Post the very best in obsolete and failed technology

The Something Awful Forums > Main > Post Your Favorite: Carefully Curated > Post the very best in obsolete and failed technology

«‹›2 »

Weatherman: Jul 30, 2003; WARBLEKLONK

Mescal posted:

That is the coolest drat thing.

Not to mention entirely practical, too. (edit: for its time.) I guess all you'd need is a couple of signposts along the way that say "Calibrate Now" or something, where you adjust the disc a bit to a marked calibration point (in case the odometer reading got skewed along the way).

Well, I guess you're screwed if you turn off the marked route for some reason. But still.

# ¿ Jun 30, 2013 00:53

Adbot: ADBOT LOVES YOU

# ¿ May 10, 2024 12:01

Weatherman: Jul 30, 2003; WARBLEKLONK

Japan might have some issues with putting nuclear power plants in dumb places (like on top of fault lines and adjacent to shores that experience massive tsunami every so often), but by gum they can make some reliable trains. Seriously, reading about all the poo poo trains you guys have to deal with boggles my mind.

I live on a line running some of the oldest rolling stock in the metropolitan area�the carriages I'm in often sport dates from the 1980s or early 1990s�but they are in tip-top shape and barely miss a beat. And what's more, if there is an issue with one train, well, there's a spare parked at one of the yards somewhere along the line that can be spliced in!

You guys living in these places that are negotiating with Italy :haw:

or whomever to replace your lovely trains with shittier trains should just get on to your local MP and have them outsource the entire operation to JR or one of the big companies over here.

# ¿ Jul 6, 2013 09:19

Weatherman: Jul 30, 2003; WARBLEKLONK

Oh man let me tell you about all the esoteric cellphones I've ever owned, starting with t

# ¿ Aug 13, 2015 07:22

Weatherman: Jul 30, 2003; WARBLEKLONK

Arsenic Lupin posted:

See previous post; I actually don't want to block all the light, but to dim it. Things like power indicators are useful.

You position the tape so that just a sliver of the LED is still visible.

# ¿ Aug 15, 2015 05:34

Weatherman: Jul 30, 2003; WARBLEKLONK

Count Chocula posted:

http://dangerousminds.net/comments/new_app_makes_hd_smartphone_video_look_just_like_crappy_1980s_camcorder_foo

There's a new app that makes smartphone footage looks like 80s camcorders. Ironically, in 10 years we'll be nostalgic for Instagram filters.

Hey, apparently the Auspol thread misses you and wants you to start posting again.

# ¿ Aug 22, 2015 08:25

Weatherman: Jul 30, 2003; WARBLEKLONK

Imagined posted:

Business cards with embedded NFC chips could be even more convenient.

If I have to give someone a business card, of all things, with an NFC chip in it, you can bet your bottom dollar it's going to contain goatse and nothing but.

# ¿ Aug 5, 2016 12:22

Weatherman: Jul 30, 2003; WARBLEKLONK

I plug my supernintendo into a 75" OLED screen and then just smear conflict-free vaseline all over the screen for that authentic bespoke artisanal retro vintage look, like how it's meant to be

# ¿ Oct 20, 2016 02:02

Weatherman: Jul 30, 2003; WARBLEKLONK

Buttcoin purse posted:

If you were the type of nerd that realized that, on a PC, 256 color mode is indexed (uses a palette) and the "high color" and "true color" modes aren't, you soon worked out how the animations in games like SC2K worked when they told you that you had to run them in 256 color mode for the animations to work. I think After Dark had some screen savers that didn't work with the higher color modes too.

Oh man I really want to play SC2K now. I'm trying to resist the temptation to search my drive for all my old cities.

I'm trying to resist the temptation to buy a 68k Mac so that I can play it just as it looks in that screenshot :homebrew:

# ¿ Oct 24, 2016 12:47

Weatherman: Jul 30, 2003; WARBLEKLONK

Boiled Water posted:

Control your currency with this one weird trick India found. Black marketers hate it!

ftfy

# ¿ Dec 19, 2016 22:13

Weatherman: Jul 30, 2003; WARBLEKLONK

Hippie Hedgehog posted:

I present for your consideration the not at all failed, but certainly obsolete, technology of "tracked" music.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p9zmLQGBTIw

Seen here the Amiga ProTracker software. State of the art at its time, ProTracker was the first user-friendly way to sequence digital samples together to make music.

Trackers were used to produce the soundtracks of many great games on Amiga, Atari ST(e), Super Nintendo and other platforms that boasted "CD quality" music (which usually meant they could produce 8-bit PCM sound, and not necessarily in proper stereo... The SNES did 16-bit sound at 32 kHz iirc, which I suppose is best in class.)

