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error1 posted:
Holy gently caress.  That's absolutely brilliant.
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Jan 24, 2016 11:45
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Fabulousity posted:Computer farted during a burn and gave you a coaster? Not for me, shitlord Plextor was awesome for burners back then. So innovative. IIRC they somehow managed to create a CD burner that stored a full gig on a 700MB CD-R. A FUCKIN CANARY!! posted:In my teens I spent around a year saving up for that exact model of Plextor. It worked especially well with CloneCD and allowed the software to have complete control over writing subchannel data, which meant that you could make perfect duplicates of games even if the disc had copy protection like SafeDisc. It paid for itself pretty drat quickly after I started selling games at school for $5. Out of curiosity, why couldn't it copy the PS1 disc subchannel data? Buttcoin purse posted:I still have a few blank Kodak silver/gold CD-Rs (not as great as just plain gold) waiting for something really important to burn on them. Wow, I just checked and those are $25 per disc on eBay. It's incredible. I have a lot of CD-Rs that I burned in 1998 that still work beautifully. Yet CD-Rs I burned in 2005 are almost all useless and unreadable. I do enjoy cheap prices but I really hate when the quality dips that drastically. But $3 per disc back then did kind of suck. Wouldn't a flash drive or even mechanical hard drive stored away somewhere be more reliable than even those gold CD-Rs though?
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Jan 24, 2016 12:05
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error1 posted:One of the greatest things about that 8088 mph demo is how much of it they have documented in detail, explaining exactly how and why it works This is a great read, thanks. I am always surprised by what you can pull off with ancient hardware. Edit: This reminds me that I have read on Lords of Midnight, speaking of arcane rituals they had to use in order to make sprites, but I can't seem to find it again. The Claptain has a new favorite as of 12:59 on Jan 24, 2016 |
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Jan 24, 2016 12:57
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Melmac posted:Wouldn't a flash drive or even mechanical hard drive stored away somewhere be more reliable than even those gold CD-Rs though? This is a complicated topic and the question is "for how long?". The problem is that technology keeps advancing and if you stow a data storage device away now, and if the past is any indication - chances are that in the future, future computers won't have a fitting interface for it or won't be able to interpret the data, even if the device still works. It's already now quite complicated to get data off of floppies and harddrives from some systems and onto a modern computer, and that wasn't even that long ago. There are also things like the M-Disc but the same basic problems remain. If you want to save data for future generations to read, write it on paper. Or update the storage medium occasionally. Flash isn't all that long-term reliable though. How everything relies now on relatively volatile data storage, there's a serious chance that in about a hundred years from now, outside of a select few datapoints which were properly archived, there won't be much stuff from our time surviving into the future.
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Jan 24, 2016 12:59
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evobatman posted:I'm trying to find a Star Trek electronic collectible card game from the late 90s/early 00s. I played the demo over and over again. I think it might have been TNG themed, and it was you against Q. Does anyone else remember it or know where it can be downloaded? I'm pretty sure you're thinking of Star Trek: ConQuest Online. I remember seeing it a lot in game stores around that time. Never played it though, and I have no idea where to find it or even if you can still play it online.
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Jan 24, 2016 14:06
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kiEj4RNpYME They just don't make ads like this anymore...
