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Leon Einstein
Feb 6, 2012
I must win every thread in GBS. I don't care how much banal semantic quibbling and shitty posts it takes.

RabbitMage posted:

Does anyone fax anymore?
Businesses use fax machines all the time since you can get a delivery receipt. We have moved over to mostly scanning and emailing documents these days, but the fax machines aren't going anywhere anytime soon.

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Darkman Fanpage
Jul 4, 2012

torjus posted:

An earlier Zen was the Zen Touch. I had (and still have it, though it's not in active duty) the 20GB variant.

Here is an image depicting a Creative Zen Touch with french language settings playing some Joe Cocker:


It's called "Touch" because there's a small strip under the OK-button which is kind of touch sensitive.
The thing is that the Zen Touch can withstand anything short of a direct bomb blast. I've had it hit the floor on many occasions, but it still keeps on truckin'. Pair that with 24h battery life and you have a pretty good MP3-player!

Too bad you need to be running Windows XP to run the program that loads files onto it.

Tasty Wheat
Jul 18, 2012

Diametunim posted:

PDA's had many good uses, all of them Dopewars.

I had an iPaq with a PCMCIA sleeve with a wireless card and some sniffing software, it was way better then hauling a laptop around in '05.

lenoon
Jan 7, 2010

torjus posted:



Here is an image depicting a Creative Zen Touch with french language settings playing some Joe Cocker:




I bought this the day the ipod mini came out and then spent about two years saying "but don't you see? It's better than an ipod!"

Tasty Wheat
Jul 18, 2012

Phy posted:

Don't medical people still use pagers? What with the whole "no cellphone use in the hospital" thing.

I use to ask the same thing of my ex, but it was explained to me that it was for easy of use and privacy. The oncall pagers could be handed around without having to figure out which phone number to call in an emergency; someone could send you a page and you could call back with a blocked number maintaining your privacy.

Bonzo
Mar 11, 2004

Just like Mama used to make it!

Leon Einstein posted:

Businesses use fax machines all the time since you can get a delivery receipt. We have moved over to mostly scanning and emailing documents these days, but the fax machines aren't going anywhere anytime soon.

Sales departments live and die by fax machines in any place I've ever worked.

thedouche
Mar 20, 2007
Greetings from thedouche

:dukedog:

Bonzo posted:

Sales departments live and die by fax machines in any place I've ever worked.
Essentially every US pharmacy receives faxed prescriptions and sends faxed refill requests to doctors. Although sometimes the refill requests are sent via an electronic fax directly from the pharmacy computer. E-prescriptions are becoming more common though.

I'm really liking this thread.

torjus
Nov 22, 2005

I want YOU to MSPaint!

Crasscrab posted:

Too bad you need to be running Windows XP to run the program that loads files onto it.
I don't know about newer flavors of Windows, but I got the fucker to work with Linux.

edit:

lenoon posted:

I bought this the day the ipod mini came out and then spent about two years saying "but don't you see? It's better than an ipod!"
The iPod on the other hand...

He Who Wears Pants
Mar 18, 2007

Who's the 'King of Pop' now, bitch?

Nasgate posted:

Screw Ipods and Zunes, my family used Zen players :smug:
Specifically we all had the Vision M model as seen below. Brother and I had 30 gigs while our mom had the 60 gig version. This was cool because Ipod video players at the time had less storage, worse screens, and were more expensive I believe. Apparently the company is still making mp3 players, but really I don't know anyone else who has owned one or heard of one.



Oh man, I carried one of those until literally this past Christmas! It's been through hell and still works, albeit with some odd battery behavior and the tendency to lock up if you don't wait a couple seconds before switching tracks. I never took the stock screen protector off, so I'm pretty sure if I did now, the screen would be the only part that ISN'T covered in scuffs and scratches!

Only reason I didn't replace it sooner was (besides the fact that it still worked) because like someone said earlier, most of the newer mp3 players were touchscreen models with pitiful 8GB capacities, and I wanted something that wasn't iPod that could hold my entire (~30GB) music collection. Wasn't until I finally upgraded my cell phone to a Galaxy SII that could take 32GB MicroSD cards that I finally retired that old beater.

