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Uncle Enzo
Apr 28, 2008

I always wanted to be a Wizard

The Sausages posted:

Good ol' dumb terminals. This was pretty much ubiquitous in any library I visited (school, public, university) well into the 2000's. We'd make them do weird poo poo but I forget what or how, sorry. But I did guess my high school library's admin password - DEWEY.

Perhaps the most widely-used software written using BASIC.



Those things worked great. Way better than the monstrosities they were replaced with, and man it was nice to get a list of the actual books that were actually present rather than having to check 20 boxes for "no, I don't want to see online-only abstracts, videocassettes available with interlibrary loan, or loving web searches." Just hit a number, type what you want, and bam you're there.

For that matter I do miss card catalogs, if you want to see what the library has on a topic you can look at all the adjacent call numbers without having to hit the stacks.

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pienipple
Mar 20, 2009

That's wrong!

Uncle Enzo posted:

Those things worked great. Way better than the monstrosities they were replaced with, and man it was nice to get a list of the actual books that were actually present rather than having to check 20 boxes for "no, I don't want to see online-only abstracts, videocassettes available with interlibrary loan, or loving web searches." Just hit a number, type what you want, and bam you're there.

Yeah my library replaced these with a clunky web based system that takes FOREVER to load if you're actually in the library. I can look up books faster at home and just take a list with me.

Mercury Ballistic
Nov 14, 2005

not gun related
Here is a new topic: imagery satellites. Back when only a few countries had them, they needed to recover the actual film. The satellite would jettison the film canister and it would deorbit and reenter the atmosphere. Prior to landing on the surface, it would be decending via parachute, where it would get grabbed out of the air by a waiting aircraft, then whisked away to wherever for processing.

In one case in 1972, it went wrong and the film fell into the pacific. Check out the link for the full story, but it is quite facinating.
http://m.space.com/17055-classified-hexagon-satellite-capsule-ocean-recovery.html

Powerlurker
Oct 21, 2010

Mercury Ballistic posted:

Here is a new topic: imagery satellites. Back when only a few countries had them, they needed to recover the actual film. The satellite would jettison the film canister and it would deorbit and reenter the atmosphere. Prior to landing on the surface, it would be decending via parachute, where it would get grabbed out of the air by a waiting aircraft, then whisked away to wherever for processing.

In one case in 1972, it went wrong and the film fell into the pacific. Check out the link for the full story, but it is quite facinating.
http://m.space.com/17055-classified-hexagon-satellite-capsule-ocean-recovery.html

My grandfather used to work for Eastman Kodak and was involved in the development of the film for these things. He has some interesting (now unclassified) stories from those days.

hackbunny
Jul 22, 2007

I haven't been on SA for years but the person who gave me my previous av as a joke felt guilty for doing so and decided to get me a non-shitty av

Mercury Ballistic posted:

Here is a new topic: imagery satellites. Back when only a few countries had them, they needed to recover the actual film. The satellite would jettison the film canister and it would deorbit and reenter the atmosphere. Prior to landing on the surface, it would be decending via parachute, where it would get grabbed out of the air by a waiting aircraft, then whisked away to wherever for processing.

I remember these! As a last resort, if they couldn't be recovered while airborne, they were designed to float. They had a salt plug that would slowly dissolve in water, ensuring that the canister would eventually fill with water and sink, to prevent enemy capture

Pitch
Jun 16, 2005

しらんけど

Mercury Ballistic posted:

Here is a new topic: imagery satellites. Back when only a few countries had them, they needed to recover the actual film. The satellite would jettison the film canister and it would deorbit and reenter the atmosphere. Prior to landing on the surface, it would be decending via parachute, where it would get grabbed out of the air by a waiting aircraft, then whisked away to wherever for processing.

In one case in 1972, it went wrong and the film fell into the pacific. Check out the link for the full story, but it is quite facinating.
http://m.space.com/17055-classified-hexagon-satellite-capsule-ocean-recovery.html
In 1964, a Corona reconnaissance satellite failed and reentered the atmosphere, landing on a farm in Argentina. The film was ruined, but the highly classified satellite itself was stripped for scrap, gold radiator components, and souvenirs before being recovered by the US. A story about the crash even ended up on the Reuters news wire with photographs, some clearly showing the camera inside.

