Tech Relics: Now integrating PIII processors for the wank factor.

The Something Awful Forums > Main > Post Your Favorite: Carefully Curated > Tech Relics: Now integrating PIII processors for the wank factor.

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Horace: Apr 17, 2007; Gone Skiin'

"the computer is now asking me for my own personal password..."

blatantly types 1234

"...which I've now done"

# ¿ May 30, 2016 02:10

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# ¿ May 10, 2024 08:33

Horace: Apr 17, 2007; Gone Skiin'

Dick Trauma posted:

Those Jerrold boxes will never die. In 2000 Adelphia cable gave me one that immediately went into a drawer since my TV was cable ready. About two years ago when I finally switched to digital cable I dug it out and handed it over to Time Warner who had long since purchased Adelphia and the rep looked at it with a mix of confusion and wonder.

My overriding memory of this cable box was the mute button on the remote control, which muted the cable box, not the TV.

Lost count of how many times someone set the VCR to record something and got a silent recording with "MUTE" burned into the corner in yellow letters.

# ¿ Aug 21, 2016 14:19

Horace: Apr 17, 2007; Gone Skiin'

nigga crab pollock posted:

its a shame that blu ray drives never became cheap enough to overshadow flash memory because it would have been hilarious burning 40gb at a time, but i guess they also would have been like $10 for a single BD-R

I looked it up out of curiosity. Verbaitim's 25gb blank discs are pretty cheap, but still more expensive per gigabyte than a hard drive. The 50gb dual layer discs are more than triple the price, and I'd be wary of them anyway since my dual layer DVDs used to have a really high failure rate, even the good brands.

The single layer discs would be a good way to share 25gb, except no-one has a blu-ray drive on their computer. Hell, I only know a couple of people who have blu-ray players hooked up to their TVs.

# ¿ Aug 22, 2016 18:12

Horace: Apr 17, 2007; Gone Skiin'

Three-Phase posted:

I saw packages of "fuse wire" you would string between two points. Totally not a fire hazard.

Yeah ring mains are kinda' nutty. At least for low voltage applications like that. I don't think the United States NEC would ever allow that sort of configuration. You can do things like paralleling really big wires for low voltage high current applications but I don't think a ring structure is ever permitted.

PS 1800 watts... Assuming unity power factor!

Wait, is fuse wire on a card not a universal thing? What do you do if you need some fuse wire?

# ¿ Sep 8, 2016 11:25

Horace: Apr 17, 2007; Gone Skiin'

FilthyImp posted:

Techmoan did an article on one of those. He found out it saved to some terrible resolution (like 128 mono or something) so it wasn't worth the small convenience.

I bought an (expensive) stereo in 2006 with 'record to USB' feature, and it indeed was awful - 128kbps Stereo, not configurable. You wouldn't use it to rip CDs anyway, since it was real time and had no track info. It was useful for quickly digitising a track from vinyl/cassette or saving something from the radio.

# ¿ Feb 5, 2017 00:17

Horace: Apr 17, 2007; Gone Skiin'

I used to use the multi-session burn feature to incrementally write (non backed up) data directly to a CD-R. In the buffer underrun days.

It taught me the pain of data loss.

# ¿ May 30, 2017 01:51

Horace: Apr 17, 2007; Gone Skiin'

My first PC came with Microsoft Frontpage, and that generated some beautiful code. I learned a lot from it, such as how you have to put <B></B> tags around each individual word of a bolded sentence, how to align a picture by putting it inside thirty nested tables, and how if you want a few pixels of breathing room between your content and the footer, you simply use & nbsp; one thousand times.

I was also quite excited to get the first version of Microsoft Publisher which could export as HTML. Less so after I discovered it just exported a massive two colour, non anti-aliased GIF of your page and its HTML was no more adventurous than an IMG SRC to point at it.

# ¿ Oct 26, 2017 22:05

Horace: Apr 17, 2007; Gone Skiin'

GutBomb posted:

It's discontinued and the stock they have left all expires very soon

It's probably a sound investment then, considering the crazy prices expired film goes for on eBay.