Now, before THAT, I used THIS:


The Dell DJ, part of Dell's short-lived dalliance in the mp3 market. Someone earlier posted the Creative Zen Touch, and this basically used the exact same interface, lock stock and barrel.

m2pt5
May 18, 2005

THAT GOD DAMN MOSQUITO JUST KEEPS COMING BACK

Bonzo posted:

Sales departments live and die by fax machines in any place I've ever worked.

The major reason faxes are still widely used is that faxed documents have a legal status that scanned/emailed documents don't. (A faxed signature is as good legally as an original, but scanned/emailed signatures aren't.)

E: I'm not a lawyer, but that was the reason I was always told for why fax is still used.
vv

m2pt5 has a new favorite as of 18:06 on Jul 18, 2012

3D Megadoodoo
Nov 25, 2010

m2pt5 posted:

(A faxed signature is as good legally as an original, but scanned/emailed signatures aren't.)

This is not universal. Then again, neither is still using faxes. (A scanned and copy-pasted signature is not legally binding, though.)

3D Megadoodoo has a new favorite as of 18:04 on Jul 18, 2012

Bonzo
Mar 11, 2004

Just like Mama used to make it!
Reminds me of a place I worked at in 98. We made stuff like buttons and keychains and at least once a week we would get a rush order and they would say, "If you fax you the cheque can you start production today and ship them?"

Our answer was, "Sure. We'll take the fax cheque to the fax bank where we will get fax cash and then fax you your order."

milquetoast child
Jun 27, 2003

literally
I actually owned the first hard disk based music player ever. Well not like the first one manufactured, but you know what I mean.

The Personal Jukebox! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Personal_Jukebox



It was pretty amazing for 1999. It had a 5GB hard drive. Again, this is 1999 when flash drives were 32 MB. It connected through USB, and had a USB Female port on it for connection, so you got blazing fast USB 1.0 speeds. You had to use an amazingly lovely explorer-like music manager to make playlists and add music.

The battery door was hinged and super weak, and it was the first thing that broke on it. I ended up taping it closed with a piece of duct tape. Then, the audio jack wasn't soldered on there so well, so you had to press the plugged-in jack one direction in order to get audio at all, and really hard to get stereo. Eventually fixed that by pushing it really hard in one direction and then putting in a paper clip and snipping it off to keep the jack pushed in one way.

It had a lithium ion battery that charged in-unit, and took about 4-5 hours to charge for a 4-5 hour listening time. It even had games on it.

Suck that iPods! It was one of those amazing products that received zero marketing dollars and never sold in any noticeable numbers.

m2pt5
May 18, 2005

THAT GOD DAMN MOSQUITO JUST KEEPS COMING BACK

Bonzo posted:

Reminds me of a place I worked at in 98. We made stuff like buttons and keychains and at least once a week we would get a rush order and they would say, "If you fax you the cheque can you start production today and ship them?"

Our answer was, "Sure. We'll take the fax cheque to the fax bank where we will get fax cash and then fax you your order."

Well, that's a little different. I meant legal documents like contracts and such. For a check you obviously need the original (not necessarily so much anymore with some banks able to deposit checks through smartphone apps via photo) but for other things it's usually fine.

amishbuttermaster
Apr 28, 2009
When I was in IT sales the only way I could get an open account started for a business was to have them fax in a signed purchase order. This went for each and every company I worked for. It's still the norm as far as I know for this sort of thing.

RoboSpy
Sep 2, 2011

m2pt5 posted:

Well, that's a little different. I meant legal documents like contracts and such. For a check you obviously need the original (not necessarily so much anymore with some banks able to deposit checks through smartphone apps via photo) but for other things it's usually fine.

I routinely deposit checks to my bank with my scanner through a browser.

Bonzo
Mar 11, 2004

Just like Mama used to make it!
We talked about those CED discs a few pages back. Here is pic of the Godfather running.

http://pcmuseum.ca/gallery/0612-11-750.JPG

Also It seems that on Godfather was released, and not Godfather II which is interesting seeing as how they both predate the technology.

