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Someone mentioned slide rules earlier. I had to sit some exams for work recently and the permitted calculator list had four modern basic calculators on it, as well as the charming phrase "slide rules are also permitted". Of course one motherfucker actually brings an antique slide rule in with him, presumably as backup in case his main calculator fails. I don't know if he actually used it, or indeed if he even knew how to. Teletext was another ancient technology; its high point was beaming a picture of an ejaculating penis through the airwaves into every British household, excused by the caption "Turner the Worm being sick"
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Sep 16, 2012 02:38
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lenitic posted:Teletext was another ancient technology; its high point was beaming a picture of an ejaculating penis through the airwaves into every British household, excused by the caption "Turner the Worm being sick" Here's wikipedia's brief mention of that occurence. I had to look it up because I was confused and mixed up teletype and teletext. Teletype is also pretty obsolete, but it gave us things such as the ASCII standard, which is the basis of Unicode and pretty much every other modern encoding used on the internet today, and TTY devices on *nix-based OS'es.
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Sep 16, 2012 02:49
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Landerig posted:Yeah. Then twenty years later you decide to replace it with a more modern TV only to realize that heavy son of a bitch isn't leaving your living room without a fight.  I want modern tech in this style.
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Sep 16, 2012 02:53
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Another MD adopter checking in. I bought the S2 Sports MD player to take skiing, because my cd players all sucked, and had like 3 second anti-skip (which barely worked). This thing was like 1.5" thick, and also weighed a lot, because I think the case was actually metal. It was tough as poo poo though, and the only thing that ever happened when i fell on it was my ribs hurt like hell. The software was a titanic pile of turd though, as previously mentioned. I burned like 6 or 7 MD's and that was about it. I still have it around here somewhere. I think I skied in those crappy sports headphones too, held in by my goggle strap.  ouch
Fantastipotamus has a new favorite as of 03:02 on Sep 16, 2012 |
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Sep 16, 2012 03:00
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Obsolete technology can lead to obsolete furniture.  The changeover from heavy, 4:3 SD TVs to light, widescreen, HDTVs meant a lot of cheap TV cabinets ending up in the front lawns here over time. Sure, you could put a smaller HDTV in there, but due to the aspect ratio, you ended up with a wide gap above that just never looked right.
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Sep 16, 2012 03:49
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Television aspect ratio is a conspiracy among furniture makers and eventually they're going to change to a bizarre vertical rectangle ratio just to gently caress with everyone. It'll make for some oddly shaped laptops. My grandmother and her sister both had gargantuan console televisions. In the latter's case, when it stopped working, she actually put a functional television on top of it. I've always wanted to somehow recover one of them, put a fishtank where the television is, and just set a regular set on top of it. I don't think I've seen anyone mention mini casette recorders yet. For some reason, it was a fad when I was in middle school to carry around a tape recorder that used teeny little tapes to record. I used to have a whole stack of them filled with my addled 13 year old dictation, but I have no idea where they went. They were supplanted by digital versions that don't need a tape, and I haven't seen anyone using anything remotely like a personal recorder in years.
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Sep 16, 2012 03:57
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Parallel Paraplegic posted:Unless all of those jacks were wired to separate physical phone lines (like, separate lines that went all the way to the phone company, which would likely have separate numbers), or analog home phone technology was simplified by leaps and bounds since the 80's (it hasn't, to my knowledge) I can't really think of a way the phone company would even be able to tell if you had multiple phones. All the jacks in your house go to a single box outside where they are all wired together and connected to the main line that comes into your house. I guess they could measure resistance or inductance or something on the line while you used it, more phones would take more energy to ring and provide more resistance etc, but that would be pretty rough unless they knew the specifics about every single phone in your house. Of course I'm not an expert, just some rear end in a top hat who knows about his home phone system and basic electronics principles. Does anyone else know if that's even possible? Yes, it's possible, especially back in the day when phone ringers were mechanical devices that were fairly standardized, and which drew quite a bit of power. Part of the reason phone companies tracked that was so they didn't burn out their infrastructure (even today, you're probably restricted to a certain REN, or "ringer equivalence number," on a landline, although there's not a chance in hell you'll ever hit it). But, most of the reason was so they could tack on an extra charge for everything they could.
