S1E6a - Throughput, Thrills, and Theme Parks

Roller coasters and databases have the same issues: concurrency, throughput, and panic when things go wrong. Theme parks are basically enterprise technology, just with more churros and slightly fewer COBOL programmers.

Join Renee and Marc on another thrilling episode of the Nostalgic Nerds Podcast where we discuss the adventurous and thrilling theme park technology space. As always, we start in the past with the origins of modern parks and rides and soar all the way to modern day before we discuss the future of theme park tech. This episode had such a nostalgia vibe for us that we had to break it into two! Join us for both episodes!

Join Renee and Marc as they discuss tech topics with a view on their nostalgic pasts in tech that help them understand today's challenges and tomorrow's potential.

email us at nostalgicnerdspodcast@gmail.com

Chapters

• 0:17 Shout-Outs Across the Globe
• 6:00 Amusement Park Technology Evolution
• 20:11 Thrills of the Late 1800s
• 30:03 The Rise of Steel Coasters
• 39:24 Balancing Innovation and Safety
• 46:28 Animatronics: The New Frontier
• 55:32 Future of Theme Park Technology

Transcript

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<v Renee>Hey, everybody. Welcome back to the Nostalgic Nerds podcast.

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<v Renee>Before we get started in tonight's episode, I just wanted to give a couple of shout-outs.

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<v Renee>Renee, we've got listeners from all over the world, and I thought it'd be cool.

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<v Renee>I know. I thought they would.

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<v Renee>Be entirely located in our own homes. Like, hey, Renee, we've got four people

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<v Renee>at my house listening. How about yours? I thought that's how it was going to go.

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<v Marc>Yeah. Oh, look, there's six in the small, village. Yeah, in the UK.

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<v Marc>No, we've got quite an interesting breakdown. I always find this data and statistics really fascinating.

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<v Marc>But if you're one of the four listeners or maybe one person that listened four

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<v Marc>times in Singapore, I mean, I only know a handful of people in Singapore. I don't know anybody.

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<v Renee>Thanks for listening.

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<v Marc>Thank you for listening. Send me a text or something because I'm sure if there's

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<v Marc>somebody listening in Singapore.

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<v Marc>It's not an accident. Yeah, exactly. It's not an accident. Please just send

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<v Marc>me a text or something. Tell me what you think.

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<v Marc>A couple folks in Finland because, you know, Finland.

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<v Marc>That's a lot of fun. I love Finland. Same thing. Yeah, if you know me and you're

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<v Marc>in Finland, please just send me a text.

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<v Marc>We'd love to come visit. I know a few people in Finland. Yeah,

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<v Marc>we'll come visit. I know, exactly.

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<v Renee>We'll watch us from your living room.

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<v Marc>And uh you know lots of folks from the u.s and the uk obviously but the one

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<v Marc>that's uh that's really interesting i hope this person listens again uh we've

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<v Marc>got one listener one listen in ghana in akra so thank.

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<v Renee>You for turning tuning in ghana that's

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<v Marc>Great yeah thank you very much so lots of folks all over the world we've got

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<v Marc>some other european countries which is great thanks to folks in Chicago and La Crescenta Montrose.

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<v Renee>There you go. Shout out to Montrose.

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<v Marc>Let's see. I'll pick one that's, you know, Andover, Ohio. Thank you very much.

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<v Renee>Thank you, Andover.

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<v Marc>Might be my brother. There we go. Thanks, Pete. Is he an Andover? He's an Andover.

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<v Marc>Well, then that's probably him. I should have picked a different one.

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<v Marc>That's okay. Thank you, PJ.

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<v Marc>All right. Hey, everyone. Welcome back. I'm Marc, and I'm here with my co-host, Renee.

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<v Marc>Renee, you know I love theme parks. I grew up right in Southern California,

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<v Marc>so I basically had Disneyland and Knott's Berry Farm and Magic Mountain in my backyard.

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<v Marc>And fortunately, or maybe not so fortunate sometimes, I've had the chance at

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<v Marc>a time or two to work with some of these companies on things,

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<v Marc>you know, various technology things, mobile checkout,

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<v Marc>payment stuff, digital queues, and even did a POC on augmented reality once, which was interesting.

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<v Marc>So Amusement Part Tech has really been something that I've lived and breathed

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<v Marc>both as a kid and as a professional.

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<v Renee>So I grew up in Pittsburgh, home of Kennywood. Oh, anytime I talk about Pittsburgh,

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<v Renee>I have to do it in Pittsburghese.

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<v Renee>So Yin's noted, this is one of the oldest parks in the U.S.,

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<v Renee>right? It was built like way back in the 1800s and that.

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<v Renee>And then George Washington hung out there once. It was really cool.

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<v Renee>It's built right on the Monongahela River.

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<v Renee>The Mon River in West Midland. And I used to go there as a kid.

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<v Renee>And we would go in July. My dad's birthday is July 15th. And he would pick the hottest day on earth.

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<v Renee>It wasn't Kennywood. It was the surface of the sun with a couple of roller coasters.

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<v Renee>That's really all it was. And we would be laying on the stage under the band

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<v Renee>shell just to get some sleep because it was too hot during the day to play.

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<v Renee>It was unbelievable. Every year it was like that. And even as an adult,

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<v Renee>they still open it at Christmastime.

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<v Renee>And if Sam and I were back in Pittsburgh, because that's where I'm from at Christmastime, we would go.

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<v Renee>And Kennywood is one of those places where even as we were looking through one

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<v Renee>of the rides from the 1900s, it was like the Caterpillar.

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<v Renee>I'm like, I rode that. The old mill ride. Oh, my God, I rode that.

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<v Renee>And so it turns out that Kennywood is just a park full of rides from the 1800s

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<v Renee>and the early 1900s, 1920s.

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<v Renee>And some new stuff. Steel Phantom's good. But we grew up riding the Racers,

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<v Renee>which was one of the first wooden coasters that was a racing coaster.

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<v Renee>And it was one track, but the track was right next to each other.

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<v Renee>And somehow the cars never hit each other. I'm not sure how that happens,

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<v Renee>but it's a single track racing coaster.

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<v Renee>First of its kind, right? In 1911, the Jackrabbit's built, and it's still running today.

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<v Renee>Almost died on it once. Won't ride it again. And then the Thunderbolt,

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<v Renee>which is really one of the best coasters on Earth and what makes it different

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<v Renee>than anything else. It's another wooden coaster.

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<v Renee>But what makes it different than anything else was it doesn't go out and around and up the chain hill.

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<v Renee>It actually goes out of the station and plummets into a ravine.

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<v Renee>And that starts your ride. You don't start the ride on the hill.

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<v Renee>You start the ride going down the hill. It's really a great coaster.

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<v Renee>What a great park. I have great memories about it.

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<v Renee>And I'm a fan of amusement parks. I've been with you to amusement parks.

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<v Renee>We've done that together a lot, actually.

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<v Renee>So, yeah, I'm excited to talk about this.

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<v Marc>Yeah, cool. Well, you have to

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<v Marc>come out and we'll do the Disney Paris Park because that's a lot of fun.

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<v Renee>Oh, nice. Okay, bonjour.

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<v Marc>It's really pretty. Okay. But that's what we're going to talk about today.

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<v Marc>As always, we talk about tech, and we're going to look at amusement parks,

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<v Marc>not just as places of fun, but as showcases for engineering and technology.

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<v Marc>Every era of rides reflects the tech breakthroughs of the time so buckle up nerds.

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<v Marc>All right. So we can roll back to the 1800s.

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<v Marc>And Rene gave us a good summary of Kennywood.

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<v Marc>But even before that, we had amusement parks popping up in different places in the 1800s.

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<v Marc>Now, amusement parks as we know them kind of now, close but not quite,

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<v Marc>but you would sort of be able to recognize them.

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<v Marc>They started up in the 1800s with pleasure gardens and simple mechanical rides,

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<v Marc>carousels and things like that, small track rides and things.

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<v Marc>Now, Tivoli Gardens, which is probably one of the most famous from this era,

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<v Marc>opened in Copenhagen in 1843, and it mixed gardens, music, rides,

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<v Marc>all together in one place.

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<v Marc>Now, I was able to visit Tivoli once, although I was traveling almost weekly

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<v Marc>to Copenhagen a few years back, and I would stay right across the street.

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<v Marc>And it was really pretty at night. It would be all lit up and stuff. It was really nice.

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<v Renee>I've stayed at that hotel right

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<v Renee>across the street from Tivoli Gardens in Copenhagen. I've stayed there.

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<v Marc>Yeah, it's cool. The little big open square and stuff.

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<v Marc>And I think that, you know, it only opens seasonally. It's not open,

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<v Marc>you know, the year round.

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<v Marc>So I wasn't able to go, but then COVID hit and, you know, then,

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<v Marc>you know, guess what? No Tivoli.

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<v Marc>But it was, it was interesting and fun. But yeah, that's, that's kind of a cool

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<v Marc>place to visit and get, get a flavor for what these older style parks are.

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<v Marc>But by 1893, you had sort of the one-upmanship where the rides and ride technology

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<v Marc>kept kind of progressing.

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<v Marc>And you had this sort of seminal event with the 1893 World's Fair.

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<v Marc>Okay, Renee, can I tell you, I was obsessed with Chicago World's Fair for a while.

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<v Marc>I read this book, Devil in the White City, which is about this mass murderer

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<v Marc>and the architect that built the White City.

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<v Renee>Is that H.H. Holmes?

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<v Marc>Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

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<v Renee>Okay, go ahead.

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<v Marc>Okay, so it's a great book if you want to read it.

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<v Marc>But, you know, it was a really fascinating look because in the beginning it's

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<v Marc>talking about the 1893 World's Fair and Wrigley and its involvement.

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<v Marc>And I think his name is Burns. He was the architect. He was the architect for

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<v Marc>the Flatiron Building in New York. So very famous architect at the time.

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<v Marc>And I just, you know, I was just obsessed. There were so many interesting things

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<v Marc>about the 1893 World's Fair. But the sort of the central thing for the 1893

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<v Marc>World's Fair was the Ferris wheel.

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<v Marc>And it was sort of an, I would say, a response to the previous World's Fair

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<v Marc>in Paris with the Eiffel Tower.

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<v Marc>They had to build something big.

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<v Marc>And so the Ferris wheel at the Chicago World's Fair was 264 feet tall.

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<v Marc>I don't know what that is in real units. I put it in freedom units tonight.

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<v Marc>It ran on steam-powered engines.

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<v Marc>It carried about a little over a million people in its first season.

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<v Marc>And as I said, check out that book. Now, ride concurrency and throughput is

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<v Marc>something I looked at extensively in doing the research for the episode.

