What is the encabulator? This world famous fake machine gets new life
Narrator Mike Kraft demonstrates the fake encabulator machine in the original Retro Encabulator video (L) and in an interview with Ampere News (R). Image: Ampere News
BY KERRY TOMLINSON, AMPERE NEWS
Technology terms can sound like a bunch of mumbo jumbo. And in the case of the world-renowned encabulator, they really are. It's a joke machine, originally created by a student, now part of Internet lore.
This notorious fake machine now has a new chapter in its long, viral history.
Watch here:
Retro Encabulator Guy
Mike Kraft jumped into the encabulator world back in 1987 when he hosted a joke skit for Rockwell Automation's training tapes, a description of a new device called the retro encabulator.
At first, it might sound real. But it's actually just a parody of engineering terms crafted to sound authentic.
"The lineup consisted simply of six hydrocoptic marzlevanes, so fitted to the ambifacient lunar waneshaft, that side fumbling was effectively prevented," narrates Kraft with a straight face.
"I think everybody recognizes that something that they are very into can be very boring to another person. And it's that self recognition of, 'Oh, that's what I sound like.' And that's why it's funny," he said in an interview with Ampere News.
New Chapter
More than three decades later, Kraft has written a new chapter in encabulation history: the hyper encabulator. This device is for industrial cybersecurity, keeping cyber attackers out of the machines that keep lights on and water flowing.
"The hyper encabulator operates totally under the principle of colonic effluvium expulsion, and audible gaseous eructations," Kraft says in the new video for the SANS Institute, a cybersecurity education organization.
"Colonic effluvium expulsion and gaseous audible eructations," he explains in his interview. "Sorry, farts and burps."
Encabulator History
It all started back in 1944, when student John Hellins Quick wrote up the very first version, the nonsensical turbo encabulator, introducing gems like 'dingle arm' and 'side fumbling,' for a student publication.
Narrator Bud Haggart presented the first visual version on film in 1977, which later inspired Kraft to bring the idea to a training shoot.
"I just spewed this script out. They go, 'This is fantastic. We have to shoot this, we have to shoot this,'" Kraft recalled.
The retro encabulator video ended up on the company's end-of-year VHS tape. The end of the line, Kraft thought. Until a decade later, when it hit the Internet. Someone posted it on a site called eBaum's World.
"It's had legs of its own ever since," he said. "It's an amazing thing."
"I've seen so many times when it's blown up on Reddit, or even just on the YouTube videos, and various other people cutting it for their own purposes," he said. "They get two million hits on that one video and another one will pop up and there's three million hits on that video. And it's been going on for years. It has to be in the tens of millions of hits, easily."
Ever-changing
Through the years, Kraft and others have re-encabulated in many forms, including the kinetic encabulator, the nano encabulator, the meta encabulator, and the SD-Wan-turbo-cloud-encabulator. There's even a retro encabulator remix.
But the biggest new entry in encabulation history may be the hyper encabulator, laying out a faux history of the fictitious device and adding new layers for future jokes.
"...[R]esulting in a device that allowed frenetic mastication at alarming speeds," Kraft says in the video.
"Frenetic mastication just means you can chew real fast," he explained in his interview, with a smile.
Premiere
Kraft signed pictures for the hyper encabulator's debut at the 2022 SANS industrial cybersecurity conference in Orlando.
"Technical jargon can really just be confusing. And so it sounds like it could be real, but it's not, which is just entertaining. So, it's really fun," said Randy Baldwin with Accenture, who attended the conference.
"I'm a brand new fan, brand new convert," said Mandie Grosskopf with Security Risk Advisors, after chatting with Kraft. "I love anything funny and nerdy. And you put the two together, you got a winner."
For Nikolas Upanavage with Bechtel, talking with "the Retro Encabulator Guy" is surreal. he remembers seeing Kraft's video for the first time about ten years ago.
"When I first started my engineering career, a fellow engineer showed me the video," Upanavage said. "It was like my first day on the job. He's like, 'Hey, have you ever seen this thing?' And it took me a couple of seconds to pick it up. But I was like, 'Ah, this is really great.'"
Encabulator Secrets
After the new video's debut, Kraft gave away some encabulator secrets.
Back in 1987, he did not memorize the long-winded, faux-jargon-filled monologue. Instead, he held a mini tape recorder in his pocket and played the words through a cable into his ear.
"And you're just hearing and repeating," he explained.
Finally, more than three decades after the recording, he's committed the entire retro encabulator description to memory.
"I wouldn't call it an inspiration. Actually. It was more like desperation. I really thought somebody here was going to say, 'Oh, yeah, can you do it from memory?' And I was going to have to pull it out," he said. "I wanted to be prepared for that eventuality."
The Future of Encabulation
From paper to film to video and now to digital, the encabulator lives on, celebrating the complex and even comical language of technology.
For Kraft, the video has not brought him much in the way of fame or fortune.
"This is," he said, "a very, very, very low level of fame. Bugs can crawl under my level of fame."
But he takes joy in the long-running communal joke, now almost 80 years old.
"I love that people love encabulation," Kraft said. "And with any luck, there'll be more encabulation to come."
More stories from Ampere News: