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Keith Atherton posted:I remember there were these kiosks back in the 70’s where you’d get your picture taken and the operator would print out a black and white ASCII portrait of you on a dot matrix printer My family visited one of those around 1979. We put a photo of the dog on a little stand, they zoomed in on it with the camera and produced a glorious dot matrix printed version.  EDIT: I just remembered hand scanners. I hated those goddamn things.
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Jun 5, 2019 00:23
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Tunicate posted:Our uni has a hospital attached so they made it impossible to forward anything from the uni email system to an external account, and also required all your course poo poo to go to the uni email Yea that why the main reason. I had to go to one of the labs, which because I wasn't a CS student, I had to sign in, leave my ID and only had limited access to the labs during certain times. Lucky all my profs were dirty hippy draft dodgers and still handed out readings on paper rather than putting them online. My Lovely Horse posted:At my library we almost hit someone with a triple digit lock replacement fee after they checked out and didn't return a study room key and didn't react to any reminders, because of course it turned out they never checked their university e-mail. They were lucky to come in and return it only hours before we would have called for the locksmith. Yikes, but it does point out that assuming Uni emails were the best way to go to contacting people is not a good idea, unless that's the only way he could be contacted. Kamrat posted:I remember this HD-DVD addon that they sold for the xbox 360, a lot of people thought that would mean that future 360 games would be released on HD-DVD and that they would release a HD-DVD version of that console. The addon didn't work like that however and would only be able to play the movies anyway. I remember when buying my 360, looking at this and thinking "maybe I should get this, Xbox is pretty popular, and HDDVD might be the way to go, plus is comes with Spider-Man". But I figured i was spending enough by buying the 360 and mass effect at the same time. Good thing I did. And I will buy physical media until one of us dies. I don't buy as much because there's no places to go where I can brows and go "oh hey, this season of mad men is only 20bux, i'll get that". Nope, its just Marvel and Star Wars, because when I go to Best Buy, the only BRDS they have a big blockbusters.
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Jun 5, 2019 02:24
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Zenostein posted:The last line of the video is really the killer bit, imo.  it's when he goes "boobies!" like a 5th grader :3
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Jun 5, 2019 03:12
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Zenostein posted:Did those work like audio cassettes, where you could record/play slower to save more data? Relatedly, I remember blank videocassettes being marked LP/EP/&c. for the different speed/quality settings, but did something special have to be done to the cassettes for that to work, or was it all on the deck, making the box markings utterly irrelevant? Nothing special, all it involved was running the tape at a slower speed just like with audio tapes. The box markings mostly likely just meant how long you could record onto the tape in each recording mode.
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Jun 5, 2019 03:13
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Platystemon posted:I would be surprised if seed was not spilled over the Antikythera Mechanism. Antikythera Mechanist [in ancient Greek]: oh boy, in 50 years this thing's gonna make pornographic vases obsolete *dies in greatest maritime tragedy humanity has ever experienced*
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Jun 5, 2019 08:16
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Vanagoon posted:Haven't seen this mentioned in a while. The DeathStar HDD that failed so hard that it would lathe the magnetic coating off the platters: Thanks, I'd heard of this but never seen the pictures! Still hoping my more recent (0.5-1TB) Hitachi DeskStar drives don't have that much in common with the IBM ones  Pham Nuwen posted:SIMH (https://github.com/simh/simh) is pretty good, it emulates a lot of the important systems of the 60s, 70s, and 80s including: I've only used simh a little - can't even remember what for, maybe running some old Unix from 40 years ago and being amazed at how it was similar enough to Linux that I could figure plenty of stuff out - but one thing I wanted to try and didn't get around to was setting up virtual panel(s) using http://www.retrocmp.com/projects/blinkenbone/176-blinkenbone-download-and-run-simulated-panels-for-free which talk to simh. I mean look at this:  It's like every computer I've ever owned is garbage and that computer is the god of all computers.
