Post the very best in obsolete and failed technology

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mrkillboy: May 13, 2003; "Something witty."

WendigoJohnson posted:

Here's an entire TV series made in the 1980's about life after the year 2000, it was called "Beyond 2000".

There was a follow up series made a few years ago called Beyond Tomorrow. I caught a repeat recently and I was amused when they aired a segment about the latest and greatest mobile phones and proceeded to show off that Motorola phone that could sync up with iTunes.

# ? Dec 23, 2012 00:17

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# ? Apr 23, 2024 11:34

Zenostein: Aug 16, 2008; Alhamdulillah-chan

leidend posted:

My phone GPS accounts for traffic too. Shows red/yellow/green depending on severity and avoids red areas if possible (not possible here).

I'd imagine that the garmin updates faster than google or whatever you're using for maps. A garmin with traffic uses a radio receiver to get the latest traffic data.

Hell, the only reason I actually use my GPS on trips is to see how terrible the roads have become.

# ? Dec 23, 2012 02:03

BogDew: Jun 14, 2006; E:\FILES>quickfli clown.fli

mrkillboy posted:

Motorola phone that could sync up with iTunes.

The Motorola Rokr E1. It had memory/firmware limitations that only allowed it to run about 100 songs. Then Apple released the iPod Nano around the same time and kind of pissed off Motorola. The Motorola Slvr L7 was the last to have an Apple branded iTunes software.

leidend posted:

My phone GPS accounts for traffic too. Shows red/yellow/green depending on severity and avoids red areas if possible (not possible here).

I get much novelty out of magical mystery adventure tours when I'm travelling to a place I don't really know, or rural areas where you have to track down the lot number as everyone's just been ordered to change over from house numbers to signs that measure the distance from your house to the nearest town so ambulances can get there faster.

# ? Dec 23, 2012 02:10

Nathan Explosion: Aug 14, 2006; A whole new rainbow of pain!

Sargs posted:

Yes, about half the bloody customer base of my employer's mobile tracking and lone worker protection product (we started out doing vehicle tracking with dedicated units and offered mobile as a sideline). We have this weird thing where some of the older platforms like Symbian and BlackBerry will outperform the newer ones in terms of battery life. Android was painful to develop and we have to do lots of clever things like switching off GPS when the local wifi ids aren't changing just to get the battery life to something acceptable. On BlackBerry or old Nokia smartphones, you could bang away with GPS all the time and still get eight hours out of the battery, easy.

Just as well; like I said, customers seem to have religious objections to lighter socket chargers and cradles.

I hope battery life for smartphones is gonna be a laughable memory of times past soon. The car charger cant even keep up with it when I'm using it for navigation. With that phone I charge it every second im in the car, or near an outlet or it's plugged into a usb power pack. It's pitiful really.

# ? Dec 23, 2012 03:10

kastein: Aug 31, 2011; Moderator at http://www.ridgelineownersclub.com/forums/and soon to be mod of AI. MAKE AI GREAT AGAIN. Motronic for VP.

You're doing something wrong, I've gone entire days ( :haw:

) without charging my android and used it for GPS for hours without it dying or even coming close.

If you are fading in and out of cellular network range it will eat the battery like none other though, since the phone cranks the transmit power up all the way in an attempt to find another tower to talk to ASAP.

# ? Dec 23, 2012 03:44

burnsep: Jul 3, 2005

Sagebrush posted:

This isn't quite right. Cell phone GPS chips aren't any "weaker" than those in other receivers. There isn't even a "weaker" or "stronger" that makes sense, really -- it's a digital signal. Either you receive enough data that it works perfectly, or you get nothing usable. Without getting into too much detail, the first time you try to get a GPS fix your receiver (or phone) needs to know where the satellites currently are, so that it can triangulate your location. It does this by downloading orbital data directly from the satellites it can see. This data is coming from outer space over a narrow channel, so it takes a very long time to receive -- 12.5 minutes for the full message. All receivers without A-GPS take the same amount of time to get a fix because they need to download the almanac (as it's called) from the same source.