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<v Marc>And some of the best rides in theme parks today can run at about 2,000-ish riders per hour.

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<v Marc>Now, because the Ferris wheel was gigantic, 264 feet tall, it could carry about

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<v Marc>that same amount in ride concurrency.

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<v Marc>They could run through about 38,000 people in a day on a peak day,

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<v Marc>which is where you get up to, you know, such big numbers.

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<v Marc>But it's just, you know, the cars themselves were about the size of a rail car.

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<v Marc>That's how big these cars were and how big the Ferris wheel was.

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<v Marc>So even by today's standard, it would be a pretty big steam-powered ride.

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<v Renee>Okay, here's a couple things about that. So if you look at what we were doing

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<v Renee>with rides in the 1800s, really they were a reflection of the Industrial Revolution, right?

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<v Renee>So we were building a transcontinental railroad.

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<v Renee>We were making sure everything was about rail. In the city of Pittsburgh,

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<v Renee>literally everything was about rail.

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<v Renee>We had trolleys everywhere. We didn't have buses. We had trolleys. They were everywhere.

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<v Renee>We were very much a trolley city. Still is, but very much a trolley city, right?

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<v Renee>So we would take these existing technologies, the steam engine,

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<v Renee>the trellis, the railroad ties, all of that, and then bring it into the amusement

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<v Renee>park and turn it into something that was different.

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<v Renee>It goes faster. There's less guarding stuff around you. It feels more dangerous. It's way more fun.

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<v Renee>That train ride is one thing, but that scenic railroad with that bench that

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<v Renee>goes up and down the hills at like 16 miles an hour, that's a completely different

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<v Renee>game. And it was probably a lot of fun. I mean, this is the Industrial Revolution, Marc.

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<v Renee>I mean, there's a thousand ways to die.

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<v Renee>But none of them were happening in the amusement park back then.

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<v Renee>It's actually as unsafe and crazy as it was, a steeplechase,

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<v Renee>stupid wooden horses that gallop.

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<v Renee>And all you're doing is hanging on to the reins, the mane, or the person sitting

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<v Renee>in front of you. And if your slips and your dresses like were too slippery and

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<v Renee>you fell off, your date watched you as you just languish there like trying to get up. Right.

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<v Renee>But nobody cared. They would ride them anyway. Right. Because that was the least

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<v Renee>dangerous thing in their life. I think that's what it's about.

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<v Renee>And when you think, just think about the Eiffel Tower for a minute.

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<v Renee>Just think about that for a minute and what it looks like. Put it in your head

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<v Renee>and then say, I bet if you took that all apart, put it in a pile and then said,

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<v Renee>I'm a build a ride out of it. Like, think of it as like Legos,

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<v Renee>like take it all apart, lay it down, put it all back together and make it a ride.

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<v Renee>Of course it would be the Ferris wheel. It's the exact same stuff,

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<v Renee>just rearranged into something way more fun.

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<v Renee>Welcome to the industrial revolution and entertainment. That's what I'll say about that.

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<v Marc>I think that steam-powered, it was operating on 2,000, so two separate motors,

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<v Marc>each of the 1,000 horsepower each. Those are big.

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<v Renee>1,000 horsepower each.

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<v Marc>That's the Titanic.

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<v Renee>Were they shoving coal into it? How was that thing still running?

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<v Renee>Do we know? Oh, we didn't do enough research.

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<v Marc>Oh, no, it's gone. That thing is long gone.

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<v Marc>But yeah, it's a couple of things about it. 36 passenger cars.

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<v Marc>They called them gondolas.

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<v Marc>They were each about 24 feet long. They could seat about 40 people and hold

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<v Marc>up to 60 when they're standing.

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<v Marc>Yeah. 60 people in a, in a single car.

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<v Marc>Total concurrent capacity was about 2,160 or so passengers per full rotation.

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<v Marc>Now, because it's a Ferris wheel, right? You do, you load. This is what I think

00:13:19.790 --> 00:13:23.970
<v Marc>is really fascinating. and maybe we'll get to this, is the way that the ride

00:13:23.970 --> 00:13:26.410
<v Marc>cycling works and throughput.

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<v Marc>And I think about it in sort of batch or large batch, small batch,

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<v Marc>throughput kinds of thinking, because I'm always thinking about that sort of stuff.

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<v Marc>A typical cycle was about 20 minutes total.

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<v Marc>So when you got on with 40 other people or 60 other people somewhere in there on each car,

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<v Marc>it would take about 20 minutes to rotate all around

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<v Marc>and you think about the landscape of chicago at

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<v Marc>the time it wasn't wasn't what it is today and so

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<v Marc>264 feet up is quite a view in in in chicago and it was right on the right on

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<v Marc>the lake took about two revolutions to load and unload that stopped about six

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<v Marc>times to let passengers on and off

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<v Marc>and it would do two to three continuous revolutions for the actual ride.

00:14:11.850 --> 00:14:16.730
<v Marc>So it would go around, load, you know, load again on a second revolution,

00:14:16.730 --> 00:14:20.330
<v Marc>and then it would go around for two to three times.

00:14:20.750 --> 00:14:27.330
<v Marc>So depending on, you know, crowd management, as I said, about 38,000 passengers a day.

00:14:27.490 --> 00:14:32.610
<v Marc>And now the most efficient rides that we have, you know, in theme parks today

00:14:32.610 --> 00:14:37.990
<v Marc>do a similar throughput, about 2,000 riders per hour. And they were doing that

00:14:37.990 --> 00:14:40.310
<v Marc>in 1893, which is kind of cool.

00:14:41.170 --> 00:14:46.430
<v Marc>Sheer mechanical redundancy, big giant axles, big giant braking systems,

00:14:46.790 --> 00:14:51.590
<v Marc>didn't have any kind of braking or blocking logic, just really heavy-duty mechanical

00:14:51.590 --> 00:14:53.350
<v Marc>control and manual oversight.

00:14:53.350 --> 00:14:56.250
<v Marc>So these are like, as I said, this is,

00:14:56.570 --> 00:15:02.210
<v Marc>you go in 1890, you have the Eiffel Tower, and then three years later,

00:15:02.390 --> 00:15:08.970
<v Marc>you have this massive park, you know, this ride, you know, a similar scale and size and scope.

00:15:09.190 --> 00:15:14.790
<v Marc>And it's just engineering feet with all the gears, pulleys, counterweights. You know what, thank.

00:15:14.790 --> 00:15:16.850
<v Renee>God for the engineers that wanted to have a good time.

00:15:16.870 --> 00:15:17.110
<v Marc>I know.

00:15:17.590 --> 00:15:21.150
<v Renee>Right? Like, thank God they exist. Thank you, engineers who live to have a good

00:15:21.150 --> 00:15:23.370
<v Renee>time. I appreciate you. Yeah.

00:15:24.940 --> 00:15:28.520
<v Marc>Yeah, I think that that's, you know, it's really saying something, right?

00:15:28.720 --> 00:15:32.400
<v Marc>The level of integration that you would have. And, you know,

00:15:32.460 --> 00:15:38.020
<v Marc>I have friends in defense and you look at the types of systems integration work that they do, right?

00:15:38.140 --> 00:15:43.180
<v Marc>For one project, you might have 30, 40 or 50 different systems integrators,

00:15:43.380 --> 00:15:44.780
<v Marc>you know, all pulling stuff together.

00:15:45.320 --> 00:15:48.400
<v Marc>And, you know, that's kind of what you're looking at, right?

00:15:48.480 --> 00:15:51.920
<v Marc>You're looking at this, you know, these motors, these steam powered engines,

00:15:51.920 --> 00:15:55.340
<v Marc>they existed. You know, it's not exactly off the shelf, right?

00:15:55.480 --> 00:16:00.740
<v Marc>But, you know, 2,000 horsepower steam engines, they buy these.

00:16:00.880 --> 00:16:03.840
<v Marc>Okay, what are we going to do with them? Oh, we're going to connect them to axles.

00:16:04.100 --> 00:16:07.440
<v Marc>Oh, now I've got to connect it to these giant pulleys. Oh, I've got to have

00:16:07.440 --> 00:16:08.440
<v Marc>these counterweight systems.

00:16:08.680 --> 00:16:13.100
<v Marc>Oh, I've got these railroad cars that I'm going to attach to this big giant

00:16:13.100 --> 00:16:17.680
<v Marc>circle system. It's just, you know, it's just really, it's really crazy.

00:16:18.080 --> 00:16:21.580
<v Marc>But that's how, that's how we, we do it, right?

00:16:21.700 --> 00:16:26.400
<v Marc>We pull lots of different pieces off the shelf and put it together into a new platform.

00:16:26.400 --> 00:16:31.280
<v Renee>They were exceptionally good at that, I think, back in the 1800s,

00:16:31.340 --> 00:16:32.640
<v Renee>like as you were thinking about it.

00:16:32.760 --> 00:16:37.920
<v Renee>But then I think about Kennywood was born around the same time as trolleys,

00:16:38.260 --> 00:16:39.820
<v Renee>transportation infrastructure, right?

00:16:40.020 --> 00:16:44.280
<v Renee>And the reason why, and a lot of railroads did it. It wasn't just the railroads in Pittsburgh.

00:16:44.480 --> 00:16:48.020
<v Renee>A lot of railroads did it. But you would have a rail line that would just end.

00:16:48.020 --> 00:16:54.420
<v Renee>And in Pittsburgh in 1890, whatever, it ended in West Mifflin. And so they decided, Mr.

00:16:54.680 --> 00:16:57.580
<v Renee>Kenny, decided, oh, well, I have a bunch of people here.

00:16:57.740 --> 00:17:01.080
<v Renee>Let's just give them something to do. And they put in some rides,

00:17:01.400 --> 00:17:03.040
<v Renee>right? And there was a swing.

00:17:03.460 --> 00:17:06.740
<v Renee>There was the whips. Those were there for a while.

00:17:07.260 --> 00:17:10.119
<v Renee>It was an old mill ride for a while because those were easy.

00:17:10.220 --> 00:17:14.780
<v Renee>It was just a lagoon with a boat. There was all kinds of stuff like that. And people would come.

00:17:14.960 --> 00:17:19.359
<v Renee>And it was meant to bring ridership up on the weekends. Because if you weren't

00:17:19.359 --> 00:17:22.859
<v Renee>going into town to work at a mill, right, you weren't going anywhere.

00:17:23.040 --> 00:17:25.440
<v Renee>And so they decided, well, we're going to give them a destination to go to.

00:17:25.540 --> 00:17:26.840
<v Renee>And we're going to make them get on the line.

00:17:26.960 --> 00:17:29.619
<v Renee>And we're going to make them take that line as far as they can so we can get

00:17:29.619 --> 00:17:31.820
<v Renee>the most money out of them. And they'll have a good time and spend money at

00:17:31.820 --> 00:17:34.800
<v Renee>some place that we own. And then they're going to get back on our trolley and come back home.

