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Konstantin posted:Hell, for a brief period some cell phones had a walkie-talkie function. I'm not sure if anyone actually used it, or how it worked, but it was advertised heavily in commercials. The event industry used the poo poo out of them and I miss them also weekly.
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May 23, 2015 12:27
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Toast Museum posted:A more formal name would be "handheld transceiver" or "two-way radio." Apparently the first model nicknamed "Walkie talkie" was big enough that it was worn as a backpack with which you could, well, walk and talk. A subsequent handheld model was nicknamed "handie talkie," but I guess that didn't stick as well. Well that clears that up. Thanks!
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May 23, 2015 13:27
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axolotl farmer posted:wasn't two way pagers a thing for a while in the US? in Europe everyone was already using text messages by that time.  Telia Mobitel posted:To send a personal text message Groda has a new favorite as of 17:15 on May 23, 2015 |
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May 23, 2015 17:12
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Standalone FRS radios are so cheap and easy to use that I think they still have a niche when more than 2 people need to stay coordinated. I'll be buying a pair if my wife and I have to drive separately (u-haul and car) when we move.
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May 23, 2015 17:26
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Amateur Radio is still pretty popular (despite a lot of operators dying of old age) since the FCC has been making it easier to get licenses. And the cost of equipment has gone down, you can get a good quality handheld made in China for $60 that covers the 2 meter (VHF) and 70 centimeter (UHF) bands, which helps eliminate the cost of entry. However I'd say that I think CB radio has pretty much been killed by cellphones and the internet. Outside of truckers nobody really uses it any more, since you can now just call/text/tweet/facebook with your friends if you want to get a bull session going, or jump on the YouTube comments section if you want to argue with idiots. And if you need short-range two-way radio, FRS radios are much cheaper. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JoeYmG7KDaM
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May 23, 2015 23:46
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C.M. Kruger posted:Amateur Radio is still pretty popular (despite a lot of operators dying of old age) since the FCC has been making it easier to get licenses. And the cost of equipment has gone down, you can get a good quality handheld made in China for $60 that covers the 2 meter (VHF) and 70 centimeter (UHF) bands, which helps eliminate the cost of entry. As someone who was raised by cops, firefighters, and a mortician, there are times when I miss the sound of a police scanner. Sometimes my mother would hush me and my sister if my dad was heard on the scanner.
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May 24, 2015 05:27
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Vanagoon posted:Like, keep going until you smell burning, and you open your computer up to find an unrecognizable melted, burned place where the CPU was? What, you mean like this?     Reminds me of the "magic smoke" thing. Anyone who has blown a cap or fried a piece of electronics with the wrong adapter knows this situation. You plug it in, a mysterious blue smoke rises from the machine that smells like cancer. You have a few seconds panic of "oh gently caress FIRE" then try to turn it on again. It won't work. Because the magic djinni smoke that was trapped inside has escaped. That smoke was the life force, the soul of the computer. And you just watched it shuffle out the mortal coil and move on to greener pastures. Scrap everything and go back to step one. atomicthumbs posted:Fun fact: those Dolch keyboards are now basically the most desireable mechanical keyboard ever made on anything. We had people bidding on the whole computers just to get the keyboard. They'd be like "you can keep or scrap the rest of it, just give me a shipping quote for the keyboard on its own." They are nice firm clicky mechanical keyboards, but could you even use them on any modern computer without an adapter? I've been on the fence for a while on grabbing an IBM Model M keyboard for clickety clack typing myself, the tactile response from a keyboard like that is so... pleasing. My brother has a really nice ~niche enthusiast~ modern mechanical keyboard, and I love using it. Anyone in this thread have a Model M? How do you like it? WITCHCRAFT has a new favorite as of 07:31 on May 24, 2015 |
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May 24, 2015 07:17
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I have a Model M and it's as great as everybody says they are. The sound of the buckling spring switches is even more satisfying than the Cherry switches used in most mechanical keyboards. If you can't find a good deal on a used one and don't really care about having a ~vintage keyboard~, Unicomp still produces them, along with an "Ultra" variant that has a much more compact casing.
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May 24, 2015 13:38
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I have a Model M, and it has a very distinct feeling. Day to day, I think I prefer the cherry MX brown switches in my current keyboard; they're a bit lighter but still fairly crisp, and not quite as noisy. There's nothing quite like hammering out a long text on a Model M, though. It has that undefinable ability to make anything you do feel like Serious Business.
