(BEEP!) Some of Keepa’s readers are waa-a-aay too young to recognize this equipment advertised in the Improvement Era in 1964. (BEEP!) Every school and Sunday School used to have filmstrip projectors. (BEEP!) This was considered the height of pedagogical technology in the Jurassic Period of the mid-20th century. (BEEP!) The teacher loaded a filmstrip — literally, a strip of 35mm film — into the machine, and a beam of light projected an image onto a screen, blank wall, a white sheet tacked to the wall, or even the chalkboard (you know about chalkboards? primitive white boards?). (BEEP!) Sometimes each frame of the film had words printed below a picture, like subtitles in a foreign film, and the teacher would read the film to you as though she were reading a story book. (BEEP!) When the technology was really, really fancy, though, the teacher didn’t have to read what was printed on the film. (BEEP!) Instead, she played either a vinyl record, or, later, a cassette tape. (BEEP!) When the recorded narrator had finished talking about a given frame of film, the recording would sound a peculiar high-pitched BEEP! as a signal for the teacher to advance the filmstrip one frame by cranking that knob on the side of the machine. (BEEP!) This, of course, was also the signal for every smart-aleck in the class to chime in with BEEP!

The second piece of equipment was a portable movie projector for films that actually had sound recorded right on them. Kind of like a primitive DVD player, made with stone knives and bearskins.

BEEP!