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Mister Kingdom posted:That looks very Star Trek-y.
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May 6, 2014 23:15
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JediTalentAgent posted:There were some attempts for customized music, pre-Ipod, too. At some point in the early '90s there was a similar service for cassettes. I had one made at a local record store, where you'd go through a catalog of available songs, select the ones you wanted in the order you wanted and in a little while come back and pick up the completed tape. I imagine that sounds ridiculously quaint now.
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May 6, 2014 23:38
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Jose Pointero has a new favorite as of 06:20 on Aug 28, 2019 |
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May 6, 2014 23:56
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 I think it was 2001/2002 when I had this setup. It was my big worked all summer, buy a cool phone before going to college thing. Also had Wifi, but you had to remove the phone cartridge. edit: Also had one of these, a Qualcomm from '99. 
blugu64 has a new favorite as of 00:20 on May 7, 2014 |
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May 7, 2014 00:15
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I figure this thread is the best place to brag about this, but I FINALLY scored a Laserdisc player last night! Goodwill had one in. Best thing about it is it has s-video and optical audio out. This is going to be awesome on the projector / home theater. They had a ton of LDs too, I snagged Jurrasic Park, a few godawfully cheesy looking 80s movies I'd never heard of, and some other stuff. I cannot wait to watch my copy of Spaceballs: The Laserdisc on it.  Also trying to track down the Star Wars "definitive" edition Laserdiscs but holy bajesus those aren't cheap!
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May 7, 2014 00:26
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Code Jockey posted:I figure this thread is the best place to brag about this, but I FINALLY scored a Laserdisc player last night! Goodwill had one in. Best thing about it is it has s-video and optical audio out. This is going to be awesome on the projector / home theater. They had a ton of LDs too, I snagged Jurrasic Park, a few godawfully cheesy looking 80s movies I'd never heard of, and some other stuff. I've always held the belief that the pre-90s-theater-rerelease VHS were "definitive." I've still got mine and hang on to a VHS machine pretty much exclusively for that reason.
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May 7, 2014 01:17
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Dick Trauma posted:At some point in the early '90s there was a similar service for cassettes. I had one made at a local record store, where you'd go through a catalog of available songs, select the ones you wanted in the order you wanted and in a little while come back and pick up the completed tape. I imagine that sounds ridiculously quaint now. There was, very briefly, a service for cassette and disk based computer games in Britain like this in the early 90s. EDOS, for Electronic Distribution of Software. I got Bubble Bobble and Turrican for the C64 before it vanished.
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May 7, 2014 01:27
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strangemusic posted:I've always held the belief that the pre-90s-theater-rerelease VHS were "definitive." I've still got mine and hang on to a VHS machine pretty much exclusively for that reason.  (Probably more "definitive" than the Laserdiscs, actually; they aren't smothered in DNR and have better colors.) On a related note, lovely letterboxed home media is something that I sure as hell don't miss. What absolute garbage that was.
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May 7, 2014 01:41
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Krispy Kareem posted:I remember looking at that phone and this one: I actually bought that thing. What a horrid mistake that was. It was really small, which would have been nice except for the fact that the internal battery was miniscule, providing about four hours of real-world standby time and maybe 45 minutes of doing anything that involved the screen. They "made up" for this by shipping it with an ugly external battery/case that more than doubled the thickness of the phone:  The square touchpad thing on the side with the large screen was completely worthless; it was staggeringly obvious that the only reason they'd included it was to try to appear to be more like an Iphone, but they didn't bother to actually make use of it in the UI. You couldn't do anything with it that wouldn't have worked far better with a standard 4-way navigation button. I don't think I've every been quite so happy to dump a phone as I was when I finally got rid of that piece of poo poo.
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May 7, 2014 01:47
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GWBBQ posted:They never completely went away. It's a niche market, but they're a nice easy way to make small production runs of albums. One of my brother's friends runs a record label that does exclusively tape releases for metal bands. Well that just makes no goddamn sense at all. There is no way that a run of cassette tapes is in any way easier or cheaper than a run of cds, and then you've also got to deal with the fact that you're offering a thing in a format that you'd be lucky if even a fifth of your potential customers have the means to play. I mean, I can see the kitsch factor, but it's a hell of a sacrifice to make for the sake of kitsch.