00:17:34.900 --> 00:17:38.220
<v Renee>It was perfect. We're going to make money all the way around all weekend long.

00:17:38.820 --> 00:17:42.060
<v Renee>I think it's just something you do, right? So, like, when you think about it,

00:17:42.160 --> 00:17:45.180
<v Renee>you think about, like, the use case of Kennywood was simply,

00:17:45.400 --> 00:17:49.040
<v Renee>I got to get more ridership and I got to get him to do it on the weekend and here we come, right?

00:17:49.180 --> 00:17:51.660
<v Renee>And I think people took to that for a couple of reasons.

00:17:51.859 --> 00:17:56.740
<v Renee>One, life was hard in the 1800s, like, late 1800s, early 1900s,

00:17:56.820 --> 00:18:01.300
<v Renee>disease, you know, the Industrial Revolution meant you died young.

00:18:01.460 --> 00:18:04.480
<v Renee>It was hard to find a way to have a good time. And if you could go somewhere

00:18:04.480 --> 00:18:08.240
<v Renee>and do that with your best girl, wouldn't you do that? And all of the rides,

00:18:08.420 --> 00:18:13.000
<v Renee>here's what's funny about that time for rides, all of the rides were meant for

00:18:13.000 --> 00:18:15.660
<v Renee>men and women to accidentally touch each other.

00:18:17.690 --> 00:18:21.130
<v Renee>Because it's Victorian times and no one did. If you went on a date,

00:18:21.349 --> 00:18:24.310
<v Renee>you took your mother or your brother with you as a chaperone.

00:18:24.450 --> 00:18:27.349
<v Renee>You're like, they just didn't do that. But if you got on the steeplechase together,

00:18:27.570 --> 00:18:30.170
<v Renee>you were hanging on to your boyfriend and you weren't allowed.

00:18:30.390 --> 00:18:32.950
<v Renee>And if you were on the human roulette and you were in the middle and it was

00:18:32.950 --> 00:18:37.330
<v Renee>spinning around and you got thrown into a crowd of people, it was okay because you were having fun.

00:18:37.510 --> 00:18:40.430
<v Renee>When you look at all, when you're sitting in the boat in the old mill,

00:18:40.570 --> 00:18:43.710
<v Renee>you're sitting really close together, it's really dark and you can make out

00:18:43.710 --> 00:18:45.910
<v Renee>and no one will know. That's the only reason I wrote it.

00:18:46.250 --> 00:18:50.050
<v Renee>And so like, that's it, man. Like all of those rides were meant to like break

00:18:50.050 --> 00:18:54.390
<v Renee>down those social barriers between men and women and let them interact in a

00:18:54.390 --> 00:18:55.310
<v Renee>really interesting way.

00:18:55.450 --> 00:18:59.450
<v Renee>So Dreamland and Coney Island or Steeplechase, like all, and what was the other

00:18:59.450 --> 00:19:02.990
<v Renee>one? Luna Park, like all of those very first amusement parks.

00:19:03.290 --> 00:19:06.750
<v Renee>That's the kind of rides you saw. Go look at all the pictures from the 1800s.

00:19:06.890 --> 00:19:08.349
<v Renee>There's men and women piled on each other.

00:19:08.510 --> 00:19:12.750
<v Renee>That was not how you behaved in polite society. And for that,

00:19:12.910 --> 00:19:14.930
<v Renee>that place was called Sodom.

00:19:15.250 --> 00:19:21.670
<v Renee>They called it Sodom, right? Because it was just so beyond the pale of what was allowed.

00:19:21.810 --> 00:19:24.070
<v Renee>So not only was it crazy because you would get to do a lot of fun,

00:19:24.210 --> 00:19:27.150
<v Renee>but it was crazy because you got to do it with people you didn't usually get

00:19:27.150 --> 00:19:31.869
<v Renee>to do it with in a way where all those social things were broken down.

00:19:31.990 --> 00:19:37.770
<v Renee>So I feel like that to me encapsulates those rides, those people and why they were there.

00:19:38.030 --> 00:19:41.470
<v Renee>Part of it was because that was the end of the line on a trolley on a Saturday.

00:19:41.690 --> 00:19:44.770
<v Renee>And another part of it was, I got to hold your hand and no one would say anything.

00:19:45.290 --> 00:19:50.070
<v Marc>That's crazy. Well, I mean, you know, I don't want to say that you were maybe

00:19:50.070 --> 00:19:52.830
<v Marc>projecting about the reasons why you would go to these things,

00:19:53.010 --> 00:19:58.970
<v Marc>but, you know, I think you do have a point there, Victorian era social norms.

00:19:59.250 --> 00:20:04.170
<v Marc>But this period of the late 1800s leads into what, you know,

00:20:04.230 --> 00:20:08.170
<v Marc>you kind of think about as the, you know, the golden age, you know,

00:20:08.250 --> 00:20:12.349
<v Marc>whether you think about the Roaring Twenties or, you know, pre-World War II, right?

00:20:12.470 --> 00:20:16.530
<v Marc>This period of time that's between World War I and World War II,

00:20:16.530 --> 00:20:21.890
<v Marc>where you see the development of, you know, actual thrill rides.

00:20:21.930 --> 00:20:27.590
<v Marc>So you go from this sort of scenic coaster, scenic railway, right?

00:20:27.710 --> 00:20:33.070
<v Marc>Where, you know, the switchback railway at Coney Island had a max speed of six miles an hour.

00:20:34.330 --> 00:20:37.950
<v Renee>Hey, they were riding horses before. Like, that must have seemed fast.

00:20:37.950 --> 00:20:39.510
<v Renee>That must have seemed fast.

00:20:40.490 --> 00:20:45.930
<v Marc>Yeah, sure. You know, it was, you know, it's more, more fun than thrill,

00:20:46.170 --> 00:20:48.990
<v Marc>but, you know, maybe it was a little thrilling, you know, the gent,

00:20:49.150 --> 00:20:52.750
<v Marc>you know, kind of the hills, the scenic railways and all of that. It's kind of fun.

00:20:53.050 --> 00:20:57.369
<v Marc>But then, you know, in that short period of time, you go from 1884,

00:20:57.670 --> 00:21:02.990
<v Marc>six miles an hour to 40 miles an hour with the giant dipper in 1915,

00:21:02.990 --> 00:21:07.070
<v Marc>which is at San Diego's Belmont Park, which eventually, you know,

00:21:07.730 --> 00:21:09.770
<v Marc>I don't know if it burns down or falls into the ocean.

00:21:09.770 --> 00:21:15.810
<v Marc>But the Giant Dipper was, you know, kind of the first real, you know,

00:21:15.990 --> 00:21:20.170
<v Marc>large scale, you know, just crazy thrill ride.

00:21:20.310 --> 00:21:24.430
<v Marc>And that's, you know, that sort of leads into this period of time where,

00:21:24.430 --> 00:21:27.109
<v Marc>you know, roller coasters are kind of in full swing.

00:21:27.770 --> 00:21:31.970
<v Marc>You've got the cyclone at Coney Island, the speed, the noise,

00:21:32.349 --> 00:21:37.190
<v Marc>the shaking, you know, and that big leaps and the jumps and the,

00:21:37.230 --> 00:21:40.510
<v Marc>you know, all of that, you know, the dips and all of that stuff.

00:21:40.670 --> 00:21:46.190
<v Marc>It's just it's a different experience than what they they had just a few short years before that.

00:21:46.410 --> 00:21:48.410
<v Renee>There were stories in the in the.

00:21:49.090 --> 00:21:53.970
<v Renee>In the archives about how people, because they weren't used to the forces that

00:21:53.970 --> 00:21:55.210
<v Renee>those things were putting on them.

00:21:55.310 --> 00:21:58.710
<v Renee>Some of them would pass out. Some of them would get vertigo.

00:21:58.950 --> 00:22:02.210
<v Renee>Some people had to be taken off in stretchers. Some people were so terrified

00:22:02.210 --> 00:22:03.950
<v Renee>they tried to get out of it if it slowed down.

00:22:04.130 --> 00:22:08.950
<v Renee>Like it was crazy, like how people reacted to the idea that it's like,

00:22:09.090 --> 00:22:13.950
<v Renee>like some of this stuff, five G's, you ever had five G's? I wrote a bobsled

00:22:13.950 --> 00:22:15.130
<v Renee>once. I'm going to tell you it hurt.

00:22:15.349 --> 00:22:18.170
<v Renee>Like, I can't imagine if I went out for a good time and ended up with that.

00:22:18.270 --> 00:22:22.010
<v Renee>Like I would, And you could see how people like, and it was trial and error.

00:22:22.230 --> 00:22:25.050
<v Renee>And they said if people would complain, they would figure out a way to slow

00:22:25.050 --> 00:22:28.250
<v Renee>it down. But only if they complained, right? If they didn't complain,

00:22:28.430 --> 00:22:29.710
<v Renee>then who cares if it broke a rib?

00:22:29.869 --> 00:22:32.410
<v Renee>You had a good time. But that's kind of how they looked at it,

00:22:32.510 --> 00:22:36.750
<v Renee>right? And so there was no thinking ahead for safety, I don't think.

00:22:36.890 --> 00:22:41.450
<v Renee>People would ride a ride until the ride was no longer popular because too many people got hurt on it.

00:22:41.550 --> 00:22:43.849
<v Renee>And then they'd be like, let's take it out because it's not making money.

00:22:43.930 --> 00:22:45.210
<v Renee>It was just a capitalist thing.

00:22:45.290 --> 00:22:48.890
<v Renee>It wasn't a safety thing, you know, it just kind of did. But at the same time,

00:22:49.030 --> 00:22:51.490
<v Renee>right, we're not at the steel coasters yet.

00:22:51.950 --> 00:22:55.470
<v Renee>Like, wooden coasters are dangerous, right? But they're not dangerous in a way

00:22:55.470 --> 00:22:59.890
<v Renee>where I'm going 80 miles an hour, right? Like, it's not like that. Yeah.

00:23:00.090 --> 00:23:05.630
<v Marc>But the Cyclone did 60. The Cyclone did 60 miles an hour.

00:23:06.090 --> 00:23:09.369
<v Renee>Well, I won't say that because the Beast does an amazing speed.

00:23:09.369 --> 00:23:14.670
<v Renee>Like, in Kings Island today, the Beast, that thing goes like 70 miles an hour, 75 miles an hour.

00:23:14.790 --> 00:23:19.109
<v Renee>So, like, I'm going to say that that's, yeah, that's crazy. and we do build them that fast.

00:23:19.150 --> 00:23:19.770
<v Marc>For 1927.

