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The Military Idle

The Tech Secrets Behind Disneyland's 'Enchanted Tiki Room' (sfgate.com) 50

Posted by EditorDavid from the where-the-birds-sing-words dept.
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' More | Reply

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:4, Insightful)

        by iAmWaySmarterThanYou ( 10095012 ) on Sunday October 27, 2024 @11:13AM (#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.

  • 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.

  • "$1 million installation of electronics equipment, operated by a roll of 14-channel magnetic tape,"..and how many decades ago are we talking about here, and are replacement parts even made for it anymore? And what about the energy being wasted running equipment of this vintage? Unsorry, but this does not impress me except for the fact that somehow someone managed to keep equipment that absolutely should be regulated to being in a museum (for being such an energy hog for what it does) off of the top brass's

    • I checked Wikipedia because neither article was clear on what is currently running that particular attraction so I checked Wikipedia.

      BTW: is - present tense / was - past tense

      "Afterward, the original show and storyline remained, but were now enhanced with a digitally remastered audio track,[c] a new sound system indoors and out, and completely new Audio-Animatronics figures that looked the same as the previous ones, but had a completely different internal apparatus."

      "The original Tiki Room *was* controlled

      • The best part is they left the air conditioning which, strictly speaking, is no longer needed though now it must cost quite a bit less.
      • The 14-track magnetic tape is a bit surprising. I am not aware of any 13-bit computers. It makes me wonder if these were 14 analog tracks that decoded into music and control signals, i.e., not very much digital computer at all.

    • If you're too lazy to read TFS, you deserve to be modded into oblivion

  • 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..

    • Re:M-I-C..a defense contractor. (Score:5, Informative)

      by Geoffrey.landis ( 926948 ) on Sunday October 27, 2024 @09:50AM (#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

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