A couple posts back, I took a look at the State Tour Series set (aka. Vacationland) for Ohio.  While it did have a few interesting scenes, ultimately, there were far too many “huh?” moments that really didn’t show Ohio as an interesting place to vacation.  This time, I thought I’d look at Ohio’s neighbor to the north, Michigan.  This set comes to us from 1955.

Also, sorry about a few of the blurrier pics, they didn’t look quite that bad originally.  I will replace them when I have time.

REEL 1

1.   Ambassador Bridge joins Detroit with Windsor, Can.

An iconic Detroit landmark

2. Detroiters throng metropolitan beach on Lake St. Clair

3. Detroit’s Main Street: Woodward Avenue

4. The G.M. Building (L) and the Fisher Bldg. (R) on Grand Blvd.

That GM building look much different than the GM building today…

5. Veterans Memorial in Detroit’s New Civic Center

This building is now the UAW - Ford National Programs Center

6. Auto Assembly Plant Detroit

Those are some nice looking cars

7. Ford Rotunda Dearborn

This building caught me completely by surprise when I first looked at this reel.  It looks like a World’s Fair type building.  So I went off to research.  The Ford Rotunda was indeed built for the 1933 Chicago World’s Fair.  It was rebuilt in Dearborn in 1936.  It became the #5 tourist attraction in the entire country. It was both a showcase for new Ford models, and a Christmas time destination with grand lighting displays.  Sadly, in 1962, the Rotunda burned down in preparation for the Christmas display.  It was never rebuilt.  Because I think this is such an awesome building, I want to share a couple more pictures.

Today, the Michigan Technical Education Center sits on this spot.  

REEL 2

1. Miner’s Castle Pictured Rocks State Park near Munising

Finally, leaving Detroit, looking at some Upper Peninsula scenery 

2. Castle Rock Chippewa Lookout Point near St. Ignace

3. Ore Ship in locks at Sault Ste. Marie

A leftover from the Ohio set?  Who goes on vacation to watch ore ships?

4. Car ferry sailing the Mackinac Straits

5. Tahquamenon Falls - Michigan’s Niagara

Michigan’s Niagara?  Sounds like hyperbole to me. These falls are 48 feet tall, whereas Niagara Falls are 175 feet tall.  Just a bit off.

6. Lake of the Clouds in the Porcupine Mountains

7. Ski Jump at Iron Mountain - World’s Highest Artificial Jump

At the time it was 156 feet tall, it is now 176 feet tall, and is still apparently the tallest.

REEL 3

1. State Capitol at Lansing

And now for some pictures of the rest of the state

2. May is tulip time in Holland Michigan

3. Dune scooters give riders a breath taking experience

This looks like a lot of fun.  

4. World’s Largest limestone quarry Rogers City

This doesn’t… HEY KIDS! Let’s go to the quarry today!!

5. Grand Hotel Mackinac Island

Fun fact: this hotel has the world’s longest porch.  You can only get to this island by boat or plane.

6. Lumberman’s Memorial overlooks Au Sable River

7. Lake Michigan sunset at Grand Haven

and with that, we say goodbye to Michigan!

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Not to offend my Ohio friends, but this set is way better than the Ohio set.  It really shows off the natural beauty of the state, as well as some of the interesting sites in the cities.

If I were to remake it today? Obviously, Michigan (and Detroit specifically) have fallen on hard times, but there’s still a ton of great stuff there.  The new sports stadiums, the current GM building, Hitsville USA, the Henry Ford Museum, the odd city that is Frankenmuth…I bet there’s quite a bit more that could be done today.

Thanks for checking this set out.  Next time, I want to look at an amusement park that no longer exists…

In the world of Viewmaster, there have been literally tens of thousands of topics for reels.  However, I am going to go out on a limb, and suggest that “Famous Stamps: The Hobby of Philately” is among the worst.  Now, I don’t find stamps uninteresting, but I do find small pieces of flat paper uninteresting targets for 3 Dimensional photography.