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May 24, 2015 13:44
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I'm a really heavy handed typist, so membrane keyboards hurt my left hand after a little while. I'm at the point where I just bring a SteelSeries red switch keyboard with me to campus when I need the computer lab.
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May 24, 2015 17:40
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JediTalentAgent posted:In my area it seemed like there was a period of time when treating phones like walkie talkies was huge. I could go almost anywhere and you'd hear people having conversations back and forth because somehow everyone treated it like it was essentially a speakerphone. The strange thing is that in the years since I still see people on modern phones and plans doing to same speakerphone conversations. They hold the phone out about a foot or so from their heads and shout conversations for everyone to hear. It's not like they're in a group and WANT other people to hear. It'll be people in a grocery store by themselves, or in a McDs or just walking down the street. I managed a store for Nextel and the first thing I showed people buying the phones was how to set it to use the handset speaker instead of the loudspeaker for PTT. I considered it a community service because that poo poo was obnoxious. Most common conversation I had regarding Nextel phones: "No, sir. The mic and speaker aren't broken, you need to stop screaming into your handset. Screaming + max volume on the receiving end = distorted mess. Speak in a normal tone of voice with the microphone next to your mouth and tell your buddy to turn the volume down and stop screaming on his end."
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May 24, 2015 21:53
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A FUCKIN CANARY!! posted:I have a Model M and it's as great as everybody says they are. The sound of the buckling spring switches is even more satisfying than the Cherry switches used in most mechanical keyboards. I grew up on the Model M keyboard. When I was a kid my dad bought an IBM XT and it everything was steel and plastic. They board had a base of solid steel and that sucker weighed a million pounds.  Thank you for that link, because otherwise I would never have known they made a Mac version.
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May 24, 2015 23:11
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p-hop posted:We had people bidding on the whole computers just to get the keyboard. They'd be like "you can keep or scrap the rest of it, just give me a shipping quote for the keyboard on its own." They are nice firm clicky mechanical keyboards, but could you even use them on any modern computer without an adapter? I've been on the fence for a while on grabbing an IBM Model M keyboard for clickety clack typing myself, the tactile response from a keyboard like that is so... pleasing. My brother has a really nice ~niche enthusiast~ modern mechanical keyboard, and I love using it. Anyone in this thread have a Model M? How do you like it? I used a Model M with a PS2 connector on a modern computer. I needed a special adapter, but it otherwise worked fine. A standard PS2 to USB connector won't work. I can't use them anymore. At the time I was a team lead overseeing contractors who just had to deal with my loud clicks and clacks. Now I'm a contractor and the day I bring in a Model M is the day I take it back home with the rest of my stuff in a cardboard box.
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May 24, 2015 23:17
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flosofl posted:I grew up on the Model M keyboard. When I was a kid my dad bought an IBM XT and it everything was steel and plastic. They board had a base of solid steel and that sucker weighed a million pounds. Every other keyboard sounds wrong compared to that thing.
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May 25, 2015 01:19
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When I was a preschooler, around 1980, my mom used to take my brother and me out for walks to get us out of my dad's hair while he worked at home. She often took us to the campus of the University of Oklahoma, where both my parents had gotten their degrees, and one of my favorite things was going to the math department where we would walk around and see if anyone had any of these in their trashcans that we wouldn't mind taking: Discarded punchcards are great for scribbling on. 
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May 25, 2015 02:59
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pookel posted:When I was a preschooler, around 1980, my mom used to take my brother and me out for walks to get us out of my dad's hair while he worked at home. She often took us to the campus of the University of Oklahoma, where both my parents had gotten their degrees, and one of my favorite things was going to the math department where we would walk around and see if anyone had any of these in their trashcans that we wouldn't mind taking: I took computer programming in 1985 and we had to use these for one class.