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Sep 16, 2012 04:14
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Thulsa Doom posted:I've always wanted to somehow recover one of them, put a fishtank where the television is, and just set a regular set on top of it.  I have one of these old ones on my porch (just got the new one last weekend) & a fishtank in my living room. If either were mine & I had the space for it I'd do it, but alas, they are my brother-in-law's.
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Sep 16, 2012 04:17
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FrancisYorkPatty posted:gently caress. Trinitrons. Did someone say Trinitron?   Why, you may ask, is that giant loving monitor sitting under my table? Because I don't know how to get rid of it. The beast finally started dying a couple years ago (the screen started flickering and making terrifying electrical sounds) and I honestly don't know how the gently caress to get rid of it. I don't think I can bring it to the dump since I'm certain it has chemicals/metals in it that need special disposal. I can't sell it or give it away because it's probably going to start an electrical fire and/or explode if plugged in again. I'm sure as hell not going to risk carrying it down into my basement (or any stairs at all). All I can do is let it take up a good chunk of floor space. I actually bought it a few years back from a dude on Craigslist. I drove 45 minutes to get this bad boy because I needed a replacement CRT monitor fast (I'm an illustrator and didn't want to chance getting a cheap LCD with lovely color/contrast). I pay the guy, pick it up, and immediately buckle. The guy asked me if I needed help carrying it to my car, but I said no, because I knew I'd need to carry it OUT of my car by myself when I got home. That thing had to be at least 40 lbs. Then I get to my car and the damned thing almost doesn't fit through my car door. I almost couldn't fit a MONITOR in my car. But damned if that monitor didn't give me the crispest picture, richest contrast and perfect color. When it died, I finally spent the money on a quality LCD monitor. A month later, my dad calls me into the kitchen and asks, "Deathcake, do you have any idea why the electric bill dropped so much this month?" loving thing had been jacking our electric bill up by around 25%. I am not even kidding. FrancisYorkPatty posted:I'll put this in perspective: I work for a moving company, and we charge a step fee for items that go up or down stairs which we have deemed "unnecessarily cumbersome" (IE: We loving Hate These Things) Absolutely justified.
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Sep 16, 2012 04:32
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SimplyCosmic posted:Obsolete technology can lead to obsolete furniture. My dad just put a couple of shelves where the TV used to go and popped the new flatscreen on top.
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Sep 16, 2012 04:44
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Space Gopher posted:Yes, it's possible, especially back in the day when phone ringers were mechanical devices that were fairly standardized, and which drew quite a bit of power. Part of the reason phone companies tracked that was so they didn't burn out their infrastructure (even today, you're probably restricted to a certain REN, or "ringer equivalence number," on a landline, although there's not a chance in hell you'll ever hit it). But, most of the reason was so they could tack on an extra charge for everything they could. Neat, I forgot that back then the ring signal itself actually had to power a physical ringer mechanism and in that case I can see how you could pretty easily tell them apart. Add "electromechanical bells" to the list of obsolete technology I guess 
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Sep 16, 2012 04:47
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Deathcake posted:Did someone say Trinitron? You could list it in the free section of craigslist. I'm sure someone will take it off your hands to get the copper inside.
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Sep 16, 2012 04:48
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Landerig posted:You could list it in the free section of craigslist. I'm sure someone will take it off your hands to get the copper inside. Also my local dump has a "hazardous materials recycling center" right next to the main landfill dumping area, and they take old CRT's and TV's and fluorescent lights with mercury in them and all sorts of other fun and dangerous crap. Maybe you have one of those too? Of course you'd have to GET IT THERE first...
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Sep 16, 2012 04:52
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Landerig posted:You could list it in the free section of craigslist. I'm sure someone will take it off your hands to get the copper inside. Copper scavengers will strip the pipes off a house and let it explode for a few bucks, a potentially fire-causing monitor is nothing.
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Sep 16, 2012 04:56
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You Are A Elf posted:Also, how about console TVs and stereos that were made to look like, and blend in as pieces of living room furniture? The correct way to own a console television today is to remove the old television and install a flat screen hooked up to a pc into the wood frame. While the screen ratios are different, old 4:3 ratio televisions sometimes have dials off to the left or right which will push the actual size of the set closer to the size of a your modern TV.
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Sep 16, 2012 04:59
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Deathcake posted:Did someone say Trinitron? When I moved into my current apartment years back, I had two 21" CRTs, one of which was a Trinitron. Both of which were at least 80-100 pounds. I live on the third floor. I eventually gave them both away on Craigslist, which was a pain too, but at least I never have to deal with them again.
