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Antifreeze Head posted:Here's a snippet from my all-time favourite letter that hits on such a thin which was originally published in Big Blue Disk #16 from either November or December 1987. Agreed 
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Apr 17, 2015 16:32
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TBH talk like that hasn't changed much--it's just a combination of a feeling of intellectual superiority ("I learned how to use [Complex Piece of Software] so everyone should have to in order to use a computer as well") and resistance to change. I honestly wouldn't be surprised if whoever wrote that post uses some really obscure linux distro now and bemoans the fact that people don't know how to use a CLI anymore 
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Apr 17, 2015 17:13
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Oh man, that is some real "books are eroding our moral fabric and turning our children into miscreants"-esque fogey thinking right there.
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Apr 17, 2015 17:18
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Much of the eighties bitching about icons was just poorly camouflaged anti-Macintosh bullshit. Be glad most of you missed out on this early iteration of Platform Wars because goddamn it was even more tedious than it is now. I remember seeing the Lisa at the 1983 NCC in Anaheim. Apple had a tiny display area and in a sea of PC amber and green command line screens I was of course drawn to the Lisa. I was fiddling with the mouse when two of the IBM guys walked over to watch me, and they were standing there chuckling. "Oh, look at the cute little trash can. Isn't that cute?" I don't know how anyone could look at that screen and not immediately realize the GUI was the future.
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Apr 17, 2015 17:21
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robodex posted:TBH talk like that hasn't changed much--it's just a combination of a feeling of intellectual superiority ("I learned how to use [Complex Piece of Software] so everyone should have to in order to use a computer as well") and resistance to change. Not that I agree with that guys rant against Icons and the Mouse, the fact is that the more you simplify a user interface in the name of user accessibility, the less powerful that interface becomes. CLI will always have a place for Enterprise.
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Apr 17, 2015 17:36
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Someone wrote in for Issue 20 to disagree with Bob.Jim Stephenson from Kalamazoo, Michigan posted:
Yep... tough day at work for me...
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Apr 17, 2015 17:46
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Lowen SoDium posted:Not that I agree with that guys rant against Icons and the Mouse, the fact is that the more you simplify a user interface in the name of user accessibility, the less powerful that interface becomes. CLI will always have a place for Enterprise. Depends on how you define "powerful". I think it's more accurate to say that a GUI interface is less complex, not necessarily less powerful. This is akin to "easy" doesn't mean "non-trivial", I think. But yes, CLI isn't going away anytime in the near future.
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Apr 17, 2015 17:58
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I thought this was a pretty fancy piece of technology when I was in kindergarten   Basically just an advanced speak and spell, but it was like pure magic how you'd insert a little plastic book and the mechanical voice would just know the book. We didn't have a computer or anything, so this was pretty much the most advanced piece of technology I experienced up until I used one of them old Macs in my third grade classroom, which again, was just basically a magic machine to play the Oregon Trail on. Now kids today with their tablets and wifi and their clouds  A brochure for it. I can still hear the robotic lady voice reading titles http://www.datamath.net/Leaflets/CL-976_US.pdf
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Apr 17, 2015 19:49
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Lowen SoDium posted:Not that I agree with that guys rant against Icons and the Mouse, the fact is that the more you simplify a user interface in the name of user accessibility, the less powerful that interface becomes. CLI will always have a place for Enterprise. No that's 100% true, but the ~*average user*~ has no need for a CLI. Back in the late 90s/early 2000s when "Linux On The Desktop" was starting to become an idea that was passed around, there was a lot of pushback from diehards about distros that tried to move as much stuff as possible out of the CLI and into a GUI. The argument boiled down to making it less powerful, when in reality Grandma doesn't need to do the poo poo that Linux Fan #283943 needs to do. Basically--yes, there's a place for that sort of interface, but very few regular users need it.
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Apr 17, 2015 21:28
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Base Emitter posted:Some pics from the Georgetown Steam Plant in Seattle, an electric generating plant built in 1906. Hell of a place to host your final punk rock show too: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ubqWbfg2elQ
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Apr 18, 2015 00:25
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flosofl posted:I think it's more accurate to say that a GUI interface is less complex, not necessarily less powerful. Have you seen the state of Microsoft's admin-side UIs lately? Due to the sheer number of options they're very complex, but still don't necessarily expose all the functionality you actually need.
