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SLOSifl posted:6. Look at your kid on a CRT in a phone booth 2001 got to this much earlier than that commercial, and from SPAAAAAAAACE... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vWwo6JpMceg
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May 25, 2016 19:43
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Mechanism Eight posted:Serial's neat but back in the day a PC's parallel port could be coupled with little more than a resistor DAC to play music How do people figure out this stuff?  "But You can use 2 covox with 2 LPT ports to get stereo sound. On 12MHz 286 (without addon 287 processor) I got 15kHz sampling rate on Screamtracker 2.3 (NOT 3.2)."
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Jun 2, 2016 17:34
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thathonkey posted:it was literally the opposite of edgy I rolled out a ton of iMacs at a place I worked and one of the first steps was to replace that worthless piece of poo poo puck mouse. It's one of the rare pieces of technology that not even one person said "NO DON'T TAKE IT" like they've done over the years with their giant old Blackberrys or hand scanners or some other outdated piece of crap.
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Jun 21, 2016 20:13
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JnnyThndrs posted:Yeah, accidental setting device SCSI ID's to the same one as the controller is like baby's first SCSI gently caress-up, I've done it a zillion times. For most people the problem was not understanding SCSI termination. Or you'd put a device in the middle of the chain not realizing it had an internal terminator and surprise you just lost contact with everything in the chain that comes after it. SCSI really was not hard at all to understand but people didn't want to take the time to read up on the basics. It's similar to the old IRQ bullshit where even if you understood the need for unique IRQ numbers a device like a soundcard would insist on being a specific IRQ that was already in use by something else. And that other device was restricted to one of two numbers and next thing you know you're in the middle of a horrible IRQ number shuffle trying to make all your devices happy.
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Jul 6, 2016 18:17
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When I was supporting The Sierra/Imagination Network it was one annoying config call after another. This was during the mid 1990s so we were dealing with DOS, Win 3 and Win 95 users. The main challenges: 1. Get enough base memory to run the program. With each version the requirements became steeper. I think the final one required 618k for Ruins of Cawdor. Hello boot disk! Not enough base memory even with a boot disk? Time to try and squeeze some of DOS into unused VIDEO RAM god just kill me now. 2. Enter the correct modem string. With 7.5 million different modems out there this was unpleasant, especially if you had to enter prefixes for dialing a long distance service first, like MCI. Does the modem language use commas for a pause or some other character? Wait until you have to determine the UART type to see why they're having connection issues. 3. Sound card/IRQ madness. Modem and sound work but the mouse stopped working. Mouse and sound work but the modem won't dial. Modem and mouse work but lost the sound. gently caress gently caress gently caress. No remote access, no LogMeIn you just had to talk everyone through everything. Hope you like spelling out novel-length DOS commands only to hear the caller say "Bad command or file name" as they mistype over and over again. Win 95 was new so people were literally deleting system files and folders to "make room" and then calling to complain when they could no longer boot up. No you can't use a 100' telephone cable made of 10 shorter ones coupled together! gently caress me what a thankless goddamn job but it taught me how to troubleshoot and also how to not murder stupid people.
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Jul 6, 2016 19:29
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Powered Descent posted:You know, for every one that you see, there's a thousand more living in the walls. Hahahah It's the best part of starting a new I.T. job: seeking out and recycling the inevitable stashes of worthless poo poo. I've posted photos from a few years ago when I worked for a goddamn idiot poo poo gently caress that saved literal piles of tech related junk. We're talking hundreds of pounds of it. EDIT: This was only the first ewaste collection I organized. I humped all that crap up from the storage room in the parking structure. There was so much more after it.  
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Aug 5, 2016 18:03
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You don't know how badly I want to clean up that nasty pile of crap. 
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Aug 6, 2016 14:25
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Humphreys posted:It's a half concrete, half dirt floor under the house. I cannot walk upright under there. It's literally poo poo I haven't bother to bring up into the house. Yet.Come over, There's a carton of beer in it for you if you untangle the rest of the maze. That was just one choice angle as there was a NES cartridge facing up. Get your garbage bags ready, Humphreys. Although looking closer those AC plugs appear a bit suspect. Are you some kind of bloody foreigner?
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Aug 6, 2016 15:47
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I can assure you that the last place I would go under someone's house and dig through refuse is Australia. I WANT TO LIVE
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Aug 6, 2016 16:40
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TotalLossBrain posted:Pretty sure you're mixing "Executive Decision" in with "Airforce One" there. I want someone to make that movie.