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May 7, 2014 01:58
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Sham bam bamina! posted:But do you have the widescreen tapes? I worked at Blockbuster (that's going to be fun to explain to the grandkids) for several years during the VHS phase-out. I left the company in '05 and we'd still have people return movies because of the black bars.
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May 7, 2014 02:06
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Waterslide Industry Lobbyist posted:I worked at Blockbuster (that's going to be fun to explain to the grandkids) for several years during the VHS phase-out. I left the company in '05 and we'd still have people return movies because of the black bars. 
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May 7, 2014 02:07
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My first (and still current) MP3 player was one of these: 20 GB of internal hard drive space, proprietary connector-to-usb connection, and if the battery gets too low, you have to plug it into the wall and charge it that way. Got it in like 2006 or so for less than $100. Works really well, my biggest problems are that the battery dies even if you don't use it for a long time, and the playlists are in a stupid proprietary format that pretty much requires you to use their lovely ancient software. I'd use my phone instead more but even with using winamp for android, I still get "Apollo has stopped working" and not being able to play anything until I reboot the fucker. Not good when trying to drive.
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May 7, 2014 02:14
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WebDog posted:I think I had the same thing (posted earlier). Curiously the Internet seems to have forgotten this, as I found it with little issue last time. Yeah thats it, it even came with the wired remote in the picture. I don't know if mine was a dud unit but it was just woeful to use. Along with the lock up issue I mentioned previously, I remember it just being really slow to do anything. Waiting for it to seek tracks in shuffle mode felt almost excruciating. I do vaguely remember it being relatively cheap when I brought it though (sub-SGD$200).
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May 7, 2014 02:19
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Code Jockey posted:Also trying to track down the Star Wars "definitive" edition Laserdiscs but holy bajesus those aren't cheap! Back in the early 90s, I bought a laserdisc player from Radio Shack. I even joined the Columbia House Laserdisc Club and with their 3-for-$1-each promotion, got the Star Wars trilogy. I finally managed to snag the Definitive set cheap (about $50), too.
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May 7, 2014 02:30
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Sham bam bamina! posted:I'd mercifully forgotten that that was an actual mindset that people had. Thanks for the reminder, rear end in a top hat. t Had? People still set their televisions to stretch 4:3 content to fill the screen. It's almost worse because at least pan&scan didn't distort the image. edit: V V V and that. sleepy gary has a new favorite as of 02:44 on May 7, 2014 |
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May 7, 2014 02:38
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Waterslide Industry Lobbyist posted:I worked at Blockbuster (that's going to be fun to explain to the grandkids) for several years during the VHS phase-out. I left the company in '05 and we'd still have people return movies because of the black bars. Sham bam bamina! posted:I'd mercifully forgotten that that was an actual mindset that people had. Thanks for the reminder, rear end in a top hat. t I recently had a relative furious over the fact that 2.35:1 aspect ratio movies still have "black bars" on his expensive new LCD TV. I tried to explain to him why seeing the whole image was a good thing, but once I pointed out the "zoom" button on his remote he got so happy I just couldn't bear to harass him any more.
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May 7, 2014 02:38
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This is a terrible quality video, but BMW e39 5 series cars with the nav system had this insanely stupid and complex mechanism for revealing the cassette deck. Imagine the level of German engineering that went into creating this dumb thing for a format that no one gives a poo poo about. The nav system was only available from 2001-2004. WELL past the point anyone would care: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pXVaXPQuuuE
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May 7, 2014 03:28
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blugu64 posted:edit: Also had one of these, a Qualcomm from '99. I had the next generation of the Palm phone thingy. I loved that drat phone. I worked in an ISP's NOC at the time and we'd often have to test dial our 56k modems. My Palm phone had a working 14.4 modem so I just connected from my desk rather than use the test modems in our lab. Palm was the poo poo back then.
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May 7, 2014 03:40
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Mousepractice posted:I loved these guys, after my friends moved on to better kit I ended up with about three of the early 128mb models and each one would hold a different playlist. I reckon I came out ahead, because my friends upgraded to these: Yes. I had the HD3 and it was awesome. I actually like it better than anything available now. The SonicStage software you had to use was absolutely poo poo. If someone wrote new software I would pick one of these up again.