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May 25, 2015 03:08
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Horace posted:There was also Region Coding Enhancement which attempted to stop discs being played in multi region players. If you did try to play the disc in a multi-region player, it would display a picture of a map with some text explaining how you were a bad person for buying a product. gently caress, I ran across something just like this this loving year. I was bored to death in a hotel room a couple states away from home so I ran across the street and bought a couple DVDs to watch on my work laptop. Wal-Mart had the whole Lord of the Rings trilogy for about ten bucks, so I grabbed it for a few hours of entertainment. Popped the first disc in the DVD drive and the computer could only play a message saying I was terrible for pirating or some poo poo because I was using a region-free player  The kicker (and they have to know this by now and are being willfully ignorant) is that if I'd pirated the goddamn movies I would've saved money and actually been able to watch them instead of being scolded for...buying them legitimately? GOTTA STAY FAI has a new favorite as of 05:13 on May 25, 2015 |
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May 25, 2015 05:10
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C.M. Kruger posted:Amateur Radio is still pretty popular (despite a lot of operators dying of old age) since the FCC has been making it easier to get licenses. And the cost of equipment has gone down, you can get a good quality handheld made in China for $60 that covers the 2 meter (VHF) and 70 centimeter (UHF) bands, which helps eliminate the cost of entry. I sure do love my Baofeng. Just gotta remember to disable the PTT button when I'm using it as a police scanner. Soon our emergency services are going to P25, and I cobbled together a Raspberry Pi2 with dual tuners and touchscreen to pick up the conversations. If they encrypt I just pipe the raw data over TCP to a decent computer to decrypt it 
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May 25, 2015 09:54
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GOTTA STAY FAI posted:gently caress, I ran across something just like this this loving year. I was bored to death in a hotel room a couple states away from home so I ran across the street and bought a couple DVDs to watch on my work laptop. Wal-Mart had the whole Lord of the Rings trilogy for about ten bucks, so I grabbed it for a few hours of entertainment. Popped the first disc in the DVD drive and the computer could only play a message saying I was terrible for pirating or some poo poo because I was using a region-free player copy protection is mostly just a security blanket for media company share holders so it doesn't matter if it actually does anything so long as it sounds like it might to a bunch of people who barely know what the company makes
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May 26, 2015 07:52
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pookel posted:When I was a preschooler, around 1980, my mom used to take my brother and me out for walks to get us out of my dad's hair while he worked at home. She often took us to the campus of the University of Oklahoma, where both my parents had gotten their degrees, and one of my favorite things was going to the math department where we would walk around and see if anyone had any of these in their trashcans that we wouldn't mind taking: Can't link as I'm on my phone, but there's a story on The Register today about a guy who has coded the SHA-256 algorithm on punch cards and is currently mining Bitcoins on an IBM Model 1401 mainframe. 
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May 26, 2015 15:16
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This one, I presume: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2015/05/25/chap_mines_bitcoin_with_punch_cards_and_ancient_mainframe/quote:Vintage hardware enthusiast Ken Shirriff has shown that a model 1401 mainframe, which IBM announced in 1959, can mine Bitcoin. If, that is, your definition of mining includes “chugging away at the problem until pretty close to the heat-death of the universe.” The subhead, IBM Model 1401 can hash, will produce a Bitcoin some time after the Sun explodes, is not actually an exaggeration. ETA: When did bitcoins start having real value again? I though they were very close to worthless, and now they're over $200 each? pookel has a new favorite as of 15:36 on May 26, 2015 |
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May 26, 2015 15:33
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pookel posted:ETA: When did bitcoins start having real value again? I though they were very close to worthless, and now they're over $200 each?
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May 26, 2015 15:47
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Collateral Damage posted:Bitcoins are worthless regardless of what some web site says they're worth, because there's no way to actually convert your internet funny money to that amount. Most likely you'll get scammed and/or shanked in the process if you try. Buttcoins for their entire history were hilarious partly because the price was artificially inflated by people loving with the market. The completely deregulated nature of them led to literally every single thing that regulation prevents from happening happening in massive amounts. They're worthless now because the people manipulating the market all cashed out. It was basically a pyramid scheme; early adopters and those that really knew what was up made a lot of money. Almost everybody else got hosed.
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May 26, 2015 15:49
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ToxicSlurpee posted:Buttcoins for their entire history were hilarious partly because the price was artificially inflated by people loving with the market. The completely deregulated nature of them led to literally every single thing that regulation prevents from happening happening in massive amounts. They're worthless now because the people manipulating the market all cashed out. It was basically a pyramid scheme; early adopters and those that really knew what was up made a lot of money. Almost everybody else got hosed. Dude I worked with got caught up in this and ended up losing thousands - took a break for a bit, then when things started looking "positive" again he went back to mining and got hosed AGAIN. His expression was pretty funny when someone asked why he was "investing in the Amway of digital currency" - sad part was he'd spent a ton of money on a quad Crossfire setup at the time and had run up a shitload on electricity bills doing his mining.