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Aug 7, 2016 04:21
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Senor Tron posted:
The phone on the left looks like it's running something similar to the old Macintosh "Vanlandingham" bouncing ball demo. At the UCLA student store we used to run it on the Macintosh Portable to show off the swanky active matrix screen. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W3fybaJ9qRg
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Aug 12, 2016 19:36
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I was a tech support supervisor for them. 
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Aug 13, 2016 19:17
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SquadronROE posted:Does anyone remember the set top cable boxes with the red numbers? 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. 
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Aug 16, 2016 19:03
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SquadronROE posted:Fancy, I remember the ones that just had channel up/down and maybe fast up/down. And power. Those were the 1980s ones, just a chunky box with a few buttons on it. EDIT: VVV Yeah, those analog ones had a row selector so you could access multiple channels per button. I got really good at flying through them. Dick Trauma has a new favorite as of 19:34 on Aug 16, 2016 |
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Aug 16, 2016 19:23
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thetzar posted:Sorry to interrupt Cable Box Chat, but does anyone else remember dittos? When I was in elementary school, xeroxes were still hella expensive, so we got our handouts and worksheets done via spirit duplicators ("dittos"), in purple ink that smudged onto your hands if you weren't careful. People tend to confuse Dittos with Mimeographs. My elementary school had a ditto at first with that crappy purple text and the scent of alcohol, but they switched to Mimeograph.
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Aug 17, 2016 00:45
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Hooking up a Pong console to the back of our tiny Sony B&W seemed pretty drat futuristic back in 1976. I'm sure the landfills of the 1980s are peppered with heaps of these things.
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Aug 17, 2016 17:12
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Bar none my favorite computer as a user was the 20" gooseneck iMac. I could get the LCD into the perfect position for comfort, almost like reading a magazine when I tilted my chair back.
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Aug 17, 2016 22:26
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CaptainSarcastic posted:You are now my enemy. Also (just like a goose) that neck made for easy carrying. But don't open the CD tray or the aesthetics go right out the window.
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Aug 17, 2016 22:29
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You say that like you didn't enjoy removing like 30 goddamn screws to get to an iBook hard drive. I was doing that at my desk once and when someone saw how much disassembly was required they put their hand on my shoulder and mutely shook their head at our shared sadness.
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Aug 17, 2016 23:07
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Cojawfee posted:What game was it? 
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Aug 21, 2016 14:27
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Gonz posted:The state of Personal Computers, nearly 11,000 days ago. This is practically an SCTV skit, and holy poo poo that Leading Edge promo! I was working at a Software Etc. in 1987 so all of this is quite familiar to me. I miss it in some ways.
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Aug 23, 2016 16:45
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Senor Tron posted:I'm most of the way through the episode and I'm increasingly convinced that the guy with the beard is trying to bring the whole thing down from the inside. My next job: SYSTEMS ANALYST ARBITRATION CHEF! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MtK11FJSQBY
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Aug 23, 2016 17:10
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Buttcoin purse posted:Nice! I was one of those QuantumLink users, on my C64 and VICmodem. I remember seeing my first emoticon and having to ask someone what  meant.
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Aug 24, 2016 16:59
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Tarkus posted:After watching Computer Chronicles, tell me that this demonstration isn't faked. It's speech synthesis but it's better than I remember for the time, even the intonation changes with the same phrase. Either the speech is pre-recorded or there's a dude with a radio and microphone controlling the device. It's 100% fake. Even the Mac couldn't reproduce pre-recorded voice at that quality since sampling rates were low, let alone string variable based voice clips together so smoothly. Basic verbal commands were possible, but all the speech is bogus. At the 1983 NCC I saw a demo of MS Flight Simulator being controlled via voice, so that was a little earlier than this video. Dick Trauma has a new favorite as of 18:03 on Aug 25, 2016 |
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Aug 25, 2016 18:01
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stinky ox posted:Those clockmaking videos are fantastic. As a clumsy ox who's about as handy as a newt it's lovely to watch that guy making his skills look so effortless. Beautiful stuff. This doesn't seem like it should be possible.
