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mystes posted:This is completely irrelevant to both my post that you quoted (about E911 phase 2 requirements) and the other ones that preceded it (about whether a specific old CDMA phone would still work). Nobody was talking about analog phones. Sorry I misunderstood... I got 2001 stuck in my head from a prior post.
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May 27, 2013 05:26
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Jasper Tin Neck posted:Somehow dumping razorblades inside walls seems like a really strange idea, but I guess the houses weren't expected to last for centuries so they figured they couldn't fill up. It just seems to me that you could achieve the same convenience with a tin bank. You'd have to empty it every once in a while though. We didn't live in a highrise and we had an incenerator in our apartments back yard. I can't remember if we ever used it or not, but I do remember finding a huge stash of unburnt old Playboys in there as a kid.
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May 27, 2013 05:38
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Pham Nuwen posted:Ok, here's my poo poo video, enjoy my goony voice and ad-libbed narration: https://vimeo.com/66968184 Thanks for that. Actually now I look more closely I don't think your one can hold bigger (10 inch?) reels. Looks like 7 inch is the biggest. So I must have had a taller version of that. I think I will try get another but I want a 15ips 2 track. "Professional".
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May 27, 2013 09:36
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0dB posted:Thanks for that. Actually now I look more closely I don't think your one can hold bigger (10 inch?) reels. Looks like 7 inch is the biggest. So I must have had a taller version of that. Yep, 7" maximum. It also only does 3 3/4 ips and 7 1/2 ips.
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May 27, 2013 16:12
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Ron Burgundy posted:Not my retirement fund! Very cool! I have to get a reel to reel someday. 
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May 28, 2013 07:22
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From the Weird Fanart thread: Robert Denby posted:On a similar note: When my family got our first "real" computer, we sat in a semicircle around its desk as it booted for the first time. I recall "oohs" and "ahhs" as the startup sound played and the logo proudly beamed ascreen, though that may have just been an addition by my eight-year-old imagination. On the one hand, this video makes me say, "Aww, those simple, peaceful days," and on the other hand I got annoyed just watching it imagining how long everything takes from when you open something until it's finally loaded and ready to use. Here's another dumb family anecdote- when we only had one computer in the house, it was obviously tantamount that we converse with one another to ensure that anyone who needed (or in the case of us kids, wanted) to get on the computer at some point would let the person already on the computer know about it, lest the user turn off the computer and make the second user have to sit through the whole booting process again. My sister and I chain-smoked The Sims, so whenever one was playing, we'd be sure to ask whether the other one minded if we quit or not. If the other wanted to play, we'd just leave the game on. Sometimes, though, we'd forget, and then the next person would have to go through the 10-15 minutes it would take for the game to load, load, load, load, load.... If you had told me at age ten that there would come a day when our household would have not only two desktop computers, but THREE LAPTOPS and a mystic ~*iPad and iPhone*~, I would have wept tears of hopeful disbelief and dreamed about it basically every night until it eventually came true.
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May 29, 2013 21:01
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Ron Burgundy posted:Great video, nice machine. It's kind of sad that both our machines were premium brands, hand-built in Japan, but are now used for badging some pretty mediocre electronics. So, on the reel to reel topic, I have a SM-57 clone mic, an XLR cable, and one of these: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000068O4H/ If I plug it in to one of the mic inputs on my machine, I hear a very loud hum through the monitor. If I ease the 1/4" plug out just a little, the buzzing stops and the mic appears to work normally. Have I just bought the wrong adapter? I don't know exactly what kind of mic connectors/inputs the recorder is expecting.
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May 30, 2013 01:12
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A quick guess would be that the linked adapter has a balanced (or stereo) output, and a microphone creates an unbalanced (or mono) signal.
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May 30, 2013 04:20
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sweeperbravo posted:When my family got our first "real" computer, we sat in a semicircle around its desk as it booted for the first time. I recall "oohs" and "ahhs" as the startup sound played and the logo proudly beamed ascreen, though that may have just been an addition by my eight-year-old imagination. We booted the it, and during the RAM self test it seemed like it just wouldn't stop counting. When it finally stopped, at a whooping 16 megabytes, we just started laughing spontaneously. "I didn't even know that you could buy machines with that much RAM", my dad proclaimed. I agreed. These days I don't even know how much RAM I have. I just know that we now measure it in gigabytes.
