on the fact that the conditions under which the missiles might be launched were constantly changing. Different underwater currents, temperatures, and flexing of the metal hull all contributed to the difficulty of a successful launch. In order to minimize human errors and to automate the sequence as much as possible, scientists developed an audio control system. A magnetic audio tape with a series of prerecorded cues precisely timed to account for the submarine's movement, controlled the launch machinery.

This new technology, invented to deliver nuclear destruction, proved exactly what Disney needed for his wonderland developed for children.

The article concludes that Disneyland engineering "transformed Von Braun's military technology" to the point today where "what was once controlled by the artificial brain of a nuclear missile is now run by the equivalent of a MacBook."

SFGate delves deeper into the attraction's strange origins — and how it all came full circle 63 years later... At the intersection of Main Street and Adventureland, a restaurant called the Pavillion — now the Jolly Holiday — bridged the gap. Under one roof, it served food to Main Street guests on one side and Adventureland diners on the other. The inelegant transition created an eyesore that Walt despised... The need for the Tiki Cafe "appeared to be less about food and more about aesthetics," Ken Bruce writes in Before the Birds Sang Words , a comprehensive history of the attraction.

In 1961, Walt gathered with park designers about the concept. The sketch made by legendary theme park designer John Hench was remarkably thorough, with much of its design incorporated into the final product... When Walt saw a plethora of birds in the sketch, he famously exclaimed, "We can't have birds in there ... because they'll poop in the food." Hench hurriedly ad-libbed that the birds would be mechanical, a concept that Walt adored...

Although its powerful air conditioning may be its biggest draw today, many attractions you love owe their existence to the flock of singing birds. Disney engineers' work on the talking flora and fauna laid the foundation for much more complex Audio-Animatronics (a word that Walt Disney coined). Without Jose, Fritz, Michael and Pierre, there would be no Haunted Mansion, no Pirates of the Caribbean, no Rise of the Resistance. Next year, in celebration of Disneyland's 70th anniversary, the park will unveil one of its most sophisticated animatronics yet: Walt Disney himself. It will be the first time Walt appears in a Disney attraction anywhere in the world, completing a journey that started with a mechanical bird and ends with an immortal homage.

Their article also reveals that a year after the Tiki Room opened, one of the birds was programmed to say "Come, there's an island there for you in Hawaii. Soaring birds of United Airlines fly there too!" Because Disneyland had signed a sponsorship deal with United Airlines...

The Tech Secrets Behind Disneyland's 'Enchanted Tiki Room'

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  • It makes me want to commit seppuku, in my eardrums.
  • Simulating life, my ass! Putting some clothes on a couple of mechanical arms is hardly a simulation of any sort, let alone life.

    • Hey, it's just a simulation within the simulation we live in. Don't set your expectations too high.

    • Simulating life, my ass! Putting some clothes on a couple of mechanical arms is hardly a simulation of any sort, let alone life.

      From ages 2-7, you and a bazillion other kids thought that cheesy shit was real as fuck. Don’t lie.

      • Re:Target audience. (Score:5, Interesting)

        by iAmWaySmarterThanYou ( 10095012 ) on Sunday October 27, 2024 @10:13AM (#64897579)

        For its day the tiki room was magical. Now they're just annoying and loud as fuck.

        My friends and I used to beeline for the Mission to Mars at Disneyland for the super cheese animatronics when we were teens.

        Too old to enjoy most of the park, too young to go anywhere interesting, stuck going to Disneyland several times every summer just to alleviate the boredom of Orange County summers for a few hours. We held a moment of silence when they trashed it for some random crap no one cared about. One of the worst parts of being an OC kid was all of us hanging out at someone's house trying to figure out what to do when that moment of silence overcame the room and you just -knew- some little bastard was about to suggest Disneyland. Then the painful groaning. And then we went anyway.

        • Now they're just annoying and loud as fuck.

