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Setzer Gabbiani
Oct 13, 2004

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 :filez: DC's could've been saved if it didn't only just finish a year ago

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WithoutTheFezOn
Aug 28, 2005
Oh no

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.
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.

Mister Kingdom
Dec 14, 2005

And the tears that fall
On the city wall
Will fade away
With the rays of morning light

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.

:doh:

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.

Chunk5
Jun 26, 2010

El Estrago Bonito posted:


Before SEGA left the console market and there was a definite chance they would beat the PS2 Sony was planning to release a format of, you guessed it, burnable gigabyte discs. The DC was already having huge piracy issues, especially in Asia where the companies who were pumping out pirated VCD movies/porn were using the same equipment to steal DC games. So this was probably the only time in history a company has planned to kill another companies console by making it easier to pirate games on the competitors machine.

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.

BogDew
Jun 14, 2006

E:\FILES>quickfli clown.fli
Wasn't Nero Burning ROM's popularity created in part for it being able to make copies of Playstation discs back in the day?

0dB
Jan 3, 2009


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.

Code Jockey
Jan 24, 2006

69420 basic bytes free

0dB posted:



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.

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.

Melaneus
Aug 24, 2007

Here to make your dreams and nightmares come true.


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.

Jedit
Dec 10, 2011

Proudly supporting vanilla legends 1994-2014

Melaneus posted:



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.

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.

DrBouvenstein
Feb 28, 2007

I think I'm a doctor, but that doesn't make me a doctor. This fancy avatar does.

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!

Bunni-kat
May 25, 2010

Service Desk B-b-bunny...
How can-ca-caaaaan I
help-p-p-p you?

DrBouvenstein posted:

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!

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.

Nerdrock
Jan 31, 2006

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.

Base Emitter
Apr 1, 2012

?

Melaneus posted:



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.

Wait, did you just make your VOIP system phreakable?

Dick Trauma
Nov 30, 2007

God damn it, you've got to be kind.

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.

Jedit
Dec 10, 2011

Proudly supporting vanilla legends 1994-2014

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.

Shame Boy
Mar 2, 2010

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.

Inspector_666
Oct 7, 2003

benny with the good hair

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!

Physical
Sep 26, 2007

by T. Finninho
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.

Wayne Knight
May 11, 2006

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.

Shame Boy
Mar 2, 2010

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 :(

Ensign Expendable
Nov 11, 2008

Lager beer is proof that god loves us
Pillbug
That predates apps.

Sagebrush
Feb 26, 2012

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.

blugu64
Jul 17, 2006

Do you realize that fluoridation is the most monstrously conceived and dangerous communist plot we have ever had to face?

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.

BogDew
Jun 14, 2006

E:\FILES>quickfli clown.fli
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).

mobby_6kl
Aug 9, 2009

0dB posted:



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.

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.

Shame Boy
Mar 2, 2010

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

MRC48B
Apr 2, 2012

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

take_it_slow
Jul 7, 2011

edit: I need to learn to read better.

Shame Boy
Mar 2, 2010

MRC48B posted:

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.

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 :doh:

The_Franz
Aug 8, 2003

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.

sleepy gary
Jan 11, 2006

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.

sleepy gary
Jan 11, 2006

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!

EDIT: There isn't even a light in the schematics you linked, I am an idiot :doh:

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.

Totally Reasonable
Jan 8, 2008

aaag mirrors


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.

sleepy gary
Jan 11, 2006


I had (probably still have) the one on the left.

Butts McGee
Aug 17, 2012

tacodaemon posted:


Which reminds me: The Magnavox Astro-Sonic console stereo controls! (Click for more detail.)




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!

Desert Bus
May 9, 2004

Take 1 tablet by mouth daily.
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)

.DAT Azz
Jan 8, 2009

by Y Kant Ozma Post

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.

Ron Burgundy
Dec 24, 2005
This burrito is delicious, but it is filling.

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.

BogDew
Jun 14, 2006

E:\FILES>quickfli clown.fli

Totally Reasonable posted:

Memory tone dialers!
Apple's Newton could make phone calls in the same manner, you basically held a receiver to it as it booped off the phone number. I do kind of admire the fact the Newton has had user made modifications to it that allow wireless and bluetooth support to creak it through the millennium. I have a fondness for something that was sort of pushing the envelope yet aiming too high for it's time.

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euphronius
Feb 18, 2009

The Newton is great and it shows how Apple had the vision of what the iPhone became very early.

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