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Aug 30, 2016 16:47
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a happy snowman posted:God if I could find a perfectly restored Defender, I'd be in heaven Would you settle for Stargate? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BQYyhreWFD4
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Sep 9, 2016 23:41
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It's too bad you guys aren't as old as me because in the 1970s you could still find pinball machines going back to the 1950s. They'd be in some forgotten spot, like the rec room of a Holiday Inn. My dad would be stoked since they were the ones from when he was a teenager. Although I played my first video arcade game around 1971 (Computer Space) electro-mechanical ones were the most common. This video is lousy but it's of a machine I played plenty of times back in the early seventies. It had a rifle stock as a controller and you'd take shots at little mechanical animals flitting back and forth across the playing field. It's hard to believe that something so hokey came out the same year as Computer Space. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dz5NJGuuzNs It wasn't until around 1978 that video games really took over, pushing the old fashioned ones to the periphery. Digital upgraded pinball machines were still going strong when I was in college (God knows how many quarters I poured into ones like "Whirlwind" but the mechanical ones faded away until they took on a retro cachet. EDIT: Heh, found a video of Whirlwind. Best part is when the fan on top of the cabinet starts to blow on you as the twister arrives. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hb-HoYSb9FY
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Sep 12, 2016 22:48
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Instant Sunrise posted:I'd love to play an original Wild Gunman cabinet that used 16mm film. There were film based quickdraw games in the 1970s. You might be familiar with those. The gunman's eyes would flash and that was your cue to draw and fire. One had a pistol, another cabinet had a rifle and during one sequence you'd fire at a row of bottles. Around 1977 I played a film arcade game that featured Japanese Zeros flying across the screen and a mini .30 cal machine gun. I loved that game since it came out around the same time as the movie Midway. EDIT: D'oh! We're talking about the same thing. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mzxcsaIxaZg Dick Trauma has a new favorite as of 22:58 on Sep 12, 2016 |
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Sep 12, 2016 22:54
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There is only one reason for Radio Shack to exist:
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Sep 16, 2016 19:03
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big crush on Chad OMG posted:The best totally-not-a-vibrator MP3 player was this: This fellow liked them so much he bought four! 
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Oct 6, 2016 23:06
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Pham Nuwen posted:He must have had chronic sore throat too because he's wearing a blister pack of cough drops on his shirt front Those are various concentrations of nicotine gum.
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Oct 7, 2016 15:17
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Lowen SoDium posted:Yep, I remember the ad for with this guy holding the pizza out to you: SoP pls
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Oct 11, 2016 17:41
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Those buttons on the right remind me of the cash register that was at my parents store back in the 1970s. I loved using that thing. CLICK-CLICK-CLICK-WHIRRUNCH! CLICK-CLICK-CLICK-CLICK-WHIRRRUNCH!
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Oct 14, 2016 17:00
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That cash register was the first piece of equipment to give me a shock. 
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Oct 14, 2016 17:47
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I miss using my big Kensington trackball with an 8-ball socketed in it. Fantastic steel rollers in that thing for perfect feel and smoothness.
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Oct 24, 2016 22:25
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That was the forgotten section of the Software Etc. where I worked. One little shelf with Deluxe Paint II and a few other titles that no one was ever going to buy. 
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Nov 1, 2016 17:34
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EVIL NOONER posted:was software, etc the one with the colorful/rainbow sign No.  Over time it got sort of purple with more modern design but generally looked like this. At one point they came out with horrid floppy disk name badges that I refused to wear. Little did I know that my wisp of dignity would soon be swept away by year after year of idiot employers.
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Nov 1, 2016 17:42
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 Too bad they had to retrofit the digital readouts over the old mechanical ones. One of the joys of pre-digital pinball machines is the visceral experience or feeling the mechanisms working, all the clicking and banging and ringing...
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Nov 4, 2016 16:26
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Code Jockey posted:There was an old... baseball? themed pinball machine at Ground Kontrol I used to play, and I mean old, and man that thing sounded awesome. The clunks, the thumps, the mechanical buzzing, it was great. If it was one of the Grand Slam generation of games we can be friends... 
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Nov 4, 2016 17:02
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my turn in the barrel posted:Those are the stock readouts for that game. It came out in 1978.  When I think of that period instead of that Crime Against Pinballity I'd choose the oddly named "SPACE INVADERS" pinball game with its trippy infinity light background and next gen table surface. Please enjoy the ferocious Not Alien graphics. 
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Nov 4, 2016 19:11
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