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Apr 18, 2015 01:34
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Frobbe posted:
Yeah, but they don't even use the whole thing. Such a waste.  
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Apr 19, 2015 06:42
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this look familiar? there's a trend where people upcycle these for use as lamps now.
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Edited to remove lingering traces of stupidity.
Jedit has a new favorite as of 18:57 on Apr 19, 2015 |
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Apr 19, 2015 18:34
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Jedit posted:From the Failed and Obsolete Technology thread:
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Apr 19, 2015 18:40
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Collateral Damage posted:That's quite a short crosspost. That's quite the wrong thread. 
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Apr 19, 2015 18:57
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dissss posted:Have you seen the state of Microsoft's admin-side UIs lately? Due to the sheer number of options they're very complex, but still don't necessarily expose all the functionality you actually need. And nowadays you can everything from PowerShell if you want to. The more things change.
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Apr 20, 2015 00:39
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Cross-posting from the presidential primary thread (of all places):Grapeshot posted:I don't think we can really blame him for the Gateway Destination HTPC. 
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Apr 20, 2015 01:24
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Mr.Radar posted:One of the world's first home theater PCs. $4000 (plus $300 S&H) in 1996 for something that was obsolete almost immediately I wonder how many they sold?
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Apr 20, 2015 01:32
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Lowen SoDium posted:CLI will always have a place for Enterprise. Nonsense, Enterprise runs on LCARS.
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Apr 20, 2015 02:35
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Mister Kingdom posted:I wonder how many they sold? There were two at the place I worked back in 2000. Both were still in the box because the idiots that worked there before me tended to buy poo poo and never actually use it. I put one on conference room duty and although it got little use it did its job so people could put their Powerpoint presentations on the TV.
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Apr 20, 2015 02:53
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Mr.Radar posted:Cross-posting from the presidential primary thread (of all places): RIP Full Tilt Pinball
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Apr 20, 2015 02:57
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If you want a carpet bong that's not $2000, they have the H20 Vac. http://www.amazon.com/Turbo-Filtration-System-Vacuum-Cleaner/dp/B001MEZN5K $400 or so but that's just the first hit. They're not built as heavy as the Rainbow vacs but they're also not the price of a used car.
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Apr 20, 2015 03:05
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Mr.Radar posted:Cross-posting from the presidential primary thread (of all places): I remember those. Wasn't the screen resolution something like 800x600? Sure looked low res in that video.
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Apr 20, 2015 03:50
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rockinricky posted:I remember those. Wasn't the screen resolution something like 800x600? Sure looked low res in that video. Unless your CRT TV was a really well calibrated trinitron or something of the sort text would quickly get unreadable at resolutions higher than 800x600. I think I recall using 1024x768 on a TV-out, but that was probably close to the upper bound. I don't think the OS would let you crank it up any higher. That being said, I think the Gateway Destination 35" "monitor" topped out at 800x600.
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Apr 20, 2015 04:23
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When I used a PC to output to an old tube tv 1024x768 was just barely useable because the text was blurry as poo poo even if you were close to the screen.
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Apr 20, 2015 14:40
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pienipple posted:When I used a PC to output to an old tube tv 1024x768 was just barely useable because the text was blurry as poo poo even if you were close to the screen. And that's when you decided you need to learn Japanese because the subtitles were unreadable?
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Apr 20, 2015 14:58
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Well, a standard definition TV has a resolution of 720x480 so anything higher than that just makes detail smaller than the television can display.
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Apr 20, 2015 19:00
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Some guy tracks down all the best bits from 2000 and builds a Quake 3 machine: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EipIq8nnwas AGP cards, Soundblaster Live, IDE cables, Motherboard trays, Zip Drives...the random things I forgot about makes for a cool little build video.
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Apr 21, 2015 03:58
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Humphreys posted:Some guy tracks down all the best bits from 2000 and builds a Quake 3 machine: That just reminds me how much I miss playing Quake 3...
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Apr 21, 2015 04:39
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Humphreys posted:AGP cards Don't know if your motherboard can take AGP, or just PCI? No worries!   Just buy a graphics card that can be used in both! 
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Apr 21, 2015 05:55
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I wanna bridge that across two motherboards just to see what would happen
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Apr 21, 2015 06:19
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wayne curr posted:Don't know if your motherboard can take AGP, or just PCI? No worries! What in the gently caress  I've never heard of that, and that would've been around when I was big into PC building. I just...
