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Mr. Flunchy posted:I wish more games journalism was like Amiga Power with bizarre concept reviews and constant surreal digressions. Basically what PC Gamer turned into over the millennium.
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Oct 27, 2013 18:59
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Daimo posted:Basically what PC Gamer turned into over the millennium. Guess which ex-AP staffers were working at PCG over the millennium? I'll wait. (IS HAULED BODILY OUT OF THREAD AND CAST INTO A DITCH.)
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Oct 27, 2013 22:12
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This has to be a candidate for Best Obsolete Arcade Game: Not particularly unusual, but then you watch this gameplay video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GVmJbLb4XuY It was the first perspecitve-driven vertical scrolling video game, and it was smooth as hell.
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Oct 27, 2013 23:25
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Jedit posted:It was the first perspecitve-driven vertical scrolling video game, and it was smooth as hell. Still impressive for 1978, but more for its creativity than for any technical innovation.
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Oct 28, 2013 00:16
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Sham bam bamina! posted:I hate to burst your bubble, but that doesn't really mean anything. It's "perspective-driven" in the sense that the playfield is distorted for a 3D effect and that it uses a crosshair instead of a "player" sprite, but neither of those were unprecedented in 1978 (maybe the combination was, but that just sounds like meaningless specificity to present it as the "first" of some arbitrary kind), and "vertical scrolling" is completely superfluous. And there's no reason for a game that uses these techniques to not run smoothly; even the measly 2600 was able to pull off a less-detailed equivalent in its Pole Position port, and that's without the specialized hardware that the video mentions (which is probably a limiting factor, given that the simulated viewpoint never changes). There was actually a lot of technical innovation in Sky Raider. Several patents were filed for the hardware used in the game.
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Oct 28, 2013 01:23
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minato posted:Oh, so that's what the Justice - DVNO video was paying tribute to. A few parts of that video are direct references to a 1983 HBO promo which is a technical tour-de-force of model-making, visual and special effects techniques that are mostly obsolete these days thanks to digital technologies: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=agS6ZXBrcng
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Oct 28, 2013 01:23
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I suspect most if not all of the segments in the DVNO video are referencing specific ads or logos—I recognized at least a third of them.
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Oct 28, 2013 02:57
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Lazlo Nibble posted:The second half uses Yellow Magic Orchestra's "Rydeen". YMO's videos from Solid State Survivor were drenched in Scanimate graphics. 
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Oct 28, 2013 03:07
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Mr.Radar posted:A few parts of that video are direct references to a 1983 HBO promo which is a technical tour-de-force of model-making, visual and special effects techniques that are mostly obsolete these days thanks to digital technologies: Wow! I don't remember the model city, but I do remember the HBO logo floating in space and the twirling light trails in the O. I would have never thought that was made with a physical fiber optics jig the way it was. The amount of work that went into that intro is ridiculous.
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Oct 28, 2013 03:16
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Jedit posted:There was actually a lot of technical innovation in Sky Raider. Several patents were filed for the hardware used in the game.
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Oct 28, 2013 03:22
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KrautHedge posted:Google bought an old finnish paper mill and turned it into a data center a few years ago. Its cooled by the seawater. http://www.google.com/about/datacenters/inside/locations/hamina/index.html While this is a marketing video it shows what I think is a cool datacenter campus. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NsfRN4vIygo
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Nov 12, 2013 01:34
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I was playing Call of Duty the other day. It reminded me of how much I miss slide projectors. I don’t miss the image quality or sitting through boring slide shows, but the sound they make is music to my ears.  Nineteen‐fifties television commercials are pretty great, too: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WQJVL02Lnh0
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Nov 13, 2013 15:09
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Lazlo Nibble posted:I suspect most if not all of the segments in the DVNO video are referencing specific ads or logos—I recognized at least a third of them. I grew up in the late 70's and early 80's, and this was pretty typical stuff you'd see on television, and it was just as amazing then as it is to see it now. That said, keep in mind that you had three channels to watch, maybe five if you were in a very large city. If you were extremely lucky, you'd have cable television with 30-40 channels. We ended up getting cable sometime around 1985.
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Nov 13, 2013 16:38
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When I was a kid in the early 70's, we had cable tv and it was just channels 2-12 on VHF, nothing on UHF, one of the channels had a scrolling text time/news/weather/local ads station.