# ¿ Mar 7, 2018 22:38

Horace: Apr 17, 2007; Gone Skiin'

jojoinnit posted:

I've been finding all sorts of useless hardware and software that people are donating to charity shops who think it's somehow still worth �20 and up:

BALL BLASTER

The best way to transfer screenshots onto 35mm slide film on the move

# ¿ Apr 4, 2018 03:19

Horace: Apr 17, 2007; Gone Skiin'

monolithburger posted:

This means I now have the means to ~~accidentally burn my house down~~ make my crappy home demos sound crappy in a good way!

They don't mind a bit of fire.

# ¿ Apr 6, 2018 03:25

Horace: Apr 17, 2007; Gone Skiin'

Mak0rz posted:

I know SMS box art never really had much in terms of content but... seriously?

I love SMS box art. I love how that grid, font choice and clipart style make every game look like it's a PC program for collating tax invoices. I love how the grid background is too heavy and messes up text. I really love examples like the Ghostbusters game art, which is so devoid of any creativity at all I think it might be a genuine masterpiece.

# ¿ Jun 16, 2018 03:44

Horace: Apr 17, 2007; Gone Skiin'

Robnoxious posted:

I did the same but saved them on ZIP drives
Now I'll never recollect that one nameless chick that went on to become nothing getting railed by that one nameless pron dick that went on to become nothing.

90's era porn is lost simply because the saving medium changed too fast.

I threw away my carefully curated CD-Rs because in those days Ultra HD meant 320x240 with a bitrate high enough for it to not look like Lego.

# ¿ Oct 22, 2018 17:38

Horace: Apr 17, 2007; Gone Skiin'

The_Franz posted:

remember the people who collected giant binders of 1cd xvid movie rips and swore up and down that they looked just as good as a real dvd*?

*because they watched them on a 17" monitor in their room and couldn't tell how blocky and smeared darker and high motion scenes were

I had seasons 1-6 of South Park on VCD, and it was quite well suited to that animation style because it looked okay when there was minimal motion. However the title sequence where the characters are assembled from paper was so unintelligible I didn't even know what was supposed to be going on until I saw those episodes on TV.

But even watching this stuff on a 14" portable TV from a reasonable distance it was smeary. A 17" monitor would be like an IMAX screen for VCD/xvid rips.

# ¿ Oct 23, 2018 00:11

Horace: Apr 17, 2007; Gone Skiin'

100% of the market is YouTubers making videos about Sony Mavica cameras.

# ¿ Dec 9, 2018 02:29

Horace: Apr 17, 2007; Gone Skiin'

Switzerland posted:

Re: clear plastics chat, a good tumblr to follow: http://y2kaestheticinstitute.tumblr.com/

This would have been impossibly dated before they'd finished fitting out the first store:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iS_7xurnafQ

# ¿ Jan 2, 2019 23:54

Horace: Apr 17, 2007; Gone Skiin'

doctorfrog posted:

This reminds me of an ad I saw in the early 90's of a cheesy $19.95 TV antenna that came with a tiny satellite dish thing on it. It claimed to "pull signals right out of the air."

Someone I knew bought the thing. The tiny satellite dish was a plastic half dome that you stuck two metal sticks into that were connected to nothing, and you'd turn a big knob and the dish would rotate and do nothing. The two rabbit ears, just like the ones you were replacing, pulled the signal right out of the air.

This is the beauty you're thinking of:

The phrase "Not technical razzle dazzle, but a marketing breakthrough" has been stuck in my head for over 20 years. I love it. The whole ad is masterful.

# ¿ Jan 11, 2019 04:19

Horace: Apr 17, 2007; Gone Skiin'

Wrath of Mordark posted:

I like the "Legal in all 50 states." Like the slight suggestion of it being maybe slightly illegal might make it more powerful!

From 1984, an "illegal" cordless phone with a 1500ft range. "imagine walking your dog while talking on the phone".

The tl;dr of this million word ad is that the phone is way overpowered but legal to sell until the FCC finalise the regulations, so buy NOW.