Basically, all that A-GPS does is send this data to you over your data connection instead of the GPS stream. The almanac is quite small, and can arrive in seconds over a 3G/4G data link -- and once your phone has it, it can compute a fix in seconds. A-GPS also allows your phone to receive corrections for things like ionospheric conditions (space weather), which might otherwise distort the signal and decrease accuracy; and it can allow your phone to combine data from multiple sources, such as known wi-fi networks and their relative signal strength at different positions, to increase accuracy even more.

Don't confuse this with the fake "GPS" that the wifi iPads and early iPhones have -- they don't actually have a GPS chip at all, and instead try to triangulate your location from the nearest wifi networks in Apple's database. The only reason this works is because all iPhones will occasionally send Apple their geographic location and a list of all the network SSIDs they can see (starbucks, AT&T, your personal network, etc), and their relative signal strengths. Wifi iPads then access this database, compare it to the networks they can see at that time, and try to estimate roughly where they are. Fascinating, huh?

Actually yes, thanks for that.

# ? Dec 23, 2012 04:05

Jedit: Dec 10, 2011; Proudly supporting vanilla legends 1994-2014

kastein posted:

You're doing something wrong, I've gone entire days () without charging my android and used it for GPS for hours without it dying or even coming close.

If you are fading in and out of cellular network range it will eat the battery like none other though, since the phone cranks the transmit power up all the way in an attempt to find another tower to talk to ASAP.

The other night my phone ate an entire 2000mAH charge overnight despite not being used at all. It happens occasionally and it's really annoying.

# ? Dec 23, 2012 09:41

Dr Hemulen: Jan 25, 2003

kastein posted:

You're doing something wrong, I've gone entire days () without charging my android and used it for GPS for hours without it dying or even coming close.

If you are fading in and out of cellular network range it will eat the battery like none other though, since the phone cranks the transmit power up all the way in an attempt to find another tower to talk to ASAP.

He probably has the screen on permanently as you do with at dedicated GPS. That drains the battery faster than it charges on mine too

# ? Dec 23, 2012 10:38

spog: Aug 7, 2004; It's your own bloody fault.

Jedit posted:

The other night my phone ate an entire 2000mAH charge overnight despite not being used at all. It happens occasionally and it's really annoying.

At least my GPS is consistent in its battery use. I know that if I cannot use the power cable, I can get all the way to my destination and at least half the way back.

With my phone, I constantly worry about the battery dying at an important time.

Plus: my GPS came with a long, good quality power cable, plus a decent windscreen mount. My phone had neither and getting decent quality ones are not cheap.

# ? Dec 23, 2012 11:21

BogDew: Jun 14, 2006; E:\FILES>quickfli clown.fli

HardCoil posted:

He probably has the screen on permanently as you do with at dedicated GPS. That drains the battery faster than it charges on mine too

I did this the other night, where fresh off the charger, I'd forgotten to quit navigation and it'd devoured my battery to 40% within an hour and gave me a toasty leg.
The only real way to keep any smartphone alive through the day is to turn off or limit 3G networks as I understand when in an area of low reception some phones will boost power trying to cling into a 3G signal.

It's one thing I do miss, the days of week long gaps between charges thanks to the phone having very little for the battery to chew thorough..

# ? Dec 23, 2012 15:25

Croccers: Jun 15, 2012

WebDog posted:

It's one thing I do miss, the days of week long gaps between charges thanks to the phone having very little for the battery to chew thorough..

Dump your phone in your room after finishing work. Five days later
:v:

Oh gently caress, I forgot about my phone
Check it.
Still has 60% battery :smug:

# ? Dec 23, 2012 17:31

Lowen SoDium: Jun 5, 2003; Highen Fiber; Clapping Larry

WebDog posted:

I did this the other night, where fresh off the charger, I'd forgotten to quit navigation and it'd devoured my battery to 40% within an hour and gave me a toasty leg.
The only real way to keep any smartphone alive through the day is to turn off or limit 3G networks as I understand when in an area of low reception some phones will boost power trying to cling into a 3G signal.