If you attempted to make your machine sound like an orchestra, what you got was generally disappointing. A rousing composition notwithstanding, this piece by Dave Lowe mostly succeeds in highlighting the shortcomings of the technology.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HbegNmKRZUM

Most videogame composers took completely different directions, rolling with the limited number of channels. The Atari ST had its adherents and boasted great MIDI compatibility and software, but the built-in synthesis leaves much to be desired. The Amiga still lives as a composition platform on the demo Scene. Real craftsmen are still pushing the platform to its limits but I'd say it's well past being obsolete in the eyes of the general public.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eclMFa0mD1c

Hell yeah, Jogeir Liljedahl is loving amazing. I have those compilations from YouTube bookmarked as my go-to music at work. I can listen to them all day without getting tired of them.

Purple Motion and Peter Hajba (sp?) rock too.

# ¿ Apr 16, 2018 11:32

Weatherman: Jul 30, 2003; WARBLEKLONK

spog posted:

I watched a video about this recently. It is definitely worth a watch:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qaq9vlfoGnA

Seconded. That was really interesting.

# ¿ Apr 29, 2018 22:24

Weatherman: Jul 30, 2003; WARBLEKLONK

Hirayuki posted:

We use checks for our son's school (not tuition--that's direct-debit--but registration fees, various club activity fees, lunches, etc.), for piano lessons (paid to an individual), and for other non-school extracurricular activities (summer camp, etc.). I pay my hair stylist by check because it's probably better for him than paying the salon with a credit card and waiting for them to reimburse him. We donate to our church by check, and if I owe my parents anything (they buy us poo poo with their Costco membership, etc.), I pay them by check. We also often pay for home services by check: repair of our garage door, fence, air-conditioning unit, etc.

If you don't use checks, would you expect all of these people to take credit cards or direct deposit or something? I can't picture the repairman having a Square reader on his phone, for example.

Uhh I'd expect most of them to accept cash, you know, that other vaguely paper-like money thing?

e: beaten

# ¿ Jun 3, 2018 00:09

Weatherman: Jul 30, 2003; WARBLEKLONK

chitoryu12 posted:

The United States is larger than pretty much the entirety of Europe. Minnesota has a similar population to Finland. You can�t expect anything to be homogeneous or figure that any one thing can sweep the whole nation immediately.

If I had a dollar for every time some American (on these forums alone) tried to claim American Exceptionalism� was the reason they couldn't do a modern consumer banking system, sane healthcare, a firearm-homicide rate in the low four digits, etc., I'd have enough to retire on by now. :rolleyes:

"Sending men to the moon? Gearing the nation up for total war and building the most malicious weapons in the world? We can do that because USA #1! But <any of the above I mentioned>? That's too haaaaaaaaaaaaaaard, man"

Weatherman has a new favorite as of 00:52 on Jun 4, 2018

# ¿ Jun 4, 2018 00:50

Weatherman: Jul 30, 2003; WARBLEKLONK

Mr.Radar posted:

This video about multi-track analog reel-to-reel recording popped up in my Youtube recommendations and it's actually worth watching:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aCmVNSJfJk0

I wish you'd said "popped up on my radar". :haw:

# ¿ Jul 8, 2018 09:34

Weatherman: Jul 30, 2003; WARBLEKLONK

future ghost posted:

There's another obsolete concept, third-party performance drivers.

And discrete sound cards. I had a Sound Blaster AWE32 in high school and it was magical. Descent is a totally different game when you're hearing it in full orchestral glory instead of beepy boopy poo poo.

Shame it was an ISA card and couldn't come with me when I finally got a pc that had a decent 3D video card, because there were no ISA slots any more

# ¿ Oct 8, 2018 14:11

Weatherman: Jul 30, 2003; WARBLEKLONK

Mister Kingdom posted:

Then you'll appreciate Techmoan's tribute (a bit longer than his usual videos).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kU3BceoMuaA

I like the video (and it reminded me that I still have an MD player/recorder!), but holy poo poo, dude needs to realise it's OK to pause between sentences or topics for a breath.

If his video was a post here it would be a forty-page wall of text in a single paragraph. I have to stop it every minute or so just to get a change to process what he's been talking about.

# ¿ Nov 11, 2018 11:57

Weatherman: Jul 30, 2003; WARBLEKLONK

I'm not talking about his speaking speed, just the complete lack of gaps between his sentences and topicsNo sooner has he reached what would be a full stop if written than he begins the next oneI just want half a second to digest what he was sayingIt makes it kind of tiring to listen toOtherwise his videos are good.