# ¿ Jan 11, 2019 15:07

Horace: Apr 17, 2007; Gone Skiin'

The entire 1984 DAK catalogue is online here: https://archive.org/details/1984-Fall-DAK-Catalog. Phone modems, a pocket autodialler, a hands free console phone thing, a voice controlled phone. You've never seen so many gimmicky landline phones. There was also an answerphone with a very cool "toll saver" feature, which wouldn't answer until the third ring if you had no messages, so you didn't have to put any coins into the payphone.

# ¿ Jan 11, 2019 18:17

Horace: Apr 17, 2007; Gone Skiin'

Chillbro Baggins posted:

typewriters

Here's my Selectric and its balls:

It is a beautiful machine and I love it. It was sold to me as dead, but I got it working nicely. That was until recently, when it started making that 'cracked pulley' clicking noise, so it's out of action until I can muster up the energy to sort that out.

In the mean time I have an Olympia SM2 (x2), SM3, SM4, SM5, SM9 and a Splendid. Plus a Remington Quiet-Riter, so everything is going to be okay.

# ¿ Jan 22, 2019 20:11

Horace: Apr 17, 2007; Gone Skiin'

The most amazing Selectric story is this one: https://www.cryptomuseum.com/covert/bugs/selectric/, In which the USSR spy on the US embassy with an ingenious bug.

quote:

A total of 16 devices were found inside typewriters that were in use during at least 8 years at the US Embassy in Moscow and the US Consulate in Leningrad.

The advanced digital bugging device was built inside a hollowed-out metal supporting bar that runs from left to right inside the IBM typewriter. It registered the movements of the print head (ball), by measuring small magnetic disturbances caused by the arms that control the rotation and elevation of the print ball.

Furthermore, the devices were remote controlled by the Soviets from outside the building. When the typewriter was turned ON, and the device was activated remotely, it sent its data via radio in short bursts to a nearby listening post.

# ¿ Jan 22, 2019 22:06

Horace: Apr 17, 2007; Gone Skiin'

ishikabibble posted:

There's a touching little bit on it in one of The 8-Bit Guy's videos on an old webcam. He mentions he took a lot of photos with it as a pseudo-digital camera that he never would've taken with film, because it was just a lot more convenient than film, even if it's lower quality.

I was big into online auctions in the late 90s/early 00s. I bought a capture card and took screen grabs from an old camcorder's live feed. While the quality was exactly what you're imagining, it was absolutely amazing being able to take a photo and immediately upload it and add it to a listing. It was one of those "this is the future!!!" moments. Besides, with enough light and a tripod the images weren't really that bad.

# ¿ Mar 17, 2019 02:48

Horace: Apr 17, 2007; Gone Skiin'

Keith Atherton posted:

I remember buying stuff on eBay 20 years ago and you�d have to send the seller a money order

eBay was quite labour intensive before the checkout and Paypal. I remember having to email the buyer, wait for a cheque to arrive, go to town to pay in the cheque, then wait for the cheque to clear before sending the item. People would frequently just send a cheque with no note so I'd have to comb through my recent sales and hope I could match the amount to something.

I didn't have a chequebook so I had to pay with postal orders too. Internet shopping, so convenient and futuristic! *queues in post office for 25 minutes to pay with fistful of postal orders with penny stamps on them*

# ¿ Mar 17, 2019 13:35

Horace: Apr 17, 2007; Gone Skiin'

Bargearse posted:

Latest addition to the computer room right here

The Sharp PC-4741, a PC XT compatible laptop from 1990. Comes with a blazing fast 10MHz NEC V20, 640K RAM, 40MB hard drive, single 1.44MB floppy drive, CGA compatible monochrome LCD display, carry handle, and a really heavy lead acid battery. It's in great condition, looks like it's hardly been used. Probably used two or three times then sat in a storeroom for decades.

A modem card, second floppy drive and external composite video output were available as optional extras. This one didn't have any of those, as it would have added several hundred dollars to the $3,995.00 USD retail price, which when adjusted for inflation comes out to $7,842.00 USD, which gives you an idea of just how much cheaper modern computer hardware is.

beautiful "Paper White" display!