The remains were shipped back to the US and used to make improvements for future craft to hopefully survive a worst-case reentry. One of the changes made was the removal of the attention-grabbing TOP SECRET markings, which were replaced by a multilingual offer of a reward for returning the capsule to the US government.

http://www.thespacereview.com/article/1063/1

Proust Malone
Apr 4, 2008

The Sausages posted:

Good ol' dumb terminals. This was pretty much ubiquitous in any library I visited (school, public, university) well into the 2000's. We'd make them do weird poo poo but I forget what or how, sorry. But I did guess my high school library's admin password - DEWEY.

Perhaps the most widely-used software written using BASIC.



I don't think it was exactly this, but my first experience with the Internet was through a university terminal like this that allowed access to usenet.

Three-Phase
Aug 5, 2006

by zen death robot

Humphreys posted:

Nice project on dumb terminals:
http://hackaday.com/2015/09/11/marty-youve-gotta-come-back-with-me/

EDIT: A few pages back someone mentioned core memory. Here's one from the IBM 1401:



http://www.righto.com/2015/08/examining-core-memory-module-inside.html

Core memory is pretty wild in that it's not really random-access, you have a bunch of cores arranged together, and one way to read them is to basically cycle through them.

Also, reading bits can cause the bit to change state.

Krispy Wafer
Jul 26, 2002

I shouted out "Free the exposed 67"
But they stood on my hair and told me I was fat

Grimey Drawer
I think the U.S. moved to digital transmission as quickly as possible, but Russia was still using the old film canisters for a lot longer than most people would expect. And of course the U.S. had U-2 planes and the SR-71 for quick spy runs.

Speaking of satellites, did anyone here have a subscription to Smithsonian Air & Space in the 80's when they published their satellite maps? My kindly old grandfather who worked for Lockheed would get me a subscription every year and they had a map that you could add and remove satellites as they were added to orbit. So March's issue would come in and "oh...RU-471a fell out of the sky, but let's stick Hughes-47b in low geosynchronous orbit." Being an aerospace nerd I put that poster on my wall and I kept up with those satellites for the better part of a year.

The idea you could have an ever changing map on your wall of satellites is probably as quaint in 2015 as those yellow page books they'd publish of all the WWW addresses.

SubG
Aug 19, 2004

It's a hard world for little things.

Krispy Kareem posted:

The idea you could have an ever changing map on your wall of satellites is probably as quaint in 2015 as those yellow page books they'd publish of all the WWW addresses.
Such maps exist but they're really not the kind you'd hang on your wall and update by hand.

Lake of Methane
Oct 29, 2011

There is also http://stuffin.space, which has clickable objects.

Zopotantor
Feb 24, 2013

...und ist er drin dann lassen wir ihn niemals wieder raus...

Three-Phase posted:

Core memory is pretty wild in that it's not really random-access, you have a bunch of cores arranged together, and one way to read them is to basically cycle through them.

Also, reading bits can cause the bit to change state.

Actually, :science: core memory works almost exactly like dynamic RAM. It's organized into individually accessible words; reading is destructive and the controller automatically writes back the word's value after reading. The main difference is that core memory is non-volatile, while DRAM is volatile even when powered.
I actually had to study this stuff as part of a course in memory technology (~30 years ago, when it was already long obsolete).

GOTTA STAY FAI
Mar 24, 2005

~no glitter in the gutter~
~no twilight galaxy~
College Slice

My Lovely Horse posted:

Just noticed the date. :stare:

My county courthouse's public-use terminal for accessing court records, trial schedules, etc. looks just like this. They have a DOS machine right next to it that can query the same data, but nobody knows how to use it, so they usually leave it turned off. We're truly living in the future :toot:

T-man
Aug 22, 2010


Talk shit, get bzzzt.

How often do people try to touch the screen to select their option?

cyberbug
Sep 30, 2004

The name is Carl Seltz...
insurance inspector.

Krispy Kareem posted:

I think the U.S. moved to digital transmission as quickly as possible, but Russia was still using the old film canisters for a lot longer than most people would expect. And of course the U.S. had U-2 planes and the SR-71 for quick spy runs.
SR-71 is a strong contender in the obsolete and failed technology front. A true marvel technology-wise, but as early as 1962 Lockheed started developing an unmanned reconnaissance version D-21 because even an insanely fast a jet plane is not going to outrun a serious rocket. (See https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kvZGaMt7UgQ - not the enemy but the capabilities of a missile compared to a jet.)

Krispy Kareem posted:

low geosynchronous orbit

low geosynchronous orbit? :xcom:

mints
Aug 15, 2001

Living on past glories

T-man posted:

How often do people try to touch the screen to select their option?