# ¿ Nov 11, 2018 12:37

Weatherman: Jul 30, 2003; WARBLEKLONK

Grumbletron 4000 posted:

Going back, this was a lovely thing to do, but I got a ton of awesome gear for next to nothing. He did go to jail for awhile after he raided a rich guys garage though.

It's a pity you didn't too. Go to jail, I mean.

edit: inb4 "it's just property, maaaaaan"/"if they could afford high end stereo gear then they could afford to pay for it twice"/something about the lovely US prison system

# ¿ Nov 14, 2018 11:45

Weatherman: Jul 30, 2003; WARBLEKLONK

SubNat posted:

They'd save so much bandwidth too, if every 2-5MB reaction gif were a 500kB webm/mp4 instead.

They'd save even more bandwidth if they just deleted every stupid reaction gif immediately upon upload.

# ¿ Nov 18, 2018 22:12

Weatherman: Jul 30, 2003; WARBLEKLONK

Including the need to juggle HIMEM.SYS and interrupts before anything worked correctly.

# ¿ Nov 19, 2018 01:54

Weatherman: Jul 30, 2003; WARBLEKLONK

I see nobody's proposed the idea of "not stuffing your fridge so full of food that you forget stuff is there/can't finish stuff because it goes off/literally can't find stuff because it's packed so densely yet.

Plan your meals for the week and buy only what you need (obviously when an item is sold in a particular portion size you just have to deal with it). Plus you get to save money on not running a warehouse-sized fridge any more!

"But Weatherman," I hear someone whine, "if I don't have this particular bespoke gluten-free sauce in my fridge then however will I make *generic dish with fancy name*?" Uhh, don't, I guess? Or make it often enough that you can use up the ingredients before they go bad?

"You don't understand, Weatherman," someone else wheezes from the back. "Costco only sells things by the wheelbarrow so I have no choice but to shovel it all into my fridge." Well I'd suggest splitting your purchases with your friends but I already see the problem with that idea.

John Oliver did a segment some time ago about how Americans throw like 40% of their food supply into a landfill. The solution to that isn't to put rfid tags into everything or wire your fridge to your phone through your arse. It's "buy less and eat efficiently".

But I guess that doesn't create shareholder value so :shrug:

# ¿ Nov 24, 2018 08:20

Weatherman: Jul 30, 2003; WARBLEKLONK

Negrostrike posted:

It's hella funny when TV shows that were supposed to be 4:3 are now shown in widescreen:

I get the second one, but what the hell happened to Dewey's face in the first? Is that even the same actor?

# ¿ Apr 25, 2019 14:50

Weatherman: Jul 30, 2003; WARBLEKLONK

Powered Descent posted:

This is making me realize all over again that I don't actually know any of my friends' phone numbers anymore. I wouldn't even recognize my girlfriend's number if you showed it to me. That would have been astounding twenty years ago.

I bet you still remember your phone number from when you were 3 or 4, though.

# ¿ May 16, 2019 01:44

Weatherman: Jul 30, 2003; WARBLEKLONK

Lowen SoDium posted:

I remember seeing a diy guide to making a VGA projector using an overhead projector and taking apart an old lcd screen back in the early 2000s.

Humbug Scoolbus posted:

I built my first video projector using an overhead projector and taking apart a 12" flat panel monitor for the LCD panel.

Back in the day a buddy of mine hacked together a video projector by taking apart one of those TFT monitors, removing the LCD panel and melding it to an overhead projector.

# ¿ Jun 24, 2019 05:14

Weatherman: Jul 30, 2003; WARBLEKLONK

Did no one else play Under a Killing Moon?

My mate had a DX4/66 in 1996 which was juuust fast enough to play it smoothly. I think we spent most of a summer holiday playing it.

The "auxiliary panel" that popped up when you clicked it blew my mind. I knew it was an effect but my mind refused to believe that it wasn't actually popping out of the screen.

# ¿ Aug 19, 2019 14:40

Weatherman: Jul 30, 2003; WARBLEKLONK

Lynxifer posted:

#TVLicencing chat.

For years, a lot of people have raged about the whole TV Licence thing, since it all goes to the BBC, but you need one to watch any and all live TV broadcasts (including non BBC channels, and Cable & Satellite TV). You'll get occassional flareups when things like Jimmy Saville / Operation Yewtree kick up, where people complain it's being used to subsiside those sorts of actions, and there is even whole YouTube channels dedicated to "fighting" the enforcement agents who come round to your house and try and demand to verify that you don't have a TV set. Except, they are really really shady about the rules.