*moves cursor, there are briefly 30 cursors on screen*

# ¿ Sep 29, 2019 18:49

Horace: Apr 17, 2007; Gone Skiin'

...at the Trustee Savings Bank Bank

# ¿ Oct 25, 2019 17:57

Horace: Apr 17, 2007; Gone Skiin'

CaptainSarcastic posted:

In the early 2000s Pepsi ran a promotion where under the bottlecaps you could find codes for a free download off iTunes. I would install iTunes, download the song, burn it to CD (if I recall that was the only way to really export them at the time) and then uninstall iTunes. Even on my Mac at work I avoided iTunes as much as possible.

Oh yeah, I'd forgotten all about that. The only way to export iTunes songs was to burn them to CDs (each song could be burnt five times, IIRC) and them rip the CD with iTunes to make it an ordinary MP3. The poo poo we put up with.

# ¿ Dec 15, 2019 22:34

Horace: Apr 17, 2007; Gone Skiin'

LifeSunDeath posted:

You guys want to see something really cool:

A head unit with an MD player in it.

You didn't always have to go aftermarket for that.

There's a guy on eBay asking $1300 for a new old stock one if you want to upgrade your mid 90s Ford.

# ¿ Feb 3, 2020 02:42

Horace: Apr 17, 2007; Gone Skiin'

3D Megadoodoo posted:

I remember a few years ago (yeah like 10 actually, I'm old and time just flies like a banana) you could get IBM Model M keyboard for 2� a pop at the recycling centre because no-one cared.

The only reason I own one is because I bought a used IBM PS/2 in the early 00s. It's frankly a miracle I didn't dump it or sell it for a pittance in the years before I realised they were special. It started to go a bit soft recently so I did the bolt mod, almost all the plastic rivets had broken off.

# ¿ Jul 3, 2020 19:32

Horace: Apr 17, 2007; Gone Skiin'

Mine's PS2 so it only needs one adapter but I went through a few before I found one which didn't cause all manner of havoc when I plugged it in, or register random keypresses. You need the one which looks like a little purple cube. I've heard it said the problem stems from the Model M having a higher power draw than these adaptors expect, but I don't know how true that is.

# ¿ Jul 3, 2020 20:53

Horace: Apr 17, 2007; Gone Skiin'

EL BROMANCE posted:

Techmoan episode today is great. What an awesome piece of kit, not sure why he didn�t say how much he paid or where he got it unless I missed that part.

I haven�t watched the video, but my bet is 1) a lot and 2) Japan.

# ¿ Jul 11, 2020 21:51

Horace: Apr 17, 2007; Gone Skiin'

Data Graham posted:

Every new day brought a new feature that browsers supported.

Background colors. Background images. Tables. Frames. Javascript. CSS.

One day when Java Applets became supported I put one at the top of my site to display crossfading text: WELCOME TO / MYSITE.COM

It was important to use every feature

You gave me a flashback to making websites in high school by going to javascript.internet.com (which sounds like a made up URL from an episode of Law & Order about hacking) and copy pasting as many scripts into my Geocities pages as possible.

edit: adorable

Horace has a new favorite as of 03:13 on Jan 8, 2021

# ¿ Jan 8, 2021 03:04

Horace: Apr 17, 2007; Gone Skiin'

an actual frog posted:

you glorious bastard

# ¿ Jan 17, 2021 23:53

Horace: Apr 17, 2007; Gone Skiin'

FM: a few quite similar stations
DAB: dozens of quite similar stations, except with the fidelity of telephone hold music and every now and then it sounds like your radio is being waterboarded

# ¿ Feb 20, 2021 00:23

Horace: Apr 17, 2007; Gone Skiin'

Years ago I'd climb mountains to pirate a TV show, but now if something isn't on Netflix or the iPlayer I'm just not going to see it. Is that maturity, laziness or both?

# ¿ Mar 4, 2021 23:40

Horace: Apr 17, 2007; Gone Skiin'

stevewm posted:

This is related to Tech Relics I suppose...

