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Imagine yourself in 1993. What could be better than a PC you can play games on? How about a PC that plays Sega Mega Drive games as well? I remember seeing this in a catalogue when I was about 12, and I really, really wanted one because I thought the whole concept was mind blowing. It's basically an Amstrad PC running MS-DOS with a Mega Drive (Genesis) stuffed inside; however they didn't share any hardware except for the monitor, and it was designed so that you couldn't use both at the same time. It did come with a white gamepad for the Sega games though. It was released only in Europe and Australia, and set you back £999. Interestingly enough, this was actually preceded by another PC/Mega Drive hybrid called the TeraDrive which was only released in Japan. Unlike the Mega PC you could actually play Mega Drive games at the same time the main PC OS was being used.
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# ? Aug 2, 2012 13:21 |
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# ? Mar 28, 2024 12:34 |
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mrkillboy posted:Imagine yourself in 1993. What could be better than a PC you can play games on? How about a PC that plays Sega Mega Drive games as well? Yeah, a friend of mine had one of these, the panel on the front next to the mega drive cart in the picture slid across from side to side to either expose the mega drive or the PC side of the controls. I was so jealous of this piece of hardware!
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# ? Aug 2, 2012 14:07 |
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Haruharuharuko posted:I had a dell model exactly like this and I can attest to the fact that these fuckers weigh more than my current refrigerator. Favorite story about it was I was under my desk messing with cabling and proceeded to shift the weight on the desk by accident and it proceeded to land about 1/8th of an inch from my head... I should be dead...and the fucker still worked. That explains so much. I recently bought an old Atari ST Computer from someone who inherited the beast from a dead relative and got a shitload of old floppy discs labeled "Mavica", followed by a number. Sadly, the internal disc drive couldn't read them. Somehow, the thought there was once a type of digital camera using 3,25" floppy discs never entered my mind, so my guesses on what could be on them were wildly of the mark. Well now I know, but after cleaning the disc drive and testing it with new, empty discs I found out those old discs were the problem all along, so I'm left again with speculating why a musician would have 40 floppy discs filled with photos. Regarding my own obsolete things I still sometimes mentally whimper when remembering my first PC. It was bought used from our neighbour and came with a 14" CRT-Monstrosity, full of strange quirks (but it had a nice, crispy colour-picture). That thing nearly drove me insane, since I had to save my low allowance for months until I could replace that thing with another, slightly larger and slightly more reliable CRT-Monitor. (My parents weren't into that whole "technology" thing and didn't want to spend extra money on something as frivolous as a computer.) Sadly I don't have pictures of that thing anymore. (Or remember anything about it except the horror it wrought.) For the curious, here is a list of those little quirks I mentioned: It was: -Emitting some sort of high-pitched sound, which got stronger and louder over the months. That sound kept my little sister away after a while, since she couldn't stand it. Our parents couldn't hear it, though. It was apparently to high a frequency or something to be in their hearing range. They thought we were just stupid kids, inventing things. It had: -Some sort of EM-leakage. At first, it only made the hairs on our arms stand up if we held them next to it. Then the field kept getting stronger and going up in range until its influence reached half-way accross my room. Oh, and it started erasing discs lying next to the monitor. Near to the end it finally tought me to stop storing my floppy discs on the entire left side of my desk. You may now imagine the fun on that day I found out half of my discs had stopped working, taking all my back-up data with them to the great beyond. And: -Halfway through the ordeal a contact got loose and I had to start slapping the drat thing to prevent it from suddenly going out. Over the time the loose contact kept getting worse. First a slight tap to the right side was enough, then it had to be a slightly stronger tap exactly at the right edge. Then slaps stopped working altogether and I had to hold the right side up a moment until the monitor came back to life. THEN the monitor only worked if I used books to hold the right side up permanently in just the right angle. And in the final month until I had the money for a new monitor together the monitor still worked, but only if prepped up on my carpet with the right amount of books holding its right side up. On the day I got my new 17" Iiyama monitor we threw the old monster into our basement. Luckily, it got lost as we moved to another place later. I was oddly relieved by that.