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Jan 24, 2016 14:42
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Jan 24, 2016 14:44
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Re: 8088 hacking - It's not quite as sexy, but assembly registry hacking experts are always in demand at large financial and retail institutions. Basically, they have to handle millions of transactions a day, with each transactions possibly affecting the behavior of every transaction happening after it. Someone who can find a way to squeeze a few instruction lines out of an item lookup, or reduce the amount of time a record has to be locked can save enormous amount of time and resources when compounded over the day. There's a reason stuff is still written in assembler and cobol even though we have newer languages. Being that close to the hardware, and having full control over what registries and instructions you use give greater transparency to how you're spending those clock cycles, compared to higher-level languages where stuff happens by the invisible hand of Java. Police Automaton posted:This is a complicated topic and the question is "for how long?". The problem is that technology keeps advancing and if you stow a data storage device away now, and if the past is any indication - chances are that in the future, future computers won't have a fitting interface for it or won't be able to interpret the data, even if the device still works. It's already now quite complicated to get data off of floppies and harddrives from some systems and onto a modern computer, and that wasn't even that long ago. There are also things like the M-Disc but the same basic problems remain. If you want to save data for future generations to read, write it on paper. Or update the storage medium occasionally. Flash isn't all that long-term reliable though. How everything relies now on relatively volatile data storage, there's a serious chance that in about a hundred years from now, outside of a select few datapoints which were properly archived, there won't be much stuff from our time surviving into the future. Backing things up on hard drives is usually a pretty bad idea, actually. Drives fail under normal use around 2-3 years, and as drive manufacturers find new and creative ways of jamming more storage into the same footprint, they get increasingly sensitive. Powering down the drive and putting it into storage keeps the head from potentially doing any damage to the platters, but now you've got the issue of the ball bearings drying out and seizing. Those big banks, retailers, and insurance companies that handle trillions of records and some of the most valuable data in the world... use tape. It's got no mechanical parts to give out, has had the same interface for forever, and has a shelf life of 30+ years. The newest (yes, the current version of the LTO standard came out in 2015) ones will hold up to 6.25TB compressed and encrypted. For $35, and you can even buy them on Amazon. We'll see how things play out with SSDs, but tape storage is just dead simple. Throw your records onto tape, put the tapes into a cardboard box, call up Iron Mountain, and have them store everything underground in a salt mine in case your datacenter gets hit by a meteor or falls into a sinkhole.
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Jan 24, 2016 14:54
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Would those demos have even been possible to make back then? Would you need some modern technology to get the demos to that point? (I know nothing about programming)
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Jan 24, 2016 15:03
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To be fair though, compilers have come a long way regarding optimization. Also the inefficiency simply often doesn't matter anymore and cutting down on development time (=cost) and ease of maintenance is far more important. an AOL chatroom posted:Backing things up on hard drives is usually a pretty bad idea, actually. Drives fail under normal use around 2-3 years, and as drive manufacturers find new and creative ways of jamming more storage into the same footprint, they get increasingly sensitive. Powering down the drive and putting it into storage keeps the head from potentially doing any damage to the platters, but now you've got the issue of the ball bearings drying out and seizing. Yes, that's what I meant with "properly archived", I do not think that outside of these select few things there will be a lot of records that will survive our time for exactly these reasons, as contrary to inane conversations people had via postcard in the late 19th and early 20th century. You can go to every flea-market in my country and buy boxes full of that stuff for a few bucks just because there is so many of it around. At the same time, I'm pretty sure this forum post here will be gone in 2116. That's where my paper comment comes from. For the average Joe and his backup sensibilities though it's easiest to just have enough redundancy and update your storage mediums with the technology available at the time occasionally. You gotta remember that most people don't bother to make backups at all. I once had a tape drive for my first PC where I religiously made backups being happy I could move away from floppies and the storage capacity was unbeatable (800 MB it was?!) which was almost more important, eventually and with technical progress, I just gave up. I just don't have data THAT important to justify the inconvenience. Probably still have a few tapes flying around somewhere. It's kind of a pity I threw the case&the streamer drive away a few years ago (especially considering the small fortune that drive cost but those where the days before eBay) I would've liked to put that computer back together like it was and I really liked the sound the tapedrive made.  