          I'd have to say your level of theme park experience is somewhat lacking if you think the Tiki Room is loud. You could practically take a nap in there (though Hall of Presidents is better for that). The fireworks shows are loud. Halloween Horror Nights at Universal Studios with someone revving a chainsaw right next to your face, now that's loud as fuck.

          • It's true I'm not big on theme parks. Disneyland overload as a kid. I'm not a fan of loud events in general. I have been to a few concerts over the years but don't go regularly. I bought the very best ear protection I could find for occasional visits to the range, etc.

            My environment is pretty quiet and I like it that way. Oh, except for my car, I love the vroom vroom sound.

            • I bought the very best ear protection I could find for occasional visits to the range, etc.

              So, you are one of the 3 people in California that can actually own and shoot guns at the range...??

              ;)

              • Lol, I did get an owner's permit, did the background check, etc, but didn't buy when I was there. I either rented or borrowed whatever my buddy brought from his collection (he has enough to outfit a small army). So, typically rental pistols and shotguns but fired his AR-15 and whatever else he was in the mood for that day. When we were done at the targets he'd do skeet for a bit which isn't my thing so I'd just hang out and watch for that part; we'd chat between his sets.

                Now I'm in Florida and it's a who

                • Now I'm in Florida and it's a whole another world here. No "California special" crippled weapons required and I've been reading on the concealed carry laws this week and it appears that concealed carry is legal without even getting a permit or taking a class so long as you would have qualified if you had taken the class(?). Anyway, I'm calling around local places to get the proper training and permits and whatever so we're both safe and legal here and then will get myself either an M4 or maybe a bull up lik

                  • M4 kick: cool, it's nice to hear from a real person and not a paid reviewer about his experience with it.

                    One of the places here will rent out fully automatic machine guns and other crazy ass shit by the hour (with reasonable limits like must use their ammo, their targets, etc). Once we're settled in with personal fire arms, I might go back to try that out once just to experience it.

                    Did CA as a whole change the guns laws or was that a county wide change? I thought the laws were state level, no?

                    • Oh wait, hah, by LA I thought you meant Los Angeles but on second read you meant Louisiana, right? :-)

                      My California boy assumptions about the world still with me in some ways.

                    • Oh wait, hah, by LA I thought you meant Los Angeles but on second read you meant Louisiana, right? :-)

                      My California boy assumptions about the world still with me in some ways.

                      Yes...LA == Louisiana.

                      Whenever I refer to Los Angeles....I do L.A.

                      But LA is a normal state appreciation...

                      LOL...I get where you're coming from tho...

                      And yes....firearms laws for the most part are at the state level with the exception of NFA items (silencers, SBR, SBS, full auto weapons...etc), those have federal restrictions fir

                    • The rental place that has machine guns also has a set of silenced pistols. Since they rent the special stuff by the hour, not the weapon, I can give them all a try. Definitely will try those out after getting through the serious stuff first.

                      Still working on purging my California ptsd. It took me almost 6 months to get over the idea that here I can put almost anything on the curb for trash pickup up and they just take it with no comment. If I did the same in CA they would leave it, fine me, and then char

        • There's a Mission to Mars attraction at Epcot: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
  • Relief from the blazing inferno hell of the SoCal summer sun.
    • Relief from the blazing inferno hell of the SoCal summer sun.

      That's pretty much why people still go to the Tiki Room at the Florida park, too. It used to be more popular when Fastpasses were still free, because the animatronic shows were a good way to kill time while you waited for your return time for another attraction.

  • The article concludes that Disneyland engineering "transformed Von Braun's military technology"..

    Thats one creative way of describing your transformative technology that was based on what would be considered stolen technology today. Article reads like the origin story of the birth of NDAs and non-compete clauses.

    Imagine if it were reversed, and it was Disney who created and provided long-range guided missile technology to a warmongering world..

    • by Geoffrey.landis ( 926948 ) on Sunday October 27, 2024 @08:50AM (#64897463) Homepage

      The article concludes that Disneyland engineering "transformed Von Braun's military technology"..

