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Speaking of photo retail and usb cables: I can't count how many times I've had to disappoint someone wanting to get a USB cable to transfer video from their miniDV cam. And then explaining firewire to them, which their PC or laptop is unlikely to have.
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Dec 22, 2014 01:50
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My parents bought a Sony miniDV camera with both Firewire and USB. For some reason anything transferred over USB was of an awful analog video tape like quality. It was designed like that. What a huge disappointment that was. Why bother with a digital connection at that point.
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Dec 22, 2014 02:10
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Flipperwaldt posted:My parents bought a Sony miniDV camera with both Firewire and USB. For some reason anything transferred over USB was of an awful analog video tape like quality. It was designed like that. What a huge disappointment that was. Why bother with a digital connection at that point. Those "USB Streaming" cameras had lovely quality over USB because, unlike FireWire, it doesn't have DMA support, and it has to reencode the DV data from the tape in real time into something lower-bandwidth, instead of just dumping the data from the tape over FireWire. That feature was only on cheaper camcorders.
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Dec 22, 2014 08:25
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You could literally take the analog output and pipe it through a composite-to-usb video capture cable and have something you wouldn't be embarrassed to show on a tv versus something that would make you cringe on a 2005 cellphone screen. It was really, really bad. It was mostly the camera being underpowered to do a decent real time re-encode. Though it proabably wouldn't be the first time for Sony to make something that goes "Haha, in your face, sucker!" is was still very disappointing. I guess I wasn't as much into looking up reviews on the internet before buying at the time.
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Dec 22, 2014 12:29
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Flipperwaldt posted:Though it proabably wouldn't be the first time for Sony to make something that goes "Haha, in your face, sucker!" is was still very disappointing. http://www.theonion.com/video/sony-releases-new-stupid-piece-of-poo poo-that-doesnt,14309/
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Dec 22, 2014 13:09
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Yeah, firewire is both awesome and awful. If you weren't using a Mac it was just a terrible experience. I remember all kinds of weird poo poo trying to import video via a firewire PCI card to my PC. I had a situation 3 years ago where I needed to import a whole stack of miniDV tapes and all I had was a HP laptop. I ended up buying a $150 ancient iMac G4 just for that precious 6 pin firewire port.
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Dec 22, 2014 23:47
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Krispy Kareem posted:Yeah, firewire is both awesome and awful. If you weren't using a Mac it was just a terrible experience. I remember all kinds of weird poo poo trying to import video via a firewire PCI card to my PC. I had a situation 3 years ago where I needed to import a whole stack of miniDV tapes and all I had was a HP laptop. I ended up buying a $150 ancient iMac G4 just for that precious 6 pin firewire port. It's worse trying to digitize MiniDV HD tapes with a 'Deck'. The constant Timecode Breaks are the most annoying thing ever. EDIT: Xmas guide article full of old obsolete tech: http://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/science-technology/must-christmas-tech-giftsfrom-1980s-4832232 My favourite: 
Humphreys has a new favorite as of 14:11 on Dec 23, 2014 |
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Dec 23, 2014 10:07
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Sham bam bamina! posted:My family's video camera was a gigantic bastard that recorded to regular VHS tapes. No clue where it is now. I think we got rid of ours, but we had a whole system. A two-part VCR and a camcorder. The camcorder didn't have an onboard recorder, so it was plugged into the tape deck half of the VCR, which you wore on a shoulder strap. My 10-year-old self was typically the family videographer and I loved using that hardware. It probably all weighed 15-20lbs, but the subsequent 25 years may have skewed that. Up until just a few years ago I was regularly asked by the principal at one of my schools to dub miniDV recordings of concerts and talent shows to VHS. They were probably never watched again.
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Dec 23, 2014 22:17
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Pyroclastic posted:The camcorder didn't have an onboard recorder Then it wasn’t a camcorder. 
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Dec 23, 2014 22:37
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DrBouvenstein posted:(Bolding mine.) USB can do that, so can an older PS2 keyboard-like device... and Firewire gives devices direct memory access so a malicious device can do much worse than simply entering false keystrokes. The point to take away from this is not that USB or Firewire is bad but that there isn't much you can do if someone has physical access to your machine.
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Dec 25, 2014 09:15
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A keyboard can be used to input malicious code into an editor and then execute that code. It is clearly an attack vector. 
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Dec 25, 2014 17:10
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carry on then posted:A keyboard can be used to input malicious code into an editor and then execute that code. It is clearly an attack vector. There are shitloads of computers without keyboards in production use for just this reason 
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Dec 25, 2014 17:20
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Jerry Cotton posted:There are shitloads of computers without keyboards in production use for just this reason On screen keyboard?
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Dec 25, 2014 17:42
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Johnny Aztec posted:On screen keyboard? ... I meant servers.
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Dec 25, 2014 17:43
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Point of sale systems running a full OS would be another example. With a keyboard users can get into all sorts of trouble. Limited to touchscreen buttons even Windows XP can stay usable.