I remember as a kid the main branch of the public library had that kind of terminal set up with access to Usenet and Gopher. It also featured a light pen for users to help speed up the selection process.

Dick Trauma
Nov 30, 2007

God damn it, you've got to be kind.
UCLA's libraries were all on the ORION system for at least 30 years, a mainframe-based database search engine. It was probably very quick when it was new but by the 1980s it was getting overwhelmed by simultaneous requests and had the bad habit of timing-out. I think it wasn't until years after I graduated that they finally got around to planning a replacement, but since that would've been the mid to late 1990s they probably fell headfirst into the Lure of the Web, never to be seen again.

Krispy Wafer
Jul 26, 2002

I shouted out "Free the exposed 67"
But they stood on my hair and told me I was fat

Grimey Drawer

cyberbug posted:

low geosynchronous orbit? :xcom:

I figured I butchered the term. I remembered the poster was staggered at different levels and couldn't remember the closest one (where there was a lot of satellite turnover).

Johnny Aztec
Jan 30, 2005

by Hand Knit

GOTTA STAY FAI posted:

My county courthouse's public-use terminal for accessing court records, trial schedules, etc. looks just like this. They have a DOS machine right next to it that can query the same data, but nobody knows how to use it, so they usually leave it turned off. We're truly living in the future :toot:

Eh, I've always figured, if it works, it works. Look at the several comments people have made in this thread about how the replacement to these system was so lovely.

3D Megadoodoo
Nov 25, 2010

A library system on a text-only system seems both sensible and economical.

Mescal
Jul 23, 2005

Johnny Aztec posted:

Eh, I've always figured, if it works, it works. Look at the several comments people have made in this thread about how the replacement to these system was so lovely.

Absolutely. Why would you need something fancier than that to search a library database? When my library had something like that, it worked great. Now we've got something with a web browser interface that is lovely and slow.

Humphreys
Jan 26, 2013

We conceived a way to use my mother as a porn mule


Mescal posted:

Absolutely. Why would you need something fancier than that to search a library database? When my library had something like that, it worked great. Now we've got something with a web browser interface that is lovely and slow.

Because people these days have an aversion for reading onscreen instructions and are expected to be presented with a wizard or have their hands held through a GUI akin to a mobile app. It better have images, animations and videos. Dumb people DO judge a book by its cover.jpg.


On Military tech failures I feel cheated that the RAH-66 never made it into production.


quote:

Originally conceived in the 1980s, the RAH-66 Comanche was designed to be a stealth helicopter nearly undetectable by radar. Two prototypes were constructed and many hours of flight completed during the 1990s, but by the 2000s, with the helicopter still not ready, warfare was changing. In 2004, it was determined that the copter would need upgrades to survive modern anti-aircraft threats. Moreover, there were concerns that when loaded with equipment for actual missions, the engines would not be powerful enough to even lift the craft.

Taking so long in testing and design killed it off. Whenever I see one I think of the really interesting movie 'Pentagon Wars' which detailed the mess of the Bradley Fighting Vehicle:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aXQ2lO3ieBA

Humphreys has a new favorite as of 09:21 on Sep 15, 2015

3D Megadoodoo
Nov 25, 2010

Just scanned this in from a pristine original :newfap:. And managed to skew it somehow what the gently caress?

GOTTA STAY FAI
Mar 24, 2005

~no glitter in the gutter~
~no twilight galaxy~
College Slice

Johnny Aztec posted:

Eh, I've always figured, if it works, it works. Look at the several comments people have made in this thread about how the replacement to these system was so lovely.

Yeah, I was only poking fun at its age. It is perfectly-suited for its intended purpose, and is very reliable. Most of the other equipment the county uses is way newer than it is, and I hear "Just hang out until this thing restarts and then I can print your marriage license/building permit/whatever" every other time I go in there.

bring back old gbs
Feb 28, 2007

by LITERALLY AN ADMIN

Humphreys posted:

Because people these days have an aversion for reading onscreen instructions and are expected to be presented with a wizard or have their hands held through a GUI akin to a mobile app. It better have images, animations and videos. Dumb people DO judge a book by its cover.jpg.


On Military tech failures I feel cheated that the RAH-66 never made it into production.



Taking so long in testing and design killed it off. Whenever I see one I think of the really interesting movie 'Pentagon Wars' which detailed the mess of the Bradley Fighting Vehicle:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aXQ2lO3ieBA

Didn't they crash that thing into Bin Laden's house?

spog
Aug 7, 2004

It's your own bloody fault.