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Jun 5, 2019 10:35
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twistedmentat posted:Yea that why the main reason. I had to go to one of the labs, which because I wasn't a CS student, I had to sign in, leave my ID and only had limited access to the labs during certain times. Lucky all my profs were dirty hippy draft dodgers and still handed out readings on paper rather than putting them online. And a neat thing is the X360 HDDVD drive works as an external PC drive IF you can get any of the old software and get that software to play nice with win10. EDIT: I just got a new TV and realised after that it doesn't support 3D - oh well guess I'm throwing out those 3D Blu-Rays! Humphreys has a new favorite as of 10:44 on Jun 5, 2019 |
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Jun 5, 2019 10:40
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Quote-Unquote posted:I bought the 360 HD DVD drive and a dozen movies for something like £20 a month after HD DVD was declared dead. I bought the drive shortly before the format died. I rented 300 on XBox at Christmas, as Microsoft had it on deal and I figured it would be good to see if it looked like HD was worth it. I was impressed enough, so bought the drive with the offer that had five films bundled in. It arrived literally on the day that Warners announced they were ditching the format. As with you, it was then amazing being able to pick up loads of films as everyone was firesaleing. I got the Star Trek TOS box for £20, when it was supposed to be something ridiculous like £150. Because it was region free, I got a lot of films from an Australian site. At one point, they threw in a copy of Harry Potter 5 with every order. I'm pretty sure in one order I got a couple of copies. After that spree, I only bought two more films on the format. One of which was the German steelbook of Death Proof, which I read was one of the last ever releases. Last year, I bought a standalone HD-DVD player, so I don't have to rely on the 360.
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Jun 5, 2019 10:50
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Humphreys posted:EDIT: I just got a new TV and realised after that it doesn't support 3D - oh well guess I'm throwing out those 3D Blu-Rays! 3D Blu-rays work pretty nicely with VR, I believe that the surge in PSVR sales has helped 3D blu-rays start selling again.
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Jun 5, 2019 12:36
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Buttcoin purse posted:Thanks, I'd heard of this but never seen the pictures! Still hoping my more recent (0.5-1TB) Hitachi DeskStar drives don't have that much in common with the IBM ones The PDP-10 was a really neat computer; some models included an entire PDP-11 to act as the boot loader and frontend. I ran TOPS-10 on a SIMH PDP-11 for a while, and it was pretty neat, but once you get spoiled by the composability of small programs in Unix you get pretty frustrated on other systems...
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Jun 5, 2019 14:32
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Powered Descent posted:I'll see you and raise you: in my college 20 years ago, they just used your social security number as your student ID number. It was on your ID card and everything. I'm sure it was a very convenient primary key for their database. Guaranteed unique. My Systems Project final in college had me putting together a system wherein customer numbers were assigned the same way for the same flawed reason. So somewhere in that department there is probably still a binder containing an Access 97 database on floppy and CD-R with my SSN on it, since I was of course the first 'customer'.
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Jun 6, 2019 00:02
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Powered Descent posted:I'll see you and raise you: in my college 20 years ago, they just used your social security number as your student ID number. It was on your ID card and everything. I'm sure it was a very convenient primary key for their database. Guaranteed unique. They did this at my college 20 years ago, too. I think they stopped around 2000, but the college eventually went bankrupt and closed around 2015.
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Jun 6, 2019 00:44
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Obsolete technology eh? How about steam locomotives? This is the world's largest operating steam locomotive. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vMsZ-svWPbg The locomotive is commonly known as a "Big Boy". It is 132 feet long and weighs 1.2 million pounds. It and the 24 others built to the same design in the 1940's were the largest steam locomotives ever built. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7BbPUK6VWsE The Union Pacific railroad spent 5 years and $4.5 million restoring it for the 150th anniversary of the completion of the transcontinental railroad. They then ran it 1,000 miles across Wyoming and Utah and back again. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RAklf_KxHq4 Being a crazy person, I flew out to chase it for 2 weeks and film the trip. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DqQdoISXDLE
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Jun 6, 2019 04:18
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Brother Jonathan, is that you?
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Jun 6, 2019 06:42
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ookiimarukochan posted:3D Blu-rays work pretty nicely with VR, I believe that the surge in PSVR sales has helped 3D blu-rays start selling again. Oh it works with PSVR? gently caress yes! I'm actually buying one tomorrow as they are on a clearance sale from $399 down to $249 at Big W.
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Jun 6, 2019 08:58
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Disgruntled Bovine posted:Obsolete technology eh? It got me wondering, were there ever any steam-electric locomotives?
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Jun 6, 2019 09:09
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Not sure about the first, but there were apparently two locomotives built in Switzerland that did the exact opposite: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electric-steam_locomotive
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Jun 6, 2019 09:37
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Collateral Damage posted:Awesome machines. My friend, there were electric–steam locomotives. The Swiss used them during the War. They had a shortage of coal but plenty of hydroelectricity. They also had a shortage of electric locomotives and the time and industry necessary to make them. So they took steam locomotives, put heating elements in the boiler, and wired them to a pantograph on the roof. (The more boring version you were thinking of also existed.)