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# ? Aug 2, 2012 14:20 |
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Stuporstar posted:Too many boring-rear end phones, not enough strange post-90s technology. My university still uses one of these and it is awesome. I don't know the model but the control panel looks very 60's.
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# ? Aug 2, 2012 15:04 |
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Something that really really should be obsolete, but it still living and thriving, atleast in Scandinavia is Teletext. With the press of a button, you can go back to 80s to get news, weather updates, stock information, sports results and pretty much everything else imaginable, now also on your mobile phone! So how popular is this ancient, slow (loading a page can take over a minute) and ugly form of media? Eva Hamilton, CEO of Sveriges Television, Sweden’s public television network posted:
Read more: Teletext lives on in Scandinavia
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# ? Aug 2, 2012 23:07 |
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gently caress me, teletext still exists? Now I've seen everything, in the UK it was useful for having an accurate TV guide given the issues with last minute program changes but everything about it was absolutely awful. I have to admit it was kind of cool (for five minutes) to browse if you were off school sick to see how inventive some pages were but still, how on earth in the age of having the internet available on demand across multiple platforms is that even still alive?
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# ? Aug 2, 2012 23:18 |
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Blue Square posted:gently caress me, teletext still exists? Now I've seen everything, in the UK it was useful for having an accurate TV guide given the issues with last minute program changes but everything about it was absolutely awful. I have to admit it was kind of cool (for five minutes) to browse if you were off school sick to see how inventive some pages were but still, how on earth in the age of having the internet available on demand across multiple platforms is that even still alive? I don't have a computer and a tv in the same room, it's a quick and easy way of looking up whats on TV and news/weather.
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# ? Aug 2, 2012 23:24 |
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Stuporstar posted:Too many boring-rear end phones, not enough strange post-90s technology. My high school still has one in its planetarium. Its a smaller model, but I've seen it in action once, it was honestly pretty cool.
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# ? Aug 3, 2012 00:13 |
Cornjob posted:I disagree on the "poor selection". Nearly every movie released on VHS from 1980-1997 had a LD counterpart. My grandfather collected laser discs. Every year we'd go to his house in New Jersey and watch them on his massive TV. Besides the usual sci-FI movies and dramas he had Don't Look Now, which traumatized me as a kid with man-rear end.
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# ? Aug 3, 2012 00:14 |
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Blue Square posted:gently caress me, teletext still exists? It still exists in the UK, mate - for another 12 weeks, anyway. After 38 years and 1 month of uninterrupted service, Ceefax updates will finally be discontinued when the last analogue transmitter is turned off on October 24th.
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# ? Aug 3, 2012 00:28 |
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Libluini posted:
That was most likely an unsecured wire in one of the power supply chokes. I can still hear them at 37, but no one else seems to. Unfortunately you can still buy things with that problem, and unless you're willing (and know what you're doing) to open them up and secure them with epoxy, they can drive you to distraction.
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# ? Aug 3, 2012 00:48 |
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Farecoal posted:My high school still has one in its planetarium. Its a smaller model, but I've seen it in action once, it was honestly pretty cool. Your high school has a loving planetarium? My high school was built in the 1950's, and I graduated in 2002..
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# ? Aug 3, 2012 01:54 |
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Blue Square posted:gently caress me, teletext still exists? Now I've seen everything, in the UK it was useful for having an accurate TV guide given the issues with last minute program changes but everything about it was absolutely awful. I have to admit it was kind of cool (for five minutes) to browse if you were off school sick to see how inventive some pages were but still, how on earth in the age of having the internet available on demand across multiple platforms is that even still alive? No, not I think you'll find it was only good for Digitizer and Bamboozle.