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Dec 25, 2014 18:40
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Holy cow, I just read through this entire thread over the past few weeks. This is filled with some amazing stuff and impressive derails. The thing I didn't see anyone mention in all the chatter was video game boxes. I remember going to Comp USA as a kid and being really impressed at the various box sizes and shapes. For example: Ultrabots:  And Spectre VR:  I mean holy cow, the games were okay (gently caress the humanoid bot forever, scorpion bot's guided missile was way more useful) but the box itself was magical. Definitely obsolete forms of marketing now since games are more or less downloadable, but it was a fun time. Combine it with the fact that the Internet really wasn't much of a thing, so we couldn't tell that Ultrabots was crap before buying it...
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Jan 2, 2015 17:04
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Video game boxes are still a thing. Just buy a Special Collectorate's Ultra Mega Edition Version Ausgabe and you'll see.
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Jan 2, 2015 17:45
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Still, memories of a shelf of nice game boxes gives me a certain understanding for the people who miss LP sleeves.
Computer viking has a new favorite as of 18:43 on Jan 2, 2015 |
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Jan 2, 2015 18:15
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Jerry Cotton posted:Video game boxes are still a thing. Just buy a Special Collectorate's Ultra Mega Edition Version Ausgabe and you'll see. Yeah but they don't serve the same eye-grabbing purpose, and companies have gotten really canny about how much space they let games take up on shelves. Back in the late 90s and early 2000s they were more willing to let boxes take up more real estate.
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Jan 2, 2015 19:39
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SquadronROE posted:Yeah but they don't serve the same eye-grabbing purpose, and companies have gotten really canny about how much space they let games take up on shelves. Back in the late 90s and early 2000s they were more willing to let boxes take up more real estate. True, which is why I've usually bought the Huge Box versions because at some point they are always cheaper than regular versions.
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Jan 2, 2015 19:44
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Jerry Cotton posted:True, which is why I've usually bought the Huge Box versions because at some point they are always cheaper than regular versions. After a few months at least most retailers will have copies of "Assassin's Creed 45 LASER BLADES ULTIMATE BIG-DICK EDITION" on pretty steep discount because only the nerdiest nerds prepay for statues and poo poo.
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Jan 2, 2015 21:23
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SquadronROE posted:Yeah but they don't serve the same eye-grabbing purpose, and companies have gotten really canny about how much space they let games take up on shelves. Back in the late 90s and early 2000s they were more willing to let boxes take up more real estate. Halo 3's legendary edition was pretty rad.  The box itself is just a big ol' box, of course, but that helmet ruled.
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Jan 2, 2015 21:51
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MA-Horus posted:After a few months at least most retailers will have copies of "Assassin's Creed 45 LASER BLADES ULTIMATE BIG-DICK EDITION" on pretty steep discount because only the nerdiest nerds prepay for statues and poo poo. It seems like most shops don't even really carry the big collectors editions now. It's been a good while since my local shops had the collectors edition on sale. I hear that Fry's are some of the best places to get deals on them, but sadly the closest one is a really long drive away from me.
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Jan 2, 2015 23:45
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BattleMaster posted:The point to take away from this is not that USB or Firewire is bad but that there isn't much you can do if someone has physical access to your machine. True, but with something like a thumb drive, someone can just leave it lying around in front of Apple HQ in the hopes someone will see it and go, "Ooh! Free thumb drive!" Edit: Actually, Apple HQ might be the only place it makes sense to leave a malicious Firewire device, since who else is still using Firewire these days?
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Jan 2, 2015 23:58
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DrBouvenstein posted:True, but with something like a thumb drive, someone can just leave it lying around in front of Apple HQ in the hopes someone will see it and go, To be fair, Apple isn't really still using Firewire anymore either with the exception of one, maybe 2, machines.
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Jan 3, 2015 00:08
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Yeah Apple dropping Firewire 400/800 from their boxes in favor of Thunderbolt has really been a load of fun when we've been given old DV tapes or even reasonably new external drives and realized we've got nothing to plug them into.
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Jan 3, 2015 03:56
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DrBouvenstein posted:True, but with something like a thumb drive, someone can just leave it lying around in front of Apple HQ in the hopes someone will see it and go, The way the original PS3 Jailbreak worked was by crafting a malicious USB device that overflowed a buffer by creating virtual devices with malformed descriptors which exploited an edge-case bug in the descriptor parsing code. It goes to show that you can do some very nasty things with malicious USB devices. WebDog posted:Yeah Apple dropping Firewire 400/800 from their boxes in favor of Thunderbolt has really been a load of fun when we've been given old DV tapes or even reasonably new external drives and realized we've got nothing to plug them into. A lot of recording and other music hardware used Firewire as well and those people were not happy about Apple dropping it either.
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Jan 3, 2015 09:03
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empty baggie posted:To be fair, Apple isn't really still using Firewire anymore either with the exception of one, maybe 2, machines. Note that Thunderbolt is far worse as far as that vulnerability is concerned. It uses PCI Express, and PCI Express is designed for high-performance internal devices like disk controllers and graphics cards.
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Jan 3, 2015 12:56
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Edit: Wrong thread.