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May 7, 2014 05:19
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Killer robot posted:It's funny how if Sony hadn't fought the MP3 market so hard they could have owned it from the ground floor. Too many buttons. Too much tech. Behold the Genica GN803 Tavarua.  This this was the first cd based mp3 player and I played the poo poo out of it. You couldn't navigate folders that I remember so if you dumped 650 megs of 4-5 meg mp3s on a CD's root you had to memorize the alphabetical order of ~145 songs or just put it on shuffle. I think I actually carried around a list of what was on each of my like 5 cds printed at something like 6 point font if I wanted to find something quick towards the end of HS. It was amazing. Then I got an Archos 2000  which lasted until 2005-6 or something stupid when I finally gave into an ipod mini.
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May 7, 2014 05:37
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I had one that looked similar, not sure if it was the same brand or a rebrand. I recall it had really lovely skip protection though.
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May 7, 2014 09:58
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I still have this thing, and use it occasionally. It's the iRiver H320, and it's still working great. Works as a standard USB mass storage device, so just plug it in and transfer files. Currently running the latest version of RockBox!
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May 7, 2014 10:46
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this was my go-to mp3 player for the past 8 years or so: the Creative Zen Vplus (8gb) but the screen has recently dimmed to basically unreadable  what I loved about it, was the line-in recording feature. I could easily rip vinyl LPs, it recorded in 128kbps WMA, and when it detected silence between the songs the recording would pause, then start again for the next song on the LP (making each song on the LP a different WMA file). I know I can rip LPs in better quality via Audacity on my PC yada yada, but just plugging this fella into my stereo was so easy, I might have to track down another one (although the second hand market might land me with another about-to-die screen)... so if anyone else knows of a old/cheap mp3 player with line-in recording, I'm all ears!
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May 7, 2014 10:53
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Fair Hallion posted:
Joke answer: Nokia 5510. Real answer: http://www.amazon.com/Transcend-TS4GMP870-2-4-Inch-Video-Player/dp/B004HHOTGI/ref=sr_1_11?s=mp3&ie=UTF8&qid=1399459092&sr=1-11 Or a search with the term line in recording: http://www.amazon.com/s?rh=n%3A1264866011%2Cp_n_feature_four_browse-bin%3A676331011
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May 7, 2014 11:40
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Valfar posted:I still have this thing, and use it occasionally. It's the iRiver H320, and it's still working great. Works as a standard USB mass storage device, so just plug it in and transfer files. Currently running the latest version of RockBox! Hells yeah. I worked for JB Hifi back when those were the main competition for the iPods, and we'd sell the poo poo out of them. They looked like they were made in Soviet Russia, and the manuals and software were hot garbage, but man, they sounded good, had great batteries, were a doddle to get up and running, came with Sennheiser ear buds and were built tough. Any time someone came in wanting an MP3 player, but had any doubts in their minds, we steered them to the ol' iRivers. The only way to get an iPod from us was to specifically ask for one, because buddy, if you weren't buying an iRiver, you were doing it wrong.
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May 7, 2014 11:57
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blugu64 posted:
Ah the Handspring. I had a refurbished orange one around that time, never had anything for the expansion slot though, I always wanted something for it though. Served me great until 2004, when I dropped it right on it's screen.
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May 7, 2014 13:38
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I shelled out for the Eyemodule--a camera capable of taking FULL COLOR stills at a whopping 320 x 240 resolution. http://www.amazon.com/Eyemodule-Digital-Camera-Springboard-Handspring/dp/B00004TDN7 I was really fond of the Handspring Visor. There were some really nifty apps for it, like one that used the IR port to allow the device to act as a TV remote. And, of course, the games. I must've spent hundreds of hours playing Space Trader on that thing.
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May 7, 2014 14:08
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GOTTA STAY FAI posted:I shelled out for the Eyemodule--a camera capable of taking FULL COLOR stills at a whopping 320 x 240 resolution. I honestly loved my handspring, I replaced it with a Tungsten V, and didn't like it nearly as much.
