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Police Automaton posted:From Siemens, here in germany, you'd get them from the state-owned mail service who also did everything telecommunications-related My grandfather had one of these, right up until he died in 2005. No one wants to piss off old old people in the UK, because they're the only people that vote or have any money, so no one would dare switch the service off. These things were potentially dangerous, as the emergency services number in the UK is 999, which took an eternity to dial as you waited for the dialer the spin back round. In fact I was told that was the whole reason the US went with 911 instead.
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Jul 4, 2016 07:37
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GTA 3 came out 15 years ago, such a staple of my youth that I had to use a bitchin pc to play on, never got that far in the game mostly played with cheats and edited the cars to do crazy poo poo while I drove around
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Jul 4, 2016 08:01
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thathonkey posted:razr v3 was a loving solid phone I remember when the razr v3 came out. I wanted one, but Verizon wanted somewhere around $600 for it. So I went with what I thought was the next best thing:  ColoradoCleric posted:GTA 3 came out 15 years ago, such a staple of my youth that I had to use a bitchin pc to play on, never got that far in the game mostly played with cheats and edited the cars to do crazy poo poo while I drove around Never played GTA 3 or Vice City on PC, only on PS2. When I finally bought a good enough laptop that could play games worth a drat, I splurged on a copy of GTA:SA and used a downgrade patch to move back to version 1.x so I could edit and mod the guns and cars. 90s Solo Cup has a new favorite as of 17:08 on Jul 4, 2016 |
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Jul 4, 2016 17:04
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Tubesock Holocaust posted:Never played GTA 3 or Vice City on PC, only on PS2. When I finally bought a good enough laptop that could play games worth a drat, I splurged on a copy of GTA:SA and used a downgrade patch to move back to version 1.x so I could edit and mod the guns and cars. IIRC GTA 1 and 2 had graphics that were just static images of cars as seen from above stored in gifs or pngs that you could just open in paint and edit. I know a guy who used to replace them with Arwings from Star Fox and various Star Wars ships
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Jul 4, 2016 19:51
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8 track betamax posted:Also related: a thing that I absolutely LOVE is finding websites where the most recent post is years old and its always a really pathetic pleading\whining excuse about why posts have been thin lately.....but wait just wait....I've turned a corner in my life and GET READY FOR GREAT THINGS IN THE NEAR FUTURE!!! Ages ago I had a website on a small free web host with some dumb gothy name and theme. The main page was the owner's personal blog basically, it was black with i think blue or purple? text on it. I'd go there to log in to my page I think. One day I loaded it up and there was a light blue with clouds background and a post called something like "I HAVE FALLEN FROM THE SKY" that was all about how the owner went skydiving and it changed his life.
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Jul 5, 2016 03:05
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My stepfather is a relic. On the weekend I got a series of panicky SMSs wanting me to call him 'within the next few hours' which means he is at home and out of ear shot from my mother. Yup, he clicked a dodgy link on a 'football' streaming site and ended up with those fake Microsoft tech support people showing him everything wrong with the computer. He thought that they presented a great service and yup - the credit card and all identity information was handed over. RIP.
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Jul 5, 2016 10:53
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I'm in the fortunate enough situation where my mom is not dumb enough to fall for those scams. My dad is definitely dumb enough to fall for them, but he wouldn't be able to turn the computer on in the first place to let the scam happen.
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Jul 5, 2016 10:58
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Light Gun Man posted:Ages ago I had a website on a small free web host with some dumb gothy name and theme. The main page was the owner's personal blog basically, it was black with i think blue or purple? text on it. I'd go there to log in to my page I think. One day I loaded it up and there was a light blue with clouds background and a post called something like "I HAVE FALLEN FROM THE SKY" that was all about how the owner went skydiving and it changed his life. Next time he should change his life even more by forgoing the parachute
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Jul 5, 2016 11:40
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How many Windows 95, 98. and ME machines did I see with start up errors like this one:
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Jul 5, 2016 13:24
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Lowen SoDium posted:How many Windows 95, 98. and ME machines did I see with start up errors like this one: Now I know what people talk about when they say they have been "triggered" 
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Jul 5, 2016 13:33
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evobatman posted:Now I know what people talk about when they say they have been "triggered" Oh God yes. I actually recoiled in horror at that picture.