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May 30, 2013 06:41
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The Rubberbandit posted:A quick guess would be that the linked adapter has a balanced (or stereo) output, and a microphone creates an unbalanced (or mono) signal. Balanced doesn't mean stereo. A 3-conductor balanced connector is still just mono, but yes, the recorder might be looking for a tip/sleeve unbalanced 1/4". To make that adapter, you'd connect XLR pin 2 to the 1/4" connector's "tip," then bridge pins 1 and 3 in the XLR and connect that to the 1/4" "sleeve." (Or you could but this, I guess: http://www.amazon.com/XLR-Female-To-Male-Adapter/dp/B0002ZPK5I/ref=pd_bxgy_MI_img_y ) Post a model number for the recorder? eddiewalker has a new favorite as of 06:51 on May 30, 2013 |
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May 30, 2013 06:44
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eddiewalker posted:Balanced doesn't mean stereo. A 3-conductor balanced connector is still just mono, but yes, the recorder might be looking for a tip/sleeve unbalanced 1/4". To make that adapter, you'd connect XLR pin 2 to the 1/4" connector's "tip," then bridge pins 1 and 3 in the XLR and connect that to the 1/4" "sleeve." It's an Akai GX-255
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May 30, 2013 06:52
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Yes it seems weird to me that an XLR adapter would be TRS in the first place, I've only dealt with TS before.
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May 30, 2013 09:17
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torjus posted:My dad worked with computers when I was a kid. I vividly remember the day he came home with a new computer, a 486 dx2/66mhz. It was also so important to have that "66" displayed on a big chunky LED on the the front of the case 
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May 30, 2013 13:08
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Ron Burgundy posted:Yes it seems weird to me that an XLR adapter would be TRS in the first place, I've only dealt with TS before.
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May 30, 2013 15:46
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Oh gently caress yeah, line level poo poo. I think I need to hand my audio card in.
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May 30, 2013 16:47
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Fozaldo posted:It was also so important to have that "66" displayed on a big chunky LED on the the front of the case 
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May 30, 2013 18:13
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I was sad when I found out that those things didn't actually measure frequency, and were just pre-set 7-segment displays.
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May 30, 2013 18:21
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Sad? My pentium 999 was awesome.
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May 30, 2013 19:46
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oldskool posted:Don't forget to have the TURBO button installed that didn't seem to do anything but turn on the 1 at the front of the display, thereby showing an absurd 166MHz speed Ensign Expendable posted:I was sad when I found out that those things didn't actually measure frequency, and were just pre-set 7-segment displays. For a very brief moment in PC history, some computer case speed displays and turbo buttons actually did do something. I built a few 486 systems that the turbo button effectively turned on and off the 2x multiplier for the BUS speed and switched the system from 33Mhz to 66Mhz or from 25Mhz to 50Mhz. And the LCD display would actually show the selected speed. The turbo button really should have been labeled "Slow Down" because it idea was not to turn it on to make your system go faster, but to turn it off to make your system run slower. Some programs back then did not use any kind of rate or clock limiting and would run as fast as they possibly could. Imagine trying to play a game that ran at full speed on a 25Mhz CPU on a computer that ran at twice that speed. Most systems that had the LED displays I saw or built by the time Pentiums were running around 133Mhz, where pre-set with jumpers and often didn't do anything with the Turbo Button.
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May 30, 2013 19:57
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Oh, man. The Turbo button. That really was the best in technology. Though I know people who rigged it to do actual things, everything from overvoltage the CPU to, in one case, set steel wool on fire on the inside of the thing as a self-destruct system. The guy who did the latter thing is right now super concerned about FEMA death camps, so I mean try not to take him being a 'tard too seriously.
