The Genii Forum

Did anyone else see Richard Garriott on the latest episode of Oddities? It featured a short but very interesting tour of his Austin, Texas home. His Wellington Switchboard could be seen in one scene, but unfortunately it wasnt performed (but Ill wager he showed it to Mike and Evan). Fun stuff. Look for reruns on the Science Channel.

Dustin

I caught it... Really cool collection!

Richard loves those switchboard type lighting effects. Always looking for new one's.

Switchboard tricks play even after single chip micros have become ubiquitous?

Richard loves them for his own amusement. And there are many different types and variants out there. Each clever and deceptive for different reasons. Having said that, the Wellington board remains commercially viable. In fact, it has been my experience, that the more one knows about electronics, the more deceptive it becomes. I did it at a tech show years ago and was met an hour before the second day of the event by a dozen guys at the booth. They were waiting for me to arrive. I recognized one guy from the audience the day before. Turns out he was head of the ny electricians union and brought several others with him because the board disturbed him so. Spent several minutes with them and they thought it was one of the most fascinating thing they had seen.

There are things you can do with the board - not in the instructions for the standard routine - that allow one to eliminate super high tech methods (even imagined, impossible one's).

Might do with an eBook on this topic - as I don't recall folks using forcing methods etc when performing the item - usually looked like a guy trying to remember what comes next in the sequence and later on when showing off their handiwork - trying to remember the reset code.

The Wellington board has some great little features one can take advantage of. And, as the method is so smart yet simple, it is easy to come up with ideas on the fly, and take advantage of situations as they arise. It's a very well designed process.

I saw Harry Anderson kill with a Wellington board on the Tonight Show a while back...

The one Wellington board that never made sense to me was the small battery-powered one. The whole Edison logo thing only makes sense IMHO with a corded unit.

How about as a Tesla version of the Ouiji board?

There is an electronic ouija on the market. An evp detector/amplifier/tuner premise could be hot for a spirit communication type board.