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Jul 5, 2016 13:35
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Lowen SoDium posted:How many Windows 95, 98. and ME machines did I see with start up errors like this one: I caused this error on my brother's PC at around age 12 not knowing what the gently caress I was doing. Had to clear up some space on a 1GB hard disk to play Quake...
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Jul 5, 2016 14:15
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Humphreys posted:My stepfather is a relic. My friend got a phone call from "Windows Tech Support" the other day and asked the caller if the scam ever works. They immediately hung up, of course. How rude. I can now tell him at least one person has. Mak0rz has a new favorite as of 14:23 on Jul 5, 2016 |
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Jul 5, 2016 14:20
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Remember when you could mask a link to CrashMe.com and crash someone's computer What vulnerability did that site take advantage of anyway?
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Jul 5, 2016 14:20
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Humphreys posted:My stepfather is a relic. Yeah I work at staples and people get fooled by this ALL THE TIME. How??
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Jul 5, 2016 14:33
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I remember Windows 98 crashing with what I dubbed "the internet .dll" which appeared to be a particular system file which linked up the internet connection with programs. Meaning if it crashed programs needing internet access would think they were offline. But until you actually pressed Ok on the dialogue box it would still run. The above mentioned error was common enough on a few PCs that I suspect it was either a virus or something overwrote a crucial file with it's own personalised .dll - a common nightmare back in the day. I also remember fixing this by transplanting the broken file from another system and helping a few other people over ICQ who'd had the same issue.
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Jul 5, 2016 14:34
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EugeneJ posted:Remember when you could mask a link to CrashMe.com and crash someone's computer if i had to guess id say winsock
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Jul 5, 2016 15:26
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My mom came to me saying her chromebook had some message saying to call microsoft or she'd lose all the data (that isn't even) on her chromebook. I quickly closed the tab and installed uBlock Origin for her. I guess they don't even bother trying to figure out what OS the computer is running and just assume it's windows. She got the same message from her macbook as well. It's those stupid facebook quiz websites.
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Jul 5, 2016 17:42
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Ferroque posted:Yeah I work at staples and people get fooled by this ALL THE TIME. How?? Old people who aren't good with computer get fooled by official looking websites and official sounding phone calls.
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Jul 5, 2016 20:58
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Cojawfee posted:My mom came to me saying her chromebook had some message saying to call microsoft or she'd lose all the data (that isn't even) on her chromebook. I quickly closed the tab and installed uBlock Origin for her. I guess they don't even bother trying to figure out what OS the computer is running and just assume it's windows. She got the same message from her macbook as well. It's those stupid facebook quiz websites. lol if you think most people know what corporation is responsible for their OS.
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Jul 5, 2016 23:36
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I know I saw a survey just a couple of years ago that showed something like a majority of people thought Microsoft made the iPhone.
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Jul 5, 2016 23:54
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EugeneJ posted:Remember when you could mask a link to CrashMe.com and crash someone's computer My guess is that it was the classic con/con glitch. So all that website would have to do is contain this html code: code:Similarly, I remember a really long time ago making a website to annoy my friends and I had a bunch of code in the site like <img src=”a:/image.jpg”> and <img src=”d:/image.jpg”> and <img src=”e:/image.jpg”> and they'd click it and be like "WHY DID MY FLOPPY DRIVE MAKE NOISE AND MY DVD DRIVE START SPINNING WHEN CLICKING THAT LINK?!??!?!". 
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Jul 6, 2016 00:27
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i was in a diablo clan back in like 1997 that had a geocities website with a cheeky message like "bwahahahaha now we have all your files" followed by links to drives A through Z so when you clicked on one you browsed your own files one time we were trying to ally with another clan and its leader broke off the deal after accusing us of hacking him
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Jul 6, 2016 10:05
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Uncle at Nintendo posted:My guess is that it was the classic con/con glitch. So all that website would have to do is contain this html code: Backwards compatibility (in API terms). Open a command prompt, type 'copy con foo.txt' then type stuff into the command prompt (i.e. the console) and it'll go into foo.txt.