It's one thing I do miss, the days of week long gaps between charges thanks to the phone having very little for the battery to chew thorough..

If you turn off data and leave the screen off, you will probably get several days of standby on most smart phones. Even with data on, if I don't use mine and I am on a good WiFi signal, I can get 2 or 3 days of standby out of it.

Basically, it will last if you don't use it.

# ? Dec 23, 2012 17:35

treiz01: Jan 2, 2008; There is little that makes me happier than taking drugs. Perhaps administering them, designing and carrying out experiments that bend the plane of what we consider reality.

Lowen SoDium posted:

If you turn off data and leave the screen off, you will probably get several days of standby on most smart phones. Even with data on, if I don't use mine and I am on a good WiFi signal, I can get 2 or 3 days of standby out of it.

Basically, it will last if you don't use it.

And on the other hand, I have a samsung galaxy note that I use to give directions at my job and as an mp3 player, and I'm lucky if the battery isn't totally dead by the end of 2 days.

# ? Dec 23, 2012 17:51

thedouche: Mar 20, 2007; Greetings from thedouche

My iphone battery solution was to go to monoprice.com and buy a poo poo load of their iphone charging cables and a couple car chargers (I spent about 20 bucks which would have bought me about one non-apple branded charger at a store). During an average work day my phone keeps its charge with no problem, but if I forget to charge it or use it heavily I've got a cable to connect to a computer/car cigarette lighter just in case.

# ? Dec 23, 2012 17:54

BOOTY-ADE: Aug 30, 2006; BIG KOOL TELLIN' Y'ALL TO KEEP IT TIGHT

HardCoil posted:

He probably has the screen on permanently as you do with at dedicated GPS. That drains the battery faster than it charges on mine too

Another thing I found out at work that'll kill a battery, especially on smartphones - if you have e-mail set up, send a message to someone, and it gets stuck in the outbox, the constant attempts at sending/receiving will drain the battery ridiculously fast. Had a lady at my job who has an iPhone and the battery kept dying within 2-3 hours, and that was the culprit - once the message was deleted, her battery went back to normal.

# ? Dec 23, 2012 18:05

Jedit: Dec 10, 2011; Proudly supporting vanilla legends 1994-2014

Lowen SoDium posted:

If you turn off data and leave the screen off, you will probably get several days of standby on most smart phones. Even with data on, if I don't use mine and I am on a good WiFi signal, I can get 2 or 3 days of standby out of it.

Basically, it will last if you don't use it.

When I first got my Galaxy S2 I tested the battery for longevity by leaving it lying around and not using it. From full charge to zero with Wi-Fi permanently on took five days.

# ? Dec 24, 2012 01:31

evobatman: Jul 30, 2006; it means nothing, but says everything!; Pillbug

I have several used iphone 4 and 4S'es coming through my office, and if I put in a sim card and let them lie around with 3G on, they will easily lasy 7-10 days fully charged and coming off a fresh wipe and restore.

# ? Dec 24, 2012 13:15

einTier: Sep 25, 2003; Charming, friendly, and possessed by demons.
Approach with caution.

evobatman posted:

I have several used iphone 4 and 4S'es coming through my office, and if I put in a sim card and let them lie around with 3G on, they will easily lasy 7-10 days fully charged and coming off a fresh wipe and restore.

People forget that just turning on the screen sucks a lot of juice. I can easily notice the difference in real time if I have the iPhone on full brightness or turn it down halfway.

# ? Dec 24, 2012 18:54

Low Desert Punk: Jul 4, 2012; i have absolutely no fucking money

I'm not sure how often they've been mentioned (if they have been at all), but CEDs are awesome. They're like the bastard child of a vinyl record and a Laserdisc.