00:23:20.050 --> 00:23:24.190
<v Renee>For 1927. And those cars weren't all that great. It was just a bench with open

00:23:24.190 --> 00:23:25.650
<v Renee>sides. Like, it's crazy.

00:23:25.910 --> 00:23:30.170
<v Marc>It's borderline crazy. Maybe a lap, you know, restraint of some sort,

00:23:30.290 --> 00:23:32.230
<v Marc>like a piece of leather or something, you know.

00:23:32.570 --> 00:23:37.250
<v Renee>They were using rope. They tied a rope around it. Like, imagine how good you'd feel about that. Yeah.

00:23:37.869 --> 00:23:43.490
<v Marc>You know, to me, those wooden coasters, you know, growing up so close to Disneyland

00:23:43.490 --> 00:23:49.490
<v Marc>and that, you know, there was a couple of wooden coasters in Southern California, Colossus,

00:23:49.770 --> 00:23:53.030
<v Marc>and I think there was another one. What was the name of the other one? But...

00:23:53.330 --> 00:23:56.369
<v Marc>Colossus was the big one in Magic Mountain.

00:23:56.630 --> 00:23:59.430
<v Marc>You know, it was built in the 70s or something like that. But,

00:23:59.630 --> 00:24:02.270
<v Marc>you know, we just didn't see a lot of the wooden coasters.

00:24:02.410 --> 00:24:05.210
<v Marc>My mom grew up on them because she was going to go into those,

00:24:05.310 --> 00:24:09.109
<v Marc>you know, PLP or, you know, Belmont Park or whatever.

00:24:09.910 --> 00:24:15.609
<v Marc>But I didn't really experience the wooden coasters all that much, you know, just a couple.

00:24:15.830 --> 00:24:18.609
<v Marc>It wasn't really my thing.

00:24:18.910 --> 00:24:21.930
<v Renee>Yeah, my dad loved them, so we did it a lot. We sought them out.

00:24:22.150 --> 00:24:25.010
<v Renee>Like, my dad loved that stuff. And we get from a railroad family,

00:24:25.010 --> 00:24:26.630
<v Renee>too, so I could see why that's a thing.

00:24:27.070 --> 00:24:30.770
<v Renee>Like, we all love those. Like, I said to Sam, I'm like, I don't think long and

00:24:30.770 --> 00:24:33.030
<v Renee>hard about a bucket list, but I've thought long and hard about this.

00:24:33.050 --> 00:24:37.550
<v Renee>When I retire, I'm getting an RV, and for a year, I'm driving the top 50 coasters in the country.

00:24:38.390 --> 00:24:41.050
<v Renee>Only the wooden ones. I'm not doing loops or anything like that.

00:24:41.170 --> 00:24:42.090
<v Renee>Only the wooden ones, right?

00:24:42.369 --> 00:24:46.010
<v Renee>Because that's my favorite part of a park, a wooden coaster.

00:24:46.150 --> 00:24:51.070
<v Renee>Like, I would go anywhere for that. I love it. I love it. I love the noise. I love the smell.

00:24:51.290 --> 00:24:53.869
<v Renee>I love the sound. It takes me right back to my childhood.

00:24:54.150 --> 00:24:59.050
<v Renee>I've been riding the Thunderbolt for 40 years. Like, I just want to go, like, of course.

00:24:59.830 --> 00:25:02.670
<v Renee>Of course I would love that. That's my thing.

00:25:02.849 --> 00:25:06.369
<v Renee>So what's your favorite ride? So as you're a kid and you're doing all that stuff,

00:25:06.510 --> 00:25:08.349
<v Renee>what was your favorite ride growing up?

00:25:09.609 --> 00:25:15.170
<v Marc>I think, well, you know, I have a soft spot for the Disney dark rides.

00:25:16.030 --> 00:25:21.410
<v Marc>And I think Peter Pan is my favorite. It's not very thrilling. It's not very exciting.

00:25:21.410 --> 00:25:23.070
<v Renee>It's like being in Pirates of the Caribbean.

00:25:24.270 --> 00:25:29.350
<v Marc>Yeah, you just kind of watch it and, you know, goes floating around and all of that.

00:25:29.550 --> 00:25:33.770
<v Marc>And, you know, we're lucky enough to have an implementation of Peter Pan in

00:25:33.770 --> 00:25:36.550
<v Marc>the Paris Disney. So when we go, we ride that.

00:25:36.830 --> 00:25:42.530
<v Marc>But, you know, from a tech perspective, it's interesting because the Disney

00:25:42.530 --> 00:25:47.550
<v Marc>dark rides, the fairy tale style dark rides, at least, ride concurrency is pretty

00:25:47.550 --> 00:25:51.170
<v Marc>low, even though they can run a lot of cars through them.

00:25:51.410 --> 00:25:53.550
<v Marc>Because the cars are small and the tracks are short.

00:25:54.310 --> 00:26:02.810
<v Marc>And then the number of riders through an hour is low, not just because of ride

00:26:02.810 --> 00:26:07.630
<v Marc>concurrency, but also because the load and unload system is not continuous.

00:26:08.150 --> 00:26:12.150
<v Marc>And there's single load and unload zone.

00:26:12.150 --> 00:26:19.590
<v Marc>So it's not like some of the other other systems where you can you know have two tracks two cars,

00:26:20.230 --> 00:26:25.070
<v Marc>one's loading while one's departing and running and that sort of thing so yeah

00:26:25.070 --> 00:26:29.510
<v Marc>i have a soft spot for for peter pan even though you know it's not it's always

00:26:29.510 --> 00:26:31.450
<v Marc>a long line let's say yeah.

00:26:31.450 --> 00:26:35.750
<v Renee>So for me it's um it's the racer at kennywood park that's my favorite coaster

00:26:35.750 --> 00:26:39.730
<v Renee>of all time it's one the tracks are so close together that, you know,

00:26:39.870 --> 00:26:43.730
<v Renee>you can lean out with your arm out and slap the person's hand in the other car.

00:26:43.830 --> 00:26:45.170
<v Renee>And that's something we used to do as kids.

00:26:45.290 --> 00:26:47.670
<v Renee>Like you'd ride past and everybody would slap hands going past.

00:26:47.890 --> 00:26:51.370
<v Renee>And it's still one of my most favorite memories. But I think as an

00:26:53.500 --> 00:26:56.940
<v Renee>I'm a huge fan of National Lampoon's Vacation, the very first one,

00:26:57.020 --> 00:26:59.360
<v Renee>right? Oh, right. And they go to Magic Mountain.

00:27:00.140 --> 00:27:02.940
<v Renee>But they're supposed to be a Wally World. Wally World is Magic Mountain.

00:27:03.280 --> 00:27:06.540
<v Renee>And when they're on the big white roller coaster with all the cops at the very

00:27:06.540 --> 00:27:10.580
<v Renee>end where they're doing the credits, it's Colossus, right? Like, that's what they're on.

00:27:10.800 --> 00:27:15.380
<v Renee>And I thought, okay, I'm going to go and I'm going to ride Colossus because I am such a fan.

00:27:15.620 --> 00:27:19.980
<v Renee>Only we went on Halloween and the cars were on the track backwards.

00:27:20.320 --> 00:27:22.880
<v Renee>And so I still don't know what it's like. I still don't know.

00:27:22.880 --> 00:27:25.460
<v Renee>So all I ever saw was track because I was backwards.

00:27:25.800 --> 00:27:28.440
<v Renee>I never saw the front of the track. I only saw what was behind me.

00:27:28.540 --> 00:27:31.620
<v Renee>So I still don't know what that's like. It was a gnarly ride backwards, though.

00:27:31.820 --> 00:27:35.280
<v Renee>I still don't know what it was like, but I'm glad I got to do it because they

00:27:35.280 --> 00:27:38.080
<v Renee>took it down. And, Marc, they're closing the park.

00:27:38.660 --> 00:27:39.680
<v Marc>Oh, are they really?

00:27:39.940 --> 00:27:44.460
<v Renee>Yeah, 2028. It's done. Magic Mountain will be no more. Wally World's gone.

00:27:44.880 --> 00:27:46.500
<v Marc>Wally World. Oh, that's too bad.

00:27:46.740 --> 00:27:47.620
<v Renee>I know, right?

00:27:47.620 --> 00:27:54.600
<v Marc>Magic Mountain, like in the sort of the tiered structure of theme parks in Southern

00:27:54.600 --> 00:28:00.060
<v Marc>California, you know, it sort of depended upon your age range and interest, right?

00:28:00.240 --> 00:28:05.360
<v Marc>Because if you were, you know, a snarky teenager, you would go to Magic Mountain

00:28:05.360 --> 00:28:07.920
<v Marc>because they had the best steel coasters.

00:28:09.060 --> 00:28:14.180
<v Marc>And if you wanted, you know, a cheaper experience, a less expensive,

00:28:14.320 --> 00:28:17.700
<v Marc>I should say, you would go to Knott's Berry Farm because it had,

00:28:17.900 --> 00:28:21.160
<v Marc>you know, kind of a mix and the ticket price was lower than Disneyland.

00:28:21.780 --> 00:28:27.560
<v Marc>But if you wanted to, you know, be more, let's say, more date friendly,

00:28:27.560 --> 00:28:29.920
<v Marc>then you would go to Disneyland, right?

00:28:30.640 --> 00:28:34.840
<v Marc>And, you know, because it was, you know, cutesy and, you know,

00:28:34.940 --> 00:28:36.440
<v Marc>kind of more, I don't know.

00:28:36.440 --> 00:28:38.320
<v Renee>It's sort of romantic for the right people.

00:28:38.520 --> 00:28:44.080
<v Marc>Right. Yeah. You know. And then Universal Studios was never really...

00:28:45.200 --> 00:28:49.800
<v Marc>It was, you know, Universal Studios in Hollywood started in 1964,

00:28:49.800 --> 00:28:54.540
<v Marc>and it was really just sort of a backlot thing, you know, until they actually

00:28:54.540 --> 00:28:56.560
<v Marc>did the shows and the rides and things like that.

00:28:56.820 --> 00:29:00.320
<v Marc>So it wasn't, when I was a kid, it wasn't really that big of a deal.

00:29:00.620 --> 00:29:03.000
<v Marc>So it was definitely down on the list.

00:29:03.880 --> 00:29:06.520
<v Renee>I'm going to say, like, it didn't even feel like it was on the map until they

00:29:06.520 --> 00:29:10.200
<v Renee>did City Walk, which was all the stuff outside of Universal Studios,

00:29:10.240 --> 00:29:12.520
<v Renee>because then you had a reason to be there if you weren't going to the park.

00:29:13.080 --> 00:29:14.280
<v Renee>Yeah. Yeah, I would say that.