      Thats one creative way of describing your transformative technology that was based on what would be considered stolen technology today.

      No, it's a creative way to slide Von Braun, and rocket technology, into an article that had nothing to do with Von Braun, or rocket technology.

      Again: Von Braun worked for the Army missile program. Polaris was a missile developed by the Navy missile program. The two programs were competitors. Von Braun would have had nothing to do with the Polaris guidance and navigation system (which was developed by MIT's Charles Stark Draper Lab [computerhistory.org]. Not by the Army missile program.)

      In any case, magnetic tape was widely used for storage back then. This is as silly as saying the IBM 360 computer was technology stolen from Elvis Presley, because they both recorded on magnetic tape.

      • Back then? One of my jobs was still using half inch reel tapes into the late 90s.

        If memory serves, a full reel could hold about 50 mega bytes but it depended on how long the tape was. They came in different lengths.

      • OMG thank you so much!!! That part of the article, about who was technical director of the Navy missile program, was clearly wrong. I used to work for IBM in the early 1990s, modeling DASD performance using APL that ran on z/360 systems. I think that mainframe was called Sierra.

        Werner von Braun sought out U.S. Army soldiers of his own accord, in order to surrender to them toward the end of WW2. He became a U.S. citizen and chose to be buried here. He did a lot for our country. I am Jewish, and I get tir
    • Please see here https://idle.slashdot.org/comm... [slashdot.org]

      Adaptation and use of important and highly secret defense project tech isn't controlled by mere NDAs or non-compete clauses! If the audio control system were released to Disney (via the U.S. Navy not Von Braun and the U.S. Army, as Geoffrey.landis explained twice already; the article is probably wrong) then all necessary review and authorization would have been done first. Remember, the U.S. government develops tech for we, the people, and US-domiciled com
  • "Next year, in celebration of Disneyland's 70th anniversary, the park will unveil one of its most sophisticated animatronics yet: Walt Disney himself."

      They might want to stop right there. No matter how good the "Imagineers" may be, this is taking a huge risk and they can't afford to overestimate their abilities with this. Unless they plan to keep this one at a 'safe' distance from the audience like the Hall of Presidents animatronics.

  • > the equivalent of a MacBook

    Oh?

    Is it a Dell?

    A RPi4?

    What kind of bus? How are they muxing?

    Call me crazy but I was hoping for more seeing this on /.

    Anyone who got to see Disney in the 70's was truly fortunate. The magic is replaced with marketing now.

  • American culture produces some real doozies.

    • We make some weird shit but most cultures do. (Japan, looking at you, and Korea don't try to hide behind Japan).

      It's a win-some lose-some proposition. Having been to the tiki room (twice... ugh) I'd say this one was a lose-some one.

      • In California, from about 1850 on, as we settled and made our mark, we did a lot of questionable things and made a lot of kitschy stuff.

        I love my jeans. I love skateboards. So much great things have come from California. I suppose you could argue that it is this very environment of possibilities, even the questionable ones, that helps drive the creativity. Hopefully, we can learn, evolve, and improve. Failure is often the best way to learn, but you don't always need to fail yourself to learn the lesson.

        • I've always found this movie to be incredibly ironic in hindsight:

          https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]

          TL;DR - America has become a totalitarian state where private vehicles are banned. One man makes a break for freedom, driving the last running gasoline powered race car to... Free California.

          In the meantime, in modern day California we have to deal with special California-only regulations on gas burner water heaters... catalytic converters... pigs... you name it. I can't even upgrade the emissions control sy

          • Seriously suggestion: move. I did. One of the best decisions I ever made. Most other places are cheaper, daily life is easier, and people are nicer.