They're pretty much universally considered to be clunky, sub-par pieces of poo poo that were obsolete just about as soon as they came on the market. Naturally, I collect them.

That being said, they have a lot of neat (if obsolete and trivial) technology behind them and the product itself gives a lot of opportunity for awesome art, just like the Laserdisc. It just never had a chance, what with LD, Beta, and VHS.

# ? Dec 24, 2012 19:23

razorrozar: Feb 21, 2012; by Cyrano4747

Low Desert Punk posted:

I'm not sure how often they've been mentioned (if they have been at all), but CEDs are awesome. They're like the bastard child of a vinyl record and a Laserdisc.

They're pretty much universally considered to be clunky, sub-par pieces of poo poo that were obsolete just about as soon as they came on the market. Naturally, I collect them.

That being said, they have a lot of neat (if obsolete and trivial) technology behind them and the product itself gives a lot of opportunity for awesome art, just like the Laserdisc. It just never had a chance, what with LD, Beta, and VHS.

With that case on there, it looks kind of like a giant PSP UMD. Does that case go into whatever plays them, or do you take it off?

# ? Dec 25, 2012 02:55

Mister Kingdom: Dec 14, 2005; And the tears that fall
On the city wall
Will fade away
With the rays of morning light

razorrozar posted:

With that case on there, it looks kind of like a giant PSP UMD. Does that case go into whatever plays them, or do you take it off?

You insert the cart into the player and the disc is released and you pull the empty cart back out.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XoTc9l7ObHY

# ? Dec 25, 2012 03:23

Low Desert Punk: Jul 4, 2012; i have absolutely no fucking money

^ Yeah. I suppose the point is so dust and other things like that don't actually touch the disk (or touch it as little as possible) because the discs look like they could fail if you look at them the wrong way. I don't own a player for them unfortunately, but the picture from what I can gather is pretty awful even on sealed, seemingly perfectly intact carts.

I don't think you're supposed to ever be able to see the disc without breaking the cart. It's actually a rather novel concept, just poorly timed and executed.

# ? Dec 25, 2012 05:11

0dB: Jan 3, 2009

I just ordered a bunch of Ampex 8 track cartridges. The seller warned me - even though they are sealed and never used - the pads that hold the tape against the heads have disintegrated and I'll have to replace them and the splice on the tape itself. Sure enough when I pulled off the shrink wrap the pads are now just loose powder.

It made it clear how media falls apart. You might think that 8 track or cassette or whatever is cool, but it's physically disintegrating. Becoming extinct. Good quality VHS is getting harder to find, metal formula cassettes and open reel tapes are starting to cost a lot if you can find them. The cheaper stuff is easier, but it's not long for this world.

I also like to collect old CDROM titles (It was a period in which I was involved). Even having old OS9 and Windows 95 machines dedicated to just playing these things, it's often difficult to get them working. Much of the problem is the old versions of QuckTime these things need.

# ? Dec 25, 2012 10:06

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

0dB posted:

8 track cartridges...

open reel tapes are starting to cost a lot if you can find them

Protip: It's the same tape.

If you get desperate enough just bulk erase before you use it. (and don't play the graphite side)

# ? Dec 25, 2012 13:31

Zemyla: Aug 6, 2008; I'll take her off your hands. Pleasure doing business with you!

ninmeister posted:

Jesus Christ, the U key really looks like a Goatse.

For content, I remember having a Speak and Spell or something very similar. It quizzed me on math and spelling and stuff. I'd ask whether these were obsolete, but things like the LeapPad are being produced.

# ? Dec 26, 2012 08:33

El Estrago Bonito: Dec 17, 2010; Scout Finch Bitch

Zemyla posted:

Jesus Christ, the U key really looks like a Goatse.

For content, I remember having a Speak and Spell or something very similar. It quizzed me on math and spelling and stuff. I'd ask whether these were obsolete, but things like the LeapPad are being produced.

