|
Pham Nuwen posted:I have one of these: Oh man please tell me that little toggle switch there doesn't control any vital functions.
|
# ? Jan 22, 2014 00:07 |
|
|
# ? Apr 28, 2024 04:02 |
|
tacodaemon posted:Billy Idol's 1993 album Cyberpunk actually came with a floppy disk multimedia presentation that won it a fair bit of hype at the time: I almost bought that until I saw it was Mac-only. Billy Idol
|
# ? Jan 22, 2014 00:31 |
|
Monkey Fracas posted:Oh man please tell me that little toggle switch there doesn't control any vital functions. Even better. It's a turbo toggle.
|
# ? Jan 22, 2014 01:29 |
|
strangemusic posted:Sure you're not thinking of something else? The Karma was 20gb with USB 2.0 He's got to be talking about the PMP300, the first Diamond Rio that came out in 98.
|
# ? Jan 22, 2014 01:57 |
|
I used to have one of these: The IBM Workpad z50. It was like a small laptop that ran Windows CE. Think a larger version of the HP Jornada. No hard drive, just internal memory and a compact flash slot. No USB or Ethernet, you connected it to your computer via serial cable and transferred files that way. It came with a cord you could use to hook the serial port to your cell phone and use the internet at outrageous cost (this was back in like 2001, before I got a cell phone, so I never tried it myself). I wrote a ton of papers on this thing. The biggest problem with it was there was no good way to not use it for a while. You could suspend it, but it'd still draw from the battery, and after a week or so the battery would die. And for some reason the internal storage was dynamic memory, so after the battery died, well, hope you had your files backed up...
|
# ? Jan 22, 2014 02:28 |
ravenkult posted:What's the most cyberpunk obsolete tech you got? My dad and I played pitch n' putt golf with William Gibson in the early 90s. He just happened to be in front of us. Physical activity outside is obsolete now from what I can tell. Also golf.
|
|
# ? Jan 22, 2014 02:30 |
|
tacodaemon posted:Billy Idol's 1993 album Cyberpunk actually came with a floppy disk multimedia presentation that won it a fair bit of hype at the time: And yeah old old laptops with a refresh rate so slow that if you turned on mouse trails you could draw with the mouse.
|
# ? Jan 22, 2014 02:53 |
|
I missed instrument chat but I've got to throw this guy in here. The Eigenharp Alpha Each of the keys is sensitive to direct pressure, but also to lateral pressure in both directions, so you can program in pitch bending on individual keys. The sides have touch sensitive strips, so you can simulate bowing. And there is the wind controller. The entire thing is programmable so you can do things like use a set of keys as a sequencer then play simulated sax on top of that. The craftsmanship on them is excellent, although I haven't had one plugged in to be able to noodle around on. Cost $5900, but I'm not sure if you can find them anymore.
|
# ? Jan 22, 2014 03:30 |
|
Monkey Fracas posted:Oh man please tell me that little toggle switch there doesn't control any vital functions. The switch isn't stock, there's usually a faceplate there with the LSI ADM3A logo on it. The panel it's mounted on has a bunch of DIP switches underneath to control baud rate, parity and the likelooks like someone added the switch to flip between a couple of settings they used regularly.
|
# ? Jan 22, 2014 03:42 |
|
Waterslide Industry Lobbyist posted:I missed instrument chat but I've got to throw this guy in here. They still make them-- they are made in batches when they get enough orders, basically. I have a pico, which is the small version (only 2 rows of keys). The craftsmanship is excellent, but the cost is nuts.
|
# ? Jan 22, 2014 04:20 |
|
ravenkult posted:What's the most cyberpunk obsolete tech you got? Sony Hit Bit HB-F1XD Mark 2 Panasonic FS-A1 WSX Sanyo Wavy 70FD Even the names are perfect.
|
# ? Jan 22, 2014 04:35 |
|
Sham bam bamina! posted:The Japanese MSX computers of the mid- to late '80s are probably the most cyberpunk-looking things that I can think of: I own one of these. The MSX and MSX2 are what William Gibson was thinking of when he wrote about cyberdecks. They were supposed to be the evolution of computers like that.
|
# ? Jan 22, 2014 04:42 |
|
I know that technically all our tech and design today is 'better', but I love that angular and button-laden design of 80s technology.
|
# ? Jan 22, 2014 04:54 |
|
Sham bam bamina! posted:The Japanese MSX computers of the mid- to late '80s are probably the most cyberpunk-looking things that I can think of: These are almost EXACTLY what I thought "decks" looked like when I first read Neuromancer...
|
# ? Jan 22, 2014 05:00 |
|
Exit Strategy posted:I own one of these. The MSX and MSX2 are what William Gibson was thinking of when he wrote about cyberdecks. They were supposed to be the evolution of computers like that. Fooley posted:These are almost EXACTLY what I thought "decks" looked like when I first read Neuromancer...
