The Secret Life of Machines

Artist, inventor, tinkerer and thinker Tim Hunkin and motion-picture effects friend Rex Garrod hosted the British television series "The Secret Life of Machines" between 1988 and 1993. In eighteen 35-minute episodes, these two eccentric British wizards create practical demonstrations of everyday inventions which define modern life.

The mixture of grass-roots fabrication, dry British wit, intellectualism and charm of the two rumpled presenters make these shows some of the best television - and possibly the best educational material - ever.

Now, the best science museum ever (the Exploratorium in San Francisco) is hosting all eighteen episodes as streaming video and small-format downloads. Search for "exloratorium SLOM" to find the site hosting the episodes.

I wholeheartedly agree with Simon's comments on this program. It was on regularly on my former cable system about 15 years ago, and I taped about 10+ just to have. They ended up getting passed around and around, the interest and enjoyment level was just too interesting to keep to one's self, don't you know. I think the episode "The Secret Life of the Fax Machine" was the one I've personally used the most to people who for some reason ponder in front of me about how they work. That's when I whip out of my memory the description of how Tim and Rex, using signal flags at a distance are able to communicate letters from the alphabet onto a large piece of paper. This helped me understand how rotogravure and wire-photos are done. Thanks Simon for the p2p tip on finding other favorite missing episodes from my little library. I shall CIO (Check It Out) that source. Tim Hunkin appeared at some sort of science fair at the Palace of Fine Arts in S.F. some time in the 1990's and demonstrated his thoroughly manual copier technique. I had always thought that it was one of the most effective explanations in the series, and I gathered from that Tim did too.

This was one of my favorite series. I love gadgets and it's fun to see where they came from and how they came about, especially the ones we pretty much take for granted each day. For example: the lowly vacuum cleaner. Certainly not glamorous, but what would our carpets and draperies look like without this device.

Although it hasn't been run in the US for decades, I think it's time for a re-run, as well as a production on DVD. Luckily, I was able to find about 10 of the episodes on youtube and I really enjoy watching them over and over with my family and friends.

Tim Hunkin and his associate, Rex are really fun, if not a little crazy the way they perform some of their demonstrations.

Johnny

Some years ago I searched for a DVD of this series. Finding only PAL (European video) format discs I found the entire series on sharing networks. I found Tim Hunkin's website and apologized to him and got a personal reply encouraging such sharing, as the BBC gave him no royalties past the first airing in England. I wish I could visit his wonderful arcade on the beach there. My son had even commented on his current lack of hair, and he responded directly to that given his age. Really, if you have curious children or relatives this is a wonderfully engaging series and explains the mysteries of mundane 80's technology better than anything else I've found.

This was a totally remarkable series of programmes.

Not only did these programmes go into detail about certain gadgets which we have all come to take for granted, but they also go into a fair bit of detail as to how they work.

Quite impressive really considering each show was only just over half an hour long. There is so much detail packed into each one, it would have to be seen to be believed.

Even when I was at secondary school in the late nineties, my school had a copy of the videos. Tim Hunkin said that he is quite amazed that people are still looking for these shows even though they are over 15 years old. Anyone who has seen them will be amazed by the detail they all provide and nothing has beaten them since. That is why they were so hot then and why they are so hot now.

Tim Hunkin even encourages people to download the programmes free from p2p networks. This just shows that he is a true man of science. He does this sort of thing for the love of it and not for financial gain.

If you have not seen any of these shows then do have a look for them. You'll be so glad you did.