RAI, the Italian state owned public service broadcaster who commissioned the "Orffyreus" documentary, have said that FarmStudios cannot send me a DVD of the finished documentary as they don't want anyone outside of production to see it before it's aired, which is fair enough in my opinion. But it does mean that I won't be able to offer copies to anyone for the time being. Of course should pirated copies appear at some point in the future, then there is nothing one can do about that. I am to be given a preview in the next few days, so I'll report about it as and when I can.
My current position with the Bessler build is stationary, like the wheels I've built so far! I've got the flu. I have a plan mapped out for when I can get back to work and it is looking promising - how many times have I heard myself say that before? I am still working with the same basic concept which I worked out some eighteen months ago and I'm still convinced that it is the way to go. It answers all the questions raised and I'm confident it will work. The mechanisms are complex in a way that would not be obvious to a spectator, such as Karl. I can see why he described them as simple. It's one thing to see the finished article and how it works - but quite another to work out how to get it to do what you want it to do, when you don't know the exact design or the dimensions.
In answer to my previous post about the pentagrams and the number 5s, in Bessler's works, I've come to the conclusion he was trying to point us to the alternative word for pentagram, reputedly used by the Pythagorians, which was pentalpha. Some people think of the pentagram as three interlaced triangles, but others describe it as having five upper case interlocking letter As, and that seem to me to be the more in line with Bessler's thinking. We have seen the interest in the besslerwheel forum in the famous 'A with legs': THE primemover? thread and this supports the idea.
It is well-known that Bessler used alternating letter As throughout his "Maschinen Tractate", sometimes with a straight cross-bar and sometimes with a bent one. He did not do this for any other reason than to point to its importance. I'm sure that this simple lever design is incorporated within the mechanism, and the successful design will require it.