Oh! And we have Canabalt running on a C64.

http://pcmuseum.ca/gallery/0712-01-750.JPG

Bonzo has a new favorite as of 18:42 on Jul 18, 2012

Ralph Crammed In
May 11, 2007

Let's get clean and smart




This bad boy here. I must have gotten it in 03 or so. I picked it out as a birthday present from my mother and spent years loading my huge music collection up onto it. I have moved around a lot since then and it's so nice to have this beast loaded up with all the music from my teenage years. I still use it, works like a charm. Listened to Barenaked Ladies on it just last week.

Edit 60 gigs. That thing was massive at the time. After a while I started ripping any CD I could get my hands on onto it and I never managed to fill it up.

RoboSpy
Sep 2, 2011
Unfortunately (fortunately?) I never experienced Microsoft BOB, but I was wondering if anyone here did? All I know about it I learned from Wikipedia, though I do have vague memories of ads for it when I was a kid, and may have seen a demo computer with it at a CompUSA or something. Does anybody have stories about BOB, or a computer squirreled away somewhere with BOB still installed?

Kidney Stone
Dec 28, 2008

The worst pain ever!

RoboSpy posted:

Unfortunately (fortunately?) I never experienced Microsoft BOB, but I was wondering if anyone here did? All I know about it I learned from Wikipedia, though I do have vague memories of ads for it when I was a kid, and may have seen a demo computer with it at a CompUSA or something. Does anybody have stories about BOB, or a computer squirreled away somewhere with BOB still installed?

I'm not 100% certain, but I do think that I've got BOB somewhere in my Windows collection (all versions of Windows, from 1.01 to XP).

If interested, I'll take a look tomorrow.

Kidney Stone has a new favorite as of 20:15 on Jul 18, 2012

3D Megadoodoo
Nov 25, 2010

Bonzo posted:

Oh! And we have Canabalt running on a C64.

http://pcmuseum.ca/gallery/0712-01-750.JPG

So where's the obsolete bit? :colbert:

UnfortunateSexFart
May 18, 2008

𒃻 𒌓ð’‰𒋫 𒆷ð’€𒅅𒆷
𒆠𒂖 𒌉 𒌫 ð’®𒈠𒈾𒅗 𒂉 𒉡𒌒𒂉𒊑


Oh you kids with your "old" Creative Zens... I wish I had one of those.

64mb Samsung Yepp



Samsung has recently been a force in the mobile/music market but they weren't when this was made and for about 10 years after. Apparently Yepp is still a brand but they look exactly like iphones now.

Listened to it in the car with the old cassette adapter. These would break every few months



Couldn't use those fm adapters because there isn't a single "empty" radio station where I live.

When I bought my latest car, an aux port was a must.

mobby_6kl
Aug 9, 2009

kith_groupie posted:



This bad boy here. I must have gotten it in 03 or so. I picked it out as a birthday present from my mother and spent years loading my huge music collection up onto it. I have moved around a lot since then and it's so nice to have this beast loaded up with all the music from my teenage years. I still use it, works like a charm. Listened to Barenaked Ladies on it just last week.

Edit 60 gigs. That thing was massive at the time. After a while I started ripping any CD I could get my hands on onto it and I never managed to fill it up.

I was wondering if someone would post the Zen Xtra after seeing all those Vision Ms. I have the exactly same one, and I still used it up until a few months ago when I think either the battery or the charger died. No problem, I'll just order a new battery from HK for :10bux: and keep on rockin' another 10 years :rock:

A friend of mine had the earlier discman-shaped Jukebox, but I think it was poster already.

Sir Sidney Poitier
Aug 14, 2006

My favourite actor


leidend posted:



Couldn't use those fm adapters because there isn't a single "empty" radio station where I live.

When I bought my latest car, an aux port was a must.

I've used one of these almost every day for the last 2 years. Pre-2005 Volvos, whilst excellent cars, are cursed with behind-the-times stereos with no auxiliary inputs. And when I got it several cars ago FM transmitters were illegal.

