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Farbtoner posted:If Google has their way we may be laughing even sooner than that. I play with one of these at least once a month in the museum I volunteer at. It is so loving huge.
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Aug 3, 2012 19:28
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When I was a kid if you wanted to play games it was all about vacuum fluorescent table top arcade games. I guess the most popular were these bad boys:  VFD tech was very power hungry for a battery powered game so most of the time games would be plugged into the wall with a Grandstand transformer. They were rendered obsolete once LCD started to take over with it's huge battery life and compact designs and once the Gameboy made an appearence they were forgot for good. Still many happy memories remain about all the arcade conversions that were made. Of course VFD is still used in all sorts of home entertainment equipment due to it's bright display but as far as games go it's dead.
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Aug 3, 2012 20:22
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The best thing about these was that they were basically turn-based. That's right; turn based shooters. I had Firefox F7: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MbEAyFlIVvo and Munchman (turn based pacman): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9i26UfJY36E Actually some serious nostalgia from those videos 
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Aug 3, 2012 20:56
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Back to TI graphing calculator talk! I love my TI-86 with a burning passion. Our high school math class required everyone to have a graphing calculator, and the school's calculator of choice was a spindly, toy-like Casio, which they sold out to students for 100€ each. I got my dad's old TI-86, laughing at the others' screens full of dead pixels and stupid interactive vinculums while I wrote all my divisions out in pages-long lines like a professional. I will champion this old war horse to the bitter end. Look at this bad boy. You want graphs? I can give you graphs. Vectors? Matrixes? No problem, dude. You want to program this bitch? gently caress you, the TI-86 doesn't play by your rules. I never got my programs to work properly. The teacher only taught the stupid Casios' stupid regular BASIC and TI-BASIC was slightly different. 
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Aug 3, 2012 22:04
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It's not a piece of hardware itself, but if you're into old computers and technology check out Computer Chronicles. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u497lO2DX9w
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Aug 3, 2012 22:17
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Internet Archive has at least a good portion of the episodes here: http://archive.org/details/computerchronicles The show really is a goldmine of obsolete and failed technology, from the demonstration of software no one uses anymore to sales charts showing names no one knows today outselling Apple, Microsoft, and IBM.
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Aug 3, 2012 22:34
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kith_groupie posted: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. There's still a TV Guide channel, they have the scrolling guide on the bottom and play movies/their own shows(like talk shows and poo poo I think) on the top. My dad watches it all the time, since the cable provider for our town doesn't have a guide that pops up on the screen.
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Aug 3, 2012 22:35
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Forktoss posted:Back to TI graphing calculator talk! I love my TI-86 with a burning passion. Our high school math class required everyone to have a graphing calculator, and the school's calculator of choice was a spindly, toy-like Casio, which they sold out to students for 100€ each. I got my dad's old TI-86, laughing at the others' screens full of dead pixels and stupid interactive vinculums while I wrote all my divisions out in pages-long lines like a professional. I will champion this old war horse to the bitter end. Your Dad's? Okay, now I feel old. You don't know how good you've got it. Look how streamlined it is compared to the one I have! You've got curved buttons, the entire thing is ergonomic!  The funny thing? I think both of these have greater or at least equivalent functionality than the TI-XX of today. Because anything more would be 'cheating'. Can't let those kids automatically solve for X!
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Aug 3, 2012 22:41
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DirtyWorker posted:What about this baby? I have one sitting on my desk, right next to an Indy  The monitor cable is in shambles though, I need to re-solder the connector back on. And my awesomely huge 9GB SCSI drive died, so I need to buy a new one at some point.
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Aug 3, 2012 22:43
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80's Robots, I thought they would take over the world dammit.
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Aug 3, 2012 22:48
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MOAR posted:80's Robots, I thought they would take over the world dammit. Tab and New Coke are obsolete technology in their own right.
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Aug 3, 2012 22:50
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MOAR posted:80's Robots, I thought they would take over the world dammit. Unless I'm mistaken, that's from the new Muppets movie- which was loving fantastic, by the way.
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Aug 4, 2012 05:29
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Kheldarn posted:TELIX for DOS Wait, I remember BBSes only allowing 20-60 mins/day per user, was this not typically the case?
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Aug 4, 2012 05:36
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AlternateAccount posted:Wait, I remember BBSes only allowing 20-60 mins/day per user, was this not typically the case? If I remember correctly, you had to maintain a certain ratio of what you uploaded to what you downloaded.