In the 90's, they ran a whole slew of adverts about how they had super secret advanced technology that could detect a TV set from outside your house and that was enough to get you for thousands of pounds of fines and a criminal record. One of the adverts included a man who tried to loop a recording of a chicken in the Microwave to avoid the agent, before it cut to the man in the bath singing and this outed him as a bad person, and you got the scare tactics of fines and prison.
Except:

1) That was never true, even if they could "detect" a TV, it wasn't legally enforceable on the magic finder box alone.
2) It's not a legal requirement to have a TV licence just because you have a TV.

It's always been that you only need it to watch live television (including recording it). If it's been pre-recorded by someone else, you're watching a home movie or playing those new fangled video games consoles, then you are exempt.

Even today the enforcement agents will try their hardest to convince you that you need said licence to just have one in your house. If you have the audacity to claim that you don't need it, they'll demand to enter your house and "verify" this, by checking your television isn't capable of receiving signal, but with Smart TV's having BBC iPlayer or the ITV Hub pre-installed, even if you don't have and aerial installed, it's trivial for any agent to fudge it one way or the other.

In closing, I am not a fan of the current TV licencing legislation. I am wholly unsurprised about a brick or fireplace tax...

Glorious Nippon hears your story and says "hold my beer".

- If you own a device that can receive TV broadcasts, you must pay the NHK fee. This includes car navigation systems, cellphones with one-seg TV receivers, and "smart" (gently caress that poo poo) fridges that have TV tuners built in for some reason.
- Even if you physically remove the antenna ports from the TV because you're just using HDMI input for your PC or games machine or whatever, you have to pay.
- NHK agents will demand to enter your house to check if you have a TV, connected/working/powered-on or not, inside. If you do, you have to pay.

There is a novelty political party whose single issue is "gently caress the TV fees, our aim is to destroy NHK entirely" and they did well enough in the recent Upper House election that they won a seat, classification as an honest-to-God political party, and public funding for their entire term.

Basically it's every single thing you mentioned about the BBC but turned up to 11.

# ¿ Aug 28, 2019 14:33

Weatherman: Jul 30, 2003; WARBLEKLONK

Sorry for the megapost, I'm just going to briefly answer a bunch of points that came up.

My Lovely Horse posted:

This used to be until quite recently the way it was set up in Germany, too, and was heavily criticized and eventually changed around 2013. Would you like to know what simple and modern model they changed it to?

Every household pays the fee.

Shut up Meg posted:

I'm in favour of the British TV license and I am not ashamed of it.

It's a flat tax that is levied per household, with some exemptions for those who don't use any of the services (and these exemptions have to be amended regularly due to the very fast change in how we consume media).

That money is used to create media for the British public to enjoy. That media does not have revenue generation as its primary criteria, unlike private TV broadcasters.

I agree with Shut Up Meg for the same reasons but would prefer to see it rolled into the income taxation system (and corporate, so hotels and all of them chip in too).

Hirayuki posted:

But you can ignore them at the door and refuse to let them in, right?

Guy Axlerod posted:

Does the NHK give kickbacks to companies who put TV tuners in products where they don't belong (Smart Fridges)?

Even better! They contract out the collection work to for-profit collection companies, who are in the news several times a year for harassing and/or intimidating people who are refusing to whip out their wallet and hanko and sign a contract right there and then! No incentive in that model for mistreatment, no sir!

I think one of the reasons camera-equipped doorbells are so popular is that you can check who's at the door without indicating anyone is home, and just refuse to open for anyone who isn't expected. Foreigners here love to boast about how they scared the guy off by acting dumb and saying "I don't eat Japanese" :jerkoff:

Inspector Gesicht posted:

I'd ask if Japanese TV have the cultural equivalent of Jimmy Saville, but It fear like any other country, the answer would be yes.

Close enough -- the music industry which is inextricably linked with TV via the media industry had Hiromu "gently caress you I'm not going to call you Johnny" Kitagawa who is not quite on the same level but gave it his best shot and will have his reputation protected forever by an industry that has even more to hide!

KozmoNaut posted:

The trick is that they have no legal basis to demand anything. The fee is technically mandatory, but there are no legal means for them to fine you or cut off your signal if you simply refuse to let them in, and never sign up.

Yep, same here -- legal obligation to pay but no penalty for non-payment. What the gently caress is the point of that.

Lynxifer posted:

One of my bigger issues is that fact that as a licence payer, I have no control over how my fee is used. I don't mean literally what department it goes to, but if I wanted more or less of one thing? Too loving bad, suck it up pleb.

How do you feel about paying income tax? You realise that you have the same level of control about how your tax dollars are spent, right?