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Jun 6, 2019 09:39
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SubG posted:Yeah. ASCII art predates the computer. The first commercially successful typewriters were made in the 1870s. The first known examples of typewriter art are from the 1890s. Famous early adopter and generally well-regarded American author Mark Twain allegedly complained that his typewriter corrupted his morals by making him want to swear at it.
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Jun 6, 2019 10:18
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Collateral Damage posted:Awesome machines. Three US railroads experimented with steam turbine electrics. All of them were monsters plagued with reliability issues. My personal favorite (and arguably the most successful) was the N&W's Jawn Henry which used a power-plant style water tube boiler at 600 PSI to create steam for a turbine driving a generator that powered 12 axle mounted electric motors. The main unit was more than 111 feet long, making it the longest single unit locomotive ever built. 
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Jun 6, 2019 15:37
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Looking up primitive technology for an RPG setting I'm making, I encountered the pump drill. The way this works is so simple yet so fascinating. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u8BXhxHWyF4
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Jun 6, 2019 19:38
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Phanatic posted:ITrinitrons don't use them, they use an aperture grille instead. Instead of a metal sheet it's a bunch of vertically-running wires with narrow gaps between them. Phosphors are arranged differently as well but it's basically doing the same thing, but you can have a narrower dot pitch (distance between adjacent same-colored pixels). Downside is that the wires aren't as solid as a shadow mask which can result in vibration issues so Trinitrons have a couple of horizontal wires to hold everything in place and you can see them running across the screen if you look hard. When I was a salesdroid I loved people splashing out on really expensive Trinitron displays like a 40" XBR and returning it the next week because they were pixel-peeping and saw the wires. I used to only buy Trinitrons back in the day. They weighted an absurd amount and had gorgeous color. They were easy to calibrate for gamma on all three colors plus a general color temp setting. You were supposed to set the monitor facing in a particular direction so the earths magnetic field didn't have effect. They needed degaussing fairly often or the corners would curl a bit. I loved them. I once had a power surge that screwed mine up pretty bad and the gun wouldn't shoot straight. The upper right corner was curled in over an inch. I took apart a dead hard drive and used the magnets set across the top of the screen to pull the gun back straight. It was hilarious when I'd forget to take the magnets off when I hit the degauss button. It would throw the magnets six feet in the air. They'd hit the ceiling. Yay magnetic fields.
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Jun 7, 2019 02:09
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Disgruntled Bovine posted:The locomotive is commonly known as a "Big Boy". It is 132 feet long and weighs 1.2 million pounds. It and the 24 others built to the same design in the 1940's were the largest steam locomotives ever built. Wow, I read about them not that long ago, I had no idea they were going to be running one again! quote:Being a crazy person, I flew out to chase it for 2 weeks and film the trip.  So one of the complains people have about 60fps is it "doesn't seem real" or something right? Because when those locomotives are going really fast, it feels like I'm watching sped-up video What kind of speed did they get up to?
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Jun 7, 2019 03:12
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Buttcoin purse posted:Wow, I read about them not that long ago, I had no idea they were going to be running one again! That's because people are used to watching 30 fps TV and 24 fps movies. The 60 fps video is more representative of reality, but to some people watching that on a screen looks strange. They only got up to about 40 mph. The Big Boy is capable of 80 mph and 844 is capable of over 120, but as this was the first run of the Big Boy after restoration they didn't want to risk damage to the components as they wore in.
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Jun 7, 2019 04:22
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Disgruntled Bovine posted:Three US railroads experimented with steam turbine electrics. All of them were monsters plagued with reliability issues. That's just a ship someone put wheels on, it's not fooling me
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Jun 7, 2019 04:31
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Disgruntled Bovine posted:They only got up to about 40 mph. The Big Boy is capable of 80 mph and 844 is capable of over 120, but as this was the first run of the Big Boy after restoration they didn't want to risk damage to the components as they wore in. 40 mph sounds scary enough to me, I mean I don't imagine that thing was designed for survivability in case of a derailment or anything like that!