Now, that being said… the reels do show a nice array of interesting stamps, but the photography is less than inspiring.

The Penny Black and 2-Penny Blue were first postage stamps

The only 3D effect on these images is that they do kind of appear to be floating off the background (something I obviously can’t recreate here.

First US stamps from 1847

I’ve actually run out of things to really say about this set…they have nice examples of famous stamps…and that’s about it.  So here’s a few more pictures!

First oddly-shaped stamp

The Upside Down “Jenny”, probably the most famous, and one of the most valuable stamps

Some awesome looking Russian stamps

“Twin stamps” commemorating the Space Program (1967 and 1971)

Mt. Fuji stamps from Japan

From the 9th Winter Olympics in Innsbruck

Egyptian Stamps made as a fundraiser for a Cairo art exhibition

Next time, I’m sure I’ll have a more exciting subject!

I was originally going to do this set as one of my big “Project” pages, but due to many factors, my ability to go running around the state, trying to get pictures is a little more limited than it used to be.  Not wanting the set to go to waste, I thought I would at least put together a post for this set.  

The State Tour Series is a collection of reels, one for each state (depending on when you got the sets, it could have been 48 or 50 states).  The series is supposed to show off some of the natural, and man-made points of interest of the photographed states.  I’m not sure of the Ohio set is representative of the series (also known as the Vacationland series), but this Ohio set is wildly inconsistent when it comes to showing off the best the state has to offer.  

This set doesn’t have a date on it, and I can’t get a great gauge on when it was released, probably the early 1960s I’d guess.

REEL 1

1. Cleveland, Aerial

Nice shot of the coast line.  You can see old Cleveland Municipal Stadium of the left.  Part of that stadium is now an artificial reef for divers and fish in Lake Erie.

2. Downtown Cleveland

Cleveland Stadium on the top left.  A rare, fire-free day on the Cuyahoga River. Today this view would have the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, the new Cleveland Browns Stadium, the Great Lakes Science Center.  I don’t know Cleveland’s geography well enough to know if Jacobs…err Progressive Field or Quicken Loans Arena would be in this shot.  I do know there are several more skyscrapers today than there were then, although Tower City Center is still the primary landmark in town.

3. Cleveland Art Museum

Beautiful setting for an art museum.  This is in an area near Case-Western University that sports a number of great museums, including a very good natural history museum.

4. Thomas Edison Birthplace

Forget all the other Edison museums you’ve seen (and I’ve seen them in Michigan, Florida, and New Jersey), this is the first!  Because this was the very house where he was born.  This birthplace (now, of course, a museum) is in Milan, Ohio.

5. Glacial Grooves

As any southern Ohio resident well versed in his geological history can tell you (all 4 of them), the glaciers that helped flatten most of the central United States stopped here.  In northern Ohio especially, you can actually see some remnants of the glaciers power (useful for any people that don’t believe glaciers existed).  These grooved rocks are found on Kelley’s Island in Lake Erie.

6. Perry Monument, South Bass Island

This monument was built to commemorate the Battle of Lake Erie during the War of 1812, and the resulting peace between the US, Canada, and Britain.  Found on South Bass Island on Lake Erie.

7. Toledo Skyline

Toledo doesn’t have the most inspiring skyline.  Indeed, the reel itself actually focuses on the coal boat in the picture.

REEL 2

8. Unloading Iron Ore

Hey kids, let’s go to the dock and watch boats unload iron ore!  This picture was taken in Toledo.

9. Corn Harvest, Till Plains

Hey kids, let’s go to Lima and watch this farmer harvest corn!

10. Air Force Museum, Dayton

I’ve discussed the Air Force Museum at length on my first full set project page. http://roomwithaviewmaster.tumblr.com/afmuseum 

11. Cincinnati at Dusk

I’ve always thought Cincinnati was a nice city.  I really enjoy visiting it.  This is a wonderful view of the city.  Pre- Great American Ball Park, Paul Brown Stadium, US Bank Arena, and Newport / Covington explosion.  This would look dramatically different today, and I’m not sure it would be a better view.