Still have my needle-printer tho.Dr.Caligari posted:Would those demos have even been possible to make back then? Would you need some modern technology to get the demos to that point? They would've been possible to make as they do exist and run on these machines, so of course. If anyone actually would've pulled it off is the question and I'd wager a guess and say for a lot of stuff, no. Demos aren't exactly a new thing, there are lots of old demos around. Just compare them to "modern" ones in complexity and quality and you'll see that the people and experience "grew" with years. Modern accessibility and information exchange made this a lot easier than it once was. A lot of stuff just would've been really unfeasible to make without modern tools. EDIT: Funny sidenote about harddrive decay, I once resurrected an old SCSI-drive and saved the data by opening it up and removing the rubber-rest thing the head rested on when the drive was turned off, the rubber turned to a sticky gunk over the years and the head got stuck. Was enough to save the data, wouldn't recommend with modern drives for aforementioned reasons, these older drives are a bit more robust. Police Automaton has a new favorite as of 16:28 on Jan 24, 2016 |
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Jan 24, 2016 16:06
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an AOL chatroom posted:cobol ... Being that close to the hardware Ahahahahaha The only reason COBOL is still around is in cases where decades old software still in use for payroll or whatever. It's not "close to the metal" and nobody writes new software with it or even wants to touch it unless they have to. Most high-performance code is written in C or C++ with no raw assembly outside of maybe a few snippets of SIMD code, and even that is usually done with compiler intrinsics now. Microsoft's 64-bit toolchains don't even support inline assembly anymore. Police Automaton posted:To be fair though, compilers have come a long way regarding optimization. Also the inefficiency simply often doesn't matter anymore and cutting down on development time (=cost) and ease of maintenance is far more important. It matters a lot more now than 10 years ago since there are so many battery powered devices and slow, inefficient software directly impacts battery life. The_Franz has a new favorite as of 18:10 on Jan 24, 2016 |
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Jan 24, 2016 17:59
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The Kins posted:Not quite the same thing, but compare the first generation of, say, PS3 games with the final generation. It's the same static hardware configuration, but it's being used so much more efficiently and cleverly that a whole new level of results are being achieved. Yeah I realize that but I don't know... It just doesn't seem as impressive to me.
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Jan 24, 2016 18:03
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The_Franz posted:Ahahahahaha I tried to keep this thread as un-technical as possible and you should, too. These slapfights are already non-entertaining in SHSC and lead nowhere there either. Mak0rz posted:Yeah I realize that but I don't know... It just doesn't seem as impressive to me. It's because the resources just aren't as limited and the programming on these things is downright cushy compared to the old one. Bet it takes away some of the magic already saying that people use modern tools like emulators to make these demos. Anyone remember this horrible game? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D6Sb1kKqmvA So many prescribed aspirins. So many dead patients. The blood just keeps coming!
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Jan 24, 2016 18:10
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The_Franz posted:Ahahahahaha lmao talk about relics, here's an annoying usenet poster
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Jan 24, 2016 18:14
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Police Automaton posted:This is a complicated topic and the question is "for how long?". The problem is that technology keeps advancing and if you stow a data storage device away now, and if the past is any indication - chances are that in the future, future computers won't have a fitting interface for it or won't be able to interpret the data, even if the device still works. It's already now quite complicated to get data off of floppies and harddrives from some systems and onto a modern computer, and that wasn't even that long ago. There are also things like the M-Disc but the same basic problems remain. If you want to save data for future generations to read, write it on paper. Or update the storage medium occasionally. Flash isn't all that long-term reliable though. How everything relies now on relatively volatile data storage, there's a serious chance that in about a hundred years from now, outside of a select few datapoints which were properly archived, there won't be much stuff from our time surviving into the future. Eh this has always been true and it has always been true that we've relied on things being copied from newer media to newer media. We don't have, like, Homer or the Bible because some dude wrote it down 2500 years ago and we have that original version - we have copies of copies of copies.
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Jan 24, 2016 18:15
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Police Automaton posted:I tried to keep this thread as un-technical as possible and you should, too. These slapfights are already non-entertaining in SHSC and lead nowhere there either. Disagree. Nerd fight!!
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Jan 24, 2016 18:30
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The_Franz posted:Most high-performance code is written in C or C++ There was a time not all that long ago that asserting C++ as "high performance" would have gotten you laughed out of the room!