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May 7, 2014 14:16
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My Palm was a VIIx... Which was 'ok', but I couldn't afford the $15/mo for the pathetic data service (it was like 150KB/mo or something obscene), so essentially half of it was useless dead weight, and having it meant that it was a sub-par PalmOS device in other areas. I still miss it though, and miss Graffiti whenever I'm writing on my iPad (keep trying to use the carriage return gesture, in particular)
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May 7, 2014 14:35
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Oh, Graffiti, you are the reason I curl the tails of my y's, even after all these years 
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May 7, 2014 14:40
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Nostrum posted:This is a terrible quality video, but BMW e39 5 series cars with the nav system had this insanely stupid and complex mechanism for revealing the cassette deck. Imagine the level of German engineering that went into creating this dumb thing for a format that no one gives a poo poo about. The nav system was only available from 2001-2004. WELL past the point anyone would care: BMW's *current* nav system, iDrive, is a horrible piece of poo poo that literally everybody hates. Seriously, look at the interface for inputting an address into the nav system:  Rotate wheel to first letter. Click. Rotate wheel to second letter. Click. Note how that even though it's pretty sure you want to go to Home Depot after the first few letters, the address display on the right doesn't show you the distances or even the full address unless you go and select one of them. Whatever usability engineer thought this was a good idea needs to be beaten with pipes. Phanatic has a new favorite as of 14:58 on May 7, 2014 |
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May 7, 2014 14:50
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GOTTA STAY FAI posted:Oh, Graffiti, you are the reason I curl the tails of my y's, even after all these years Do any tablets these days use anything like that? I feel like I could do better using something like that versus the lovely on screen keyboard.
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May 7, 2014 14:52
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Man, did everyone have a Palm at some point? Before my first "smartphones", in college, 2002/2003, I had a Palm IIIc. That 'c' stood for color.  After I no longer needed it, I actually found a program that used the Palm IIIc as an RSS reader. The downside was it wasn't wireless (since that Palm didn't have wifi,) so it had to be in its dock the whole time, and the dock connected to the PC (with a serial cable, natch.) Edit: Ha, according to Wikipedia: quote:The Palm IIIc features the classic III-series connector, 8MB of RAM and a 20MHz DragonBall EZI CPU. DragonBall CPU?!? Did they ever go Super Saiyan? DrBouvenstein has a new favorite as of 14:55 on May 7, 2014 |
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May 7, 2014 14:52
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Iron Crowned posted:Do any tablets these days use anything like that? I feel like I could do better using something like that versus the lovely on screen keyboard. The Galaxy Note range...sort of does.  And I think some keyboards like SWYPE also have a handwriting mode built in.
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May 7, 2014 14:55
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DrBouvenstein posted:Man, did everyone have a Palm at some point? Also, the DragonBall CPU is a direct relative to the 68000 family of CPUs.  
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May 7, 2014 15:13
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DrBouvenstein posted:Man, did everyone have a Palm at some point? We had these working topside watch for submarines. It contained a database of everyone on the base with clearances and their full social (great idea!). The way it worked was if someone showed up without their id badge they gave you their social, you looked it up, and sent them on their way with a temp badge. If they weren't in the system, they got escorted. It was an awful piece of poo poo, had to be carried to the main building for weekly updates (add/remove people) and I hated working with it. Until someone managed to install word warp on it. I loving love word games and dereliction of duty
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May 7, 2014 15:14
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WebDog posted:And I think some keyboards like SWYPE also have a handwriting mode built in. Yeah, Swype has a handwriting recognition feature, but, having just tried it for the first time, I've got to say it's pretty slow and clunky compared to swype gestures.
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May 7, 2014 15:19
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Phanatic posted:BMW's *current* nav system, iDrive, is a horrible piece of poo poo that literally everybody hates. Modern automobile infotainment is making tremendous improvements, and not literally everyone hates every kind (even iDrive, which did suck until recently). You certainly did pick the worst possible scenario to showcase here. The screen you use is for a search (where you enter any character after another), not address entering. Entering an address in most systems these days is predictive where it jumps to letters that can possibly come next. Of course you can also just use your voice to do it. Or in newer ones draw letters on a capacitive touch surface (iDrive top surface for BMW, number pad in Audi, someplace in MB and Lexus). As for obsolete car tech:  Sync needs to die, but those capacitive buttons below the screen. Pretty sure those cause accidents because they are hard to use just by feel, you usually need to look down to hit the right button. The coming battle between Google and Apple to own the car interface will be fun to watch.
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May 7, 2014 15:27
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Nostrum posted:This is a terrible quality video, but BMW e39 5 series cars with the nav system had this insanely stupid and complex mechanism for revealing the cassette deck. Imagine the level of German engineering that went into creating this dumb thing for a format that no one gives a poo poo about. The nav system was only available from 2001-2004. WELL past the point anyone would care:
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