That is IMMENSE. Such an ambitious project at the time. I wonder what they used to switch between the messages. I'd guess a drum with pins on contacts.

My grandfather was a young boy when this sign was erected and when I was a young boy in the late 50s early 60s he spoke in awe of what an amazing spectacle that sign was to then.

Fran, gosh you really took my breath away with this. I grew up with my Grandfathers view on the world a man from 1899 my parents were at work. The stories he told me about how Egypt once looked and so many things that didn't make sense. We grew our own crystals from sugar in a milk bottle and made a crystal radio out of aluminum wrap and wax paper wrapped around toilet rolls. Thanks so much for the effort you put into these.

Love it. I often have said that we do not give enough credit to the engineers of the past. The complex things they created with the technology they had at the time is just amazing. And, to do the calculations using a slide rule? They created the baselines we use today. No one today would call Wilbur & Orville Wright's airplane cutting edge technology but for their time, and for their creation of a wind-tunnel to test their designs? Brilliant. Aeronautical engineers today know that airplanes fly. For them, it is just a "how do we best do this?" For Wilbur & Orville, it was, "can this be done at all?" So, "a tip of the hat" to Mr. Rice and his sign. No pun intended, but "brilliant!"

We should make a "Rice Electric" font !!! and try to replicate the look of the segmented letters :-) Who's with me ???

Wow! Just wow! I'm trying to imagine the effect it would have on someone who didn't even have electricity in their house!

Everything was invented by unknowns to solve a specific problem by necessity, not by those that got the credit years later for making it a luxury.

That sign is mind blowing! What a shame it was destroyed by a storm. I agree - film footage would have been - literally - out of this world. Mr. Rice was an incredible visionary. Thank you Fran for bringing this to us.

this is pretty much very first electronic or electromechanic billboard. Fascinating

$400,000 in 1910 = $11 million in 2020 dollars

Now _those_ are segments ..... Thanks Fran.

I agree, that is not a bad monospace font they ended up with. I wonder if someone has emulated it somewhere on one of the font sites already Wow that description actually helped me visualize it. That thing would be awesome to see even today.

Great job, Fran. And you're right - I had never heard of this. Thank You.

I clicked "Play," watched the Bina-View opener but heard nothing, and said, "Oh crap, let me turn the stereo on and restart the video!" Thank you for bringing us this gem. It's amazing to see how they accomplished so much over a _century_ ago, and even by today's standards this display is truly an engineering marvel. The alphanumeric display is astounding in its clarity; they were way ahead of their time! I'd have loved to be around to sit and observe the brainstorming behind it. So sad that it was destroyed in our rough New England winters.

I am fascinated. I wish someone would recreate this either in miniature or virtually.

THANK YOU, Fran. This was a Ken Burns quality historical presentation. I loved every second of it.

I can only imagine the current draw

i wonder if there might be some more information or drawings lurking in the archives of the planning department?

Cool stuff! Cutting edge in many ways. I'll bet the sequencing motors/switches were scary loud and likely rather sparky! And much fun changing bulbs! Thanks, Fran.

Amazing, and yes, never heard of it until now! Thanks for sharing this.

This reminded me of a picture I saw many years ago of the back of a building-scale news ticker display, probably also in New York. a quick search for news ticker found a Wikipedia article mentioning a "motograph" in NY in 1928, and a brief Wired article but can't find much else - would be interesting if you could dig up some more technical info on this

I would guess that the sign switching animation technique was similar to a barrel organ mechanism, or several of them probably wth replaceable segments for the alpha-numerics at the top. I really doubt that they had neon tubes, for the road part, probably just series strings of the lower candlepower incandescents. Attempts at highly complex incandescent array based television had been in development around this time too. Far too costly, except as an expiriment. Thanks for filling me in on the date of tungsten lamp developments. When I was a kid, during the mid 1950s, living in a house built in 1900 in Norwich CT, we had one incandescent from far in the past in the incomplete third floor. It took several long seconds to reach full illumination, and had a slip of paper inside the inner filament glass support tube. The patent dates ended at 1917 suggesting it was made just before the coiled tungsten era changed household lamps to something we all grew up with. I wish I had been able to take that old lamp with us when my family moved to California. As it is I now serve as a docent at the Mt, Wilson Observatory whose older electrical devices are all from that era. Original Edison carbon filament lamps still serve as resistive elements for several of the DC motors starting circuits. Modern AC supplied stepping motors replace a lot of them, but 110V DC still is used for a plethora of the other motors and several of the lighting circuits are "push button convenient" operated from DC solenoids on what we affectionately refer to as the "Frankenstein switch board" beneath the floor of the observing level of each dome..

Quite extraordinary!

Wow. That was really cool. I wish there was some record or pictures of the controls. I can only imagine how they would have "programmed" it.

Amazing research Fran. Incredible for it's time.

Is a lifetime resident of Dayton Ohio it was nice to see some of it's history on your Channel. Even locals kind of forget how much technology came out of Dayton during the last century beside the airplane.