00:29:14.280 --> 00:29:17.380
<v Marc>I practically, you know, this is a topic for another time maybe,

00:29:17.540 --> 00:29:21.460
<v Marc>but like my most experience with NetWear was at Universal Studios.

00:29:21.680 --> 00:29:25.580
<v Marc>And I practically had a parking spot reserved for, you know,

00:29:25.680 --> 00:29:28.920
<v Marc>I was there almost every day for a year for a while.

00:29:29.120 --> 00:29:32.000
<v Marc>It was just nuts the way that that place was wired.

00:29:32.520 --> 00:29:35.740
<v Renee>So now we're talking about going from wooden coasters to the,

00:29:35.740 --> 00:29:37.900
<v Renee>you know, the steel coasters, right?

00:29:38.100 --> 00:29:41.380
<v Renee>And that's like mainframe. It's like mainframe to cloud if you think about it.

00:29:41.460 --> 00:29:46.020
<v Renee>It really is. It's a huge step up in what you can do, how you can do it,

00:29:46.020 --> 00:29:50.040
<v Renee>and how flexible you can be in your design. Because now, corkscrews, loops.

00:29:50.180 --> 00:29:54.880
<v Renee>Although we were doing loops in wooden coasters, it did almost kill people.

00:29:55.180 --> 00:29:58.200
<v Renee>Like, it broke some necks. I'm not going to lie. People got whiplash from it,

00:29:58.300 --> 00:30:01.320
<v Renee>and they quit doing it after a while. They did try. I think it was 1912.

00:30:01.540 --> 00:30:03.860
<v Renee>They did try, and then they were like, yeah, we're not going to.

00:30:03.940 --> 00:30:08.460
<v Renee>We're going to lay off on that one. But the steel coasters were able to bring a couple of things.

00:30:08.680 --> 00:30:11.460
<v Renee>Like, definitely different design. design but we had

00:30:11.460 --> 00:30:14.920
<v Renee>way better testing we would start putting like you know test dummies in those

00:30:14.920 --> 00:30:17.780
<v Renee>things and letting them rip and see if we broke anyone's neck instead of actual

00:30:17.780 --> 00:30:22.320
<v Renee>people right so so yeah let's talk about that right we had we had room for bigger

00:30:22.320 --> 00:30:25.740
<v Renee>designs and it's we don't have to wait for the 1980s for that it's happening

00:30:25.740 --> 00:30:31.100
<v Renee>in the 1950s steel coasters are showing up in places in the 1950s talk about that yeah

00:30:31.100 --> 00:30:37.600
<v Marc>So 1950s there were some steel coasters before that but not really the tubular

00:30:37.600 --> 00:30:40.640
<v Marc>steel that you think about in kind of modern coasters.

00:30:40.760 --> 00:30:45.220
<v Marc>You had even some wood and steel integrated systems.

00:30:45.580 --> 00:30:52.720
<v Marc>But people think about the first major tube steel coaster is 1959 with the Matterhorn.

00:30:52.900 --> 00:30:58.620
<v Marc>And it brings a couple of, you know, kind of really interesting safety as well

00:30:58.620 --> 00:31:03.800
<v Marc>as engineering innovations brought to Disney by a company called Aerodynamics,

00:31:04.120 --> 00:31:10.200
<v Marc>Aerosystems Aerodynamics, and which disney wanted a portion of and end up buying

00:31:10.200 --> 00:31:11.620
<v Marc>part of that but that's a different story,

00:31:12.600 --> 00:31:16.420
<v Marc>But it brought also a computerized block system.

00:31:16.700 --> 00:31:20.140
<v Marc>So if you've ever ridden the Matterhorn, and you know what? I got to tell you,

00:31:20.360 --> 00:31:25.400
<v Marc>Rene, I don't, I just don't, like, the last time I was at Disneyland in California,

00:31:25.400 --> 00:31:27.060
<v Marc>I'm not sure I rode the Matterhorn.

00:31:27.060 --> 00:31:31.880
<v Marc>Because from 1959 to whatever it was when I last wrote it,

00:31:32.100 --> 00:31:36.280
<v Marc>it went from tubular steel, which is usually associated with kind of a smooth

00:31:36.280 --> 00:31:41.780
<v Marc>ride and banked turns and, you know, kind of, you know, the different types

00:31:41.780 --> 00:31:44.620
<v Marc>of speed and maneuvers it can make.

00:31:44.740 --> 00:31:49.660
<v Marc>And that thing is rickety and like jerky and it shakes a lot.

00:31:49.980 --> 00:31:55.440
<v Renee>I was going to say, if you've ever ridden a bobsled on ice, it's exactly the same.

00:31:55.440 --> 00:31:59.300
<v Marc>Well, maybe that's the feel that they're going for.

00:31:59.440 --> 00:32:03.940
<v Marc>But man, my head always hurts after riding that stupid bobsled. But it is fun.

00:32:04.520 --> 00:32:06.600
<v Marc>Two tracks on the original Matterhorn.

00:32:07.500 --> 00:32:12.120
<v Marc>And they kind of go from different sides, different ride loading areas.

00:32:12.320 --> 00:32:17.860
<v Marc>They go up inside. The big incline is at the beginning. They go up inside the

00:32:17.860 --> 00:32:20.240
<v Marc>mountain and then come down on two separate tracks.

00:32:20.440 --> 00:32:25.140
<v Marc>And I think what's really kind of cool about that system was this new computerized block system.

00:32:25.140 --> 00:32:30.920
<v Marc>So the track itself was designed in blocks, so sections,

00:32:31.240 --> 00:32:37.220
<v Marc>and there's two independent tracks and the blocking system or these different sectional systems,

00:32:37.400 --> 00:32:44.260
<v Marc>there'd be sensors to tell the computer when it was safe to let a new train

00:32:44.260 --> 00:32:48.680
<v Marc>go because there were multiple cars on the tracks at any one time.

00:32:49.560 --> 00:32:53.200
<v Marc>And that, you know, I love the ride systems.

00:32:53.380 --> 00:32:57.100
<v Marc>It's a big, you know, kind of memory for me watching the operators.

00:32:57.100 --> 00:33:01.300
<v Marc>They sit there and there's the big, there's a control panel and there's the

00:33:01.300 --> 00:33:05.300
<v Marc>metal buttons and there's the big flashy red button and the green button and

00:33:05.300 --> 00:33:06.380
<v Marc>they light up and everything.

00:33:06.660 --> 00:33:10.080
<v Marc>And, you know, they would blink and that would tell the operator to do something

00:33:10.080 --> 00:33:12.520
<v Marc>and they'd hit that. And I thought, oh, that's cool.

00:33:12.780 --> 00:33:15.540
<v Marc>You know, a nine-year-old me thought. I wish I could push a big.

00:33:15.540 --> 00:33:16.480
<v Renee>Red button once in

00:33:16.480 --> 00:33:21.600
<v Marc>A while. Exactly. Just boom. to launch the system, right?

00:33:22.240 --> 00:33:27.380
<v Marc>But that's all fed through a series of sensors and things which were originally

00:33:27.380 --> 00:33:30.100
<v Marc>done through 1959 technology.

00:33:30.420 --> 00:33:36.580
<v Marc>But it would allow more cars through the system at any one time because of this blocking system.

00:33:36.780 --> 00:33:40.100
<v Marc>It was basically a way to keep the trains from colliding.

00:33:40.320 --> 00:33:45.620
<v Marc>And it's ACID compliance for roller coasters if you know what ACID compliance is.

00:33:45.640 --> 00:33:50.320
<v Renee>No, what's ACID compliance? It's an acronym. It's ACID. What's it stand for?

00:33:50.780 --> 00:33:56.100
<v Marc>Yeah, yeah. So it's like database systems, making sure two people don't override each other's work.

00:33:56.240 --> 00:34:01.140
<v Marc>So atomicity, consistency, isolation, and durability.

00:34:01.700 --> 00:34:05.400
<v Marc>So it's like, you know, making sure that your database system,

00:34:05.600 --> 00:34:07.980
<v Marc>the transaction happens at the right time.

00:34:08.239 --> 00:34:11.920
<v Marc>You know, the transaction happens because it's a consistent way.

00:34:12.560 --> 00:34:17.120
<v Marc>Only that person is operating on it. And when, you know, that piece of,

00:34:17.280 --> 00:34:22.600
<v Marc>you know, whatever it is that goes into that block, it's going to stay there correctly.

00:34:22.600 --> 00:34:29.440
<v Marc>So that's the same sort of concept, but this time in a computerized system all the way back to 1959.

00:34:29.840 --> 00:34:37.100
<v Renee>Yeah, so Disneyland invented database locks, only with more screaming and injuries.

00:34:37.719 --> 00:34:42.520
<v Marc>Yeah, right. Yeah, the head injuries. And yeah, exactly.

00:34:42.780 --> 00:34:46.739
<v Marc>And resilience matters, right? in this system, because if one of these block

00:34:46.739 --> 00:34:50.100
<v Marc>systems fails, the ride has to fail safe, right?

00:34:50.199 --> 00:34:54.739
<v Marc>We use that word fail safe probably a lot in tech, right?

00:34:54.860 --> 00:35:01.140
<v Marc>But we don't, like that term comes from, you know, rail systems and transportation systems.

00:35:01.320 --> 00:35:04.500
<v Marc>And that when something fails, it has to fail safe.

00:35:04.640 --> 00:35:09.480
<v Marc>So that the worst outcome, you know, is stopping the train, not smashing it

00:35:09.480 --> 00:35:12.560
<v Marc>and, you know, breaking people as well as trains.

00:35:12.739 --> 00:35:19.380
<v Marc>And that's really the same principle that underpins everything, every ride today. Yeah.

00:35:19.640 --> 00:35:23.239
<v Renee>You know, my favorite park on earth, Kennywood. It's still in Conneaut Lake

00:35:23.239 --> 00:35:25.320
<v Renee>Park, if it's still open. I don't know. It's been a long time.

00:35:25.440 --> 00:35:29.660
<v Renee>But usually when a ride was so old, it was time for it to go somewhere else

00:35:29.660 --> 00:35:31.640
<v Renee>because Kennywood needed to make room for a new ride.

00:35:31.840 --> 00:35:35.380
<v Renee>They would send it to its sister place, which is Conneaut Lake Park.

00:35:35.500 --> 00:35:38.620
<v Renee>And Conneaut had a kiddie land that was really good and storybook for us,

00:35:38.719 --> 00:35:41.360
<v Renee>you know? And so it was like for the little kid, because they are different

00:35:41.360 --> 00:35:46.080
<v Renee>rides, but for a long time, there was something, it was, these are things that

00:35:46.080 --> 00:35:47.560
<v Renee>when you look it up in 19...