# ¿ Aug 29, 2019 04:36

Weatherman: Jul 30, 2003; WARBLEKLONK

Johnny Aztec posted:

Well, what if WIFI went out, huh what then?

Just made me think of when a certain boomer would go " If money became worthless, these rich people would starve in a week" and " If the internet was shut down, y'all wouldnt know what to do with yourselves"

Look buddy, if we experience such a societcal/economic collapse that US currency is rendered valueless, then we got some other serious issues to attend with.
Same as with no internet. Having the entire Internet grid collapse for a sustained period of time (or essentially permanently) would mean there would be some major serious problems going on that would be more important than cat memes.

Ask that boomer what they'd do if Amazon ended home delivery of their insulin/knee medication/Rascal batteries.

# ¿ Sep 24, 2019 09:25

Weatherman: Jul 30, 2003; WARBLEKLONK

Grand Prize Winner posted:

E: saw this while digging the thread for something else:

Is the joke that a single iPhone has the functionality of every device in that picture?

# ¿ Nov 10, 2019 23:45

Weatherman: Jul 30, 2003; WARBLEKLONK

My dad remembers Teac being good when he was young (in the 60s), then when I was young (in the 90s) it was crap generic garbage. Is it back to "mid-range" now, then?

# ¿ Nov 24, 2019 13:12

Weatherman: Jul 30, 2003; WARBLEKLONK

Krispy Wafer posted:

I can't turn off the Windows jiggle move where all your windows disappear and maaaaaaybe reappear if you jiggle again just right because it's functionality is buried so deep you need admin access. I've got 3 monitors at work. It's so fun to watch all 3 monitors clear the board when I'm just trying to move one window. I hate Windows so much.

What I'm saying is Windows is a land of contrasts.

The contrasts are in the Accessibility Settings my dude

# ¿ Jan 13, 2020 20:01

Weatherman: Jul 30, 2003; WARBLEKLONK

Krispy Wafer posted:

I think that's only if you have admin access. Even then the directions are to run gpedit to disable Aero Shake. I can't recall if I've ever seen it in Accessibility on machines I have full rights to.

Sorry, it was a dumb joke that didn't fly.

# ¿ Jan 15, 2020 19:37

Weatherman: Jul 30, 2003; WARBLEKLONK

Stoatbringer posted:

Ooh, did the Alpha have one of those awesome round mice with two angled wheels instead of a mouse ball? They were the tits.

In my first job I had a Honeywell mouse like that. It was indeed excellent. So easy to get accurate tiny movements in the direction you wanted.

SubG posted:

You'll notice that I've described how to remove the CPU board, the graphics board, and the drives and none of this involved using any tools.

The Mac IIsi was like that, too!

# ¿ Jan 25, 2020 11:12

Weatherman: Jul 30, 2003; WARBLEKLONK

TotalLossBrain posted:

Just last week I spent hours trying to debug the lovely RS-232 hardware handshaking on an Emerson flow meter

Username/post combo.

# ¿ Feb 1, 2020 06:31

Weatherman: Jul 30, 2003; WARBLEKLONK

Remulak posted:

What Groves giveth Gates taketh away.

load bearing clock cycles

# ¿ Feb 2, 2020 19:17

Weatherman: Jul 30, 2003; WARBLEKLONK

Code Jockey posted:

A good and correct post

# ¿ Feb 9, 2020 06:13

Weatherman: Jul 30, 2003; WARBLEKLONK

Imaging having to goatse hams by just describing the picture in detail.

# ¿ Feb 11, 2020 09:47

Weatherman: Jul 30, 2003; WARBLEKLONK

Nocheez posted:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6OaBkvwx7Hw

I enjoyed this video, I'm sure you guys will too.

Thanks, this was great. One of the few youtube videos I could watch from beginning to end.

# ¿ Feb 12, 2020 19:43

Weatherman: Jul 30, 2003; WARBLEKLONK

Arsenic Lupin posted:

(high-five of olds) I was taught out of K&P, too. ("Software Tools", by Kernighan and Plauger.) One of my commonest tasks in the computer room was explaining to people "No, that Tektronix is just in APL mode, hold on a sec and I'll put it back into regular mode."

this beat is teknotronix

# ¿ Mar 8, 2020 08:59

Adbot: ADBOT LOVES YOU

# ¿ May 10, 2024 12:01

Weatherman: Jul 30, 2003; WARBLEKLONK

rndmnmbr posted:

_{do not goatse Humphreys yes I know he left himself wide open but you can rise above your base instincts c'mon man}

# ¿ Mar 29, 2020 23:32

The Something Awful Forums > Main > Post Your Favorite: Carefully Curated > Post the very best in obsolete and failed technology

«‹›2 »