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May 26, 2015 18:40
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pookel posted:This one, I presume: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2015/05/25/chap_mines_bitcoin_with_punch_cards_and_ancient_mainframe/ Now while "takes until the heat-death of the universe" makes its pretty clear that's fruitless, in addition to that you'd only just be solving some old block by then, which would be long long long since solved by other miners. You'd make absolutely $0. The only way this'd work is if you combined the Model 1401 into a miner pool, (adding virtually nothing and getting virtually nothing) assuming they'd even have you. Which is just one of the many reasons why Bitcoins are cool in theory but in practice completely pointless. ToxicSlurpee posted:Buttcoins for their entire history were hilarious partly because the price was artificially inflated by people loving with the market. The completely deregulated nature of them led to literally every single thing that regulation prevents from happening happening in massive amounts. They're worthless now because the people manipulating the market all cashed out. It was basically a pyramid scheme; early adopters and those that really knew what was up made a lot of money. Almost everybody else got hosed. Bitcoins: A lesson in economics for libertarians and anarchists It was absolutely hilarious watching all these libertarians who think government is holding them back from being free slowly getting scammed and/or screwed over in a hundred different ways, start to call for restrictions and regulations and rules for bitcoins.  The sad part is most of them never realized they were just re-creating the dollar. Bitcoin exchanges weren't any different from central banks.Ozz81 posted:Dude I worked with got caught up in this and ended up losing thousands - took a break for a bit, then when things started looking "positive" again he went back to mining and got hosed AGAIN. His expression was pretty funny when someone asked why he was "investing in the Amway of digital currency" - sad part was he'd spent a ton of money on a quad Crossfire setup at the time and had run up a shitload on electricity bills doing his mining. The only people who made any "legit" money on bitcoin were those who got in early and then sold it during the boom bubble. After that the only people who turned a profit were those stealing electricity from their landlords / parents. They were still burning more energy than they made, but because they didn't pay for it, they considered it profit. And they didn't see anything wrong with that. Nowadays its all ASICs and you can't even try to compete. What kills me is that all the bitcoin mining has totally hosed up video card sales. Don't you dare buy a used card. Zaphod42 has a new favorite as of 19:21 on May 26, 2015 |
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May 26, 2015 19:18
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I guess I'll admit that we mined a bitcoin back when that was doable with what you had lying around. Power is cheap here, too, so it didn't cost us much. We sold it for $1000 right at the peak, but ofc. MtGox didn't pay out before they went bankrupt. I don't expect too much from the bankrupcy proceedings, but at least we got a neat fold-out informational brochure (in postcard format) from the Tokyo police as a souvenir.
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May 26, 2015 19:23
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Computer viking posted:I guess I'll admit that we mined a bitcoin back when that was doable with what you had lying around. Power is cheap here, too, so it didn't cost us much. Have fun being on the FBI watchlist 
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May 26, 2015 19:31
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Zaphod42 posted:... I actually made out like a bandit right after Bitcoiners realized graphics cards were no longer competitive. I got an MSI 280X from eBay and then immediately exchanged it using the transferable warranty so I got a factory refurbished card for about half of the sale price. Definitely make sure any used card you buy has a warranty tracked by the serial number though.
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May 26, 2015 19:43
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One of the funniest things was the lolbertarians acting like they were Randian ubermensch because they bought an expensive computer and told it to calculate some numbers. Yeah, totally earning your wealth through skill and the sweat of your brow there, Fatty McWhitypants. Aside from all the Grade A Prime Schadenfreude that came out of it it seemed to me like the people most adamant about how amazing butt coins were were walking stereotypes. Seemed to me like a lot of them were young, fat, white guys with at least upper middle class parents.
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May 26, 2015 19:53
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ToxicSlurpee posted:One of the funniest things was the lolbertarians acting like they were Randian ubermensch because they bought an expensive computer and told it to calculate some numbers. Yeah, totally earning your wealth through skill and the sweat of your brow there, Fatty McWhitypants. Aside from all the Grade A Prime Schadenfreude that came out of it it seemed to me like the people most adamant about how amazing butt coins were were walking stereotypes. Seemed to me like a lot of them were young, fat, white guys with at least upper middle class parents. Might as well gold farm in a MMO. At least that way you've got a guaranteed market.
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May 26, 2015 20:18
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Zaphod42 posted:Have fun being on the FBI watchlist Eh, I'm a dirty foreigner. It's probably a CIA or NSA watchlist.