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Jan 24, 2016 19:01
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Solid state hdds probably degrade really slowly though. Way too slow to impact your archive. But just keeping a few copies of your stuff in different locations should be enough. Anything that takes a lot of storage space now will be insignificant in five years anyway
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Jan 24, 2016 21:14
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This loving game right here pissed off my 8-year-old self to no end, but I couldn't stop playing it. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TQWuHJqsWcU
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Jan 24, 2016 23:25
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Holy poo poo that site is up: http://heavensgate.com/ For people who don't know: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heaven%27s_Gate_%28religious_group%29 EDIT: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JC0tqZfMv34 Police Automaton has a new favorite as of 23:45 on Jan 24, 2016 |
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Jan 24, 2016 23:41
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mcbexx posted:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kiEj4RNpYME yeah. all the ads on tv nowadays are ones that try too hard to be hip or ironic and ones that are just plain loving boring :/
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Jan 25, 2016 00:30
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Melmac posted:Wow, I just checked and those are $25 per disc on eBay.  And they say they'll store your data for 300 years. If they don't even last 30, do you think that Kodak will still be around to give you a refund? They have survived longer than most people would have expected though.quote:Wouldn't a flash drive or even mechanical hard drive stored away somewhere be more reliable than even those gold CD-Rs though? This article from 2008 says that if you write data to a flash drive and then put it in a cupboard, it'll only survive 5-10 years.* * I kinda skimmed it.
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Jan 25, 2016 00:37
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Buttcoin purse posted:
The discs, or Kodak? Because Kodak's whole "nah, digital photography is just a fad" thing didn't go so well.
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Jan 25, 2016 00:40
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There is something absolutely magical about Nixie tubes. Here's a video of a clock I built from scratch, some ten to fifteen years back. (video was taken fifteen minutes ago) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Kp2eJ82Prs I love stuff that glows in the dark.
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Jan 25, 2016 01:36
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GAY 4 ORGANS
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So my external hard drive with all my porn, my music, game files and silly pics will be dead as a doornail with in about 4 years ????
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Jan 25, 2016 02:29
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Honestly I don't think I've ever had a hard drive die in my 20+ years of computing. I do IT work and it's ridiculously uncommon for the issue to be the hard drive. I mean yeah it's happened, but some of the stuff I work with have hard drives from the 90s and are working fine. I kinda feel like if your hard drive makes it past the 2 year mark it's probably going to last a very long time.
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Jan 25, 2016 02:36
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When I was a kid my dad used to pirate PSX games off Usenet for me to play. I remember him getting pissed that I didn't like Small Soldiers (probably because he spent so much loving time downloading a whole CD's worth of data.) I had a pretty huge collection of pirated games, but the only one that survives to this day is Duke Nukem Time to Kill. Also, Battlezone. I spent so much time playing this game and it's sequel it isn't funny.    
Feedback Agency has a new favorite as of 02:59 on Jan 25, 2016 |
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Jan 25, 2016 02:54
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Melmac posted:Honestly I don't think I've ever had a hard drive die in my 20+ years of computing. I do IT work and it's ridiculously uncommon for the issue to be the hard drive. I mean yeah it's happened, but some of the stuff I work with have hard drives from the 90s and are working fine. What kind of IT work do you do where you've never had a hdd die in two decades
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Jan 25, 2016 03:01
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Police Automaton posted:Holy poo poo that site is up: http://heavensgate.com/ I've loved Porcupine Tree for so long and I never realized that the song Last Chance to Evacuate Planet Earth is both about, and uses a clip from, that video
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Jan 25, 2016 03:09
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Feedback Agency posted:Also, Battlezone. I spent so much time playing this game and it's sequel it isn't funny. what the hell is that crazy future poo poo this is battlezone: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ctr54kopo8I it had an awesome viewport thing that made you feel like you were in a REAL TANK from the FUTURE 
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Jan 25, 2016 03:11
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VectorSigma posted:what the hell is that crazy future poo poo Greatest (and only) tank shooter/RTS hybrid you'll ever play. Set in an alternate version of the '60s where the US and Russia send hovertanks to space to fight over the ruins of an ancient alien civilization.
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Jan 25, 2016 03:13
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Police Automaton posted:Anyone remember this horrible game? I remember watching a classmate perform a complete appendectomy and sew the guy up, only to fail because he forgot about all the clamps still inside the patient.