I am amazed beyond belief, for all the reasons you mentioned. Thank you so much for documenting this display for posterity!

I was hoping that you'd make a replica of the Letter displays... :-)

Thanks for digging this out of history. Never heard of this before.

This popped into my youtube list this morning, 2 years later. Very cool.

Thank you Fran for an excellent analysis of the trackbed "flash bulbs" mentioned in the article!

Absolutely amazing! Thanks Fran!

Your latest vids are amazing! I love it!

I'm working on a theoretical display device, and videos like this help me stay motivated. It's nice to remember that the first 2D LED matrices where also extremely expensive and inefficient, yet still managed to impress the world. I hope my closed meshes of robotic nurbs can do the same.

Outstanding work Fran, very interesting. Thanks.

A great slice of history.👍👍👍👍😀

It is incredible, you would expect the first display sign to be small and dim but this looks epic. I really want to know how all these "switches" worked.

Very cool indeed! you are correct, I had never herd of this thing.

Fran, amazing! An interesting, unique device, but such detailed research and detail. Thank you... Amazing, as always!

Had heard of it. My grandad built electric signs in NJ. Neon, electric lamp and fluorescent lights. This was legendary amongst the tradesmen. If the tubes were neon. I did hear that they came to America with several of Clauds glassblowers. They were forbidden to make or teach neon to Americans. They did anyway and for a few years neon was underground till the patents came. Then Claud France sued like crazy.

Wow! Classic Fran - such a good video!

In so many ways it must have been a hell of a time because of how pioneering a lot of that tech was. Since you mentioned the Wright Brothers I visited the site of the later flights and current park and museum in Kill Devil Hills (their early work was in nearby Kitty Hawk but they moved a little south because the up to 100 foot tall dunes were useful for their glider experiments) and there's what I presume to be a reproduction of one of their wind tunnels and drag vs. lift balance scale installed inside - made from old bicycle spokes and hacksaw blades from their bicycle building business.

That's incredible tech for the time. Thanks so much for sharing this story, Fran. Just lovely.

Lets hope Big Clive watches this, he'll probably build one using led's :)

Absolutely Excellent work Fran . It did strike me that they could have possibly used Strowger switches (invented 1888 according to Wikipedia) with plug boards to program the character display. I came accross them used as a clock in some "Old" Elliot Automation gear in ~1980 used to print time data on a printer as part of a batch weighing system. It was "interesting :-)" to interface to that and the 50v valve (thermionic tube) logicof the various weight sensors to a "modern" Z80 system as part of the job to replace the ailing original electromechanical printer with a new serial device. Again thanks for all the work from Fran to put this Video together

At least a few still photographs & illustrations of the billboard survived, this must have been so cool to see firsthand!

This is fantastic and fascinating. Thank you for your great research.

Wow...can you imagine how well made these signs were.

That's really cool, especially about the (probably) neon tubes. Maybe that's why they called it the 'fiery' chariot race?

Great job Fran! Never heard of this display before. I didn't see any pixelation in the photos you showed. Was that due to the camera or was there some sort of diffuser over the bulbs? Good thing that it was pre-radio, can you imagine the RFI generated by the sign.

Get that thing to say, "Don, you're fired", and I'll do a hat dance on my knees.

Loving the new intro - so satisfying. You should have it automatically cycle through your name in the background.

What a fascinating history! Indeed I had never heard of this sign. Thanks so much for this well documented video! As a son of photographers I am well aware of orthochromatic film. Dad di his own film developing and printing using a red safelight in the darkroom. Old family photos from the 1940s and 1950s all show my mother's red lipstick as dark black! As a child this really creeped me out! Your theory about the horse's legs being flashed neon tubes makes sense. Good call.

What a fascinating story! Thanks, Fran.

Very interesting and fascinating! It must have been quite the spectacle.

I could only hope that somebody someday that's seen your video runs across film of this in they're great grandparents attic and sends it to you.

Brilliantly told piece of overlooked history. I hope everyone shares it around like I have done, you deserve more views.

Amazing to think this all went on 110 years ago!

I had never heard of this sign. Very interesting. You always seem to come up up with interesting display technology

The original Fremont Street Experience in Las Vegas was probably the last light bulb project of this magnitude. Each “pixel” of color was represented by 4 bulbs: red, yellow, blue and white; a total of 2.1 million bulbs. A team of bulb techs worked around the clock replacing the burned out lamps. The entire display was replaced with LEDs later.

Fascinating!! I never heard of this. More vids like this, please!

THIS IS JUST AMAZEBALLS, FRAN. So... for the longest time I didn't think giant alphanumeric displays even existed before the 1970's. Think, like, the one on the Family Feud game show. Then, one day a few years ago I was watching some footage of a game at the Astrodome (1960s) and they showed the giant display THERE and I was just BLOWN AWAY! 1965! So now I'm trying to figure out how many "segments" there are on this thing from 1910 or if all the lights are individually controlled...