12. Ohio River

I doubt you could even get this shot these days.  This area has seen so much growth along the river.

13. Great Serpent Mound

The Indian mounds of Ohio are a well known remnant of the various tribes that used to live in the area.  The Serpent Mound is probably the crown jewel of these mounds.  I’m almost embarrassed to admit I’ve never visited this one, located outside Peebles, yes Peebles.  

14. Last of the Stern-Wheelers

This river boat is now a museum in Marietta. 

REEL 3

15. Old Hope Furnace

These furnaces were built to smelt iron.  They were integral to Union troops in the Civil War, because cannonballs were made in these furnaces.  There are several of these still dotting the southern Ohio landscape.

16. Ohio State Football

While I’m not a fan of the team.  They had a great looking, classic stadium.  Sadly, because of various “updates” in an effort to raise the amount of people the stadium can hold…they’ve made the stadium look like a spaceship.  Back then, it held 78,000 people.  Today it holds 101,568…but to me it’s lost a lot of its charm.

This area looks so different today.  New arenas, a gigantic new bridge on Lane Avenue (road at top of original pic).  Again, so much growth in this area.

17. Zanesville “Y” Bridge

Yep, Zanesville has a bridge that you can cross…and end up on the same side of the river.  For the longest time, this was pretty much Zanesville’s claim to fame, the world’s only Y-bridge.  Akron now has a Y-shaped bridge, and one existed in Galena Missouri, but none are quite the same…so congrats Zanesville…you are still the answer to a trivia question.

18. Schoenbrunn Village

A Moravian church mission village, Schoenbrunn Village is considered the first village in Ohio.  

19. Giant Tomatoes, Wooster

Hey kids, check out the size of those tomatoes!  

20. McKinley Memorial, Canton

A very striking memorial.  This area has actually turned into a bit of a public exercise area for locals.  With lots of morning joggers running the stairs, or doing laps around the nearly quarter-mile driveway leading to the memorial.  There is also a small museum located to the left of where this picture was taken.  Sadly, this exact view does not exist anymore, as this spot is now the front row to the parking lot.  

21. Youngstown Mills

Hey kids *COUGH COUGH* *WHHEZZZZZEEE*

————-

The set starts out great, the pics of Cleveland are nice.  I like how they start out with a couple wide shots, and then bring you in to a couple of other interesting sites in the area.  

Toledo though?  I know it’s a major city in Ohio, and maybe I’m just looking at it through the depressed eyes of today, but it’s never been very high on the tourist destination list.  

That second reel, starting out with farming, and unloading iron ore… begins to make you think that Ohio only has a couple good things going for it.  Thankfully, it bounces back with some great views of Cincinnati (although, where were the up close pics of interesting things to do inside Cincy?  Crosley Field?  Mt. Adams?  Union Terminal?

Reel 3 has a lot of good quirk to it.  I love the Schoenbrunn Village pic, as it’s not a place I know well.  The Old Hope Furnace is great history.  The McKinley Memorial is a monument you’d usually see in Washington DC, it’s that nice.  Once you get to tomatoes and steel mills though…you get the sense that they just ran dry.

If I were to remake this today?  I would like to see more of the truly unique places Ohio has to offer (granted, many weren’t around then).  Places like the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, the Pro Football Hall of Fame, Cedar Point, and King’s Island would surely give a better overview as to some of the family offerings Ohio has than a steel mill.  Maybe even go to some of the small town festivals, like the Jackson Apple Festival, or the Circleville Pumpkin Show.  Ohio has a lot of interesting history, and places to visit.  This 50 year old reel set at times does a good job at showing these things off, but ultimately makes me wish they had dug a bit more.

I’ve updated this project page with brand new pictures of many of the locations from the original reel set!  Check it out.