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May 30, 2013 20:09
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Lowen SoDium posted:For a very brief moment in PC history, some computer case speed displays and turbo buttons actually did do something. I built a few 486 systems that the turbo button effectively turned on and off the 2x multiplier for the BUS speed and switched the system from 33Mhz to 66Mhz or from 25Mhz to 50Mhz. And the LCD display would actually show the selected speed. Yeah. I remember a versions of space invaders and missile command that needed this. If you didn't use the turbo button you'd hit new game, the screen had a fit and then game over flashed as the game ran so fast it was impossible to play.
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May 30, 2013 20:34
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Exit Strategy posted:Oh, man. The Turbo button. That really was the best in technology. Though I know people who rigged it to do actual things, everything from overvoltage the CPU to, in one case, set steel wool on fire on the inside of the thing as a self-destruct system. I knew a kid in high school who did a similar thing, except instead of steel wool he packed a 3.5" drive bay with homemade thermite, that way when the Blue Helmets invaded they wouldn't be able to recover his world-class collection of pirated manga downloaded off Kazaa. It's probably not a coincidence that after high school he got kicked out of the Marines for being a complete moron and now he's a computer janitor that posts lolbertarian crap on Facebook all day. potee has a new favorite as of 23:33 on May 30, 2013 |
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May 30, 2013 23:31
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Lowen SoDium posted:For a very brief moment in PC history, some computer case speed displays and turbo buttons actually did do something. I built a few 486 systems that the turbo button effectively turned on and off the 2x multiplier for the BUS speed and switched the system from 33Mhz to 66Mhz or from 25Mhz to 50Mhz. And the LCD display would actually show the selected speed. Oh hell yes, I remember when my friend's dad dropped an absurd amount of money on a 486DX2 66Mhz machine, and we'd have to hit the turbo button to drop it down to 33Mhz when playing Mechwarrior. Playing at 66Mhz would cause you to instantly overheat and explode when you so much as tapped the trigger for your lasers.
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May 31, 2013 08:29
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I remember trying the very initial version of Wipeout on a Pentium computer and it was completely unplayable how fast it went
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May 31, 2013 08:41
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The turbo button on our PC swapped between "HI" and "LO". I ended up pulling it out, discovering that the LED display was customisable by way of jumpers. All I did was change it to 33/66. I read somewhere that the switch turned off part of the CPU cache on certain machines.
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May 31, 2013 11:42
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Speaking of RAM, remember sim expanders? Since Pentium computers needed ram in equal pairs upgrading could be a real hassle if you wanted to keep any of your old sticks. Enter sim expanders. Put your new 32mb stick in one slot and 2 16mb sticks in the other.
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May 31, 2013 15:46
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Holy poo poo, I remember those. Remember the first few Pentium 60/66 machines that had old 30 pin SIMM slots? I was a kid and scrounging for old parts by the time I was putting those together, so finding 4 identical SIMMs for each matched-quad set really sucked. I might be remembering 486 machines with those, actually. Not sure.
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May 31, 2013 16:21
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486 FOR LIFE! 
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Jun 3, 2013 07:53
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Jasta posted:486 FOR LIFE! 68040 FOR LIFE!
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Jun 3, 2013 08:27
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Found these in a cabinet that seems to have been forgotten.   Nothing too exciting. I also have been using a few of these babies until a couple years ago.  Don't have pictures of the original drives, but we still have the books. 
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Jun 3, 2013 12:29
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I like the mini reel to reels: I see them all the time on stuff like The Sopranos and the Wire when they do wiretapes. Were they very good quality recording, which is why they were used instead of cassette tape? Or just that they looked good? I quite fancy one for the novelty value - if I could find something on ebay EDIT: Now I understand why a) they were so often used and b) why they cost an absolute fortune on ebay http://www.nagraaudio.com/highend/index.php spog has a new favorite as of 22:48 on Jun 3, 2013 |
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Jun 3, 2013 22:44
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Krispy Kareem posted:Speaking of RAM, remember sim expanders? Since Pentium computers needed ram in equal pairs upgrading could be a real hassle if you wanted to keep any of your old sticks. Enter sim expanders. Put your new 32mb stick in one slot and 2 16mb sticks in the other. My Toshiba laptop which I mentioned earlier in this thread has whatever the Japanese competitor to SIM RAM cards was.