Dis the OG edutainment device:

# ? Dec 26, 2012 12:10

Jedit: Dec 10, 2011; Proudly supporting vanilla legends 1994-2014

El Estrago Bonito posted:

Dis the OG edutainment device:

I had one of those. I'd forgotten it until you posted it.

# ? Dec 26, 2012 15:05

einTier: Sep 25, 2003; Charming, friendly, and possessed by demons.
Approach with caution.

Mister Kingdom posted:

You insert the cart into the player and the disc is released and you pull the empty cart back out.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XoTc9l7ObHY

I remember these from when I was a kid. It felt like they were on the market for a year, kind of like the original Divx discs. What I didn't realize until now is that they use a physical stylus. They are essentially a very fancy vinyl record player. :psyduck:

# ? Dec 26, 2012 17:36

El Estrago Bonito: Dec 17, 2010; Scout Finch Bitch

Jedit posted:

I had one of those. I'd forgotten it until you posted it.

It's because they are incapable of producing emotions higher than "tepid boredom".

# ? Dec 31, 2012 11:37

Exit Strategy: Dec 10, 2010; by sebmojo

Hold onto your asses, rear end-holders, for external. SCSI. Hard. Disks.

In the long-ago ancient past when the Macintosh Performa 630CD was a new product, my parents bought me one as a Christmas gift. I was about ten years old at the time.

A few years later, I bought an external 200MB SCSI HDD for it at a local computer shop for something ridiculous like $80. It was SCSI-1, attached with a straight-up 25-pin connection, and required a bulky terminating resistor to attach to the back of it. I lack pictures, as that drive is well and truly gone, but at the time I would take it to friends' houses and we'd play games off it, most notably Escape Velocity. It also, what with me being 15 or so, held the beginnings of an all-digital porn collection - A rarity, in those days.

The drive enclosure weighed about ten pounds and was the size of two hefty textbooks. Ridiculous, considering my phone now packs a capacity of better than two orders of magnitude more.

# ? Dec 31, 2012 21:06

minato: Jun 7, 2004; cutty cain't hang, say 7-up.; Taco Defender

As I recall, people thought that SCSI drives were more reliable than regular IDE drives, which made little sense to me because surely the reliability would be due to the disc/controller build quality, not the external data transfer mechanism. But either way, SCSI discs cost around 4x the price of IDE discs and were a pain in the rear end to set up. They worked pretty well once you got them going though.

I think you could daisy-chain up to 8 of them on a single SCSI chain (with the controller itself being number 0), but most drives had to have their SCSI number set with jumpers, it wasn't plug-and-play. And for some reason, the only CD-ROM drives that were capable of ripping Red Book Audio (the raw 16-bit waveforms) were SCSI. I don't know why IDE drives couldn't do that, it's not like it they couldn't play CDs or anything. (Another obsolete tech - Play/FF/volume CD audio controls directly on the front of CD-ROM drives)

SCSI connectors could be gigantic, relatively speaking:

And each daisy chain had to be terminated with one of these blocks:

Apple Macintoshes were big on SCSI, as were PC CD-ROM-burning products (because only SCSI could keep up with the data rates required to burn CDs or something).

# ? Dec 31, 2012 22:06

GRINDCORE MEGGIDO: Feb 28, 1985

^^ Yep I remember feeling pimp as hell having two SCSI CD burners in a system.
I had much better luck doing disk to disk with SCSI. At least in the early days.

# ? Dec 31, 2012 22:40

Geoj: May 28, 2008; BITTER POOR PERSON

minato posted:

As I recall, people thought that SCSI drives were more reliable than regular IDE drives, which made little sense to me because surely the reliability would be due to the disc/controller build quality, not the external data transfer mechanism. But either way, SCSI discs cost around 4x the price of IDE discs and were a pain in the rear end to set up. They worked pretty well once you got them going though.

They were correct, but it had nothing to do with the controller or interface. Once IDE became the defacto consumer level data interface SCSI drives were almost exclusively used for server/data center purposes, and as a result were built to a higher standard (and sold at a higher price.) Consumer level SCSI devices pretty became a thing of the past around the same time ATX became the standard case layout.