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Sep 16, 2012 04:59
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Parallel Paraplegic posted:Neat, I forgot that back then the ring signal itself actually had to power a physical ringer mechanism and in that case I can see how you could pretty easily tell them apart. Add "electromechanical bells" to the list of obsolete technology I guess Even today, the ring signal carries a lot of juice. It's still enough to run a bell, if you happen to have one of the ancient-style battleship phones around. A couple of years ago, I was fixing my mom's phone jack after some mechanical damage. I didn't bother to unplug it at the outside wall, because hey, what are the odds the phone will ring in the middle of a five-minute job? Holy gently caress that was a bad decision. I've been shocked with stuff that should be worse - but for some reason, phones just hurt.
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Sep 16, 2012 05:01
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Baron von Eevl posted:My dad just put a couple of shelves where the TV used to go and popped the new flatscreen on top. Who else remembers the immense confusion caused by this term when flat screens were still being made, but flat panels were available?
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Sep 16, 2012 05:48
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SimplyCosmic posted:Obsolete technology can lead to obsolete furniture. Same with those old 90's computer desks that have the tall cabinet for the PC tower (that I don't actually have my tower in), the sliding shelf for the keyboard (which is cluttered with books and papers since nobody on the planet could type comfortably as low as this one is), and a raised platform for a single monitor. I just had a significant monitor upgrade, so now I have a passable backup monitor that I could use to run a dual-screen setup at home, but the old hand-me-down desk I'm using just isn't built for it.
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Sep 16, 2012 05:53
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VogeGandire posted:
Posting this from an R40, 2003 vintage. Battery still holds a 3-4 hour charge, suck it 2012 laptops.
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Sep 16, 2012 06:21
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TShields posted:Same with those old 90's computer desks that have the tall cabinet for the PC tower (that I don't actually have my tower in), the sliding shelf for the keyboard (which is cluttered with books and papers since nobody on the planet could type comfortably as low as this one is), and a raised platform for a single monitor. I just had a significant monitor upgrade, so now I have a passable backup monitor that I could use to run a dual-screen setup at home, but the old hand-me-down desk I'm using just isn't built for it. I used to have a massive old computer desk that had an insert of glass on the desk top and a shelf below to hold the monitor at angle. The idea was that you then had all the desk top surface without the monitor taking up space and could look down at the monitor through the glass when you needed to use it. In practice, it was really uncomfortable to stare down through the glass so I just kept the monitor on top of the desk like a normal person. But I guess massive computer desks designed to hold giant monitors and computer towers are obsolete now too.
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Sep 16, 2012 06:24
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Chalk up another MiniDisc-er. I got in when they first came out with the USB ones, so you didn't have to dub stuff to them. nthing how absolutely loving horrible Sony's software was. SimplyCosmic posted:Obsolete technology can lead to obsolete furniture. I'm pretty sure my family had that exact cabinet. It got pushed out of the loungeroom when we got our first widescreen TV, although for a slightly different, and quite stupid, reason. My dad was at the store getting a new TV, haggled the guy down to a good discount, then called me at home to measure the width of the gap to make sure it would fit in. Me: "Sure, where's the tape measure?" Dad: "Don't worry about that, just measure it with your hand" ....without considering that I might have smaller hands than him. 2ndclasscitizen has a new favorite as of 07:00 on Sep 16, 2012 |
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Sep 16, 2012 06:52
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SimplyCosmic posted:Obsolete technology can lead to obsolete furniture. It shocks me how many people continue to do this (put a small HDTV in an old TV cabinet.) I just helped a friend of mine install a 27" LCD TV in his grandparents' home, when he suggested they throw out the cabinet they had and buy a larger TV to be mounted on the wall they refused because they had spent several hundred dollars on their cabinet (in the mid-90s.) I should also add they had a tuner/early surround sound system from the late 80s which they were highly resistant to throwing out even though it lacked proper connections to work with the new TV or HD cable box  Space Gopher posted:I didn't bother to unplug it at the outside wall, because hey, what are the odds the phone will ring in the middle of a five-minute job? Its roughly the same as getting shocked by a household outlet - the "ring" signal sent down the line is something like 90 volts AC at 20 Hz. This is also why I hate wiring crews that wire phone outlets with RJ45 ports - I've had to replace more than a few system boards in computers that were plugged back into a sill live but unused phone line that's right next to a network jack by cleaning crews. Geoj has a new favorite as of 07:01 on Sep 16, 2012 |