If you were a fan of the late 80s/early 90s "Secret Life Of Machines" UK series, the main host of that show, Tim Hunkin, is making a similarly inspired series on his own YouTube channel called "The Secret Life Of Components". https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCGrpLw1W3P1_BC4J-Hpytww He just posted the first episode today.

yessssss

Gromit posted:

And he'll soon post upscaled version of the SLoM that he says are really good. Looking forward to all of it.

YESSSSS

# ¿ Mar 6, 2021 00:58

Horace: Apr 17, 2007; Gone Skiin'

wa27 posted:

Thanks! Specifically I want an easy way to get to the question mark link, but searching puts me a couple clicks away. Way better than browsing to another recent post of mine to look up the uid.

Make so many white noise posts that your username appears in the thread's top 30 posters list, then you can just click the number next to your name to see your posts.

# ¿ Mar 11, 2021 20:33

Horace: Apr 17, 2007; Gone Skiin'

LifeSunDeath posted:

I want a globe that says INTERNET on it.

That'd make a great router.

# ¿ Apr 28, 2021 10:34

Horace: Apr 17, 2007; Gone Skiin'

You Am I posted:

Here's photos of the GamesMen Summer 92 catalogue: https://imgur.com/a/TdhG54V

Love the monthly competitions.
January: $350 games console.
February: $300 games console.
March: we will cook you a sausage

# ¿ Jun 16, 2021 12:48

Horace: Apr 17, 2007; Gone Skiin'

WITCHCRAFT posted:

I used spotify for a while and finding out the song/album/artist you want is not on there happens pretty rarely even if you are a music weird. The thing that made me go back to local storage was when an album would be available, I would add it to my library or playlist, then later when I wanted to listen to it again the license lapsed or something and it was no longer available. You can still see it in your playlist, but it's greyed out and you can't listen to it. It rubs me the wrong way badly enough that I will go back to hoarding my poo poo by hand, even if it takes me so much more time. I like my music enough to waste all that time on it.

You have to switch on the �greying out�. By default, the music just vanishes without trace. Drove me crazy until I figured that out. Now I have all the grey tracks in one playlist which I occasionally check to see if anything has lit up.

Stuff doesn�t go grey nearly as often as it used to, but I know one day Spotify is going to have a massive row with one of the big labels and 40% of my music will go AWOL.

# ¿ Dec 4, 2021 20:01

Horace: Apr 17, 2007; Gone Skiin'

Casimir Radon posted:

I used a cassette adapter until 2016 or so when the tape deck in my car broke and I had a new stereo head out in. Then I got a new car in �19 and Toyota was on the verge of putting Android Auto in cars, but never went back and did my model year. Which made me switch to iPhone last year to get back the level of functionality I had with my aftermarket stereo head in a 2003 car.

This is why the greatest thing a carmaker can offer is a good ol' DIN/Double DIN slot. Their own offerings are either overpriced, terrible, or rapidly outdated (no AUX, Bluetooth but only for calls, never updated satnav maps, etc etc).

The new Citroen Ami coming with nothing but a phone holder is amazingly appealing.

# ¿ Feb 24, 2022 20:04

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# ¿ May 10, 2024 08:33

Horace: Apr 17, 2007; Gone Skiin'

History Comes Inside! posted:

I ran up a �300 phone bill to compuserve within 2 months of getting my first modem and my parents were mad as gently caress.

The phone company agreed to put us into a trial scheme for their first monthly unlimited dial-up package when they called to try and query the bill, and I used birthday and Christmas money that year to pay to have a second phone line put in so I could internet all I wanted.

After I ran up a massive phone bill we changed isp to one called IC24. The gimmick of that was it was completely free dialup, you called an 0800 number. The catch? It kicked you off after one hour, but they said you were welcome to re-connect as many times as you want. It usually took a few attempts to get a connection, but it always worked.

So how did they make money? Well, it was the peak of the dot com bubble, so I assume they simply did not.

# ¿ Mar 26, 2022 22:07

The Something Awful Forums > Main > Post Your Favorite: Carefully Curated > Tech Relics: Now integrating PIII processors for the wank factor.

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