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Aug 4, 2012 06:31
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AlternateAccount posted:Wait, I remember BBSes only allowing 20-60 mins/day per user, was this not typically the case? Naw, it's okay, they're using Z-modem, they can resume their download(Rise of the Triad?) if their time allowance interrupts it! Man that picture is inducing some serious nostalgia. I used Telix to waste so much time on BBS's. I can't believe that website is still functional, and that they're still selling it. For $79. $69 if you're willing to settle for the DOS version.
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Aug 4, 2012 06:37
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TShields posted:Unless I'm mistaken, that's from the new Muppets movie- which was loving fantastic, by the way. That's definitely '80s Robot from The Muppets, but he's really just a knockoff of Tomy's Omnibot 2000.  Of course, the true king of 80s toy tech will always be Milton Bradley's Big Track. 
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Aug 4, 2012 06:51
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Whoah. Tell me that is where BioWare got the idea for the Mako in the original Mass Effect.
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Aug 4, 2012 07:28
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Forktoss posted:Back to TI graphing calculator talk! I love my TI-86 with a burning passion. Our high school math class required everyone to have a graphing calculator, and the school's calculator of choice was a spindly, toy-like Casio, which they sold out to students for 100€ each. I got my dad's old TI-86, laughing at the others' screens full of dead pixels and stupid interactive vinculums while I wrote all my divisions out in pages-long lines like a professional. I will champion this old war horse to the bitter end. I remember playing Dope Wars on that bad boy!
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Aug 4, 2012 07:55
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Turnquiet posted:Whoah. Tell me that is where BioWare got the idea for the Mako in the original Mass Effect. The mako was actually based on a real vehicle called the LAV-25. Anyway, though my only knowledge of it comes from the internet, I think that the GameLine for the Atari 2600 deserves a mention.  Essentially, it was an oversized game cartridge with a phone jack in the side of it. The way it worked is you would plug it into your wall, and then call up the company. You'd then order the game over the phone, and it would actually download into the game cartridge. The GameLine itself cost $60 to buy, plus $1 for each game you downloaded. The downloads would expire after a limited number of plays, so it was more analogous to playing on an arcade than anything else. However, the GameLine was released in 1982, which was right before the videogame crash -- by 1983 a single dollar was actually pretty expensive for just a few plays, considering you could just buy the game for not much more. It had a total of 75 games available throughout its life, and almost none of them were any good. There was only a single exclusive game made for it, but the service was discontinued in 1984 before it could be released. It seems so primitive now, but the technology was just crazy ahead of its time. The guy who invented it had actually planned using the technology as a way of letting people download and listen to music through their TV, but after that fell through he repurposed the idea. It never panned out, but he planned to expand the GameLine so that it could do things like email, check the stock market, and home banking. The company that made it, CVC, would eventually go on to become America Online.
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Aug 4, 2012 10:27
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Bhodi posted:Your Dad's? Okay, now I feel old. Seeing these two posts made me realize I don't even know what a modern calculator looks like. Found this in my desk drawer:  The weird thing is it's apparently an original 1976 model BA II Plus, and I'm not that old. :/ I think it's one that I "borrowed" from high school when I lost mine in the early 90s and never returned. Of course, now you can just download a BA II Plus iphone app.
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Aug 4, 2012 10:55
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leidend posted:Seeing these two posts made me realize I don't even know what a modern calculator looks like. Found this in my desk drawer: You mean 1986 ? There were no lcd calcs in 76
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Aug 4, 2012 11:32
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SimplyCosmic posted:
Great news everyone! http://www.bigtrakisback.com/xtr-coming-soon/
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Aug 4, 2012 11:34
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TShields posted:Unless I'm mistaken, that's from the new Muppets movie- which was loving fantastic, by the way. Indeed, it's Kermits butler but how did kermit get a mansion anyway?
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Aug 4, 2012 11:58
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"HAPPY BIRTHDAY PAULIE" I can't get it out of my head 
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Aug 4, 2012 12:08
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Fozaldo posted:You mean 1986 ? There were no lcd calcs in 76 I got that year from this page: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Texas_Instruments_Business_Analyst The photo caption of the same calculator says 1976, but the article says the first LCD was 1978. So... I have no idea.
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Aug 4, 2012 12:29
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What did handheld calculators use as displays before LCD's? Like the kind of display Speak and Spells had?
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Aug 4, 2012 12:41
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Elim Garak posted:What did handheld calculators use as displays before LCD's? Like the kind of display Speak and Spells had? And before that VFT (vacuum fluorescent tube display). Which was expensive or difficult to make or something. My dad has an old one that has a display of four digits and you have to press a button to switch between showing the first four and the last four digits of a big number. It isn't this one, but it looks a bit like it and is built on the same principles: 
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Aug 4, 2012 13:05
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Wanamingo posted:The mako was actually based on a real vehicle called the LAV-25. Talk about being ahead of its time. I guess that would be Steam's great great grandfather.