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# ? Aug 3, 2012 02:11 |
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brain739 posted:Any other radio goons can attest to how much ancient technology is still currently in-use in mid-powered radio stations, including MiniDisc, 8-track, Arrakis, and more. I worked at a radio station for 7 years that still had solid state tube amps in use and a computer in reception that ran on Windows '98. For high powered applications (50kw & above), tube transmitters are better than their solid state counterparts - plus, on AM, tube transmitters tend to sound better and can take lightning hits that would blow out solid state units. Radio stations are run on the cheap....the station I work at has the automation software running on Win2k boxes....the audio editing workstations are circa 2006 running XP on P4's, and some of the call screener PC's are on Win2k as well - with P3's under the hood. And Denon MD players/recorders along with Marantz tape decks in every studio! But we are a audio over IP plant which is nice (no patch bays...all run over Cat6) - except when the boards need to be rebooted since they glitch every week and don't want to take certain sources anymore. I will say that radio is more fun when you have to segue everything yourself and not let AudioVault/NexGen/ENCO do it for you - makes you "plugged in" and more a part of the show. No automation system can segue quite as nice as a jock can...yet.
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# ? Aug 3, 2012 03:55 |
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Back to old school Mp3 player chat for a minute. I bought this baby here, the iRiver HP-140, way back in 2003 (approaching our 10 year anniversary )and I still use it pretty much daily running RockBox firmware. She's been the jukebox for many a party, affectionately known as "The Brick" by all who witness her delightful bulk. She's been dropped countless times and although the remote crapped out years ago the player itself is still going strong. I was also one of those "but it's so much better than an ipod" guys, but in this case the was definitely justified in my books. The only thing making me want to upgrade to something newer is that 40gb just isn't cutting it for my music collection anymore.
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# ? Aug 3, 2012 04:03 |
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Mac IIsi: Grew up playing Math Blaster and Prince of Persia on this baby.
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# ? Aug 3, 2012 04:16 |
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bigtom posted:the station I work at has the automation software running on Win2k boxes....the audio editing workstations are circa 2006 running XP on P4's, and some of the call screener PC's are on Win2k as well - with P3's under the hood. Did you ever use Wizard, the grandaddy of Nexgen? It was native to Windows 3.1 because 'It's too hard to rewrite for Windows 95/98/ME/NT and the most stable on it' - that was a bit of a spinout, working at a station that had computers with systems older than even my old home dinosaur..
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# ? Aug 3, 2012 04:21 |
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Lankster NZ posted:Back to old school Mp3 player chat for a minute. You call that a brick? Here's a brick: I had that. On the pro side, it sounded great and the built-in FM transmitter worked like a charm. On the other hand, it was kind of temperamental and, well, just look at that thing.
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# ? Aug 3, 2012 04:36 |
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Jesus, that is the ugliest mp3 player I've seen! Must have been fun lugging that around. What is it? looks like a unit on a docking station or something but is it all one piece?
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# ? Aug 3, 2012 04:43 |
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bigtom posted:For high powered applications (50kw & above), tube transmitters are better than their solid state counterparts - plus, on AM, tube transmitters tend to sound better and can take lightning hits that would blow out solid state units. Thank you for clarifying my statement, apparently i posted in mid-edit. Until a certain date in the recent past, our station was almost fully-manual. Just about the only thing the board ops didn't have to do was sing the songs ourselves.
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# ? Aug 3, 2012 04:52 |
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TShields posted:Your high school has a loving planetarium? My high school was built in the 1950's, and I graduated in 2002.. My old high school has a planetarium as well, though I couldn't tell you when they put it in. It was built in the 20s and had some remodeling in the 70s, so maybe then.
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# ? Aug 3, 2012 06:02 |
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We still have Teletex in The Netherlands as well. When I first moved her it confused me to come extent, partially cause I couldn't read Dutch yet ("Pagina? Is that your word for vagina?") and partially because my idiot-rear end ex couldn't explain it properly to me. On sorta that same page (pagina), who remembers the TV Guide channel that had the slow scrolling TV guide, color-coded guide for sports or movies or kids, and that little box up in the corner with ads and previews for shows? It was it's own cable channel and my mom would just watch that sometimes instead of actual TV. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nXpwfNxf4yw&feature=related edit-found better video
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# ? Aug 3, 2012 08:57 |
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redmercer posted:You call that a brick? Here's a brick: That looks like a Dreamcast VMU had sex with a breeze block.