# ? Dec 31, 2012 22:45

KYOON GRIFFEY JR: Apr 12, 2010; Runner-up, TRP Sack Race 2021/22

Also, in the period of time when SCSI established dominance in the high end market, SCSI was better equipped to run RAID and had better throughput. You could get SCSI in like 320MB/s varieties in the early 2000s, versus ATA which was still kickin around at about 66MB/s.

# ? Dec 31, 2012 23:02

ambient oatmeal: Jun 23, 2012

I know people can be weird about their SCSI stuff, when I was in classes for electronics there was a guy who was bragging to the teacher about all his SCSI hardware. This was 2 years ago, I wonder if the guy has discovered USB yet.

# ? Dec 31, 2012 23:17

Lowen SoDium: Jun 5, 2003; Highen Fiber; Clapping Larry

minato posted:

As I recall, people thought that SCSI drives were more reliable than regular IDE drives, which made little sense to me because surely the reliability would be due to the disc/controller build quality, not the external data transfer mechanism. But either way, SCSI discs cost around 4x the price of IDE discs and were a pain in the rear end to set up. They worked pretty well once you got them going though.

I think you could daisy-chain up to 8 of them on a single SCSI chain (with the controller itself being number 0), but most drives had to have their SCSI number set with jumpers, it wasn't plug-and-play. And for some reason, the only CD-ROM drives that were capable of ripping Red Book Audio (the raw 16-bit waveforms) were SCSI. I don't know why IDE drives couldn't do that, it's not like it they couldn't play CDs or anything. (Another obsolete tech - Play/FF/volume CD audio controls directly on the front of CD-ROM drives)

SCSI connectors could be gigantic, relatively speaking:

And each daisy chain had to be terminated with one of these blocks:

Apple Macintoshes were big on SCSI, as were PC CD-ROM-burning products (because only SCSI could keep up with the data rates required to burn CDs or something).

SCSI was more expensive and more difficult to set up than IDE was on consumer systems, but it was faster. SCSI 1 was capable of 40Mbps, where as ATA/IDE drives on an ATA-1 controller maxed out at 8.3Mbps. ATA/IE didn't get interface speeds close to SCSI until ATA-4 was capable of Ultra DMA 33 Mbps. By then, SCSI was already up to 160Mbps.

Single drives at that time were barely capable of that kind of through put. SCSI's higher through put was more important because, as you had mentioned, it was able to have 8 devices on a bus where as ATA only supported 2. SCSI was also used for RAID at the time, which was not available on the slower ATA interfaces of the time.

SCSI's other big advantage was that it had a standardized external connection for external drives and other devices like scanners. ATA never had an external connector standard until the External SATA standard.

The reason that SCSI drives had a higher reliability than IDE drives was because SCSI drives were usually enterprise class drives used in production servers and were usually sold with a higher MTBF rating and warranties, where as IDE drivers were considered consumer drives.

IDE CD-ROM drives were able to rip red book audio digitally. But it was more common in the early days of lower speed ATA interfaces, the CD-ROM drives them selves would decode and play the audio CD and output to the computer's sound card via an analog cable. Many SCSI drives could also play CD's this way.

# ? Dec 31, 2012 23:17

Shame Boy: Mar 2, 2010

Lowen SoDium posted:

IDE CD-ROM drives were able to rip red book audio digitally. But it was more common in the early days of lower speed ATA interfaces, the CD-ROM drives them selves would decode and play the audio CD and output to the computer's sound card via an analog cable. Many SCSI drives could also play CD's this way.

Oh gently caress you just reminded me of the age when you had to connect the CD drive to the motherboard with a completely separate tiny cable if you wanted to be able to play CD audio, and of the fact that a lot CD drives had stereo out jacks and little volume knobs on the drives themselves so you could bypass the whole computer thing altogether. I completely forgot that existed until right now.

# ? Dec 31, 2012 23:52