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Apr 21, 2015 07:37
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WebDog posted:I wanna bridge that across two motherboards just to see what would happen Inverse SLI! Wield the power of DUAL MOTHERBOARDS for ultimate framerate!
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Apr 21, 2015 07:48
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Cat Hatter posted:Well, a standard definition TV has a resolution of 720x480 so anything higher than that just makes detail smaller than the television can display. Not... really. CRTs don't "have" a resolution in the same way that we think of resolutions applying to modern displays. They have lines instead of pixels, and support different resolutions by having different refresh rates and dot pitch. Also, I believe the TV-Out cables (composite/Svideo) had their own limits on lines of output, so the video card was doing downsampling and interlacing on the any image that above 300 or so lines of vertical resolution.
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Apr 21, 2015 08:47
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moller posted:Not... really. CRTs don't "have" a resolution in the same way that we think of resolutions applying to modern displays. They have lines instead of pixels, and support different resolutions by having different refresh rates and dot pitch. Edit: well, for small-ish TVs. the old 200-lb 40" tubes could probably be pressed to 720p. Pitch has a new favorite as of 09:40 on Apr 21, 2015 |
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Apr 21, 2015 09:35
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Magnus Praeda posted:That just reminds me how much I miss playing Quake 3... I'm gonna load up UT99 when I come home after seeing this though. Love me some UT99.
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Apr 21, 2015 10:32
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Humphreys posted:Some guy tracks down all the best bits from 2000 and builds a Quake 3 machine: I wanna see how modern that thing can be pushed. Like, what's the most recently released game that could be played on it.
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Apr 21, 2015 10:46
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The Doom 3 leaked alpha? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U-RVWtsJqFY The main problem is the graphics card just doesn't support anything beyond OpenGL games so that rules out a ton of stuff. A GeForce 2 would give it a slim advantage but that rules out most games with pixel shaders unless you can force them to run without. Driver support for a GF2 ended in 2005, which also coincided with games beginning to not work if you didn't have a card that had pixel shaders. Edit: For comparison's sake in 2000 I was using a Celeron 400(mhz) with something like 32mb of ram and a RivaTNT2. And this was back in the day when your folks had no idea about PCs, so money = quality. It cost around $4000 and was being paid off for years. Also Australia has a ridiculous tax on hardware so everything is about 30% more expensive than in the states. In comparison my first personally bought system cost $1300 in 2004. My father insisted I was buying junk because it was so cheap on account of buying the parts and assembling it. That old Celron was being lugged to LANs up to around 2003. Even then very little was playable without horrific slowdown. Never Winter nights you had to play completely zoomed in to get any decent frame rates, Tribes 2 was a muddy mess, and BF1942 and Morrowind was played with fog turned to max to get something like 15fps through the door. Plus all was at 800x600 on a 14" monitor left over from the 486, which had it's guns slowly dying and loosing focus - something I dubbed "cheap AA". Though that little monitor proved handy to drag around LANs as it was small enough to be comfortably crushed with three other systems and gear into the back of a hatchback before finally dying after a good decade of service. "Upgrading" to a Geforce4 MX did little to fix these problems as it had an infamous clash with the soundcard causing all sorts of crashing and I eventually got given a Geforce2 Ti which had funky RAM that required it to be overclocked to stop skewering my screen with infinite triangles. BogDew has a new favorite as of 13:54 on Apr 21, 2015 |
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Apr 21, 2015 11:06
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Hijo Del Helmsley posted:I wanna see how modern that thing can be pushed. Like, what's the most recently released game that could be played on it. The Voodoo5 doesn't have hardware Transform & Lighting, so there's a definite limit to what you can get it to run, never mind the drivers that are absolutely ancient by now. But keeping with the year 2000 build setup, you could put a Geforce2 Ultra in there. Maybe you could get something like Doom 3 or Half-Life 2 running on it. They would look like poo poo, though. E: The fastest AGP card would probably be the Geforce 7950 GT, but it would be severely held back by the CPU and bus speed of the motherboard.
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Apr 21, 2015 11:13
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Collateral Damage posted:Dunno if it's still very active (url is blocked at work) but: http://www.quakelive.com/ Quake Live is still around and is basically quake 3 in your browser. It is great.
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Apr 21, 2015 14:41
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