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# ? Aug 3, 2012 10:15 |
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kith_groupie posted:We still have Teletex in The Netherlands as well. When I first moved her it confused me to come extent, partially cause I couldn't read Dutch yet ("Pagina? Is that your word for vagina?") and partially because my idiot-rear end ex couldn't explain it properly to me. Oh man that is dead and gone isn't it? I remember being so pissed as a kid when it said beast wars was on and it ended up being soaps.
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# ? Aug 3, 2012 10:23 |
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Lankster NZ posted:Back to old school Mp3 player chat for a minute. I have one of these that still works fine. It got blown up with me in Iraq a dozen or so times. Still works great. I've dropped this thing in a loving pool of waste and was able to clean it out and have it work flawlessly.
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# ? Aug 3, 2012 11:15 |
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.DAT Azz posted:No, not I think you'll find it was only good for Digitizer and Bamboozle. And Turner the Worm
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# ? Aug 3, 2012 11:41 |
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Camo Guitar posted:Did you ever use Wizard, the grandaddy of Nexgen? It was native to Windows 3.1 because 'It's too hard to rewrite for Windows 95/98/ME/NT and the most stable on it' - that was a bit of a spinout, working at a station that had computers with systems older than even my old home dinosaur.. Thankfully, I did not- at work we use ENCO 3.4...and that is painful enough as is. My Internet streams run on NexGen101 v1 on XP- and I can't upgrade IE past version 6 or the database software won't work right. There are still stations out there running the DOS version of Selector for Gods sake...boggles the mind. Two years ago, I sold 4 AudioVault AV100 boxes running NT4 to the NPR affiliate in Philly since they needed spare units and BE stopped supporting them...radio stations are VERY resistant to change. But it was $200 cash to me, so I'm not complaining!
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# ? Aug 3, 2012 12:44 |
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Teletext is obsolete you say? Luckily you can browse Teksti-TV even if you don't have a TV. Here, have a Teksti-TV page about the weekly news in Latin, through the web, in 2012. http://www.yle.fi/tekstitv/html/P365_01.html EDIT: Holy poo poo they're developing web-based Teksti-TV: http://beta.yle.fi/uber_teksti-tv/ Got to love tax-funded broadcasting. 3D Megadoodoo has a new favorite as of 12:52 on Aug 3, 2012 |
# ? Aug 3, 2012 12:48 |
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gleep glop posted:Oh man that is dead and gone isn't it? I remember being so pissed as a kid when it said beast wars was on and it ended up being soaps. Pretty much now that there is the guide you get just by pressing the remote. There is still a TV Guide channel (I think so, at least) but i have no idea what's on it. Commericals for TV shows I guess. Do they even make TV Guides magazine anymore? I found one from 1998 the other day and it was quite the fun trip down memory lane. With the proliferation of cable and sattelite onscreen guides, I doubt anyone feels the need to buy a special little magazine about what's coming on. Something else I also don't miss-trying to set the VCR to record, and then trying to snake my little hands behind the huge rear end television that weighed more than I did to make sure it was even connected. "Having the TV fall" used to kill toddlers.
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# ? Aug 3, 2012 13:55 |
Jerry Cotton posted:Teletext is obsolete you say? Yeah, it's far from obsolete. If you go to any Finnish convenience store which also deals with betting games, there's usually TVs completely dedicated to teletext-duty showing the latest scores from soccer etc. [e] And all the way from page 8; TI Calculators.. gently caress! I made the mistake of enrolling to a polytechnic school to study BE, and you had two choices when it came to calculators: TI-89 or Voyage 200. Sure, you could buy an older model or go for a Casio, but it was made very clear that only TI-89/V200 was supported, and you were on your own if you had any trouble with your calculator. Mad with student loan money, I of course had to go for the more expensive model. I now have a very expensive (somewhere near 300€) paperweight on my shelf [e2] Rare Collectable posted:The Nokia N-Gage was one of the first attempts to combine a cell with mobile gaming. It was also a spectacular failure. Does anyone know anyone who bought one of these? JointHorse has a new favorite as of 15:13 on Aug 3, 2012 |
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# ? Aug 3, 2012 14:39 |
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What about this baby?
