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FilthyImp posted:To be fair, we kind of did. It was an outgrowth from the period of time when your electronics (well, your radio really) was supposed to be an ornate end table topper or housed in a big wooden credenza. Oh yes. A friend of mine and I often used to trace these trends over history. It's neat to see where it all comes from, and at what point we shifted away from wanting to make households comfortable with stuff like televisions and radios by disguising them as furniture you could cover with framed photos and bowls of fruit, and towards catering to people dressing up their living rooms to look like they're full of test equipment. Being able to see those trends in 20/20 retrospect doesn't make it any less funny though. A 50-inch TV in a wooden housing that takes up 1/3 of the room like my grandparents had is one thing; a 15-inch-wide set-top box that tries to look like it was built by a cabinetmaker is just sort of ridiculous. On that note though, can someone who knows more about A/V tech than I do explain why on earth a receiver box still in 2018 is exactly the same size as one that's been traveling with me from house to house since 1997? Why hasn't that particular component turned into something the size of like an Amazon Fire? Data Graham has a new favorite as of 09:36 on Dec 31, 2018 |
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Dec 31, 2018 09:33
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Because Home Theater nerds are the primary purchasers of them, furniture is already set up to hold them, and plain old industrial inertia. Why buck the trend with something that may not fit, or match other equipment that is normally bought piecemeal anyway? Plus, old people or families are generally using them, and yearly upgrades are easier when everything clicks in. "New" tech like TV sticks already are tiny. Plus x2, other HT stuff like good amplifiers need the space for transformers, heatsinking, and plain space on the back for connections. It's obviously gonna need a shelf, so why not make something that slips right on top?
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Dec 31, 2018 10:00
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Plus, isn't most high-quality audio gear sized for a rack anyways?
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Dec 31, 2018 10:48
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There's also the issue of perception of quality. Anyone who's done any A/V related work knows that good sound weighs a ton and light and flimsy-feeling equipment invariably craps out on you at the worst possible moment. Packaging that home hi-fi receiver into a large and heavy proper metal enclosure gives it that reassuring heft that is the sign of good equipment instead of cheap trash, whether that perception is legitimate or not in a consumer-grade setting.
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Dec 31, 2018 10:55
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Data Graham posted:Being able to see those trends in 20/20 retrospect doesn't make it any less funny though. A 50-inch TV in a wooden housing that takes up 1/3 of the room like my grandparents had is one thing; a 15-inch-wide set-top box that tries to look like it was built by a cabinetmaker is just sort of ridiculous. I used to work for LG and having their 65in Rear Pro TV was a sense of pride. I stil have it as my primary TV because it works and too heavy to get rid of myself.
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Dec 31, 2018 12:06
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barbecue at the folks posted:There's also the issue of perception of quality. Anyone who's done any A/V related work knows that good sound weighs a ton and light and flimsy-feeling equipment invariably craps out on you at the worst possible moment. Packaging that home hi-fi receiver into a large and heavy proper metal enclosure gives it that reassuring heft that is the sign of good equipment instead of cheap trash, whether that perception is legitimate or not in a consumer-grade setting. I mean, it always cracked me up that for years you could buy an A/V rack sized DVD player (probably still can), all big and heavy and clanking and full of circuit boards and heat sinks and god knows what, when I know for drat sure all that is necessary to decode a DVD is a Discman-sized thing that clamps over the disc and basically fits in your pocket. ...Right?
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Dec 31, 2018 15:13
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Jim Silly-Balls posted:I used to do dial up support in the early 2000’s, precisely when the only people with dial up were old people and people who live in the boonies. Yes, phone lines are bad in the boonies. Trying to get old ladies to enter long-rear end init strings to drop their baud rate to 28.8 or 14.4 to maintain a stable connection on their internal modem was hell. Get one letter wrong and it hangs the modem and requires 10 mins to reboot AT&F1S0=0E1Q0V1X4&C1&D2&H1&I0&K0 
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Dec 31, 2018 15:25
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Data Graham posted:I mean, it always cracked me up that for years you could buy an A/V rack sized DVD player (probably still can), all big and heavy and clanking and full of circuit boards and heat sinks and god knows what, when I know for drat sure all that is necessary to decode a DVD is a Discman-sized thing that clamps over the disc and basically fits in your pocket. ...Right? Does this count as a tech relic? I just realized a couple of weeks ago that Groove Salad on soma.fm still exists. Felt like I should reinstall WinAmp.
