Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Miscellaneous/2023 July 11

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July 11

Technical curiosity

Hello. The link below shows a video from RaiPlay (in Italian), focusing on the American election night of 1968. If you go from min. -29:41, you can see the host grappling with a map of the states. The colors I think were black, white and gray. Is it possible that they were magnets or something, each with their relative color with the shape of all the states of the Union, which were arranged according to the update of the results, depending on whether one candidate or the other won in a said state? I can't understand much, mine is a 'guess. Thank you very much. https://www.raiplay.it/video/2016/10/Elezioni-presidenziali-americane-1968-il-ritorno-di-Nixon-dopo-lomicidio-di-Robert-Kennedy-55457ec9-3d0d-4975-b4e2-544d3ef6663b.html Andreoto (talk) 12:29, 11 July 2023 (UTC)

To see it, I'd need to register. :( —Tamfang (talk) 20:14, 11 July 2023 (UTC)

Maybe the one shown in this clip - about 50 seconds in? Alansplodge (talk) 18:30, 12 July 2023 (UTC)

I can't access the Italian source, but it is seen in the US one looks the shapes are magnets or sticky, or just held by the frame (the state outlines). -- Random person no 362478479 (talk) 18:46, 12 July 2023 (UTC)

I dimly recall that magnetic visual aids were the latest thing in the late 1960s. You coud by a roll of magnetic banding with a self-ahesive backing that allowed you to attach pieces of card to a magnetic blackboard. UK weather forecasters used them on their TV forecasts to attach weather symbols to a map of Britain, but they sometimes fell off causing much amusement (YouTube clip). Alansplodge (talk) 13:20, 14 July 2023 (UTC)