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Jan 25, 2016 03:31
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Quote-Unquote posted:The discs, or Kodak? Because Kodak's whole "nah, digital photography is just a fad" thing didn't go so well. Kodak - I wouldn't bet on them being around in 30 years to refund you when your precious memories were all lost because gold CD-Rs didn't really last 300 years. Wicker Man posted:So my external hard drive with all my porn, my music, game files and silly pics will be dead as a doornail with in about 4 years ???? Yeah, unless its Seagate, in which case it's already died. Melmac posted:Honestly I don't think I've ever had a hard drive die in my 20+ years of computing. I do IT work and it's ridiculously uncommon for the issue to be the hard drive. I mean yeah it's happened, but some of the stuff I work with have hard drives from the 90s and are working fine. Yeah, unless it's a Seagate, and it has a 2 year warranty, in which case it will make it past the 2 year mark. Just past. 2 weeks past in my case. I've had 2 hard drives fail in the last few months, and it's not like I use RAID and have lots of disks, the computer my wife uses every day and the computer I used every day each had one disk and they both decided to die. My computer just froze, and then when I tried to reboot it said there was no disk, and I lost lots of stuff. My wife's disk gave lots of warning, and even after Windows said "your hard drive is failing" because the SMART monitoring said it was "failing now" - only 50% reallocated sectors remaining - I kept ignoring it (well, did do some backups) until it got to 8%, then copied everything to a new disk and no data was lost as far as I know. I wish she'd lost her data and I'd gotten to keep mine because I don't think she gives a poo poo about her data and we've been backing it up every now and then for years because it's had quite a few reallocated sectors for years. mcbexx posted:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kiEj4RNpYME  That looks like the Laguna Seca track in the real-life footage, now I'm tempted to play the game and see if it bears any resemblance to that track, but I bet it doesn't so I'm not going to bother.
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Jan 25, 2016 10:08
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mcbexx posted:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kiEj4RNpYME what a world, where you could take a whole 90 seconds to advertise a product.
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Jan 25, 2016 10:15
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The_Franz posted:The only reason COBOL is still around is in cases where decades old software still in use for payroll or whatever. It's not "close to the metal" and nobody writes new software with it or even wants to touch it unless they have to. Go buy something at a store using plastic with a Visa/MasterCard/whatever logo on it, there's probably a much larger than 50% chance that your attempt to buy a Fleshlight will touch some COBOL along the way. Ain't nothing wrong with it: Grace Hopper was and is a loving pimp who simply waits for the likes of John C. Carmack to shuffle off the mortal coil and come stand along side but ever-so-slightly below her on the eternal throne of programming.
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Jan 25, 2016 10:38
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Please don't leave your CDRs in direct sunlight Oops  Fortunately it was just an old BeOS installation disc, at least I think it was.
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Jan 25, 2016 11:01
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I've got this monstrosity too It's the only way to play the greatest game ever made: Desert Bus I had it burned on a CD-R but now it doesn't work anymore my next picture will be the smoldering remains of my house after the electrical fire
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Jan 25, 2016 11:06
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Ein cooler Typ posted:my next picture will be the smoldering remains of my house after the electrical fire I am looking forward to it. Don't forget to include the menacing faces of the CD-Rs that extracted their revenge on you for the continuous burning you did to them.
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Jan 25, 2016 11:16
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Melmac posted:Out of curiosity, why couldn't it copy the PS1 disc subchannel data? If I'm not confusing it with something else, PS1 read region codes from a portion of the disc's lead-in area that is already prewritten on CD-Rs with stuff like the disc manufacturer name. Alternatively, just color the bottom of the disc black with a marker. 
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Jan 25, 2016 11:33
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1000 Brown M and Ms posted:I'm pretty sure you're thinking of Star Trek: ConQuest Online. I remember seeing it a lot in game stores around that time. Never played it though, and I have no idea where to find it or even if you can still play it online. Yep! I even found it just a few minutes before reading your post.
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Jan 25, 2016 13:35
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