00:35:48.540 --> 00:35:55.260
<v Renee>2007 to maybe 1919, maybe, there's things like the old mill ride or the chairs,

00:35:55.600 --> 00:35:58.300
<v Renee>which back in the day, they weren't as well designed.

00:35:58.420 --> 00:36:01.400
<v Renee>And occasionally people fell out of them and definitely ran into each other.

00:36:01.540 --> 00:36:04.120
<v Renee>Like they collided all the time. It just didn't work real well.

00:36:04.199 --> 00:36:07.880
<v Renee>But who cares? You'd get on it because, again, there's more dangerous things.

00:36:08.100 --> 00:36:11.520
<v Renee>But I remember there was this ride called the Caterpillar. I swear to God,

00:36:11.620 --> 00:36:14.480
<v Renee>you could set it all up in my living room. That track was so tight.

00:36:14.600 --> 00:36:17.739
<v Renee>But it also had humps in it. And so you could look like a caterpillar,

00:36:17.900 --> 00:36:19.860
<v Renee>right? It would just go So up and down, up and down. Yeah.

00:36:20.120 --> 00:36:22.840
<v Renee>And the front of it had a little caterpillar face on it. So you would get in

00:36:22.840 --> 00:36:27.880
<v Renee>it. It's a tiny car. And you only put eight people on it. And each person takes up the whole car.

00:36:28.100 --> 00:36:31.560
<v Renee>And you would ride it around. And it would go faster and faster and faster.

00:36:31.620 --> 00:36:33.580
<v Renee>And it would start to feel way more dangerous.

00:36:33.760 --> 00:36:37.120
<v Renee>And then all of a sudden, out of nowhere, this canopy would come up over your head.

00:36:37.180 --> 00:36:41.100
<v Renee>And now it's fast and dark. And all you can see is the track and the daylight

00:36:41.100 --> 00:36:43.199
<v Renee>under it. You can't see anything else.

00:36:43.400 --> 00:36:47.080
<v Renee>And because it's gasoline-powered, I'm pretty sure that canopy is filling up

00:36:47.080 --> 00:36:49.940
<v Renee>with carbon monoxide. while you're spinning around, right?

00:36:50.180 --> 00:36:52.500
<v Renee>I mean, that's what analog systems mean.

00:36:52.760 --> 00:36:55.660
<v Renee>Thank God they would open the canopy before you passed out and then you would

00:36:55.660 --> 00:36:58.160
<v Renee>get off and be like, oh, I feel so nauseous and like I have a headache.

00:36:58.300 --> 00:37:02.420
<v Renee>Yeah, you were breathing in carbon monoxide while riding that ride, right?

00:37:02.739 --> 00:37:06.120
<v Renee>But that's what it was. None of these, go look at any roller coaster.

00:37:06.280 --> 00:37:09.219
<v Renee>It's mostly a chain lift and gravity.

00:37:09.860 --> 00:37:13.260
<v Renee>Like that's it, dude. Like a wooden roller coaster, that's all you get.

00:37:13.500 --> 00:37:16.880
<v Renee>So you need manual brakes and everybody needs to be paying attention.

00:37:16.880 --> 00:37:21.420
<v Renee>You need manual, like, release locks, and everybody needs to be paying attention.

00:37:21.680 --> 00:37:24.260
<v Renee>You need a lot of people to run those rides because, seriously,

00:37:24.420 --> 00:37:25.820
<v Renee>everybody needs to be paying attention.

00:37:25.980 --> 00:37:28.800
<v Renee>And those riders need to pay attention because they can't stand.

00:37:29.060 --> 00:37:30.820
<v Renee>They can't get out. They can't do crazy stuff.

00:37:31.120 --> 00:37:34.380
<v Renee>They can't take off their, you know, seat belt when they're going over a bunny

00:37:34.380 --> 00:37:37.680
<v Renee>hill. Like, just you can't do that stuff, right? Or otherwise you die.

00:37:38.040 --> 00:37:42.340
<v Renee>So, yeah, when you think about it. PJ. So, you think about that stuff and you

00:37:42.340 --> 00:37:46.719
<v Renee>say to yourself, well, you know, maybe, you know, they were manual.

00:37:46.880 --> 00:37:50.719
<v Renee>And they were analog, but they weren't super dangerous.

00:37:51.080 --> 00:37:53.920
<v Renee>That's what I'll say about the beginning of amusement parks.

00:37:54.060 --> 00:37:58.920
<v Renee>There weren't, there were a lot of injuries, but there were not a lot of deaths.

00:37:59.120 --> 00:38:02.600
<v Renee>And I don't think they had any at Kennywood. I don't think they had any at Kennywood.

00:38:02.900 --> 00:38:06.900
<v Renee>I'm not going to lie to you, dude. I've been watching a lot of video on YouTube

00:38:06.900 --> 00:38:09.620
<v Renee>and almost everything that crashes lately.

00:38:09.820 --> 00:38:12.120
<v Renee>I hate to say this, Singapore, but it's in China.

00:38:12.360 --> 00:38:15.100
<v Renee>Like China of stuff breaks all the time. And you know what?

00:38:15.160 --> 00:38:17.640
<v Renee>They go in and do an investigation and they come out and they say,

00:38:17.800 --> 00:38:21.500
<v Renee>no one, they knew, they inspected it. They knew it had a problem.

00:38:21.680 --> 00:38:24.380
<v Renee>They let it go. They expected it. They knew they had a problem.

00:38:24.560 --> 00:38:29.080
<v Renee>They let it go. So it turns out that we have the controls to make sure it's good.

00:38:29.219 --> 00:38:32.480
<v Renee>We have the sensors that tell us when something's wrong. What we need to do

00:38:32.480 --> 00:38:36.199
<v Renee>a better job is training the freshmen in college that are running these things

00:38:36.199 --> 00:38:38.380
<v Renee>not to ignore the red buttons.

00:38:39.360 --> 00:38:42.900
<v Renee>Because it seems to me like that's what we have to worry about,

00:38:43.020 --> 00:38:46.060
<v Renee>right? We have to worry about that. If we're going to talk about

00:38:46.600 --> 00:38:51.340
<v Renee>you know, like the analog going to digital, like you hope you would hope that

00:38:51.340 --> 00:38:53.360
<v Renee>in that digital transformation, right?

00:38:53.500 --> 00:38:56.800
<v Renee>Like just in that idea that, you know, we're going from just like a bank from

00:38:56.800 --> 00:38:58.000
<v Renee>COBOL to mainframe, right?

00:38:58.280 --> 00:39:02.719
<v Renee>Like COBOL to the cloud. Like you would think that higher level of capability

00:39:02.719 --> 00:39:07.219
<v Renee>that you're getting in the cloud that you didn't have on mainframe COBOL would make us more safe.

00:39:07.400 --> 00:39:10.620
<v Renee>Fact of the matter is, I think you should all learn ancient Aramaic and start

00:39:10.620 --> 00:39:14.239
<v Renee>doing COBOL again because it seems like it's super safe and easy to use and

00:39:14.239 --> 00:39:16.480
<v Renee>is less like overhead on that platform.

00:39:17.060 --> 00:39:20.699
<v Renee>I guess that's what you have to balance, right, Marc? Talk about it that way

00:39:20.699 --> 00:39:24.480
<v Renee>for me. How do I balance innovation with reliability?

00:39:24.780 --> 00:39:28.960
<v Renee>Because if I don't, people are going to get hurt and they're here to have fun.

00:39:29.719 --> 00:39:33.800
<v Marc>Yeah, I think it's a good way to look at it and thinking about it as the analog,

00:39:34.020 --> 00:39:35.060
<v Marc>the digital transformation.

00:39:36.420 --> 00:39:41.500
<v Marc>It's a way to think about the types of controls that are put into place.

00:39:42.380 --> 00:39:46.900
<v Marc>And, you know, through some of these systems, yeah, we started with manual systems

00:39:46.900 --> 00:39:52.340
<v Marc>and, you know, guys actually physically pulling levers, hydraulics and that,

00:39:52.560 --> 00:39:56.180
<v Marc>you know, pneumatics, which would be set up by electricity, right?

00:39:56.260 --> 00:40:00.360
<v Marc>So you have this progression, even though it was, you know, a guy pulling a

00:40:00.360 --> 00:40:05.880
<v Marc>lever to a pneumatic switch that was tripped because the car went by it,

00:40:06.060 --> 00:40:09.140
<v Marc>right, to increase reliability over a person.

00:40:09.460 --> 00:40:14.760
<v Marc>But it was still an analog system, right? It was detecting, you know,

00:40:14.820 --> 00:40:19.880
<v Marc>an event that perhaps was not so easy to tell a one or a zero on.

00:40:20.500 --> 00:40:25.500
<v Marc>And you had analog systems around, you know, pneumatics and hydraulics and things

00:40:25.500 --> 00:40:29.739
<v Marc>like that as time progresses. And even when we get to, you know,

00:40:29.780 --> 00:40:34.739
<v Marc>the 50s, you know, kind of just starting to peek into the digital world.

00:40:34.960 --> 00:40:39.800
<v Marc>But thinking about it, you know, from a more kind of purist technology perspective

00:40:39.800 --> 00:40:43.820
<v Marc>or the types of systems that we work with, you know, all the time,

00:40:44.060 --> 00:40:48.860
<v Marc>I think about financial systems because that's the world that I live in.

00:40:49.260 --> 00:40:58.520
<v Marc>And while some of those systems are maybe seen as archaic or less than desirable.

00:40:59.140 --> 00:41:04.960
<v Marc>Right, to maintain and operate, the safety and control that you have in some

00:41:04.960 --> 00:41:11.900
<v Marc>of these systems is it's it's technology and control that has developed over

00:41:11.900 --> 00:41:18.440
<v Marc>many many decades in some cases and that and that maturity of operating and.

00:41:18.960 --> 00:41:25.239
<v Marc>It's different, right? It's developed over time because there was,

00:41:25.300 --> 00:41:28.320
<v Marc>you know, a problem with somebody's, you know, transaction.

00:41:28.340 --> 00:41:31.680
<v Marc>And then there was a system that was developed to deal with that.

00:41:31.840 --> 00:41:35.380
<v Marc>And then there was another system to deal with the automation of,

00:41:35.560 --> 00:41:39.260
<v Marc>you know, moving some transaction from one place to another so that,

00:41:39.380 --> 00:41:41.580
<v Marc>you know, that didn't happen again or whatever.

00:41:41.580 --> 00:41:45.780
<v Marc>And you have, you know, I see this in banks, particularly all the time where

00:41:45.780 --> 00:41:52.020
<v Marc>you have decades and decades of operational resilience and operational process

00:41:52.020 --> 00:41:55.199
<v Marc>that's developed to keep people safe.