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Aug 4, 2012 15:25
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Bhodi posted:Your Dad's? Okay, now I feel old. I've got one of those things(handed down) and drat if it isn't reliable.
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Aug 4, 2012 16:29
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Landerig posted:Talk about being ahead of its time. I guess that would be Steam's great great grandfather. I got more of a Phantom vibe from it.
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Aug 4, 2012 17:13
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Terrible Robot posted:I got more of a Phantom vibe from it. A more direct descendant would be The Sega Channel It was a similar concept for the Sega Genesis, but it was a device that you rented from your cable provider for a monthly fee. It plugged in to your Genesis's cartage slot and your cable, can every thirty days the selection of games changed. 50 different games every month, with unlimited play time for $15-25. It truly was incredible... http://www.okaygeek.com/blog/remembering-the-sega-channel.html
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Aug 4, 2012 18:15
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Speaking of videogame technology, Expansion Module #1 for the Colecovision. It was essentially an Atari 2600 without controllers that connected to your Colecovision. They quickly stopped selling them for legal reasons, but if you were lucky enough to get one before that (we were), then it was great. It's something that'd be completely unheard of today; imagine something you connect to your Xbox to play PS2 games or something.
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Aug 4, 2012 18:29
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buttopticor posted:imagine something you connect to your Xbox to play PS2 games or something. How about playstation games on your dreamcast? 
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Aug 4, 2012 18:41
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buttopticor posted:Speaking of videogame technology, Expansion Module #1 for the Colecovision. I still have one, it still works too. Unfortunately its all my Coleco is good for now, since the chip for controller input on the ColecoVision is unshielded and mine has succumbed to static  .Speaking of ColecoVision and controllers let me inroduce you to the best game controller ever made: The Super Action Controller  It was designed for use with sports games, but really it's the only way to play coleco games. And since it used a generic 9-pin connector it is also the only way to play atari, MasterSystem and Genesis/Megadrive games. Well only one of the trigger buttons maps to A on the Genesis, and the spin wheel alternates between start and B so you can play Sonic at least.
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Aug 4, 2012 19:07
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Another favorite of mine is Nixie Tubes These were used to display limited info like on scales and numerical readouts of scientific equipment. They could display whatever they were made to but mostly numbers. I think they are beautiful to look at and take me right back to my childhood watching science programs in the 70s. You can now buy fantastic clocks like this in kit form or made up.  If you happen to come across any of these tubes be sure to look them up as some of them are worth a fortune.
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Aug 4, 2012 19:46
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Zombie Rasputin posted:How about playstation games on your dreamcast? Holy crap, there is a logo I haven't seen in years. Remember the whole debacle between the Bleem Team and Sony. Bleem won on all counts, but had to close up shop due to the legal fees. :/
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Aug 4, 2012 20:27
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Fozaldo posted:When I was a kid if you wanted to play games it was all about vacuum fluorescent table top arcade games. You've reminded me of the bad boy of childhood portable video games : the TomyTronic 3D, a crap Game & Watch game displayed on a terrible lovely set of goggles   I had the enthusiastically named THUNDERING TURBO, a car racing thing based around pressing left or right to dodge other cars on a racetrack until you got bored or your 3 AA batteries ran out (10 minutes tops, given that if you were playing with this piece of poo poo you could only afford knock-off batteries from the market) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7u8luKgrevk wow, what fun. Thanks, childhood friend who stole all my micro machines and then gave me this as an apology. Mousepractice has a new favorite as of 22:26 on Aug 4, 2012 |
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Aug 4, 2012 22:24
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Mousepractice posted:You've reminded me of the bad boy of childhood portable video games : the TomyTronic 3D, a crap Game & Watch game displayed on a terrible lovely set of goggles Don't forget to mention that you had to have a tonne of light shining through that white window on the top of the unit or it was pretty much unplayable too. No clandestine, midnight under the sheets gameplay.
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Aug 4, 2012 22:48
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Elim Garak posted:What did handheld calculators use as displays before LCD's? Like the kind of display Speak and Spells had? Flipperwaldt posted:Yes, LED display. And even earlier:  The Curta handheld calculator from 1948, designed by Curt Herzstark while a prisoner in the Buchenwald concentration camp.
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Aug 5, 2012 00:54
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IIRC the Curta is what gave us the term "crunching numbers" because of the sound it made while working. Things are seriously cool as hell, I wish they weren't so expensive.
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Aug 5, 2012 01:00
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