32MB OF ESRAM posted:

Didn't they crash that thing into Bin Laden's house?

How did they get the Bradley flying?

Humphreys
Jan 26, 2013

We conceived a way to use my mother as a porn mule


spog posted:

How did they get the Bradley flying?

You have to watch Pentagon Wars 2. Frasier screws more things up in wacky hijinx when he brings his thin brother and dad +dog into his office.

KoRMaK
Jul 31, 2012



Humphreys posted:

You have to watch Pentagon Wars 2. Frasier screws more things up in wacky hijinx when he brings his thin brother and dad +dog into his office.

Thats the one where they give him a sub isnt it?

Humphreys
Jan 26, 2013

We conceived a way to use my mother as a porn mule


KoRMaK posted:

Thats the one where they give him a sub isnt it?

Yes, and who woulda thought that bastard could force a Zeppelin underwater!

Proust Malone
Apr 4, 2008

Humphreys posted:

Because people these days have an aversion for reading onscreen instructions and are expected to be presented with a wizard or have their hands held through a GUI akin to a mobile app. It better have images, animations and videos. Dumb people DO judge a book by its cover.jpg.


On Military tech failures I feel cheated that the RAH-66 never made it into production.



Taking so long in testing and design killed it off. Whenever I see one I think of the really interesting movie 'Pentagon Wars' which detailed the mess of the Bradley Fighting Vehicle:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aXQ2lO3ieBA

I was always personal to this version of the Bradley

Keiya
Aug 22, 2009

Come with me if you want to not die.

Humphreys posted:

Because people these days have an aversion for reading onscreen instructions and are expected to be presented with a wizard or have their hands held through a GUI akin to a mobile app. It better have images, animations and videos. Dumb people DO judge a book by its cover.jpg.
If you're not able to read, then you probably aren't doing much at a library anyway... certainly not if you're not willing to learn.

spog
Aug 7, 2004

It's your own bloody fault.

Keiya posted:

If you're not able to read, then you probably aren't doing much at a library anyway... certainly not if you're not willing to learn.

From my reading of SA, I understand that libraries in the US are used for a) reading and b) porn-viewing by the homeless.

C.M. Kruger
Oct 28, 2013

32MB OF ESRAM posted:

Didn't they crash that thing into Bin Laden's house?

Nah that was some kind of UH-60 stealth conversion.

Collateral Damage
Jun 13, 2009

The RAH-66's legacy lives on through giving us one of the best helicopter combat sims though.

Antifreeze Head
Jun 6, 2005

It begins
Pillbug

That company is well and truly hosed once the bald guy wants to retire/is hit by a truck.

Coffee And Pie
Nov 4, 2010

"Blah-sum"?
More like "Blawesome"

spog posted:

From my reading of SA, I understand that libraries in the US are used for a) reading and b) porn-viewing by the homeless.

It's more online gambling than anything else. Oh, and it's a place sad people go when they're drunk.

Arsenic Lupin
Apr 12, 2012

This particularly rapid💨 unintelligible 😖patter💁 isn't generally heard🧏‍♂️, and if it is🤔, it doesn't matter💁.


Coffee And Pie posted:

It's more online gambling than anything else. Oh, and it's a place sad people go when they're drunk.
My son, who volunteers in the computer area of the local library, says he spends a lot of time showing people how to fill in web forms, how to print PDFs, and how to format resumes. (And, alas for him, trying to mediate fights between everybody else and one little old lady who thinks she owns the space to the extent of telling other people not to move chairs.)

Humbug Scoolbus
Apr 25, 2008

The scarlet letter was her passport into regions where other women dared not tread. Shame, Despair, Solitude! These had been her teachers, stern and wild ones, and they had made her strong, but taught her much amiss.
Clapping Larry

spog posted:

From my reading of SA, I understand that libraries in the US are used for a) reading and b) porn-viewing by the homeless.

Berkeley Public Library is used by pretty much everybody. Sure there's homeless, but the place is always busy even without counting them.

spookygonk
Apr 3, 2005
Does not give a damn

Humphreys posted:

On Military tech failures I feel cheated that the RAH-66 never made it into production.

Now I have this in my tune head:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NDsv-sZbulw

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Collateral Damage
Jun 13, 2009

Wasn't Airwolf just a common civilian heli with some farkles glued on?

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