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Dec 31, 2018 16:35
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Data Graham posted:. A 50-inch TV in a wooden housing that takes up 1/3 of the room like my grandparents had is one thing; a 15-inch-wide set-top box that tries to look like it was built by a cabinetmaker is just sort of ridiculous. I guess it's hard to put yourself in that mindset, where it was super important to make sure your house sets looked like they matched and weren't ostentatious. Data Graham posted:when I know for drat sure all that is necessary to decode a DVD is a Discman-sized thing that clamps over the disc and basically fits in your pocket. ...Right? And there's probably some aesthetics in mind. I can grab a $150 UHD player from Best Buy that isnt too big. But I can also grab the $600 UHD from Samsung that has an OLED screen, HDR, touch buttons, WiFi, and is as wide as a PS4 because more money = more newer poo poo. We also take for granted how much is done to make things as small as we can as our fabrication matures. Compare the old top loader VHS rigs to the last few units you could buy commercially. Things went from the size of a 1970s record deck to the size of a cable box once we were able to get digital inners.
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Dec 31, 2018 16:45
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Tiny hifi amplifiers do exist - NAD has been making a line of smaller class D amps for a while. I have a D3020 that's not much larger than a 3.5" external drive, and it's fine - though it does get a bit toasty, and there are limits to what sort of speakers you'd want to connect to it. There's also a whole selection of Chinese ones supposed to be perfectly decent, though the one I looked at there has proportions more like a squared 1.5L bottle (controls and connections on the short ends). At a guess, anything smaller would tend to overheat if forced to power larger speakers - at least if you also want to cool it without fan noise or inelegant heatsinks. Computer viking has a new favorite as of 18:54 on Dec 31, 2018 |
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Dec 31, 2018 18:49
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Data Graham posted:That fuckin faux-wood finish. Like we wanted even our A/V boxes to pretend to be furniture. I always wondered what the intent was with wood grain on cars Is the illusion that my dashboard is made of wood one that brings me any comfort?
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Dec 31, 2018 20:14
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doctorfrog posted:I watched the old series Connections with James Burke about a year ago, and his thing was that plastic was seen as cheap crap when console TVs were king, so manufacturers would envelop them in woodgrain to entice buyers who wanted middle-class furniture at lower-class prices, or just electronics that matched their heavy wood furnishings. Manufacturers would deliberately design stuff to be similar in form to something made out of wood, in spite of the fact that being injection molded meant they could take any shape and color. Any chance you recall where you watched connections?
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Dec 31, 2018 20:15
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Regular Nintendo posted:I always wondered what the intent was with wood grain on cars It's entirely an aesthetic thing, but it signals wealth because gently caress yes I spent $2k for the imported wood dash. VvV It's not good. Maybe slightly better acoustically. It's literally a way to signal wealth because of the extremely edge case luxury of having a slab of wood in your 2 ton metal drivebox. As for where it came from? Probably from the early automobiles that were modeled after horse drawn carriages? Taken another way, it's the luxe upgrade version of Yo Do You Want The Premium Interior with Leather. Data Graham posted:Yeah but the question is, why is that considered desirable? We adopt these weird practices socially because they signal wealth. Like all these loving remodeled houses that NEED granite countertops. Or the bathrooms that NEED a tile backsplash. Or the living rooms that NEED recessed LED lights. Or the high end computer poo poo that looks like it was taken from a stealth drone then upgraded with gaudy RGB LED lights. Just like, to bring it around again, our grandparents needed their TV and Stereo to be housed in a big wooden thing. FilthyImp has a new favorite as of 20:49 on Dec 31, 2018 |
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Dec 31, 2018 20:22
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Yeah but the question is, why is that considered desirable? Is it a good thing for cars to signal that they're made of wood? Is wood a better thing for your car to be made of than metal? I mean yeah the answer is that it's a dumb traditional thing whose connotations date back to a hundred years ago, but the fact that there are whole industries around perpetuating it is just head-spinning.
