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El Estrago Bonito posted:The issue is that the DC uses a gigabyte sized disc and a standard CDR is 750mb. Most games are in the 400-650 range and fit fine on a standard CD but any game that actually used all the space (Shenmue II for instance) would have to be cut down. The easiest way to do this is by replacing the music files since they are usually uncompressed WAV files in a directory on the disc. Another issue was that the images of ripped Dreamcast games were waaaaaaaaay different in structure compared to legit discs, and by that I mean a complete mess that Echelon wrapped up nicely in bin/cue format. Because of this, the laser usually had to move all over the place to read data, and worked hard with rips that were especially chopped-up and dummied images. Over time, the laser would be picky on when it reads, or just stop altogether, but you could usually squeeze another year or two out of it by loving with the potentiometer whenever it'd start acting up. It was still a lot more graceful than playing with your Playstation on it's side There was actually a cool project to combat this that involved creating/structuring highly-efficient DC rips to burn on normal CD's, and they ended up performing pretty much the same or superior to legit discs, and the dude that did this covered pretty much the entire worthwhile library. A lot of DC's could've been saved if it didn't only just finish a year ago
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# ? Oct 13, 2012 14:58 |
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# ? Mar 29, 2024 11:43 |
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Mister Kingdom posted:For those of you young whipper-snappers who collect old vinyl and notice that double albums are numbered Side 1/3 and 2/4, this is why.
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# ? Oct 13, 2012 15:05 |
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WithoutTheFezOn posted:I think you made a slight mistake. They were sides 1/4 on one record and 2/3 on the other, as I remember. Then the flip trick works. I had to check some of my double albums and you're right. Oddly enough, several of them are numbered 1/2 and 3/4.
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# ? Oct 13, 2012 15:22 |
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El Estrago Bonito posted:
I was involved in some prelaunch software developement for the Xbox around that time. One of the things that the Microsoft guys told us was that copy protection for the first year would be lax so they could gain a foothold in the market. Although piracy was generally deemed negative, Sony did find that hardware sales benefitted from the easy to copy format on the PS. All in all, you have to be a big player to survive in the console racket, as the trend was starting to become selling at a loss to get market share.
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# ? Oct 13, 2012 16:01 |
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Wasn't Nero Burning ROM's popularity created in part for it being able to make copies of Playstation discs back in the day?
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# ? Oct 13, 2012 16:26 |
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I feel bad for owning an HP classic seeing as I don't know how to use of half of the functions. But I drat well wanted one when I was kid, saw it for about $10 and it's mine. Amazingly, it works. Once upon a time you knew that an RPN calculator was a REAL calculator, a hand held super computer that was so classy it came in a fur lined leather case. Now to find a manual.
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# ? Oct 14, 2012 07:59 |
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0dB posted:
Hooooooly poo poo my parents used to have a calculator a lot like this! It wasn't RPN but it had that same display system [which I still think looks cool] and same general style. It was just a regular calculator, though. I'm sure it was a regular old $5 calculator, but I totally forgot about that, until I saw this.
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# ? Oct 14, 2012 08:22 |
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The specifications for touch tone dialing actually has four extra keys (A,B,C,D) that never got widely implemented as buttons. However, the tones defined for them are still used in some situations. I learned of these buttons when researching Cisco voice-over-IP, as you can use them to make programmed numbers that can not be directly dialed.
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# ? Oct 14, 2012 10:19 |
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Melaneus posted:
Obsolete? This may just be the greatest technology known to man. You could keep your mobile number out of the hands of every telemarkunt in the world.
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# ? Oct 14, 2012 13:55 |
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Jedit posted:Obsolete? This may just be the greatest technology known to man. You could keep your mobile number out of the hands of every telemarkunt in the world. Also out of the hands of every person who might want to call you. Edit: Holy poo poo, a goon's dream come true! The glory of having your iPhone, but without those pesky people calling and texting you!
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# ? Oct 14, 2012 16:43 |
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DrBouvenstein posted:Also out of the hands of every person who might want to call you. Wouldn't it be a simple matter to make it so that on any smartphone or phone with texting, you could put letters in the dialing field? If the tones are still on the phone companies' systems, a firmware patch to enable it shouldn't be hard. The part that would kill it is no landlines would be able to call, and any menu tree that used it wouldn't be navigable, since it would only be dialable pre-connection.
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# ? Oct 14, 2012 16:55 |
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WebDog posted:Awesome Soviet X-Ray Record Factoids I want to sincerely thank you for this loving amazing post. Showed that to my wife, who is a high school history teacher, and she's very excited to work that stuff in to one of her world history classes.