|
# ? Jan 22, 2014 05:01 |
|
ravenkult posted:What's the most cyberpunk obsolete tech you got? While technically not obsolete I have a bit of cyberpunk that's not needed to be used anymore. It's a set of Bump Key Dies, basically metalworking patters that let you cut blank keys for the purpose of lock picking. These days a set of bump keys is like 5-25 dollars depending on what range of lock manufacturers you want. I guess people use circle picks as well since a thing that helps you break into poo poo will always be useful. But I mostly use mine when I do freelance work to show people how unsecured their locked file cabinets are. But I feel that whole culture of handcuff and lock picking is pretty much a 90's cyberpunk relic. What other culture of modern tech done by nerds is taught to you by a rail thin long haired Norwegian man at a folding table during a convention (I kid, I kid, the European lock pick dudes are doing amazing poo poo with 3D printers these days but still).
|
# ? Jan 22, 2014 05:18 |
|
I kinda miss that computers don't try and look futuristic in some shape or form - usually at the cost of ergonomics and usability. You miss the days when your stereo was completely black with almost no indication of what is going on so you can impress your mates with a remote control! Everything nowadays is black and silver with piercing blue LED's that need several layers of electrical tape. Almost every device ends up becoming a form of ambient lighting to guide you around the house at night. I don't need to turn on the bathroom light, my shaver's LCD display is bright enough to see where I'm pissing.
|
# ? Jan 22, 2014 05:18 |
WebDog posted:I kinda miss that computers don't try and look futuristic in some shape or form - usually at the cost of ergonomics and usability. You miss the days when your stereo was completely black with almost no indication of what is going on so you can impress your mates with a remote control! Yeah just the other night I was thinking about how my living room looks like the old Star Trek bridge in the dark. Luckily, only the modem lights blink though. I got poo poo on in the PS4 thread for buying a PS4 controller charger with LEDs but the controller itself is one big LED that you point at your TV while trying to watch it. My fingers glow, my TV bezel glows and there's nothing I can do about it.
|
|
# ? Jan 22, 2014 05:35 |
|
Fooley posted:These are almost EXACTLY what I thought "decks" looked like when I first read Neuromancer... I got your deck right here, buddy. I can still remember the pain of playing Soccer on that evil controller.
|
# ? Jan 22, 2014 05:37 |
|
Toilet Clam posted:I used to have one of these: Nearly all Windows CE devices and other PDAs such as Palms from that era are like that. The #1 reason was cost... Flash memory was considerably more expensive back then. To save cost they where designed with regular dynamic RAM that had to be kept powered. The entire platform was designed around that limitation. Most people used these devices with a desktop PC running Sync software. The sync software would make a complete backup of the entire device whenever it was connected. Long as you synced regularly, the battery completely dying really wasn't that big of an issue.
|
# ? Jan 22, 2014 05:39 |
|
My old boss had an early Windows cellphone which I'm pretty sure was the same way - dead battery meant all his contacts disappeared. Great design there.
|
# ? Jan 22, 2014 05:48 |
|
Pham Nuwen posted:I have one of these: haha poo poo is that a lear siegler ADM-3? My dad used one in college, still has it, and I have one that came with a Northstar Horizon I got from a classmate's dad years ago. The Northstar Horizon is another fun one, 8080 or z80 CPU, 64k of RAM (two S100 cards!), dual full height 5.25" floppy drives, a video card that reportedly cost something like 2-3k when bought, etc etc. The power supply is linear instead of switch mode and the whole computer weighs like 100lbs. Its boot ROM is 256... bytes. Not kilobytes, bytes. Which is the only reason I haven't gotten it booting yet, it ran CP/M (which puts most of the BIOS functionality in a file on the boot disk, which shuffled of this mortal coil decades ago) and used hard-sectored floppy disk media Oh it has a math coprocessor built entirely out of PROM chips (not EEPROM or EPROM, just PROM) and 7400 series TTL logic, too. You fed the data in by sending bytes to specific memory addresses and then telling it what operation you wanted, then waited hundreds of clock cycles for your result. Still faster than doing it on an 8 bit microprocessor with no native divide or multiply instruction. One of these decades I'll get it working. It came with full schematics for the mainboard and all adapter boards, and I know 8080/z80 machine+assembly language, so this is actually possible... the wonders of being a turbo nerd in high school. Now, too, but I get paid to do that poo poo these days.
|
# ? Jan 22, 2014 06:38 |
|
kastein posted:haha poo poo is that a lear siegler ADM-3? My dad used one in college, still has it, and I have one that came with a Northstar Horizon I got from a classmate's dad years ago. It is indeed the Lear Siegler ADM-3A. The "A" means it has the lower-case mod installed. And no, mine doesn't have that switch.