00:41:55.199 --> 00:41:59.420
<v Marc>And then as you transition to, you know, quote unquote digital.

00:41:59.840 --> 00:42:03.440
<v Marc>You know, I hate to call it mainframe analog because it's not right.

00:42:03.440 --> 00:42:06.360
<v Marc>It's like one of the most digital systems ever created.

00:42:06.699 --> 00:42:13.600
<v Marc>But, you know, my mobile application operates in a different way.

00:42:13.800 --> 00:42:18.760
<v Marc>Right. The theory of operation is different for a mobile application than it

00:42:18.760 --> 00:42:23.800
<v Marc>is for a nightly clearing and settlement batch system.

00:42:24.060 --> 00:42:28.940
<v Marc>And that's okay. It's okay that it's different. But that operational maturity.

00:42:29.340 --> 00:42:35.580
<v Marc>The risk understanding around those differences is not mature because we haven't

00:42:35.580 --> 00:42:38.699
<v Marc>been doing that for the same amount of time.

00:42:38.699 --> 00:42:45.719
<v Marc>And the technology is rapidly evolving. And so the understanding of the level

00:42:45.719 --> 00:42:51.360
<v Marc>of maturity that you have to get to is not quite there.

00:42:51.660 --> 00:42:58.580
<v Marc>If you think about the platform level capability that you get on one type of

00:42:58.580 --> 00:43:00.380
<v Marc>system, let's call mainframe,

00:43:00.660 --> 00:43:08.540
<v Marc>versus Amazon Web Services, Amazon Web Services, you can shoot yourself in the foot, and that's okay.

00:43:08.719 --> 00:43:12.420
<v Marc>You can do that. and you can do that with the mainframe as well,

00:43:12.440 --> 00:43:18.400
<v Marc>but there are so many platform level things that are in place that are tightly

00:43:18.400 --> 00:43:22.840
<v Marc>integrated in the monolith that it's a little harder to shoot yourself in the

00:43:22.840 --> 00:43:25.520
<v Marc>foot sometimes. You can still do it. I have done it.

00:43:25.680 --> 00:43:32.100
<v Marc>You know, I've only got six toes left, but that process, it's just different, right?

00:43:32.280 --> 00:43:37.280
<v Marc>And that transition period of time, it means that you have to take those learnings

00:43:37.280 --> 00:43:42.760
<v Marc>from the past and kind of fast forward and rapidly evolve those operational capabilities.

00:43:43.060 --> 00:43:47.920
<v Marc>And I think in the theme park space, it's the same kind of understanding, right?

00:43:48.239 --> 00:43:57.380
<v Marc>You use China as example, theme park as a discipline hasn't existed since the early 1900s, right?

00:43:57.560 --> 00:44:02.100
<v Marc>And so the operational maturity has to evolve rapidly if they want to get to

00:44:02.100 --> 00:44:04.500
<v Marc>a certain level of service standard.

00:44:05.000 --> 00:44:09.660
<v Renee>That's a good point, actually. So how long did it take us to get to a good service

00:44:09.660 --> 00:44:12.160
<v Renee>standard with like high tech kind of stuff?

00:44:12.320 --> 00:44:15.900
<v Renee>Were we there in the 1980s? Like, does it take us till like the 1980s to get there?

00:44:16.699 --> 00:44:20.820
<v Marc>You know, I think, yes, I think so.

00:44:21.120 --> 00:44:27.699
<v Marc>You know, particularly in, you know, kind of the top shelf or top tier theme

00:44:27.699 --> 00:44:32.239
<v Marc>park systems, there was a bit of a boom in the 80s and 90s.

00:44:32.420 --> 00:44:36.540
<v Marc>Disney doubled down and invested quite heavily.

00:44:36.820 --> 00:44:41.239
<v Marc>Disney, they launched Epcot, you know, which was, what was that,

00:44:41.360 --> 00:44:43.640
<v Marc>like 1983 or 84, something like that.

00:44:44.000 --> 00:44:50.360
<v Marc>And Universal Studios kind of, developed pretty heavily into their Hollywood tie-ins.

00:44:51.040 --> 00:44:57.900
<v Marc>Six Flags became a more national chain, but that leap was more in the control systems.

00:44:58.140 --> 00:45:03.440
<v Marc>We could talk about the robots, animatronics and safety systems,

00:45:03.780 --> 00:45:10.880
<v Marc>all of those sorts of things really developed pretty rapidly from the 60s up to the 80s.

00:45:11.040 --> 00:45:15.020
<v Marc>And then all of a sudden you're into distributed systems.

00:45:15.020 --> 00:45:21.380
<v Marc>You know you're out of the analog you know era and and right into the you know

00:45:21.380 --> 00:45:26.100
<v Marc>kind of the modern era of distributed systems distributed computing and it touches

00:45:26.100 --> 00:45:28.580
<v Marc>every single aspect of of a theme park.

00:45:28.580 --> 00:45:33.140
<v Renee>So let's talk about like that let's talk about robots because i know you're

00:45:33.140 --> 00:45:36.880
<v Renee>a fan you're a fan of the animatronic thing i just think it's all hokey and

00:45:36.880 --> 00:45:40.360
<v Renee>weird and dumb and i hate the hall of presidents i don't even go like there's

00:45:40.360 --> 00:45:45.060
<v Renee>just like i i you i don't in all fairness i didn't grow up with that stuff, Kennywood.

00:45:45.480 --> 00:45:48.580
<v Renee>The only place it was in Kennywood was the Haunted Mill ride.

00:45:48.680 --> 00:45:51.500
<v Renee>And again, it was dark and you went there with your boyfriend and you didn't

00:45:51.500 --> 00:45:53.300
<v Renee>care, right? You were not there for that.

00:45:53.520 --> 00:45:56.239
<v Renee>And so it didn't matter. But we didn't have that stuff.

00:45:56.920 --> 00:45:59.640
<v Renee>But anytime I would go to any other park and they would have it,

00:45:59.699 --> 00:46:02.980
<v Renee>I would just be like Knott's Berry Farm and the Jugman. I just don't care.

00:46:03.500 --> 00:46:04.660
<v Renee>Chuck E. Cheese, I don't care.

00:46:05.210 --> 00:46:08.590
<v Renee>Showtime pizza? Still don't care. Just don't care.

00:46:08.949 --> 00:46:14.270
<v Renee>But it did Marc, and it is a Marc of a state of the art, right?

00:46:14.350 --> 00:46:17.050
<v Renee>Because if you go into the Hall of Presidents now, they're starting to look

00:46:17.050 --> 00:46:22.130
<v Renee>much, well, most of them look much more natural, right?

00:46:22.290 --> 00:46:25.670
<v Renee>And their movements are natural, and it seems like they're getting better at

00:46:25.670 --> 00:46:29.110
<v Renee>it. And maybe that's how you prove state of the art in animatronics, right?

00:46:29.290 --> 00:46:32.969
<v Renee>That is proving state of the art. So there's a role for it, I think,

00:46:32.969 --> 00:46:37.070
<v Renee>in the technology milieu of an amusement park if you're pushing those boundaries,

00:46:37.250 --> 00:46:38.390
<v Renee>but that's what you're there to do.

00:46:38.469 --> 00:46:43.730
<v Renee>You're pushing the boundaries on animatronics, something that was a big deal in the 50s.

00:46:43.770 --> 00:46:48.070
<v Renee>I'm not so sure it still is in 2025, unless, of course, that's a Tesla robot,

00:46:48.070 --> 00:46:51.210
<v Renee>and then everybody will be standing around saying it's the best thing that ever lived.

00:46:51.590 --> 00:46:54.570
<v Renee>But yeah, yeah. So talk to me about that, because you have an opinion about it.

00:46:55.530 --> 00:46:58.930
<v Marc>Well, I love, yeah, I do love the robots.

00:46:58.930 --> 00:47:07.489
<v Marc>And I think it was sort of a separator, you know, in the market between one

00:47:07.489 --> 00:47:13.489
<v Marc>type of park, which was, you know, like a Knott's Berry Farm or a Kennywood, which is, frankly,

00:47:13.890 --> 00:47:16.410
<v Marc>kind of Americana, right? Yeah, definitely.

00:47:17.330 --> 00:47:22.390
<v Marc>And that's, I think that's totally fine. There's a place for that to on the

00:47:22.390 --> 00:47:26.230
<v Marc>other side, which was, you know, highly themed places like a universal.

00:47:26.710 --> 00:47:30.930
<v Marc>I just remember that stupid jaws, you know, coming out of the water and trying

00:47:30.930 --> 00:47:32.750
<v Marc>to bite the, you know, I don't mind.

00:47:33.070 --> 00:47:36.810
<v Renee>I don't mind the jaws thing. I also don't mind the earthquake thing at universal

00:47:36.810 --> 00:47:37.890
<v Renee>either. That's pretty. All right.

00:47:38.090 --> 00:47:41.330
<v Marc>I'm okay. Right. And then, you

00:47:41.330 --> 00:47:45.530
<v Marc>know, other intellectual property sorts of themes with, with Disney. And.

00:47:46.730 --> 00:47:53.310
<v Marc>Coming up into the 60s, you have things like Disney's Tiki Room and the Pirates

00:47:53.310 --> 00:47:56.270
<v Marc>of the Caribbean ride and other pieces,

00:47:56.510 --> 00:48:05.210
<v Marc>whether it was Haunted Mansion or other things that the theme almost supplants the thrill. Right.

00:48:05.550 --> 00:48:12.350
<v Marc>So you have a huge development in roller coasters and thrill rides of all different

00:48:12.350 --> 00:48:19.949
<v Marc>sorts and spinny rides and and, you know, dipping and flipping and corkscrews and whatever.

00:48:20.350 --> 00:48:26.890
<v Marc>But then you have this this development into robotics and animation,

00:48:26.890 --> 00:48:30.050
<v Marc>but it's still kind of it's still kind of jerky.

00:48:30.330 --> 00:48:36.290
<v Marc>Right. And it's still in that analog phase. So we were transitioning to digital,

00:48:36.290 --> 00:48:41.250
<v Marc>right, in the late 50s, early 60s, and then up into the 70s.

00:48:41.690 --> 00:48:48.050
<v Marc>But these animatronic systems were still kind of in the back era, right?

00:48:48.150 --> 00:48:51.070
<v Marc>They were not quite ready for the next stage.

00:48:51.410 --> 00:48:56.310
<v Marc>And I love these systems. Like I've actually gotten to see some of the,

00:48:56.310 --> 00:49:02.550
<v Marc>the old school recording plates and the rigs and the cam systems and all of

00:49:02.550 --> 00:49:04.870
<v Marc>that for these, they're, they're really fascinating.