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Jun 4, 2013 00:40
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Yup Nagras are bloody expensive. Most of the ones in the wild are ex-broadcast.
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Jun 4, 2013 03:00
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Maybe my memory is faulty, but has anyone else ever seen a parallel port powered device? I had an old sheetfed scanner that I could swear was powered via the parallel printer port.
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Jun 4, 2013 03:29
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Krispy Kareem posted:Maybe my memory is faulty, but has anyone else ever seen a parallel port powered device? I had an old sheetfed scanner that I could swear was powered via the parallel printer port. Hmm, maybe. The original Centronics parallel port did have a +5V power connection, but the later DB-25 port didn't, and you'd only be able to pull a few mA through a logic signal (although that was enough for mice connected to a serial port).
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Jun 4, 2013 03:44
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Krispy Kareem posted:Maybe my memory is faulty, but has anyone else ever seen a parallel port powered device? I had an old sheetfed scanner that I could swear was powered via the parallel printer port. If you can run a scanner on 4.5V at (maybe) 50mA, that's kinda amazing. Note that oldschool DRM dongles sometimes hosed up because of the paltry current available via LPT. e: you'd be using maxed-out signal pins to do this, so I'm not sure it would work as a scanner, unless the data transfer was hugely deferred. Totally Reasonable has a new favorite as of 03:52 on Jun 4, 2013 |
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Jun 4, 2013 03:48
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How about Weather Underground's Telnet service? I am sure this still has some practical use but I can't figure out what exactly it is. It was a relic when I first stumbled across it in 2003.
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Jun 4, 2013 04:24
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Alright so I was searching my memory for old stuff I used to have, and I remembered some hilariously terrible computer peripherals: Quest For Fame - Featuring AEROSMITH!  So yeah, Quest For Fame was an FMV game that was a precursor to Guitar Hero/Rockband/Rocksmith from 1995 that came with a BADASS peripheral called the "V-Pick" which for the goddamn life of me I could never get to work on my 486DX/2. It wasn't until years later on my AMD K6-2 400 that I could even get the drat game to run, and found out it was awful. Behold! The "V-Pick" in all it's glory!  Yes, this pile of crap I believe terminated in a joystick plug (game controller on an ol-fashioned sound card), but would only work with very few driver sets. The V-Pick was supposed to be a big introductory piece of equipment set to showcase a big line of games from the developer, and I'm sure we can all guess how much fun strumming a tennis racket in time with music is. The Microsoft Sidewinder Dual-Strike  I'm not sure if this was supposed to be the next big thing or whatever, but it truly is as awful to use as it looks. I think I bought it in a misguided fever trying to get better at Decent or Magic Carpet or some goddamn thing, but ended up attempting to play any game that used a mouse/keyboard combo. It was so bloody awkward I can't even begin to describe it. The centre "ball" joint works like a mouse, giving temporary movement to whatever direction you smash the opposing sticks towards. It is terribly unintuitive and impossible to find 0 on. The top left D-Pad was a digital stick made to look analog which had the response time of a drugged sloth, and the buttons were cheap and no reflex. For a period I used to play platformers and emulated games, trying not to move the ball, but eventually threw it out and got a Gravis pad instead.
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Jun 4, 2013 05:39
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two forty posted:How about Weather Underground's Telnet service? There's a little script in Plan 9 (another topic for this thread, but ye gods so much to write) that basically grabs the weather for the specified city. I'd always just run "weather roc" to check the current conditions and forecast for Rochester, it was faster than opening a web browser. At one point (note that this was in 2009 or so), I had my Plan 9 box set up to run a cron job every morning when I needed to wake up. This cron job would print the weather on my dot-matrix printer, another piece of (mostly) obsolete but definitely not failed piece of technology. The screeching and clunking of the printer, which sat near the foot of my bed, would wake me quite handily, and in the process I'd get a report on how to dress that day.
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Jun 4, 2013 05:46
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two forty posted:How about Weather Underground's Telnet service? TelNet clients run on pretty much anything including a lot of very low power devices. In some rural areas in the US and Canada its the only reliable way to get weather reports that aren't over satellite TV.
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Jun 4, 2013 05:53
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