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Jun 7, 2019 13:17
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Buttcoin purse posted:40 mph sounds scary enough to me, I mean I don't imagine that thing was designed for survivability in case of a derailment or anything like that! Not really, no. There actually was a derailment of one back in the 1950's and the entire crew was killed. The bigger danger with steam locomotives however is a boiler explosion. You can kind of think of them as a rolling bomb with a lit fuse and the fireman's job is to both keep the fuse lit and keep splicing more fuse in between the lit part and the bomb so that it never actually blows up. The fuse in this analogy is the water level in the boiler. He keeps it lit by supplying fuel to the fire, and he extends the fuse by adding water to replace that which is turned into steam. The fire is more than hot enough to quickly melt the steel of the firebox around it. The only thing preventing that from happening is the water around it. As long as there is water in contact with the steel it can't get much hotter than the boiling point. If not enough water is added to the boiler the top of the firebox (crown sheet) gets exposed to steam, at which point the steel melts. This provides an escape route for the 300psi steam, which blows the crown sheet out through the crew cab, and often times the boiler flings itself down the tracks like one of those pressurized water bottle rockets. 
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Jun 7, 2019 14:00
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Disgruntled Bovine posted:This provides an escape route for the 300psi steam, which blows the crown sheet out through the crew cab, and often times the boiler flings itself down the tracks like one of those pressurized water bottle rockets. Bet this made a noise. 
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Jun 7, 2019 14:41
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Phanatic posted:Bet this made a noise. Looks similar to something we say in Chernobyl:  They're steam pipes in both cases, right?
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Jun 7, 2019 14:51
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Pham Nuwen posted:Looks similar to something we say in Chernobyl: With the train they're the boiler tubes. They could either be circulating water through the firebox to generate steam, or circulating fire through a tank of water to generate steam, I don't know enough about trains to know which is the case for the train in the picture.
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Jun 7, 2019 15:12
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Phanatic posted:Bet this made a noise. Iä! Iä! Cthulhu fhtagn!
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Jun 7, 2019 16:01
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Kamrat posted:I remember this HD-DVD addon that they sold for the xbox 360, a lot of people thought that would mean that future 360 games would be released on HD-DVD and that they would release a HD-DVD version of that console. The addon didn't work like that however and would only be able to play the movies anyway. I got one of these for like $150 because it came with King Kong, 5 movies free by mail, and Best Buy let you pick any two so I got expensive box sets like Planet Earth and Heroes. And a little while later when the format died Best Buy even sent me a $50 gift card as an apology.
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Jun 7, 2019 16:44
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Phanatic posted:Bet this made a noise. Baldur's Gate 3 looking good.
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Jun 7, 2019 16:56
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Phanatic posted:With the train they're the boiler tubes. They could either be circulating water through the firebox to generate steam, or circulating fire through a tank of water to generate steam, I don't know enough about trains to know which is the case for the train in the picture. 99% of steam locomotives used firetube boilers, so it would be circulating fire through the tank of water. There were also superheaters which circulated steam through smaller tubes inside the fire tubes. Edit: The Chernobyl photo would have been water tubes. Pretty much all power plants use water tube boilers because they allow for higher pressures (like 2000psi) and temperatures which increases efficiency of heat transfer. Disgruntled Bovine has a new favorite as of 17:07 on Jun 7, 2019 |
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Jun 7, 2019 16:57
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A series of tubes, if you will
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Jun 7, 2019 16:59
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chitoryu12 posted:Looking up primitive technology for an RPG setting I'm making, I encountered the pump drill. The way this works is so simple yet so fascinating. Here's a similar video that doesn't involve a YouTuber talking: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZEl-Y1NvBVI The whole channel might be handy for your RPG, really.
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Jun 7, 2019 20:01
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Zopotantor posted:Iä! Iä! Choo-thulhu fhtagn! there we go
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Jun 8, 2019 00:27
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Toast Museum posted:Here's a similar video that doesn't involve a YouTuber talking: And turn on captions if you want to know what he is doing.
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Jun 8, 2019 04:37
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you know I don't know who invented the steam engine (i don't care either) but I think it might have been a bad idea in hindsight
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Jun 8, 2019 07:24
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Hero of Alexandria, Thomas Newcomen, and James Watt are the usual suspects. Hero’s was a toy that predates the others by sixteen centuries. Newcomen’s design did real work, but the steam engine’s popularity exploded sixty years later when Watt made it burn less coal.
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Jun 8, 2019 07:59
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