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Necrothatcher posted:Kinda reminds me of the lovely Psion Series 5. drat I didn't believe it but yep you totally could:  I got a palm pilot in 1999 and I doubt it could emulate anything.
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Jun 28, 2022 20:25
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Arrath posted:Side question, what advancements made it possible to go from chonky rear end cables (or 40/80 wire IDE ribbons) like for that floppy drive, to our svelte little 4 conductor usb cables? Older protocols like that where just twiddling a high/low voltage on the line, through sometimes a fairly large swing (+12v to -12v for RS232 serial). Modern communications protocols still do this, but at MUCH faster speeds with multiple frequencies, way lower voltage thresholds, and different encodings. Pretty much all high speed serial protocols also use differential signaling (USB, HDMI, DVI, PCI-Express, Ethernet to name a few); the same signal is sent down 2 wires, but each is the inverse of the other. The receiver acts on the electrical difference seen between the 2 transmission lines.
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Jun 28, 2022 20:52
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stevewm posted:Older protocols like that where just twiddling a high/low voltage on the line, through sometimes a fairly large swing (+12v to -12v for RS232 serial). Modern communications protocols still do this, but at MUCH faster speeds with multiple frequencies, way lower voltage thresholds, and different encodings. Pretty much all high speed serial protocols also use differential signaling (USB, HDMI, DVI, PCI-Express, Ethernet to name a few); the same signal is sent down 2 wires, but each is the inverse of the other. The receiver acts on the electrical difference seen between the 2 transmission lines. Also that’s just the physical and electrical layers. On top of that will be at least one, possibly more, layers of communication protocols that handle things like device discovery, speed negotiation, error correction and actual transfer of commands and data. The specs for something like USB or PCIe are thick books. Your average 80s PC didn’t have enough memory even to run device drivers for these interfaces. Trying to do it in hardware back then would have required a PCB the size of a baking sheet. Today, you can buy tiny microcontrollers with USB built in, and FPGAs that have PCIe cores ready to go. (Or rather you *could* buy these latter ones. Right now, well  )
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Jun 28, 2022 21:05
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Necrothatcher posted:Kinda reminds me of the lovely Psion Series 5. Not obsolete, but questionably successful. It's android, of course, but that keyboard  
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Jun 28, 2022 21:40
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Shitstorm Trooper posted:I looked up some other pictures and that sweet black red case with color matched accessories is pretty slick. this thing is loving awesome and it would be super cool to try and recreate it from scratch, some of the earlier computers can probably be slapped together by people who can make hobbyist grade circuit boards now.
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Jun 28, 2022 22:08
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SniperWoreConverse posted:this thing is loving awesome and it would be super cool to try and recreate it from scratch, some of the earlier computers can probably be slapped together by people who can make hobbyist grade circuit boards now. For those who aren't aware and/or don't ever go on Reddit*, there have been a number of takes on such concepts in the "Cyberdeck" format: https://www.reddit.com/r/cyberDeck/top/?t=year * frequently awful but often good for arts/crafts/hobbies
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Jun 28, 2022 22:25
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Set the Wayback Machine for 1997! https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/special/politics97/
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Jul 1, 2022 21:22
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Dick Trauma posted:Set the Wayback Machine for 1997! Jesus Christ. 
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Jul 1, 2022 21:29
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my video titler showed up, and I'm already putting it to use. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uxwV0qaPubY
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Jul 2, 2022 01:20
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TotalLossBrain posted:Semiconductors shrinking in size allowed for clock speeds in the GHz range, which is required for these high speed serial connections. I think this is really the main thing; there's just no point creating a high-speed serial interface if the clock rates of your devices aren't fast enough to read or write memory at that speed. I think if they had magically invented 3GHz semiconductors 20 years earlier, they would have been able to create interfaces to connect them pretty quickly. The electrical advancements like differential signaling were not a massive innovation. There was just no incentive to use them
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Jul 2, 2022 02:30
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Phanatic posted:Jesus Christ. What do we reckon about those gradients? Looks around 180 grit to my eyes.