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May 26, 2015 22:43
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Zaphod42 posted:Bitcoin exchanges weren't any different from central banks. Whoa, yes they are. That's exactly why Mt. Gox collapsed: it *wasn't* a central bank and couldn't just increase the supply of money as necessary. Bitcoin exchanges can't do fractional-reserve lending like banks can, because there's no central bank with control over the money supply backing them. So instead, you have people clamoring for big reserve requirements for bitcoin exchanges, e.g.: http://www.forbes.com/sites/ericxlmu/2014/08/24/why-there-should-be-a-bitcoin-central-bank/
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May 26, 2015 23:06
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Jedit posted:Can't link as I'm on my phone, but there's a story on The Register today about a guy who has coded the SHA-256 algorithm on punch cards and is currently mining Bitcoins on an IBM Model 1401 mainframe.  The 1401 in particular was specifically designed to be an alternative to the IBM 701, which is what would be called a mainframe today. The term itself predates computing---it had been used to refer to phone switching networks decades before the first digital computer---but the OED's first reference for the term in computing is from the early '60s, roughly a decade after the 701 and 1401 were introduced.
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May 26, 2015 23:09
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GOTTA STAY FAI posted:gently caress, I ran across something just like this this loving year. I was bored to death in a hotel room a couple states away from home so I ran across the street and bought a couple DVDs to watch on my work laptop. Wal-Mart had the whole Lord of the Rings trilogy for about ten bucks, so I grabbed it for a few hours of entertainment. Popped the first disc in the DVD drive and the computer could only play a message saying I was terrible for pirating or some poo poo because I was using a region-free player Yeah, to be honest the last music CD I bought was in 2001. Couldn't play it natively on my PC (my only CD player), because of some BS anti piracy they installed. I just got the right software and ripped it of course, then stopped buying CDs. Similar poo poo if you buy a DVD though, if you buy it you have to sit through unskippable anti-piracy poo poo and dumb intros. Pirate it and you don't have to watch that poo poo. Media companies need to stop inconveniencing purchasers if they want to encourage people not to download
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May 26, 2015 23:20
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Phanatic posted:Whoa, yes they are. That's exactly why Mt. Gox collapsed: it *wasn't* a central bank and couldn't just increase the supply of money as necessary. Bitcoin exchanges can't do fractional-reserve lending like banks can, because there's no central bank with control over the money supply backing them. So instead, you have people clamoring for big reserve requirements for bitcoin exchanges, e.g.: I just meant from a libertard perspective, for all their principles Mt. Gox turned into exactly the sort of centralized power authority that they claimed to abhor. But yes, Mt.Gox was worse than any respectable bank in every form and fashion, of course.
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May 26, 2015 23:39
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Zaphod42 posted:I just meant from a libertard perspective, for all their principles Mt. Gox turned into exactly the sort of centralized power authority that they claimed to abhor. The one great gifts of Bitcoin was to give us the Ross Ulbricht money-laundering trial. That thing was pure, unadulterated schadenfreude from the beginning to end. And he still hasn't been tried on the conspiracy to commit murder charges as far as I know (that may be happening, but I lost interest). One of the highlights was the Forbes reporter (I can't remember her name) covering the trial. Her articles and tweets were hilarious and basically boiled down to "How can anyone be this stupid and not be in an assisted living facility?" I think at one point she stopped by the bitcoin thread.
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May 27, 2015 00:36
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Zaphod42 posted:I just meant from a libertard perspective, for all their principles Mt. Gox turned into exactly the sort of centralized power authority that they claimed to abhor. The best part is what "Mt. Gox's" name means. Magic The Gathering Online Exchange. You know, like a reputable bank.
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May 27, 2015 01:44
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Zaphod42 posted:The only people who made any "legit" money on bitcoin were those who got in early and then sold it during the boom bubble. Don't forget Butterfly Labs! They made expensive equipment that was just capable of outracing the pack for a little bit, sold it, then ran it (I mean, 'tested each unit individually') until it stopped being profitable before shipping it.
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May 27, 2015 04:06
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Keiya posted:Don't forget Butterfly Labs! They made expensive equipment that was just capable of outracing the pack for a little bit, sold it, then ran it (I mean, 'tested each unit individually') until it stopped being profitable before shipping it. Yeah, and even the ASICs that beat Butterfly are all going to be obsolete and failed technology soon. Nobody's gonna want that useless garbage. Now I'm imagining decades from now somebody finding ways to solve problems using the same algorithm as bitcoin mining so they can cheaply strap a ton of these leftover units into a giant cluster...
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May 27, 2015 04:23
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Zaphod42 posted:They were still burning more energy than they made, but because they didn't pay for it, they considered it profit. And they didn't see anything wrong with that. I'm sure they viewed themselves as captains of industry - 21st century robber-barons in
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