Alhazred
Feb 16, 2011




Bonzo posted:

Reminds me of a place I worked at in 98. We made stuff like buttons and keychains and at least once a week we would get a rush order and they would say, "If you fax you the cheque can you start production today and ship them?"

Our answer was, "Sure. We'll take the fax cheque to the fax bank where we will get fax cash and then fax you your order."

I thought that cheques were an obsolete technology.

3D Megadoodoo
Nov 25, 2010

Alhazred posted:

I thought that cheques were an obsolete technology.

I've probably posted this in some thread but: "We don't accept cheques because no-one uses cheques" (Sign I saw on a cash register in 1998)

thedouche
Mar 20, 2007
Greetings from thedouche

:dukedog:

Alhazred posted:

I thought that cheques were an obsolete technology.

They they are an obsolete technology that helps one with businesses with obsolete technology.

Space Gopher
Jul 31, 2006

BLITHERING IDIOT AND HARDCORE DURIAN APOLOGIST. LET ME TELL YOU WHY THIS SHIT DON'T STINK EVEN THOUGH WE ALL KNOW IT DOES BECAUSE I'M SUPER CULTURED.

Perestroika posted:

Speaking of obsolote, how about this one:



The loving TI-83, my school required us buy these for 100€+ apiece. They were somewhat outdated even when we got them, and when smartphones came about they became just laughable. Though I still have fond memories of coding small programs for them to automate some math stuff which made the classes pretty easy.

TI ain't poo poo.

If you want to go to some of the very best obsolete technology, look no further than HP's first programmable calculators. When they were introduced in the 70s, a "computer" was still at least the size of a minifridge. These things, though, were complete little handheld computers, with full programming capability, expansion slots (that could hook to peripherals including printers, card readers, and scientific equipment), and glorious RPN. Needless to say, they were very popular in the scientific, engineering, and finance communities for quite a while. I know more than a few people who swear by them, and they still sell the HP-12C finance model.

None of that gets into their best feature, though: their absolute, bombproof reliability. It's hard to believe if you've dealt with HP's crappy inkjets and consumer laptops, but their name used to be synonymous with expensive, incredibly reliable equipment. When NASA needed a last-resort backup for the Space Shuttle's computer - something that could calculate the engine burns to get out of orbit and back home if the main computers had all died and Mission Control wasn't available on the radio - they went out and bought HP-41 calculators from an office supply store in Houston. They plugged a high-resolution quartz timer into the expansion port, glued the covers shut, replaced the feet with velcro, and sent it into space as flight critical equipment.

Here's Sally Ride, the first American woman in space, floating alongside a bunch of them:

TheZissou
Aug 23, 2006

You left your dog, you idiots!

RoboSpy posted:

Unfortunately (fortunately?) I never experienced Microsoft BOB, but I was wondering if anyone here did? All I know about it I learned from Wikipedia, though I do have vague memories of ads for it when I was a kid, and may have seen a demo computer with it at a CompUSA or something. Does anybody have stories about BOB, or a computer squirreled away somewhere with BOB still installed?

I played BOB a lot when I was in middle school. Don't remember much from it, just being able to change the themes of the rooms around your house and there was a mini game you could play that asked you history and geography trivia questions.

Factory Factory
Mar 19, 2010

This is what
Arcane Velocity was like.
You can find MS Bob if you look for it; a number of abandonware sites host it with a "take your own chances" disclaimer. It will still run in 32-bit Windows 7 or Vista, but you would need to use Windows XP Mode or another VM if you have 64-bit Windows.

morothar
Dec 21, 2005

Perestroika posted:

Speaking of obsolote, how about this one:



The loving TI-83, my school required us buy these for 100€+ apiece. They were somewhat outdated even when we got them, and when smartphones came about they became just laughable. Though I still have fond memories of coding small programs for them to automate some math stuff which made the classes pretty easy.