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Jul 2, 2022 06:58
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monolithburger posted:What do we reckon about those gradients? Looks around 180 grit to my eyes. I reckon we shouldn't care about dumb poo poo like that. It's a meaningless criteria that some (not you) will point out to feel somehow smart in a dumb way. It's like complaining that Casablanca is in black and white. Yes, the Zapruder film is shaky.
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Jul 2, 2022 14:03
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https://twitter.com/Foone/status/1543594442036166656?s=20&t=4AmaWJjNyV3UN0Lzkr8gTA https://twitter.com/Foone/status/1543594974565896192?s=20&t=4AmaWJjNyV3UN0Lzkr8gTA
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Jul 3, 2022 17:21
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I've heared about these clickers before. How was listening to a specific sound frequency and acting on it easier than IR signaling?
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Jul 3, 2022 22:18
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IR decoding requires digital electronics and processing power, which didn't get cheap until the mid-late 80s. Those clicker things could be implemented using entirely analogue electronics, and the circuit really isn't that complicated.
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Jul 3, 2022 22:24
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also have fun finding an infrared lamp to run off your huge old batteries
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Jul 3, 2022 22:25
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Wipfmetz posted:I've heared about these clickers before. My best guess without looking anything up is that you need (cheap) leds (and maybe semiconductors in general?) for ir signaling and this could predate that. E wow way slow
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Jul 3, 2022 22:26
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Wipfmetz posted:I've heared about these clickers before. I think that was before photodiodes were common, so you would have needed a phototube. You can also filter frequencies with simple analog circuits. -e- Jeez, beaten 3 times
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Jul 3, 2022 22:26
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Everybody knew, it seems!
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Jul 3, 2022 22:27
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the tone clicker is also a completely mechanical device, no electrics
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Jul 3, 2022 23:03
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I guess I forgot that old IR remotes were straight up bulbs with a filament. Sometimes they’d have 2 for when one inevitably died.
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Jul 3, 2022 23:13
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God drat that tone-generating clicker remote is cool as hell.
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Jul 4, 2022 00:15
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Wired remotes were pretty common before wireless technology caught up. I have a 1950s fisher 400 CX tube Preamp with the original wired remote that allows you to control left and right volume from across the room. Aside from the tuning fork type of proto remotes there was also a zenith flashmatic design that used 4 light sensitive photocells with one mounted at each corner of the picture tube. IIRC they allowed channel up/down, power and mute. The remote was essentially a flash light that you would aim at the corner that corresponded to what you wanted and pull the trigger. While it did work the main drawback was the sensors could pickup light from other sources so placement of the TV in you room required some finesse. Otherwise headlights of a car passing by or sun coming in a window etc.. could cause random inputs. For the time it was cutting edge and also kind of presaged lazertag and the Nintendo zapper. Found an article with more examples https://hackaday.com/2017/03/16/retrotechtacular-how-old-is-the-remote/
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Jul 4, 2022 00:42
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Wipfmetz posted:I've heared about these clickers before. Like other people said, the IR remote sends a code through flashes and the TV needs some sort of brains to read that and decode it. All this needs is a microphone and some band pass filters, which can be created from passive components to pick out the specific frequencies which then trigger a function on the TV. It's all analog, no computer needed.
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Jul 4, 2022 03:03
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Unperson_47 posted:God drat that tone-generating clicker remote is cool as hell. 
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Jul 4, 2022 03:41
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my turn in the barrel posted:
Our brand new tv started turning itself on at around 6pm nightly one summer (early 00s). We blamed ghosts until one day when I moved the window curtains and it switched on. Turned out that the sun was coming in at just the right angle to hit the remote sensor. At the time I had no idea how remotes worked, as my only experience of them was dunking our old tv's remote into a glass of milk when I was 4 and dooming us to a decade of manual operation.
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Jul 4, 2022 05:21
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Peanut Butler posted:the tone clicker is also a completely mechanical device, no electrics Flipperwaldt posted:Everybody knew, it seems!  Cojawfee posted:All [the clicker] needs is a microphone and some band pass filters, which can be created from passive components to pick out the specific frequencies which then trigger a function on the TV. It's all analog, no computer needed.