GREAT VIDEO. Thank you for traveling back in time and bring us knowledge of this beautiful art work of the 1910.

Jacquard loom, which used cards which were mechanically "picked", similar to a harpsichord, Bain used punched paper tape for electric railroad signalling, John Shaw Billings and his assistant Herman Hollerith who used punched paper cards to electrically record the census. _-_-_-_-_ The display you describe would have needed a mechanism which could be _easily_ changed. Low voltage _and_ low current switching was already common, largely through railroad interlocking (from a "model board") to control distant signals and switches. These controls used multi-contact DC relays. Rice would certainly have been familiar with "relay ladder logic", which was already widely used for railroad, safety elevator, and industrial machine controls. SO...: Because there were multiple customers, a quick and reliable "program change-over" technique was required. It would be fascinating to know _which_ method Rice chose. _-_-_-_-_ Again, Fran: A fine video from you: THANKS ! /Mike _-_-_-_

Thanks! Such an interesting story. That was Frantastic!

Wow that's a pretty cool blast from our innovative past.

Nice video Fran. I can appreciate all the research you did to put this together.

Fran you the man. Sorry woman great content always!!!

Fran, these "documentaries" of yours are fantastic. The first video of yours I watched was the "documentary" on the history of the 45. Also fantastic. Keep up the great work.

Love these long form history videos! Thank you Fran!!!

Talk about hidden history of technology. Thank you for digging deep!

Absolutely fascinating, Fran. Thank you!

Too cool! What a shame it didn't stay in place for long. We'd know more about it if it had.

I agree : that was a nice looking font. Better than some modern alphanumeric displays

what a pleasant little story! those animated signs of the past were a unique creation.....& the animated electronics were just basic circuit's...It would be interesting 2 know the mathematical formula's 4 these antique circuit schematic's..reminds me of an exhibit that should have been in a museum! it breaks my heart 2 see history like this just disappear!! wonderful video!

the song in the end is amazing!!

Excellent, Fran. Thanks!

Exceptional and rivetting content here. I think you have excelled yourself :-)

What a cool sign!

Loving the history videos! Fran is awesome!

Great story Fran. I love your videos!

I remember a moving neon Pegasus atop a building in Tacoma, WA, advertising Mobilgas.

Wow. Very cool! Enjoyed it!

Thanks for a great video Fran!

great informative Video, with the history and details, must have been awesome to see :-)

Nice. That's immense!

Wow ... Great Job Fran. ...

I agree, the font looks great. If you look at something like a T or an E it looks like they're 7X5 pixels but if you look at an O it looks more like 9X9.

I'm guessing there was some setup with commutator wheels to control the parts of the sign that would always light up in sequence? As for the rest, perhaps they used photoresistors (they had those back then) which would pick up light going through punch cards of some sort, and that would switch relays that controlled power going to the lights on the sign. And then picture something like a shuffling machine pushing cards down some rack in front of the sensors, and all the clicky-clack going on as it did its thing.

Man, that sure was a good history lesson. In matter of fact ,it was even better than my high school history teachers was because the only thing he was worried about was smoking cigarettes in the teachers lounge, discussing union issues with the other teacher's and counting Campbell's soup can label's that he asked us to bring him when the cans were empty from home so he can get rewards from them that he never shared with the students.

My dad worked for a sign company in Dayton that pioneered digital output to CRTs. They built the "Flight Information Display System (FIDS)" for the new Dallas / Fort Worth Airport in the 1960s. Before that, CRTs could only be used to display arrival/departure info via a camera aimed at a flipboard. I guess Dayton had a long history of innovative signage technology.

Thanks for sharing this...I had no idea this even existed, hope you are well...

Fran the first digital display was 400 years before this one in Venice Italy, St. Marks "digital" clock. Great story, that's for sharing.

Love this Fran !

Thank you for this. It's amazing stuff. I always thought the separation footage was reproduced, not to fool anyone but to inform them And I never suspected that there would be footage of the fuel flow I love the shutterless strobe camera footage.

The sheet metal fences that appear to make up the horses legs (and elsewhere) were also being used in the animated illuminated tableau in Blackpool until well into the bright LED era - if you've never seen one in action it's like an open light pipe. sort of obvious how they work to give you a sharp outline you can fill with light or darkness by switching bulbs on and off... but effective.

some NJ Transit trains have LCD destination signs with many many segments, allowing for rounded corners, true diagonals for X Y Z, etc. My google-fu failed to find the mfgr or trade name for the bare unit. I agree with you, it's amazing that a pioneer went for such complexity early on instead of simplifications such as 5x7 matrix, 14 or 16 segments. It takes time to make something "as simple as possible but no simpler!"

Incredible.

I am at once reminded of the original animated scoreboard display at the Houston Astrodome.

The building in front on the right with all the owls on top was the NY Herald newspaper, thus "Herald Square" where the clock and many of the owl sculptures still reside. the owl's eyes light up deep green at night and "wink"