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Dec 31, 2018 20:27
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Data Graham posted:Yeah but the question is, why is that considered desirable? ^^ this Yeah I know I'm overthinking it. You could ask the same questions of stuff like this 
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Dec 31, 2018 20:38
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Regular Nintendo posted:I always wondered what the intent was with wood grain on cars Once upon a time (and still sometimes today) dashboards were made of wood in cars. The aesthetic just stuck around I guess.
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Dec 31, 2018 20:52
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I'm speculating, but your perception of wood in consumer products has probably been skewed by nearly 40 years of cheap MDF products. Before MDF (pre 1980s), wood was probably seen as a mark of quality.
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Dec 31, 2018 20:58
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The funny thing is, those $1k rosewood inlays on your Mercedes or Bentley dash? They’re about 1mm thick Source: I’ve installed them
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Dec 31, 2018 21:12
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Data Graham posted:I mean, it always cracked me up that for years you could buy an A/V rack sized DVD player (probably still can), all big and heavy and clanking and full of circuit boards and heat sinks and god knows what, when I know for drat sure all that is necessary to decode a DVD is a Discman-sized thing that clamps over the disc and basically fits in your pocket. ...Right? You can buy tiny DVD players. I see them all the time in thrift stores and really budget department stores next to the $1.99 earbuds and $40 tablets running android 6 generations old. So the form factor is there, but they're smaller than your other AV boxes (cable box, receiver, etc..), so you'd have this one weird thing that doesn't stack well, and they're so light that as soon as you plug it in it's going to want to tip backwards.
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Dec 31, 2018 22:03
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Humphreys posted:65in Rear Pro Mods, I am begging you
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Dec 31, 2018 22:36
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Regular Nintendo posted:Any chance you recall where you watched connections?
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Dec 31, 2018 23:46
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doctorfrog posted:Couldn’t find it anywhere online, but my local library had series one on DVD. I should get it again, I forgot half of it already. The first episode alone is great, starting with a blackout in Manhattan and how utterly dependent we are on our technology, exploring what you’d have to do if it all went away and using that as an excuse to start talking about the plow. Wait was this the one from the 80s or a reboot
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Dec 31, 2018 23:54
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EvilGenius posted:I'm speculating, but your perception of wood in consumer products has probably been skewed by nearly 40 years of cheap MDF products. Before MDF (pre 1980s), wood was probably seen as a mark of quality. It's interesting how the perception of materials change over time. At one point wood and metal were cheap materials and plastic was fancy and expensive. Then plastic got really cheap and then metal and wood were seen as luxury. Then you have plastic being chromed to make it look like metal because they thought people would want to see metal on their camera or MP3 player or whatever. Then they eventually just go with bare plastic. It's kind of like canned foods. Nowadays, if someone breaks out a can, you think they are being cheap because the can cost like 75 cents. But go back 180-200 years ago, and canned food is fancy compared to the dried and salted foods they would normally have.
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Jan 1, 2019 00:03
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On carriages, dashboard are literal boards that exist to block the debris that horses kick up. It’s like mudflaps for horses.
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Jan 1, 2019 00:11
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Regular Nintendo posted:Wait was this the one from the 80s or a reboot The one where he’s wearing a leisure suit or something
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Jan 1, 2019 00:16
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Data Graham posted:Yeah but the question is, why is that considered desirable? Vogue for the late 60s and 70s in the US was natural earth tones. It's got nothing to do about any historical meaning, it just what was in-style at the time and consumer products reflected that as a result. You can literally see this in every kind of consumer electronics, it's just that that particular style of simulated wood grain stands out as particularly garish in the modern era so it's easier to single out.
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Jan 1, 2019 11:54
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Why did plastic on electronics and toys have to translucent or transparent in the nineties?