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Nov 14, 2013 03:07
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Did anyone mention the Acorn Archimedes? The technology in it is outdated but this thing pioneered the same ARM architecture that smartphones use today. It's pretty amazing. Also, it has the best version of the game Elite on it.
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Nov 28, 2013 01:47
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Wasn't the Acorn designed as a school computer? On that topic we have another fabulous nordic failure. The TeleNova COMPIS. COMPIS meant "COMPuter In Schools" but is also a play on words, the swedish word "kompis" meaning friend. It was launched in Sweden and Norway, although in Norway it was renamed to "Scandis"  The swedish state-funded project was launched in 1981 and the idea was to in two years develop an expandable, easy-to-use computer that could be used in various fields in school. So it would have ports for a light pen, a general IO port, support for various science instruments etcetera. It should also have a high-resolution (the spec called for minimum 500x500 pixels) screen capable of showing color images. And it had to be cheap. Esselte developed the computer, which was then produced by TeleNova, a spinoff from the swedish state telephone company Televerket. It wasn't a bad machine for its time. Based on an 8Mhz Intel 80186 CPU, it had 128kB RAM (expandable to 256) and an additional 32kB video RAM. The graphics adapter was capable of displaying 640x400 in 8 colors, although the basic model came with a proprietary monochrome CRT which also served as the power supply for the computer. Very few of the color monitors exist. So why did it fail? The same reason so many other promising hardware projects fail - timing and software. After a year long delay the computer reached the market in 1984, and by then MS-DOS had the personal computer market in an iron grip. Along comes Compis running CP/M and a proprietary programming language called COMAL. Imagine a sad trombone here. Eventually the ability to boot MS-DOS from floppy was added, but by then the hardware was obsolete and the Compis destined to be a parenthesis in computer history. Collateral Damage has a new favorite as of 10:51 on Nov 28, 2013 |
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Nov 28, 2013 10:16
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Collateral Damage posted:Wasn't the Acorn designed as a school computer? On that topic we have another fabulous nordic failure. Not to mention if you were in Europe and you wanted to get a cheap computer in 1984 the C64 was everywhere, inexpensive and megapopular.
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Nov 28, 2013 10:23
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El Estrago Bonito posted:Not to mention if you were in Europe and you wanted to get a cheap computer in 1984 the C64 was everywhere, inexpensive and megapopular. And every kid in school would trade you tapes with pirated games. Or disks, when those became widespread. We had our own homegrown fabulous nordic failure of sorts in Norway, as well, the TIKI-100. Also launched in 1984, it was a Z80-based computer with a staggering 64 k of RAM plus 32 k graphic memory; it ran a clone of CP/M called KP/M. This machine was primarily developed for use in schools, by a private company in cooperation with the Ministry of Education. Wasn't really a total failure as such, since it managed to claw out a decent market niche for itself and held onto it for a few years until everyone operating in that niche only wanted PC compatibles instead. (And in fact the company made and sold, for a few years, a successor which was a hybrid TIKI/IBM PC compatible, with both a Z80 and an 8088 processor.)
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Nov 28, 2013 11:37
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A significantly less failed computer in Sweden was the Z80-based ABC 80 which was popular in many schools and homes, and still has a minor cult following. It held a significant market share until the C64 came along.
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Nov 28, 2013 15:38
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Groke posted:And every kid in school would trade you tapes with pirated games. Or disks, when those became widespread. You just reminded me of this beauty our family had for our Commodore 128:  Also the fun thing about the cassette players was fiddling with the screw to adjust the static or whatever it did. I think I had this one:  (didn't everyone?)
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Nov 28, 2013 16:34
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mng posted:Also the fun thing about the cassette players was fiddling with the screw to adjust the static or whatever it did. It adjusted the azimuth. No I don't know what that means.
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Nov 28, 2013 20:02
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Jerry Cotton posted:It adjusted the azimuth. No I don't know what that means. It's the angle between the head and the tape (my dad is an electronics technician by trade, for nearly 40 years now).
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Nov 28, 2013 20:32
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Were there any microcomputer-related publications that didn't have an "AAAARGHZIMUTH" cartoon or illustration at least once?
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Nov 28, 2013 20:35
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Retarded Pimp posted:When I was a kid in the early 70's, we had cable tv and it was just channels 2-12 on VHF, nothing on UHF, one of the channels had a scrolling text time/news/weather/local ads station.