Of course you knew I’d be into this… I bought a 3DS, mainly to take 3D pictures!  Here’s an album of a few of my pics.  For best results, view on a 3DS!

http://www.3dporch.com/users/scooterb23

Check over to the right, and look at some old pictures of Kings Island from 1973.  I’ll post here when I update with updated pictures.

I finally got a chance to play a few levels of Sector 17.  This game was worth all the pain I went through to get it to work.  It is a very nice 360 degree motion space shooter.  Think that scene in Star Wars when Luke is in that gun turret.  It’s a lot like that.  And the difficulty ramps up very nicely on the 3rd level.  It’s a very fun little game that I will go back to, and see how well it holds up over time.  But as of now, I’m very impressed.

Sector 17 - 99 cents (there is a free lite version as well) - Rating: A.

Late in 2010, there were some rumblings on tech sites about the “next generation of Viewmaster”.  Of course, this got my interest up.  In late March 2011, Hasbro quietly released the My3D.  At first, it was a Target exclusive item, but just a few weeks afterward, it was all over the place.  The My3D is a plastic (your choice of black or white body with blue trim) viewer, reminiscent of the old Viewmaster hardware.  

The back of the unit has a hinged drawer designed to hold your iDevice.  This is compatible with any of the iPhones and iPods after the 3rd generation, although not all apps will work right with the older models.

On the bottom of the unit are also two openings…for your thumbs.  This allows you some rudimentary screen touching controls, typically two buttons, one on the left for scrolling, one on the right for selecting.  

Overall, it’s a very well made unit.  Very comfortable to hold, and the blue part around the eyepieces is actually a firm rubber, so it is a very comfortable piece against your face.  It’s also nice and large, so glasses are easy to use.  I give Hasbro high marks for design, they did a great job with the My3D.

The way this unit produces 3D is pretty ingenious.  Turn the iPod sideways, split the screen almost in half, and double up on the video.  It’s that simple.  I will be displaying a few examples with the various game reviews. The lenses on the unit don’t magnify the image a whole lot, but it is completely effective.

But where a unit like this lives and dies is in the software.  As of release, and currently (I’ll get into that later), there are seven apps officially available for the My3D.  I will briefly give a review of each one.  Except one.

Sector 17 - 99 cents

Sector 17 is supposed to be some sort of  360 degree space shooter.  However, I am having serious crash issues with this game, and therefore, have not played it at all yet.  Ironically, this app was just updated a few days ago.  I suggest that this update didn’t work. Rating: Withheld

My3D Presents - Free

My3D Presents is a sort of showcase of the technology.  You get some 3D movie trailers (including Kung Fu Panda 2, Megamind, Smurfs, and a few others), a promo video for 3Net: a 3D tv channel on DirecTV, a few 3D photos of Transformers, a few photos of animals, and trailers for the other apps.  This app looks to be easily upgradable by Hasbro over time as new trailers and apps come out.  Unfortunately, it is now late July, and no updates at all have come for this app.  It is a nice demo piece, but not a lot of content to bring a person back if it never upgrades.  Rating: C+

360 Sharks - Free

360 Sharks is a “shark sim” game.  You start out as a baby shark (you choose at the beginning of the game), and you go around searching for food to grow larger.  The larger you grow, the more levels you unlock.  The graphics on this game are very poor for this day and age.  They remind me at best of early PlayStation 1 graphics (though the water shimmer effect is nice).  Lots of jagged edges, lots of close range draw-in, and not much detail.  The game itself isn’t much better.  All you do is spin around in a circle, looking for a certain fish, run into it, and repeat.  There are bonus levels that include a bizarre “lock-on” mechanism.  The biggest sin this game makes is it is boring.  Maybe later on you get enemies.  But I got about an hour into the game, and never saw anything that would remotely threaten me.  A very boring experience. Rating: D