VVVVV I'll be damned. With the ubiquitousness of netbooks, tablets and all that stuff I thought people would have moved over to a software-based solution by now. Well, shows what I know about math :v: VVVVVVV

Obsolete? I carry that thing in my work bag and use it every day - others call it the "waffle iron" or any number of other names. The fact that it gives me several lines of preceding results that I can jump back to makes it indispensable to me. Plus, I can always beat sales or ops people to death with it if they don't want to see reason :v:

In fact, I've been looking for an alternative recently to cut down on the amount weight I tend to carry around, but there still is nothing better out there.

Manky
Mar 20, 2007


Fun Shoe

morothar posted:

In fact, I've been looking for an alternative recently to cut down on the amount weight I tend to carry around, but there still is nothing better out there.

If you pull the ROM off it with a computer I believe you can load it, legally, in an emulator on a smartphone.

RyokoTK
Feb 12, 2012

I am cool.

morothar posted:

Obsolete? I carry that thing in my work bag and use it every day - others call it the "waffle iron" or any number of other names. The fact that it gives me several lines of preceding results that I can jump back to makes it indispensable to me. Plus, I can always beat sales or ops people to death with it if they don't want to see reason :v:

In fact, I've been looking for an alternative recently to cut down on the amount weight I tend to carry around, but there still is nothing better out there.

It makes me wonder why. I mean, by 2012 standards, the technology can't be either expensive or complicated. Yet, the drat thing is huge and clunky and still costs a hundred bucks? Nobody has made a competitor to the TI-83 to undercut them?

Factory Factory
Mar 19, 2010

This is what
Arcane Velocity was like.
You're paying for the software, which only runs on that hardware.

Nemesis Of Moles
Jul 25, 2007

Plus, as already stated, they're the only ones who are allowed in standard tests so they have a monopoly.

movax
Aug 30, 2008

Nemesis Of Moles posted:

Plus, as already stated, they're the only ones who are allowed in standard tests so they have a monopoly.

They just can't have a CAS on-board, so I think the up-to the 86 plus a few Casio/HP models are allowed. The big things the 89/92 can do is symbolic math out-of-the-box, the lower models can't (and weren't designed for that market anyway). The TI-92(+) also looks 90s as gently caress with its landscape form-factor and QWERTY keyboard.



Technically the TI-83 is obsolete, replaced by the TI-83+ with its ~~Flash~~ memory. I was a giant calculator nerd back in middle school and drooled over my buddy who got a TI-83+ Silver Edition with its 1.5MB of memory. I started with TI-BASIC on them, and then taught myself Z80 assembly to make games that would actually run *well*.

Then TI beat the line with an ugly bat and put out the 84 and the 89 Titanium. They do pander a lot to educators, and some textbooks will feature screencaps/button-presses for only TI calculators. You can buy a CBL for them also to use in physics or chemistry labs, which is basically data acquisition for your calculator. Pretty sure the guts are still a Z80 though. (89s are 68ks)

I've grown to love the HP59G more than my 89 at this point, and I still have a 86 and my original 83+ around the house. They're all excellent, bullet-proof calculators.

movax has a new favorite as of 23:18 on Jul 18, 2012

Invisble Manuel
Nov 4, 2009
I always wanted one of these:



It was a black and white video camera that recorded video to standard audio cassettes, from Fisher Price.

I don't think it recorded audio.

Sample video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jtj8ILSfKUM

Nemesis Of Moles
Jul 25, 2007

That'd actually pretty rad for some art collage project or something.

Landerig
Oct 27, 2008

by Fistgrrl

Invisble Manuel posted:

I always wanted one of these:



It was a black and white video camera that recorded video to standard audio cassettes,



That's amazing just on a technical level if nothing else. I always thought of cassettes as mini VHS tapes.

Looking it up on Youtube, the PXL 2000 did have audio.

Landerig has a new favorite as of 23:59 on Jul 18, 2012

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amishbuttermaster
Apr 28, 2009
They basically are. Both are magnetic tape systems. For another example of obsolete technology have a look at the ADAT format:



If you're in a pinch you can use VHS tapes as your recording media. This is yet another recording format that died when DAWs and hard disk recording came to prominence. I've never used ADAT myself but I hear it kinda sucked.

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