|
# ? Jan 22, 2014 06:45 |
|
Interesting, I thought the A meant it left the factory assembled instead of requiring the owner to solder the whole thing together. Mine has a couple banks of DIP switches under that little cover that set number of bits per byte, stop bit count, parity type, baud rate, etc. I've never seen one with that switch on it, maybe the owner used two specific baud rates more than the others and added a toggle switch for them.
|
# ? Jan 22, 2014 06:51 |
|
Also, check the right side of the ADM-3A keyboard's home row to see where vi's keybindings got their start:
|
# ? Jan 22, 2014 06:54 |
|
Speaking of memory... Drum memory Somewhat of an early precursor to the hard drive invented in 1932. A metal cylinder coated with ferromagnetic material. The first held around 60kb and were mostly used in IBM mainframes up to the 80's when they were kept around as a sort of secondary storage. Each row is a fixed track and the drum has to be rotated to align with the read head. Some drums had multiple heads to speed things up. This method of read delay eventuated in programmers working on a concept where they would time when the head would be at the desired track and place the code required in the right spot leading to all sorts of interesting trickery. BSD nerds would recognize their linage from /dev/drum being the default virtual memory location.
|
# ? Jan 22, 2014 07:07 |
|
tacodaemon posted:Also, check the right side of the ADM-3A keyboard's home row to see where vi's keybindings got their start: The keyboard in general was very good for Unix. The Esc and Ctrl keys were in good places too. ^^^^^^^ I just saw a bunch of those in the Computer History Museum over the weekend. If any of you live in the San Francisco Bay Area, go there. It's amazing. I've got a bunch of pictures that I should upload.
|
# ? Jan 22, 2014 07:12 |
|
This fuckin' bad boy here. The Compaq Portable II. The sheer gall of calling this goddamn thing Portable, it weighs a bloody ton and cost my father's company $3500. Mine has the orange/black plasma display.
|
# ? Jan 22, 2014 07:24 |
|
WebDog posted:Drum memory
|
# ? Jan 22, 2014 07:34 |
|
MA-Horus posted:This fuckin' bad boy here. I literally have one of these. If anyone wants it, pm me and I'll see if it works.
|
# ? Jan 22, 2014 07:42 |
|
MA-Horus posted:The sheer gall of calling this goddamn thing Portable, it weighs a bloody ton. The CPII was 23.6 lbs/10.7 kg. The first model ('83) was 12kg and the 486 model ('92) had dropped to 7.6kg. Kids these days, they know nothing about striding around with kilos of equipment. Unless you work in film, in which cameras can still weigh up to and over 10kg.
|
# ? Jan 22, 2014 07:52 |
|
tacodaemon posted:Billy Idol's 1993 album Cyberpunk actually came with a floppy disk multimedia presentation that won it a fair bit of hype at the time: This is incredible, I never knew about that. And I think the most cyberpunk thing I own is probably my C64, though it can't hold a candle to an MSX. Man what a beautiful looking machine, and now that you guys have me associating them with cyberdecks [why did I never do this before] I want one more than ever. One of you, give me yours. I've got a spare lung for trade. e.
|
# ? Jan 22, 2014 08:14 |
|
WebDog posted:Wasn't luggable the correct term? quote:Man portable
|
# ? Jan 22, 2014 09:15 |
|
ravenkult posted:What's the most cyberpunk obsolete tech you got? Yamaha midi guitar and converter. Apparently it was quite expensive back in the day and had better tracking than systems designed for regular guitars. However this was accomplished by having every string be the same,a plain G, the worst string in a guitar. Felt horrible to play, picked up a lot of junk data that had to be cleaned up afterwards, huge rack unit for the conversion, massive propertiary cable etc etc. Flipped it for a small profit pretty soon.
|
# ? Jan 22, 2014 11:16 |
|
ravenkult posted:What's the most cyberpunk obsolete tech you got? It was made for the second Matrix movie and had a limited release.
|
# ? Jan 22, 2014 12:10 |
|
That phone really sucked. Even for 2003. It was cool for the spring loaded answer function, but beyond that it was lacking the ability to send text messages or bluetooth so no one really brought it. It cost $500. Does the SIEKO Final Fantasy Watch count? There were two announced with the film. This one got released - and I think other similar styles can be brought today. This one is vapor-wear as they never released it.
|
# ? Jan 22, 2014 12:34 |
|
Didn't one of the Final Fantasy MMOs have a special clock you could get that told you the time/day/moon cycles on the clock along with the normal time?
|
# ? Jan 22, 2014 12:55 |
|
Dick Trauma posted:I got your deck right here, buddy. It was perfect for playing Micro Surgeon!
|
# ? Jan 22, 2014 12:58 |
|
My most cyberpunk possession is probably a Casio camera watch. Its this model. 120 120 pixels (0.0144 Mpixel), 4‐bit greyscale.
|
# ? Jan 22, 2014 13:19 |
|
|
# ? Apr 28, 2024 04:02 |
|
WebDog posted:This one is vapor-wear as they never released it.
|
# ? Jan 22, 2014 13:22 |