Tunnel Pilot - Free

Tunnel Pilot is a racing game.  Think of this game as a cross between Wipeout and the arcade classic S.T.U.N. Runner.  You race three other futuristic cars through crazy tunnels.  This game looks better than 360 Sharks, but there are two things holding this game back.  The first is the game speed.  It’s slow as sin.  The thing I love about futuristic racing games is that breakneck sense of speed you get.  There’s little of that here.  The second issue is the control.  You have to tilt your head back and forth to spin the tube around.  The tilt controls are extremely sensitive.  You will make yourself dizzy for a couple races before you get the feel right.  Overall, not a horrible game, just uninspired. Rating: C

Bubble Bolt - Free

Bubble Bolt IS Super Monkey Ball.  There’s no hiding that this is the exact same game, just with a different set of levels and instead of monkeys, you have sea creatures.  Again, you use head tilt controls in this game, but they seem to work much better.  With the only exception being if you’re going too fast, and you need to stop / sharp turn at the same time… the game doesn’t seem to like you leaning back too far.  To be honest, I’ve only played about 12 levels of this game so far, but it is my favorite My3D game by far.  It will be one I go back to for sure. Rating: A-

Shatterstorm - 99 cents

Shatterstorm is Tempest, with a bizarre cubist nightmare pallet.  Everything, down to enemy design and the way the game plays is Tempest.  It should be great, but way, way, way, way, way, way, way too sensitive head tilt controls (how I miss a paddle at this time) nearly destroys the game.  Take away the control issues though, and I noticed that the game seemed very easy.  I’m not a great Tempest player by any stretch, but I was able to blow through levels of this game with little problem.  If I had to move quickly though?  Forget it, the controls were just too sensitive.  Rating: B-

Transport 3D: L.A. - Free

Transport promises a look at exciting views all over Los Angeles.  Basically, I got to see the Santa Monica Pier, and a carnival game before I fell asleep playing this game.  It is presented like a game show, where you have to find objects in pictures of various locations.  The picture above was taken during a look for “something green you sit on” (green bench in the shadows).  I like the idea of this game…but if you’re promising an exciting look at a travel destination…have me do more than look for a yellow fish painted on the wall (the very next clue). Rating: C

As you can see, the official software released for this system is uninspiring at best.  Another thing that greatly annoyed me is how many of the games necessitate 360 degree movement as well as 3D visuals.  You either have to be sitting in a rotating office chair (as I was), or stand up, and hope you don’t crush your leg on a coffee table.  

There are some unofficial apps for the system, and Hasbro has promised a software kit for app developers.  Unfortunately, the link on their site for said kit is dormant all these months later.

Overall, I really want to like the Hasbro My3D.  The hardware is wonderfully developed.  The apps that are out so far don’t excite me very much.  I suppose they are fine as tech demos (as you noticed, most are free) and about half the apps have been updated in the past month (although a few have not been updated since release day).  

So hopefully, the My3D is not dead yet…but signs are not encouraging.  Already, Hasbro has dropped the retail price by $10.  I bought it at $35, and it is now on the official My3D site (and the regular retailers) at $25.  Also, Shatterstorm’s app price has dropped from $1.99 to 99 cents, and Sector 17 is a 99 cent game now, down from $5.

Where the My3D is likely to succeed is as a 3D photo viewer.  There are already plenty of places online to see how to make, and then view your own photos on the My3D.  I hope to play with this functionality in the future.  I made a test photo:

It looks fine in the My3D, but because both pics are from the same angle, there is no 3D effect to it.  Still, it is great to know that I can potentially make my own 3D photos, and view them through the My3D!

I know there are a few people out there making My3D compatible photos, hopefully, with the price drop, a few more folks will join in on the 3D photography fun.

Oh yeah, here’s the link to the official My3D page:

http://www.hasbro.com/hasbromy3d/en_us/

I’m hoping to put up a couple new project pages soon.  And I will come back (hopefully sooner than a month) with a look at another old set of Viewmaster goodness.  Thanks for reading, please comment.

Scott

Quick note to say that I’ve updated my Air Force Museum project page.  Cover scan, correct pictures, and some text edits have been made.  Please check it out, and comment and / or give it the thumbs up.  Thanks.