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Jan 3, 2015 17:16
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dpbjinc posted:Note that Thunderbolt is far worse as far as that vulnerability is concerned. It uses PCI Express, and PCI Express is designed for high-performance internal devices like disk controllers and graphics cards. This for some reason got me to thinking of something. The malicious 'dialer' viruses, programs, etc. that went around where it would cause your PC to dial something like a per-minute or per-call number without your knowledge. With everyone making the move to much faster services like DSL, Sat. and cable, not even having a traditional modem at all in newer computers, etc., I haven't seen anyone really make a big deal about this in years. However, 10 years ago, it seemed like one of the bigger PC security concerns.
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Jan 3, 2015 19:04
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JediTalentAgent posted:The malicious 'dialer' viruses, programs, etc. that went around where it would cause your PC to dial something like a per-minute or per-call number without your knowledge. With everyone making the move to much faster services like DSL, Sat. and cable, not even having a traditional modem at all in newer computers, etc., I haven't seen anyone really make a big deal about this in years. However, 10 years ago, it seemed like one of the bigger PC security concerns.
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Jan 3, 2015 19:21
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hirvox posted:They're alive and well on the mobile side. Oh this flashlight widget wants acess to phone, location, browser history, cell data, and google wallet? SOUNDS GREAT!
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Jan 3, 2015 20:48
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Speaking of pay-per-minute calls, those 1-900 numbers were everywhere in the 80s and 90s. The industry was basically completely unregulated and holy gently caress were those things a scam. The industry basically preyed on children, but it was OK because they always warned you to get your parents' permission first. Nobody actually did this because the answer would have always been 'NO!'  $1.49 for the first minute, 99¢ for each additional minute and the average call lasted 4 minutes. To listen to Hulk Hogan say... something. I wonder how many kids ended up grounded for a year after calling that number every day for a month and their parents got a $130+ phone bill? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sk2CKwJ3hGo Just sit on the line and you can get Corey Haim's and Corey Feldman's personal number, which was probably another 1-900 number where you could leave them a message that they would never hear. The ones where you just listened to a celebrity message weren't even the weirdest ones. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WUcznJNZc0o $2 for the first minute and $1 for each additional minute to have an answering machine insult you. That commercial is concentrated 90s though. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M-akWAWOp2Y What makes America cry? Probably seeing their phone bill after calling this $2 a minute number. They died off rapidly as the world moved into the 21st century due to the fact that cell phones never supported 1-900 calling and network operators just stopped supporting them because of the massive amount of scams out there. AT&T halted 1-900 service in 2002 and Verizon finally cut off billing for them on their terrestrial networks a couple of years ago. I can't even imagine that any were (are?) actually still in service outside of maybe some weird psychic hotlines that catered to Luddites.
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Jan 3, 2015 21:35
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The_Franz posted:Speaking of pay-per-minute calls, those 1-900 numbers were everywhere in the 80s and 90s. The industry was basically completely unregulated and holy gently caress were those things a scam. The industry basically preyed on children, but it was OK because they always warned you to get your parents' permission first. I was just watching Punch-Drunk Love yesterday and the whole idea of the three-buck-a-minute sex line or whatever made me cringe.
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Jan 3, 2015 21:39
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strangemusic posted:I was just watching Punch-Drunk Love yesterday and the whole idea of the three-buck-a-minute sex line or whatever made me cringe. These are still around, just not in 900 number form.
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Jan 3, 2015 21:59
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A friend of mine worked for a guy who made his wealth with the contemporary version of that: SMS pay-per-texts, those things that you'd text once and in doing so would subscribe you, charging you per text. My friend didn't work with or on that side at all, but the guy was filthy, millions of dollars, here let me spend four grand on a staff dinner for five people rich. This is in Perth, Australia too. He was apparently really pleasant, he just lacked that disconnect of all good businessmen where morality didn't go near his profits. Apparently the name of the game was finding a way around regulations: New advertising rules say you need to state terms and conditions? Make the terms and conditions a two percent difference in colour from the background and put it in 2pt font. He had people dedicated to that one task.
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Jan 3, 2015 23:28
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Don't they make FireWire/Thunderbolt adapter dongle things? Are they crap or what?
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Jan 3, 2015 23:41
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XTimmy posted:Apparently the name of the game was finding a way around regulations: New advertising rules say you need to state terms and conditions? Make the terms and conditions a two percent difference in colour from the background and put it in 2pt font. He had people dedicated to that one task. The worst offender I saw had an advertised interest of 4%, but the effective interest was something like 450%.
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Jan 3, 2015 23:56
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Last Chance posted:Don't they make FireWire/Thunderbolt adapter dongle things? Are they crap or what? Collateral Damage posted:The worst offender I saw had an advertised interest of 4%, but the effective interest was something like 450%.
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Jan 4, 2015 04:15
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I remember back in the day some porn sites had a 900 number that you could set your modem to dial, and it would allow access to the paid site for some ridiculous fee. I'm sure this feature was never ever abused, since teenagers can't get access to a phone line they don't have to pay for and they would never lie when certifying their age.
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Jan 4, 2015 05:50
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