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Jul 6, 2016 13:18
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drat, I just experienced what I assume not many people have experienced for a while, and I certainly never have experienced. I want to use this old SCSI scanner, so I plugged an old Adaptec SCSI controller into my PC (well, second time lucky, the first one had some incompatibility and the BIOS hung) but the scanner was just going backwards and forwards continually even before I'd even got the right Linux SCSI driver loaded, so I figured the scanner was dead. Once I did get the SCSI driver installed, I couldn't see the scanner, so it seemed even more like the scanner was dead. I figured I'd double-check the cables and stuff, so I looked at the little SCSI ID selector on the back of the scanner and it was for some reason set to 7, which is the same ID as the controller  I set it to a different value and powered the scanner back on again and suddenly it didn't seem like it was continually trying to scan stuff. I must have bumped that selector at some point when carrying it around, I never had any other SCSI devices so I don't think I ever touched it before. This seemed like a pretty weird thing to happen due to duplicate SCSI IDs, maybe people who used SCSI more than me have plenty of these stories though?The scanner works for a regular scan, so now I'm hoping for a miracle: getting this document feeder to work. If it doesn't work in Linux maybe I'll need to use Windows 95 
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Jul 6, 2016 14:30
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Yeah, accidental setting device SCSI ID's to the same one as the controller is like baby's first SCSI gently caress-up, I've done it a zillion times. The only really PITA SCSI thing that I hate are devices that use jumpers to set the ID and you don't have the goddamn manual. Doesn't help that a lot of this poo poo is so old there's little online info to reference.
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Jul 6, 2016 14:46
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I got my first Win10 BSoD the other day. It was an IRQ error too - I never learned what that means, but literally the last time I remember getting an IRQ error was trying to install my brand-new Voodoo3 AGP video card. All I did was unplug a USB-based MIDI controller while the software was running (Ableton Live).JnnyThndrs posted:Yeah, accidental setting device SCSI ID's to the same one as the controller is like baby's first SCSI gently caress-up, I've done it a zillion times. I like when there are numbers or other markings on the board itself that give zero actual hint at their function. Had to pick up a PCI-SATA card because my motherboard is old and sucky and I don't feel like upgrading both it and the processor right now.  Look at all those loving jumpers, I know their purpose is pretty obvious, but drat. Snow Cone Capone has a new favorite as of 15:43 on Jul 6, 2016 |
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Jul 6, 2016 15:38
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I'm one of those nerds that insisted on all SCSI from 1997 through 2010. I never had a lot of jumper issues, but installing pre-XP Windows was a huge pain in the rear end, because you didn't know what volumes it would recognize during the install loader process. Like, often times you'd end up with your System disk being Drive D, despite "drive D" having a lower ID number and a lower spot in the boot chain. The best work around I found for this was to un plug everything BUT the system disk when doing bare metal installs.
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Jul 6, 2016 16:17
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Why were you using SCSI after SATA came out?
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Jul 6, 2016 16:22
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Cojawfee posted:Why were you using SCSI after SATA came out? Because it was "faster". And I'm a masochist.
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Jul 6, 2016 16:25
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Mak0rz posted:SNES9x is kind of nice but the fucker hijacks a ton of your file associations, including .IMG and .BIN, thinking they're all SNES ROMs. As far as I know there's no way to stop it. I just use Higan now. If you could be bothered, it is possible to find all the relevant association entries in the registry, and apply security settings to each that would make them read only. I imagine that it would be a lot of effort though.
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Jul 6, 2016 17:14
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Here's a fun tidbit of computer relichood that I've never thought to share until now: Back when I was in elementary school, the school library had a handful of books about the internet. We had the colorful iMac computers in our library so of course the natural thing to do would be to stock up on a few of those "100 Great Websites for Kids" books that were all the rage for parents back in the mid-90s. Well, I took a copy of one particular book out and brought it home with me. One of the first websites in the list was Amazing.net, which was touted as having tons of free games and news articles for kids. You can imagine my 8 year old surprise when punching in https://www.amazing.net instead led me to the porno emporium instead. Evidently, the kids' website had gotten their domain pulled by the owners of the porno shop after the publication of the book. I got in a bunch of trouble with my mom for looking up what was basically an online dildo and lingerie shop.