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# ? Oct 14, 2012 16:55 |
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Melaneus posted:
Wait, did you just make your VOIP system phreakable?
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# ? Oct 14, 2012 17:03 |
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WebDog posted:However making new records was where the fun came in. One readily available material was X-ray negatives which were just durable enough to be used - and lasted around a month. These cost 1 to 1 1/2 roubles compared to the five roubles for a vinyl. It's not often I come across something I have never heard of or seen before. Thank you for this. My father was an x-ray tech and I sent this to him.
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# ? Oct 14, 2012 17:04 |
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DrBouvenstein posted:Also out of the hands of every person who might want to call you. Unless you send them your number as a contact, making it function as a whitelist for mobile calls.
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# ? Oct 14, 2012 19:29 |
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Jedit posted:Unless you send them your number as a contact, making it function as a whitelist for mobile calls. You assume the phones of today can actually hold those funky letter-numbers. Since he had to use a VoIP setup to get it to work, I imagine it's only something you can do in special software designed for it these days. Awesome, but kinda useless.
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# ? Oct 14, 2012 19:44 |
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Parallel Paraplegic posted:You assume the phones of today can actually hold those funky letter-numbers. Since he had to use a VoIP setup to get it to work, I imagine it's only something you can do in special software designed for it these days. Awesome, but kinda useless. Which is funny since this means that the people most likely to be able to call your hosed up number are telemarketers since they use computers to dial you anyway!
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# ? Oct 14, 2012 20:59 |
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All you have to do is write an app that generates those tones. What frequency are they? I know most tones are actually two tones played simultaneously, so I wonder if these ones are constructed any differently. It'd like to hear them.
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# ? Oct 14, 2012 21:23 |
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Physical posted:All you have to do is write an app that generates those tones. What frequency are they? I know most tones are actually two tones played simultaneously, so I wonder if these ones are constructed any differently. It'd like to hear them. It's been a while since phone systems used the actual tones to dial.
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# ? Oct 14, 2012 22:11 |
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Zombie Rasputin posted:It's been a while since phone systems used the actual tones to dial. Well you could write an app that plays the tones and then hold it up to a landline phone and... Okay it's dumb and impractical shut up
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# ? Oct 14, 2012 22:19 |
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That predates apps.
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# ? Oct 14, 2012 22:26 |
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Zombie Rasputin posted:It's been a while since phone systems used the actual tones to dial. You can't do it from a cell phone, sure, but if there's one thing the phone companies are good at it's backwards compatibility. It should work fine on any line that's still connected directly to the local exchange. All the landlines I've encountered still even support pulse dialing -- I like to show off sometimes by dialing a number without touching the keypad.
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# ? Oct 14, 2012 22:30 |
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Zombie Rasputin posted:It's been a while since phone systems used the actual tones to dial. The old tap the hook to dial trick still works at my parents place.
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# ? Oct 14, 2012 23:28 |
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Another fun record fact - how did your voice operated toys work back in the 70's? Via a small battery operated record player (made from plastic).
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# ? Oct 14, 2012 23:37 |
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0dB posted:
Well your HP is way more advanced, but I found one of these beasts among my grandfather's stuff: Except that it has 1/x instead of sqrt, and the numpad is accented by a brushed-metal finish instead of the line, as on these models. It seems to have the same display technology as the HP, but sadly I'm having trouble tracking down some compatible batteries for this piece of 30 year old soviet tech.
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# ? Oct 14, 2012 23:40 |
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Actually I have a question for you guys that's been bugging me. How the gently caress does this thing work? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=68RQHfcxxZM This commercial is in that one copy of the Star Wars Holiday Special that seems to have survived and is prolific everywhere, so that's where I first saw it (well the RiffTrax of it, actually). How did they do line following in the 70's, before good integrated electronics? I mean I get that the technology to make a line-following robot existed in the 70's but was it seriously advanced enough to put in a kid's toy? Or is it far simpler than I'm making it out to be? EDIT: Apparently the Rifftrax Forum had the same question, and were unable to answer it as well. Shame Boy has a new favorite as of 23:45 on Oct 14, 2012 |
# ? Oct 14, 2012 23:41 |
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I say yes, it is indeed simple. Letsmakerobots.com has a page giving you full schematics on a simple line-follower with components that were easily available at the time. Well, excluding the Lithium-polymer battery, but that is not essential to the build. Edit: clarification. MRC48B has a new favorite as of 23:53 on Oct 14, 2012 |
# ? Oct 14, 2012 23:47 |
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edit: I need to learn to read better.