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Sep 16, 2012 06:59
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Goober Peas posted:I figured this would be a good thread to post a nostalgic question (though I realize I'm probably in the older 1/3 of goons). They could roughly measure how many phones were on a line. It's explained here how that worked. However, it's unlikely that they went looking unless you called about a problem. If you were paranoid you could always hack your extra phones to disable the ringer circuit making them essentially undetectable. Phone company technicians actually had to do this occasionally if a customer had a large number of phones on one line. Still, back in the day when the phone company was "The Phone Company" in the monolithic sense, plugging in unapproved phones or "unauthorized foreign devices" like answering machines or modems was strictly forbidden. In fact, early modems and teletype machines used acoustic couplers because it was the only way that Ma Bell allowed these devices on the network as it meant that they weren't directly connected. On a related note, does anyone remember when cable companies used to charge you a fee per activated outlet in the house? We just split the line ourselves once it was inside, but I guess that standard practice used to be to terminate everything in the lock-box outside so the cable company had complete control over everything and could charge you more for extra TVs in an era before cable boxes were the norm. Deathcake posted:Did someone say Trinitron? I finally dumped my last remaining CRT device, a 32" Sony flatscreen, earlier this year and I honestly don't miss it. Yes, the colors and contrast on it were amazing, but I don't miss the never quite perfect picture geometry, convergence issues and overscan. Plus, once you get used to the ultra-crisp text on an LCD even the best CRT seems blurry. It wasn't even practical to keep around as a second TV since it weighed 150lbs and just took up too much space no matter where I put it. I actually got $125 for it from some goofy videophile type.
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Sep 16, 2012 07:40
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Deathcake posted:Did someone say Trinitron? Take it to any Best Buy customer service desk and they'll recycle it for you for free. Taking it to the dump or any e-recycling facility will charge you, some per pound.
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Sep 16, 2012 08:17
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Anybody remember this piece of poo poo? This thing was a wet dream for ten-year-olds. Imagine being able to play 52 games without having to change a cartridge! And then you stuck it in and found out you actually couldn't play any of them, because they all sucked.
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Sep 16, 2012 08:34
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razorrozar posted:Anybody remember this piece of poo poo? The Angry Video Game Nerd did a review of this pile of poo poo a while back, and every single game on it is poo poo. Have an embed: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a4QBeADNM34 There's also a part 2 where he talks about Cheetahmen (and I think Cheetahmen 2).
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Sep 16, 2012 08:48
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Is that suggested retail price of $200 a "that's what you'd pay for all these games by themselves!" type deal, or were there other games that actually cost $200?
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Sep 16, 2012 09:20
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Parallel Paraplegic posted:Is that suggested retail price of $200 a "that's what you'd pay for all these games by themselves!" type deal, or were there other games that actually cost $200? As the nerd says, it averages out to $4 a game, or thereabouts. So technically you're getting an amazing deal, especially in the days before steam and five dollar games like Eversion and the Binding of Isaac that are actually good. The problem is that not a single game is playable in any measure, for a variety of reasons, and the cartridge is not worth two cents, let alone twenty thousand cents. Also they crammed too much poo poo in the cartridge and it doesn't cool efficiently so in some cases it could get hot enough to damage the NES, just as a final "gently caress you" after you play fifty lovely games (two of them crash on selection).
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Sep 16, 2012 10:12
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lenitic posted:Teletext was another ancient technology; its high point was beaming a picture of an ejaculating penis through the airwaves into every British household, excused by the caption "Turner the Worm being sick" Here's the actual image - linked as it would qualify as  http://www.flickr.com/photos/8393398@N02/506622777/ That's one way to finish your job tenure, I guess.
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Sep 16, 2012 10:19
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razorrozar posted:The problem is that not a single game is playable in any measure, for a variety of reasons, and the cartridge is not worth two cents, let alone twenty thousand cents. Oh yeah, the same company also announced this monstrosity at a CES:  They disappeared not long after.