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# ? Aug 3, 2012 14:40 |
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DirtyWorker posted:What about this baby? I still want one. And a BeBox.
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# ? Aug 3, 2012 14:49 |
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Rare Collectable posted:The Nokia N-Gage was one of the first attempts to combine a cell with mobile gaming. It was also a spectacular failure. Does anyone know anyone who bought one of these? Seen one in the wild? I doubt it. You had to hold them sideways and speak into the rim to use it like a phone and they were apparently just awkward all around. Apparently Amazon still has one for sale. I enjoyed reading the almost 10 year old reviews still on that page as well. quote:N-Gage is the best handheld gaming system ever! Plus it plays MP3s, its a cell phone, and a PDA. How could you not buy it. But don't buy it at target!!! Go to EB games or Gamestop you can get it for $199.99 along with 3 awesome games!!!!!!!!!!!!! People say it huge. See how big it is if you took a game boy, an MP3 player, a PDA, and a Cell phone and taped them all together how big would that be. This is a great buy!!!!!!!!!!!!
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# ? Aug 3, 2012 14:51 |
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DirtyWorker posted:What about this baby? Tim Berners-Lee just used on of those in the Olympic ceremonies. He invented the World Wide Web on one of those but never got to show Steve Jobs. quote:BeOS You could play two videos at one AND format a floppy!! Had the guy that was in charge of this not held out for more money from Apple, this may have been the MacOS for many years.
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# ? Aug 3, 2012 16:36 |
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The fact that Tim Berners-Lee used one to tweet during the opening ceremony was a nice touch.
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# ? Aug 3, 2012 16:38 |
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WebDog posted:The fact that Tim Berners-Lee used one to tweet during the opening ceremony was a nice touch. That's awesome. I didn't know that. What about this OS. I remember I thought it was awesome when I was a teenager. Never installed it though. DirtyWorker has a new favorite as of 17:13 on Aug 3, 2012 |
# ? Aug 3, 2012 17:11 |
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ZanderZ posted:I hope to god we can quote this in 10 years and all have a laugh about "limited data plans," but I feel like it's gonna go in the opposite direction. If Google has their way we may be laughing even sooner than that. DirtyWorker posted:What about this baby? If you haven't read Steve Jobs' biography, the sheer number of ego-driven decisions he made developing it was unbelievable. Granted, his insistence on making it into a cube does look pretty cool (it's in the Museum of Modern Art, I believe) but it was ridiculously difficult and expensive to manufacture and I think about $200 of the cost of each computer was the cost of licensing the literature that came bundled in the computer.
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# ? Aug 3, 2012 18:15 |
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Farbtoner posted:If you haven't read Steve Jobs' biography, the sheer number of ego-driven decisions he made developing it was unbelievable. Granted, his insistence on making it into a cube does look pretty cool (it's in the Museum of Modern Art, I believe) but it was ridiculously difficult and expensive to manufacture and I think about $200 of the cost of each computer was the cost of licensing the literature that came bundled in the computer. I've read it, and yeah it was a huge ego trip for Jobs. Great software and computer though. The logo was created by Paul Rand (IBM logo among other things). “I [Jobs] asked him if he would come up with a few options, and he said, ‘No, I will solve your problem for you and you will pay me. You don’t have to use the solution. If you want options go talk to other people.’” To huge rear end egos colliding. The Biography is a great read.
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# ? Aug 3, 2012 18:41 |
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DirtyWorker posted:That's awesome. I didn't know that. This OS WAS awesome. It ran Win3.1 programs FASTER than Win3.1 itself.
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# ? Aug 3, 2012 18:50 |
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# ? Mar 28, 2024 12:34 |
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TELIX for DOS This was THE software for connecting to BBSs back in the day. And any BBS that used ANSI was just sooo pretty! I kinda miss the days of dialing up a BBS, and spending hours reading posts, playing games, and downloading files (lots and lots of hours for that...).
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# ? Aug 3, 2012 19:09 |