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# ? Oct 14, 2012 23:50 |
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MRC48B posted:I say yes, it is indeed simple. I kind of thought you could just do it with some kind of negative-feedback photoresistor setup like that, but he holds it up at the beginning and there doesn't seem to be any kind of light source, and the "sensors" seem to be white plastic blobs. I guess it's probably just this, though, maybe using IR instead. Thanks! EDIT: There isn't even a light in the schematics you linked, I am an idiot
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# ? Oct 14, 2012 23:58 |
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Sagebrush posted:You can't do it from a cell phone, sure, but if there's one thing the phone companies are good at it's backwards compatibility. It should work fine on any line that's still connected directly to the local exchange. All the landlines I've encountered still even support pulse dialing -- I like to show off sometimes by dialing a number without touching the keypad. Until just a couple of years ago AT&T still charged an extra fee for touch-tone service on their business land-lines.
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# ? Oct 15, 2012 05:16 |
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The_Franz posted:Until just a couple of years ago AT&T still charged an extra fee for touch-tone service on their business land-lines. I'm old enough to remember when touch tone was an upgrade for residential service in my area. My babysitter's house had touch tone and I was fascinated with it. Also, I have successfully made phone calls (to the correct number) by manually tapping out the numbers and pauses with the hook. In so doing, I also made several successful phone calls to the incorrect numbers but hey it's a small price to pay. If you have an analog landline, you can try it for yourself. Get ready to apologize to random strangers though.
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# ? Oct 15, 2012 07:37 |
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Parallel Paraplegic posted:I kind of thought you could just do it with some kind of negative-feedback photoresistor setup like that, but he holds it up at the beginning and there doesn't seem to be any kind of light source, and the "sensors" seem to be white plastic blobs. I guess it's probably just this, though, maybe using IR instead. Thanks! You aren't an idiot. Those simple designs do require some light source. Also if you continue reading the page that was linked, they do eventually add an LED so they don't need to worry about adjusting for ambient light levels, which they also discuss a bit.
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# ? Oct 15, 2012 07:40 |
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Memory tone dialers! These things would remember numbers for you (dozens of numbers!) and play the corresponding DTMF tones into a phone's mouthpiece to connect the call. Also, you could replace the oscillator crystal in them to slightly nudge the tones, which made them useless for dialing numbers. However, this also made the 8 key play the 5¢ OOBS tone, allowing you to make free calls from payphones by programming 88888 into the memory. Tone dialers themselves were pretty much DOA, but they were rather big sellers (for Redboxing purposes) until 5A ESS phone systems started rolling out, which made the money signalling digital. About the same time, everyone bought a mobile and welp.
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# ? Oct 15, 2012 07:53 |
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I had (probably still have) the one on the left.
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# ? Oct 15, 2012 08:36 |
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tacodaemon posted:
Holy poo poo, I have one of these. My grandmother bought it at a yard sale maybe ten years ago, and I got it a few years later because I was the only one who cared enough to listen to music on it. I had some good times with my mother's old records and a few scattershot 8-tracks we had. I've tried finding out what the thing was, but didn't have any success 'till now. Thanks!
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# ? Oct 15, 2012 09:39 |
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Party lines for phones. My parents were on one for awhile in the early 80's after they moved to a house a few miles away from a small town. You and your neighbors got to share a phone line. If you wanted to make a call you hoped that you weren't going to interrupt someone else when you picked up the phone. If someone left their phone off the hook, nobody could make calls. Some sort of magic allowed incoming calls to only ring the phone of the person they were calling. I was super young and don't remember much more than that, so I'll let Wikipedia explain in more detail: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Party_line_(telephony)
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# ? Oct 15, 2012 11:20 |
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mobby_6kl posted:Well your HP is way more advanced, but I found one of these beasts among my grandfather's stuff: I'm really diggin' the design on this. It's just so 1970s retrofuturistic.
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# ? Oct 15, 2012 11:22 |
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Desert Bus posted:Party Lines... Some sort of magic allowed incoming calls to only ring the phone of the person they were calling. Until the 1950's and even later in some developing countries everyone on the party lines phone rang, but with a slightly different ring to tell you who it was meant for.
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# ? Oct 15, 2012 11:59 |
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Totally Reasonable posted:Memory tone dialers!
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# ? Oct 15, 2012 15:16 |
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# ? Mar 29, 2024 11:43 |
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The Newton is great and it shows how Apple had the vision of what the iPhone became very early.
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# ? Oct 15, 2012 15:17 |