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Sep 16, 2012 10:47
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mrkillboy posted:As I recall, Active Enterprises, the company that developed the Action 52 actually ran a contest to promote the game by offering a cash prize of $104,000 if you were the first to complete one of the games on the cart. The problem was, aside from the fact that the contest was probably a huge scam, was that the chosen game was unbeatable; like the others it was a buggy piece of poo poo that crashed after the first level. Oh yeah, I forgot about that. The game you had to beat was Ooze; you had to take a picture of the final screen and send it to the company. And Ooze was one of the few games that actually didn't crash on the first level! It waited until the next-to-last level instead!
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Sep 16, 2012 11:22
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mrkillboy posted:They disappeared not long after. Or did they?
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Sep 16, 2012 15:50
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There are videos on youtube that claim the kickstarter is a hoax. I don't know the truthfulness, and its too much of a hassle to embed on my phone, so I am not sure what to think about it.
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Sep 16, 2012 16:21
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razorrozar posted:Anybody remember this piece of poo poo? I've been rather fascinated by Action 52 for a long time. There were a lot of unanswered questions, such as the size of the ROM (2 MB when NES games typically didn't exceed 256 KB. The Sega Genesis version, programmed by a more competent company clocks in at 1.99 MB) The music, some of it which was good or decent, and the weird jumping controls that improved in later games. I've found answers to most of these questions. The huge ROM size can be partly attributed to many many game tiles and sprites that were not used in the game, including a title screen for The French Baker. The sound engine was stolen, as was most of the music. The menu code was likely stolen from another 52 in one multicart. The only explanation I can think of for the jumping is the team of three college students who programmed this started out with one jumping engine, then very late in development came up with a better engine, but it was too late to go back and redo the games. Also noteworthy is NES emulation these days is pretty flawless. Even so, Action 52 can behave wildly different depending on which emulator you play it on. On some, it may run better then it does on the NES and you can play the two games that crash on the NES. On other emulators, games may have no enemy sprites, or sprites that float in a weird diagonal fashion, or they crash as soon as they load. Or like Cheetahmen, have the game freeze with the hit sound playing repeatedly, the character stuck in their walk/run animation, and the color palettes randomly changing.
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Sep 16, 2012 16:26
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It sounds like they want thousands of dollars to put the ROM with this patch on a real cart.
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Sep 16, 2012 17:14
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On the subject of MP3 CD players, I had this piece of hardware back in the day: Took 2 AAs and lasted quite some time with it, and also had no problems with CD-RWs. The problem it did have was that the display screwed up when ID3v2 tags were involved. As for phones, I picked up this one on eBay to replace my Nokia 3310:  The Siemens S55. One of the first camera phones, with an actual separate camera module to click into the bottom port. Battery lasted a week, and the one I picked up came with a spare battery and a stand that had a slot underneath so you could charge both the spare battery and your phone at the same time. It also connected to my PC via a serial cable, and the contact info I put in there via Outlook still lives on in my current Android phone due to synching with every new phone and computer I got. It also had GPRS support, which meant mobile internet for me(Despite a horribly low-res screen) It also featured both Bluetooth and infrared, and it was relatively small. Hell, I could even put MIDI files on there to use as ringtones. Later on as smartphones were developed more, I ended up buying this baby:  Also known as the HTC Wizard. A Windows Mobile based phone with a slide-out keyboard. Battery life was decent, text input was reasonably manageable, and it played video files you could put on a MiniSD card that slotted in the top. Later on I bought a separate Bluetooth GPS module and gave it a dual purpose as a navigation device by installing a copy of TomTom for Windows Mobile on it. I ended up replacing it with an iPhone 3G when those came out, but due to my job at the time I carried a separate one as work cellphone.
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Sep 16, 2012 17:21
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I had one of the earlier Siemens phones, which stood out from everyone else's Nokia 3310 because it had a bright orange glowing screen instead of a green one. The case was blue, but I can't remember the exact name of it.
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Sep 16, 2012 17:52
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Was it the A50? I had one as my first phone, loved the little thing. 
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Sep 16, 2012 18:21
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Landerig posted:I've been rather fascinated by Action 52 for a long time. There were a lot of unanswered questions, such as the size of the ROM (2 MB when NES games typically didn't exceed 256 KB. The Sega Genesis version, programmed by a more competent company clocks in at 1.99 MB) The music, some of it which was good or decent, and the weird jumping controls that improved in later games. I owned one of these as a kid  Luckily I think we got it at a yardsale for a dollar. The one thing that always stayed with me was the intro music. I didn't learn until much later that it was actually It Takes two.
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