            The last few years since leaving, I went back for a week each year for personal reasons and was shocked at how much more expensive every thing was over the year before (each time) and how fucking rude everyone is for no reason. Now everyone is nice, waves, smiles, chats randomly with strangers in the store without fear of being yelled at, the schools are bet

            • Last time I went to the DMV in person was right before covid to renew my driver's license (they were forcing me to come in person - no more mailed renewals). It was filled with people trying to do their Real ID applications before the deadline at the time (latest revised deadline is now May of next year).

              I searched all of the appointments in SoCal and drove 40 minutes across town because they had less of a wait there.

              Still took me over an hour of sitting in those hard plastic seats, but thank god all I was

              • Sorry, I messed up something I said. No income taxes here, we do have property taxes but since my property was 4.5x more expensive in California per sqft my property taxes are way lower for a much nicer house that's 2x the size.

                For house pricing, Zillow is actually reasonably accurate. For everything else try this: pick a random item (I looked at milk and my car's tires) and see what the price is at your nearest Costco vs Costco in a free state for the exact same SKU.

                My $700 California tires were $635 her

          • Yeah, fuck children's health! Roll coal and burn shit!

            https://www.nih.gov/news-event... [nih.gov]

            • https://www.homedepot.com/p/Rh... [homedepot.com]

              Restricted in CA and UT – see disclaimer below

              https://www.homedepot.com/p/Rh... [homedepot.com]

              So approximately a $150 difference between the two. Both are condensing type units with low nitrogen oxide emissions, but the ulra-low NOx unit has been specifically certified for California.

              Long term, given the phase out of fossil fuels (and the benefit of being able to site it more flexibily because you no longer have to worry about exhaust), you'd be better off getting a hybrid electric

              • So many words to say "Fuck you and your family, I'll do what I want because I've determined that I don't like the rules that help everyone. Progress must stop now! There is nothing ever better than what we have now, so why even try?"

  • by az-saguaro ( 1231754 ) on Sunday October 27, 2024 @03:45PM (#64898181)

    The Tiki Room was just one place that these technologies were on display. It was Disney's home turf, and where his engineers were based, but relatively few among all people had a Disneyland vacation, so few saw the Tiki Room. Where the animatronics technology was on full display for the world to see was the 1964-1965 New York World's Fair. Disney went partners with other major companies, to build the gee-whiz installations that the other companies wanted, and in return to build expertise and cash to develop these technologies for new parks Disney was planning.

    I went there several times as a kid, and the three exhibits I remember clearly were Pepsi's Small World, GE's Carousel of Progress, and the Illinois State pavilion with its Lincoln show. I think for anyone born circa 1980 or later, personal everyday gee-whiz tech is so ordinary that it fails to excite anymore. But in the 1960's, these shows and the animatronic technology - computer run robots looking and talking and moving like real people - got incredible play in the news and media, and did indeed wow the public and reporters alike.

    Keep in mind that this was the era of early IBM (& other) mainframes, ferrite core and wire rope memory, magnetic media was the only long term storage, disk drives that looked like washing machines holding just a couple of megabytes at best, tape readers that stood like refrigerators, punch card input, line printer output, every system in the computer built with discrete components on clunky big pcb boards and backplane wire wrap, and booting from blinky-light toggle switches at the operator's console. So, yes, the animatronics was a big deal, like real time cartoon animation come to life in 3D, and on-site in the real world rather than the "computer room" of some lab or university..

    It seems so archaic now, but it was mind blowing at the time.

  • by Mirnotoriety ( 10462951 ) on Sunday October 27, 2024 @06:26PM (#64898423)
    (“It is worth mentioning here that the Tiki Cafe came about at a time when America’s obsession with the Pacific Islands was widespread. Along with this aesthetic escape to a vacation atmosphere came troubling aspects of cultural appropriation [sfgate.com] that still permeate Tiki bar culture.”)

    FFS :o

    Disney .. did borrow the mechanical brain of a nuclear missile to simulate life

    No he never did!

"Yes, and I feel bad about rendering their useless carci into dogfood..." -- Badger comics

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