On Wed, 12 Oct 2005 21:33:18 +0100, "Andy"
wrote:

Does anyone know anything about the details about the BESI (Bus Electronic
Scanning Indicator) sytem and how it worked? Other than it based on barcodes
and scanning heads?
http://homepages.enterprise.net/beul.../london28.html


BESI was around before barcodes were in common use. It used metal
strips with little reflective bits in them. Traditionally London
buses have always had a holder on each side for a plate which denotes
the bus's 'running number' (I think that's the correct term). Buses
which used BESI had an extra holder like this, but mounted near the
front between the decks, and the metal strips slotted into this.

The scanning heads had fairly large lenses in them. I've no idea what
sort of light source was used but it would have been very low
technology by today's standards. It certainly wouldn't have been a
laser as they were strictly for laboratory use in the 1960s and 1970s

Martin

In article , Martin Rich
writes
It certainly wouldn't have been a
laser as they were strictly for laboratory use in the 1960s and 1970s

I don't think so. In the mid-1970s I was using a laser in school physics
lessons; the school had at least two for that purpose.

--
Clive D.W. Feather | Home:
Tel: +44 20 8495 6138 (work) | Web: http://www.davros.org
Fax: +44 870 051 9937 | Work:
Please reply to the Reply-To address, which is:

On Fri, 14 Oct 2005 12:07:59 +0100,
Clive D. W. Feather
wrote in :
In article , Martin Rich
writes
It certainly wouldn't have been a
laser as they were strictly for laboratory use in the 1960s and 1970s

I don't think so. In the mid-1970s I was using a laser in school physics
lessons; the school had at least two for that purpose.

I saw my first laser during my introductory First Year Physics
lectures in 1970. I watched the laser spot in interest as the lecturer
(Ronald MacDonald) set it up, then gasped in awe as he walked straight
through the beam _and was not cut in half!_ It was a HeNe commercial
unit, probably a couple of mW...

--
Ivan Reid, Electronic & Computer Engineering, ___ CMS Collaboration,
Brunel University. ] Room 40-1-B12, CERN
KotPT -- "for stupidity above and beyond the call of duty".

On Fri, 14 Oct 2005 12:07:59 +0100, "Clive D. W. Feather"
wrote:

It certainly wouldn't have been a
laser as they were strictly for laboratory use in the 1960s and 1970s

I don't think so. In the mid-1970s I was using a laser in school physics
lessons; the school had at least two for that purpose.

In the physics laboratory, by any chance? :-)

On Fri, 14 Oct 2005 12:07:59 +0100, "Clive D. W. Feather"
wrote:

In article , Martin Rich
writes
It certainly wouldn't have been a
laser as they were strictly for laboratory use in the 1960s and 1970s

I don't think so. In the mid-1970s I was using a laser in school physics
lessons; the school had at least two for that purpose.

Presumably those lessons took place in a laboratory, unless your
school had a rather unusual approach to physics teaching...

:-)

Martin