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Nov 28, 2013 21:18
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That keyboard looks surprisingly good, like if you put it next to something like a steelseries 7G in a shop I probably wouldn't think twice. I am guessing they wouldn't be that nice to actually use though.
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Nov 28, 2013 22:45
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Fuzz1111 posted:That keyboard looks surprisingly good, like if you put it next to something like a steelseries 7G in a shop I probably wouldn't think twice. I am guessing they wouldn't be that nice to actually use though.
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Nov 28, 2013 23:14
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I don't know about you guys, but if someone says something about "azimuth" I start having unpleasant memories of sidereal time and spherical trigonometry.
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Nov 28, 2013 23:17
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Groke posted:And every kid in school would trade you tapes with pirated games. Or disks, when those became widespread. You know, I had almost managed to forget about the TIKI-100 and TIKI-200. Our school had to suffer with those until the late 90s. :|
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Nov 29, 2013 01:40
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Krispy Kareem posted:Meh, those are scrubs. I was using trackballs in the 80's on my PCjr. I bought one of these when I used Final Cut for a living years ago. After about 2 days I went back to a USB mouse and then eventually a Magic Trackpad. They were useless. If you want know what they're being used for now, then there's a few used as set dressing in Pacific Rim.
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Nov 29, 2013 20:45
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Would I inquire here or is there a thread in AI I should check instead to ask about old, obsolete big rig trucks? My job has me working around them a lot and I've been curious as to what led up to the Kenworths and Peterbilts and such.
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Nov 29, 2013 21:45
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Malachite_Dragon posted:Would I inquire here or is there a thread in AI I should check instead to ask about old, obsolete big rig trucks? My job has me working around them a lot and I've been curious as to what led up to the Kenworths and Peterbilts and such. I'd try asking around in the thread for truckers and general trucking stuff in AI, IIRC there's been a few posts about older rigs and their history. http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3564295&pagenumber=1
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Nov 29, 2013 22:27
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80s.gif That dude on the boat looks so goddamn smug over his luggable phone.
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Dec 2, 2013 09:44
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Nothing screams 80's like being an unfortunate pack-mule for your rich friend's luggable cell phone.
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Dec 2, 2013 09:51
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That's a Mobira Talkman. My father had one, and it's still collecting dust in my parents' basement. In the nordics they used the NMT 450/900 bands which gave them excellent range, especially with an external antenna. They weren't really suitable for anything but fixed installation in a vehicle though since the unit weighed almost 6kg and the lead-acid battery gave you a talking time of 30 minutes if you were lucky. They were really popular with truckers and forestry workers up until they finally shut NMT down in 2007.
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Dec 2, 2013 10:09
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Collateral Damage posted:That's a Mobira Talkman. Please recreate this scene for us. 
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Dec 2, 2013 11:52
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I remember that scene when Lethal Weapon first came out, it blew everyone's mind. All the kids at my highschool were all, "Holy poo poo, he's carrying around a loving phone!"
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Dec 5, 2013 13:39
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Some of those phones have later been modified for amateur radio use, the 450 MHz versions can be re-tuned for the 70cm amateur band and some crazy finns have been writing new firmware for them.
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Dec 5, 2013 16:57
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longview posted:crazy finns Are there other kinds of finn?
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Dec 5, 2013 18:46
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Collateral Damage posted:In the nordics they used the NMT 450/900 bands which gave them excellent range, especially with an external antenna. They weren't really suitable for anything but fixed installation in a vehicle though since the unit weighed almost 6kg and the lead-acid battery gave you a talking time of 30 minutes if you were lucky. They were really popular with truckers and forestry workers up until they finally shut NMT down in 2007. My dad had one of those suckers as well, because of his job. It was handy to have on one or two occasions when the regular phone service was down due to weather damage.
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Dec 6, 2013 14:09
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Pilsner posted:In Denmark, there was one national channel up until 1988 when the state monopoly was lifted. Then there were two, plus a few tiny niche amateur channels came along. That poo poo didn't happen until 1992 in Norway. Of course a significant percentage of the population lived close enough to the border to get Swedish channels (and I believe some in the south could get Danish brodcasts as well), but for the rest of us it was one glorious channel. One effect of this was that everyone had seen the exact same shows (if they had been watching TV at all). In fact I am also old enough to remember when we only had one national radio channel. And if you wanted to get a phone line installed you might have to wait for up to a couple of years. Things have changed rather a bit since then.
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Dec 6, 2013 14:15
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