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Jan 1, 2019 12:25
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Star Man posted:Why did plastic on electronics and toys have to translucent or transparent in the nineties? I suspect that's one of a very long line of "now that we can make this thing on a mass scale, it'll be new and cool and popular for a while". This is just guessing, but it seems like perfectly clear uncolored plastic would be harder to make than anything where you can hide the imperfections with color? Computer viking has a new favorite as of 13:53 on Jan 1, 2019 |
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Jan 1, 2019 13:49
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Cojawfee posted:Once upon a time (and still sometimes today) dashboards were made of wood in cars. The aesthetic just stuck around I guess. People also just like wood grain in general. When everything was huge by necessity it was important for it to look nice. A two inch thick gigantic TV can get away with just being a black box because it takes up relatively little room. When your TV or radio is thick enough that it's measured in feet you want it to not look like complete rear end. Conversely a thin black square with a screen in it matches pretty much everything and doesn't stick out so it doesn't have to look nice. A nice wood finish will probably also match basically everything you put it near. That's especially true if it's nicely designed to boot.
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Jan 1, 2019 14:15
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Star Man posted:Why did plastic on electronics and toys have to translucent or transparent in the nineties? I mean, this one was pretty baldly because the 1997 iMac was a huge hit and a giant departure in style from all computers of the day, so everything that wanted to connote “tech” and “hip” decided to be rounded and translucent.
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Jan 1, 2019 14:42
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Connections is also on Youtube https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLP2DAEyOYprpMAz7rmlbkkS-jJ_luSmAW Humbug Scoolbus has a new favorite as of 15:25 on Jan 1, 2019 |
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Jan 1, 2019 15:17
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Star Man posted:Why did plastic on electronics and toys have to translucent or transparent in the nineties? Miniaturisation of components, dense circuit boards and microprocessors were the height of sophistication, and being able to see them made your product look techie and cool. It was saying 'hey look at all the COMPLEX TECHNOLOGY ™ we put in this thing'. Now we take these things for granted.
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Jan 1, 2019 15:50
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I also feel like Millenial design pushed that trend pretty hard. It's really crazy how much Apple and the iPod (and later, iPhone) changed the design language for futuristic. JJTrek enterprise is like an Apple Store.
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Jan 1, 2019 16:17
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Humbug Scoolbus posted:Connections is also on Youtube YES thanks a ton!
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Jan 1, 2019 17:08
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Re: clear plastics chat, a good tumblr to follow: http://y2kaestheticinstitute.tumblr.com/
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Jan 1, 2019 17:39
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Btw, not all of Apple's clear plastic design worked. Ever see the eMate?
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Jan 1, 2019 17:42
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The newton had cool industrial design I thought. Eh maybe I’m wrong looking at some pictures. I remembered them as being cooler. BigFactory has a new favorite as of 17:53 on Jan 1, 2019 |
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Jan 1, 2019 17:51
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Computer viking posted:I suspect that's one of a very long line of "now that we can make this thing on a mass scale, it'll be new and cool and popular for a while". See also: blue LEDs.
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Jan 1, 2019 17:54
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I'm not gonna miss every gadget being piano black and covered in fingerprints after three seconds of use. I DO miss my Dell Studio XPS 13. It came out at the tail end of 2008 and was built with aluminum and leather trim, and there has never been a laptop like it before or after. The first iteration was horribly unreliable. With Windows Vista and an Nvidia chipset with switching graphics in the small chassis it never stood a chance, and I went through 5-6 motherboards before Dell swapped it for a facelifted model for me. The facelift ran perfectly, and I kept doing unsupported upgrades to it using parts from computers at work, until 2017 when I finally sold it. At that time it had the most powerful Core 2 Duo CPU you could fit the socket, Windows 10 Pro, 8GB DDR3, the fastest Intel SSD drive the chipset would accept, 4G modem and some upgraded Wifi card. 
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Jan 1, 2019 18:49
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I miss when it was easy to upgrade bits of laptops.
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Jan 1, 2019 19:40
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