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Jul 6, 2016 17:27
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Tubesock Holocaust posted:Old people who aren't good with computer get fooled by official looking websites and official sounding phone calls. This in combination of the scammed never warning their friends of the scam because they don't want to reveal they got tricked.
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Jul 6, 2016 18:06
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JnnyThndrs posted:Yeah, accidental setting device SCSI ID's to the same one as the controller is like baby's first SCSI gently caress-up, I've done it a zillion times. For most people the problem was not understanding SCSI termination. Or you'd put a device in the middle of the chain not realizing it had an internal terminator and surprise you just lost contact with everything in the chain that comes after it. SCSI really was not hard at all to understand but people didn't want to take the time to read up on the basics. It's similar to the old IRQ bullshit where even if you understood the need for unique IRQ numbers a device like a soundcard would insist on being a specific IRQ that was already in use by something else. And that other device was restricted to one of two numbers and next thing you know you're in the middle of a horrible IRQ number shuffle trying to make all your devices happy.
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Jul 6, 2016 18:17
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Dick Trauma posted:IRQ stuff Oh boy. IRQ shuffling was a wonderful thing. It was even better when the only way to change IRQs was using jumpers on the motherboard.
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Jul 6, 2016 18:35
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I think I'd rather inflict trauma on my dick with a ball peen hammer than go through IRQ fuckery again. Trying to populate all PCI/ISA slots was drat near impossible without running into insurmountable problems.
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Jul 6, 2016 19:13
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When I was supporting The Sierra/Imagination Network it was one annoying config call after another. This was during the mid 1990s so we were dealing with DOS, Win 3 and Win 95 users. The main challenges: 1. Get enough base memory to run the program. With each version the requirements became steeper. I think the final one required 618k for Ruins of Cawdor. Hello boot disk! Not enough base memory even with a boot disk? Time to try and squeeze some of DOS into unused VIDEO RAM god just kill me now. 2. Enter the correct modem string. With 7.5 million different modems out there this was unpleasant, especially if you had to enter prefixes for dialing a long distance service first, like MCI. Does the modem language use commas for a pause or some other character? Wait until you have to determine the UART type to see why they're having connection issues. 3. Sound card/IRQ madness. Modem and sound work but the mouse stopped working. Mouse and sound work but the modem won't dial. Modem and mouse work but lost the sound. gently caress gently caress gently caress. No remote access, no LogMeIn you just had to talk everyone through everything. Hope you like spelling out novel-length DOS commands only to hear the caller say "Bad command or file name" as they mistype over and over again. Win 95 was new so people were literally deleting system files and folders to "make room" and then calling to complain when they could no longer boot up. No you can't use a 100' telephone cable made of 10 shorter ones coupled together! gently caress me what a thankless goddamn job but it taught me how to troubleshoot and also how to not murder stupid people.
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Jul 6, 2016 19:29
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feedmegin posted:Backwards compatibility (in API terms). Open a command prompt, type 'copy con foo.txt' then type stuff into the command prompt (i.e. the console) and it'll go into foo.txt. What about things like lpt1 or whatever though? Also I am still confused as to why having a folder named con would affect the command prompt. Shouldn't it know if you are typing in a directory or if you are trying to do the text thing?
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Jul 6, 2016 20:17
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JnnyThndrs posted:I think I'd rather inflict trauma on my dick with a ball peen hammer than go through IRQ fuckery again.
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Jul 6, 2016 22:08
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Uncle at Nintendo posted:What about things like lpt1 or whatever though? You could (can?) use special file names to do special things. Copy to/from con to copy to screen/from keyboard. Copy to/from lpt1/prn to copy to from parallel port (printer). To/from com1/aux to copy to/from serial port (modem). It's basically (like much of DOS) a bad implementation of UNIX pipes, and allowed all programs that could handle files to also handle external devices. It's super useful on unix where it's fully embraced, less so and mostly forgotten on DOS. Microsoft are VERY good at backwards compatibility, always have been. Read Joel on Software's articles about his time at MS. Therefore these tricks probably still work. When most programs handle CON and others specially, it makes no sense to allow creating a file with that name. No programs can access it. A directory is just a fancy file. That said, you can actually create files with these reserved names, but you'll have a very hard time getting rid of them.
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Jul 6, 2016 22:25
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