00:49:05.590 --> 00:49:10.489
<v Marc>Basically, just to kind of go off the side for a second, if I needed to control

00:49:10.489 --> 00:49:15.630
<v Marc>a bird in the Enchanted Tiki Room, that bird might have five,

00:49:15.890 --> 00:49:18.170
<v Marc>six, seven different major,

00:49:18.630 --> 00:49:22.870
<v Marc>maybe even more than that, movement variables.

00:49:24.090 --> 00:49:27.330
<v Marc>Eyes, beak, neck, wings.

00:49:27.770 --> 00:49:31.710
<v Marc>It would sort of duck forward, move backwards, that sort of thing.

00:49:31.910 --> 00:49:35.910
<v Marc>Maybe flap its wings a little bit. They weren't super animated,

00:49:35.910 --> 00:49:37.090
<v Marc>but they were just enough.

00:49:37.570 --> 00:49:43.550
<v Marc>And these puppets would be controlled by a puppeteer, and the movements of the

00:49:43.550 --> 00:49:50.570
<v Marc>puppeteer are then recorded, and they were recorded on these cam systems almost, these aluminum plates.

00:49:50.570 --> 00:49:53.850
<v Marc>And then they would be that that that recording

00:49:53.850 --> 00:49:57.770
<v Marc>would then be played back and these recordings

00:49:57.770 --> 00:50:01.610
<v Marc>there was an that's why it's called audio animatronics because there's an audio

00:50:01.610 --> 00:50:06.590
<v Marc>component to it these tones would then signal a control system the control system

00:50:06.590 --> 00:50:11.830
<v Marc>would then you know signal a movement and then you know these tone systems were

00:50:11.830 --> 00:50:16.449
<v Marc>to be recorded and played back multiple times so wait a tone would.

00:50:16.449 --> 00:50:19.949
<v Renee>Tell it what to do just like your phone like your phone needs the tone to tell

00:50:19.949 --> 00:50:24.630
<v Renee>it what that number is so it could translate it to the switch so that it knows

00:50:24.630 --> 00:50:27.130
<v Renee>what to connect you to. So it's the exact same thing, right?

00:50:28.030 --> 00:50:32.449
<v Marc>Yeah, kind of. Kind of. They're...

00:50:33.290 --> 00:50:37.790
<v Marc>Yes. I mean, for simplicity's sake, yeah, that's the best way to think about it.

00:50:38.110 --> 00:50:42.070
<v Marc>It's, you know, thinking about ones and zeros.

00:50:42.350 --> 00:50:46.790
<v Marc>Well, before we had ones and zeros, we had waves, right?

00:50:47.890 --> 00:50:52.670
<v Marc>And the waveform would be a tone and the tone would say, do this.

00:50:52.970 --> 00:50:58.930
<v Marc>And these cam systems, there was a mechanical aspect as well to the tone system.

00:50:59.390 --> 00:51:03.970
<v Marc>But anyways, the thing that was really cool for me is just seeing some of the

00:51:03.970 --> 00:51:10.230
<v Marc>film and the archival footage of the way that the puppeteers would act and behave

00:51:10.230 --> 00:51:16.090
<v Marc>to try to get the most fluid movements for these robotic systems.

00:51:16.090 --> 00:51:22.550
<v Renee>So it was like the record player era. This is like the vinyl era of animatronics.

00:51:22.550 --> 00:51:25.410
<v Marc>Yeah, yeah. Now we could go way

00:51:25.410 --> 00:51:31.610
<v Marc>back because this type of technology has actually not the audio and the,

00:51:31.890 --> 00:51:35.090
<v Marc>let's say, recording on these platters and playback systems,

00:51:35.250 --> 00:51:40.090
<v Marc>but the gears and system and the repeatability of these movements.

00:51:40.090 --> 00:51:44.910
<v Marc>This has actually existed for hundreds of years, and there's a whole sort of

00:51:44.910 --> 00:51:52.070
<v Marc>subclass of mechanical, you know, puppets and robots, if you want to call them robots.

00:51:52.290 --> 00:51:55.590
<v Marc>Like, there was one called the, oh gosh, what was it, a duck,

00:51:55.890 --> 00:51:58.350
<v Marc>some duck thing, but the duck essentially...

00:52:00.010 --> 00:52:06.690
<v Marc>It would quack and, you know, flap its wings, do different things.

00:52:06.890 --> 00:52:10.410
<v Marc>It would eat food, and then the food would come out the other end.

00:52:10.570 --> 00:52:16.170
<v Marc>You know, it was—and this is— It's the worst Barbie doll ever.

00:52:16.350 --> 00:52:17.710
<v Marc>It eats food. Yeah, yeah, exactly.

00:52:18.070 --> 00:52:18.870
<v Renee>It was out the other end.

00:52:19.370 --> 00:52:26.730
<v Marc>Yeah, there's a famous—like a boy, I think, or a man, and it would write,

00:52:26.730 --> 00:52:30.710
<v Marc>and it would just write the same thing over, you know, and I think it was,

00:52:30.830 --> 00:52:33.650
<v Marc>you could write 40 different characters.

00:52:33.790 --> 00:52:40.490
<v Marc>So messages in about 40 character length and you could repre-program that. That was early.

00:52:40.770 --> 00:52:49.310
<v Marc>That was hundreds of years ago. So there's this idea of the automaton robots, right?

00:52:49.610 --> 00:52:56.710
<v Marc>It goes back quite a ways. And Disney and the Imagineering teams really revolutionized that.

00:52:56.930 --> 00:53:03.130
<v Marc>But yeah, that was sort of the record player era, you know, building on previous generations.

00:53:03.170 --> 00:53:06.310
<v Marc>It's very, I don't know, I like it. It's cool.

00:53:06.430 --> 00:53:09.750
<v Renee>I know you do. And so the real revolution comes when?

00:53:09.870 --> 00:53:13.190
<v Renee>When you were introduced in the 80s, right? Like, isn't that the real revolution

00:53:13.190 --> 00:53:15.450
<v Renee>for digital control systems, right?

00:53:15.930 --> 00:53:22.290
<v Marc>Yeah, absolutely. And everybody's favorite musical interface, was it MIDI?

00:53:22.290 --> 00:53:25.710
<v Marc>Musical interface digital instrument or

00:53:25.710 --> 00:53:29.610
<v Marc>musical instrument digital interface yeah whatever but

00:53:29.610 --> 00:53:32.770
<v Marc>midi becomes this standard that that

00:53:32.770 --> 00:53:36.510
<v Marc>you can use to program movements and

00:53:36.510 --> 00:53:44.390
<v Marc>sync that with digital system control systems and get music and audio and you

00:53:44.390 --> 00:53:46.350
<v Marc>know pirates waving their arms around

00:53:46.350 --> 00:53:54.330
<v Marc>and And singing bears and clucking chickens and all sorts of things.

00:53:54.650 --> 00:53:59.370
<v Marc>And I think that, because I'm a big fan of the Disney parks.

00:54:00.290 --> 00:54:04.430
<v Marc>You know, I remember watching all of those, you know, shows.

00:54:04.590 --> 00:54:09.530
<v Marc>You sit in the little thing and it moves around and the chickens and the birds,

00:54:09.530 --> 00:54:12.310
<v Marc>they sing. And what was that one called? America Sings.

00:54:12.550 --> 00:54:17.030
<v Marc>And My Wife Loves Country Bear Jamboree, which you can still see in Japan,

00:54:17.030 --> 00:54:19.590
<v Marc>by the way. So definitely go check that out.

00:54:19.930 --> 00:54:27.370
<v Marc>But there's almost like a cutting point where you have this previous era of

00:54:27.370 --> 00:54:29.370
<v Marc>puppets and audio animatronics.

00:54:29.370 --> 00:54:34.850
<v Marc>And then there's this Indiana Jones ride, and the Indiana Jones ride,

00:54:35.010 --> 00:54:39.550
<v Marc>the control numbers just – it's an exponential increase.

00:54:40.190 --> 00:54:47.470
<v Marc>And so the smoothness, the number of movements, the capabilities of these robots

00:54:47.470 --> 00:54:49.890
<v Marc>increase so that they're much more lifelike.

00:54:49.970 --> 00:54:55.810
<v Marc>There's still quite an uncanny valley, but when the thing talks from a speaker

00:54:55.810 --> 00:54:58.830
<v Marc>in its mouth, the mouth moves. It can blink.

00:54:59.370 --> 00:55:03.250
<v Marc>It can take its hat off. It can put its hat on. The presidents in the Hall of

00:55:03.250 --> 00:55:07.450
<v Marc>Presidents can stand up, right? They can sit down. They can wave their arms around.

00:55:07.650 --> 00:55:11.050
<v Marc>I got to tell you, every time I went to Disneyland when I was a kid,

00:55:11.210 --> 00:55:13.230
<v Marc>we would watch great moments with Mr.

00:55:13.350 --> 00:55:17.030
<v Marc>Lincoln. That was the last thing we would watch as we were walking out the park.

00:55:17.410 --> 00:55:21.070
<v Marc>Because it was nice. It was quiet. Yeah, it's air-conditioned.

00:55:21.610 --> 00:55:23.430
<v Marc>Right. Yeah, exactly. You're tired.

00:55:24.210 --> 00:55:27.190
<v Marc>You're like, okay. But, you know, Mr.

00:55:27.350 --> 00:55:32.470
<v Marc>Lincoln standing up and delivering his speech, it's like, this is a big thing.

00:55:33.250 --> 00:55:37.170
<v Marc>Hey, nerds. Marc here. Just a quick note. Because this session was so long,

00:55:37.270 --> 00:55:39.450
<v Marc>we decided to break it up into multiple episodes.

00:55:39.830 --> 00:55:43.230
<v Marc>I'm stopping this one here after our discussion of robotic developments.

00:55:43.470 --> 00:55:47.510
<v Marc>And we'll pick up with complexity and how that impacts tech choices before we

00:55:47.510 --> 00:55:50.710
<v Marc>start talking about what we see as the future of theme park tech.

00:55:51.390 --> 00:55:54.810
<v Marc>I hope you enjoyed these theme park episodes because we really enjoyed all the

00:55:54.810 --> 00:55:56.890
<v Marc>nostalgia of being a kid in these environments.

00:55:57.310 --> 00:56:00.870
<v Marc>Thanks for listening. Please like and share and give us a review on your favorite

00:56:00.870 --> 00:56:05.230
<v Marc>podcast app. We really enjoyed doing all the research and looking back at how we got here.

00:56:05.490 --> 00:56:05.910
<v Renee>Thanks.

00:56:21.670 --> 00:56:22.270
<v Marc>Um, I think.

00:56:22.270 --> 00:56:24.250
<v Renee>I can get to the end of the day.