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Jul 4, 2022 08:03
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Years ago had a roommate with an old TV with an ultrasonic remote, just two buttons: channel up, channel down. None of the local channels were numerically adjacent to each other, so if you wanted to change the channel it involved a lot of button mashing. One day we're watching TV and go to change the channel right as one of the cats was walking in front of the TV, and it dropped that cat. Just jerked its head to one side and face planted. Got up a couple seconds later, no apparently permanent damage. Never heard anyone else talking about this effect, so no idea if it's a common thing or something special about that particular cat or that particular brand of TV.
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Jul 4, 2022 12:35
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SubG posted:Years ago had a roommate with an old TV with an ultrasonic remote, just two buttons: channel up, channel down. None of the local channels were numerically adjacent to each other, so if you wanted to change the channel it involved a lot of button mashing. One day we're watching TV and go to change the channel right as one of the cats was walking in front of the TV, and it dropped that cat. Just jerked its head to one side and face planted. Got up a couple seconds later, no apparently permanent damage. Never heard anyone else talking about this effect, so no idea if it's a common thing or something special about that particular cat or that particular brand of TV.
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Jul 4, 2022 13:18
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Probably just startled him. Cats are sensitive to noises outside the human range something like our range plus up to 65 kilohertz.
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Jul 4, 2022 22:16
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That cat developed super-cancer and Big Remote paid to keep it quiet. 
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Jul 4, 2022 22:23
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Kwyndig posted:Probably just startled him. Cats are sensitive to noises outside the human range something like our range plus up to 65 kilohertz.
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Jul 5, 2022 09:39
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my turn in the barrel posted:Found an article with more examples This article rules, thanks for sharing. I was born in 91, so I’ve never once seen a wired remote, it’s always fascinated me. I did have a questionable cable box as a kid that would give me aggressive static shocks. Coupled with the fact that we never had a remote for it, and I learned pretty early on to sit and enjoy my Hey Dude rerun or face to angry cable box.
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Jul 5, 2022 13:22
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teen witch posted:Hey Dude
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Jul 5, 2022 13:28
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That's a little wild, and a little strange.
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Jul 5, 2022 13:52
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I always liked our main console TV we had when I was growing up. Can't even remember the make to save my life (I want to say RCA, but have nothing to back it up). It was cool not just because it had a remote, but it had a bespoke place in the front right of the wood where it would attach via magnet and could be pressed into a spring loaded catch to make the remote flush with the console itself, where it could still be used for controls.
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Jul 5, 2022 15:42
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Explosionface posted:I always liked our main console TV we had when I was growing up. Can't even remember the make to save my life (I want to say RCA, but have nothing to back it up). It was cool not just because it had a remote, but it had a bespoke place in the front right of the wood where it would attach via magnet and could be pressed into a spring loaded catch to make the remote flush with the console itself, where it could still be used for controls. My aunt had a big console tv with this feature in the 80's and it was cool as hell
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Jul 5, 2022 16:38
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Perhaps this is nostalgia poisoning (it is and it’s fatal), but I miss being able to put poo poo on top of a tv. I need a wooden platform to decorate, and subsequently have cats knock it off. My cats will never know the pleasure of knocking poo poo off of a television, and as a society, I feel we are weaker for it.
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Jul 5, 2022 17:57
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As a kid in East Germany in the 80's, I distinctly remember my grandma and several other relatives still had B&W console TVs with the flat pane of glass covering the tube. They were cool looking pieces of furniture, but that wasn't the take at the time. They were cheap and new color TVs were expensive and hard to get.
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Jul 5, 2022 18:24
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teen witch posted:Perhaps this is nostalgia poisoning (it is and it’s fatal), but I miss being able to put poo poo on top of a tv. I need a wooden platform to decorate, and subsequently have cats knock it off. Yeah, we had another console TV that was great for putting the NES and Genesis on top of.
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Jul 5, 2022 19:44
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