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Peanut Butler posted:aww yeah! Pocketmail. I had one. http://www.dansdata.com/pocketmail.htm
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May 15, 2019 09:20
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Peanut Butler posted:aww yeah! You mean.. a MODEM?
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May 15, 2019 10:44
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Jerry Cotton posted:You mean.. a MODEM? Acoustic Coupler.
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May 15, 2019 11:02
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Humphreys posted:Acoustic Coupler. And what exactly do you think it couples the telephone to?
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May 15, 2019 11:47
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Well, of course it's a modem, but if you tell someone "my personal organiser has a modem" they picture you untangling a long white phone cord and moving a night stand so you can plug it into the phone jack in a hotel room. The acoustic coupler makes you feel like a spy. Pocketmail Device by Nataraj Hauser, on Flickr Dick Trauma posted:When I was a kid this style of address book was a common alternative to the Rolodex. You'd move the slider on the right to the letter you were interested in and press the button. The address book would spring open to the first page of that letter. I'd also forgotten these. I had a really cheap plastic one which needed to be stuck down because the overpowered spring would throw the whole thing off the desk. Also they used lovely paper in it so the selector could only get you into a general area of the alphabet.
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May 15, 2019 12:47
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Dick Trauma posted:When I was a kid this style of address book was a common alternative to the Rolodex. You'd move the slider on the right to the letter you were interested in and press the button. The address book would spring open to the first page of that letter. Oh God! My brain! My grandmother must have had a dozen of these things. She would have her contacts scattered between them all. Couldn't find Aunt Wanda's number and address in that one, better check the other 11. I am sure it's in one of them.
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May 15, 2019 17:04
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This is making me realize all over again that I don't actually know any of my friends' phone numbers anymore. I wouldn't even recognize my girlfriend's number if you showed it to me. That would have been astounding twenty years ago.
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May 15, 2019 17:50
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Powered Descent posted:This is making me realize all over again that I don't actually know any of my friends' phone numbers anymore. I wouldn't even recognize my girlfriend's number if you showed it to me. That would have been astounding twenty years ago. I bet you still remember your phone number from when you were 3 or 4, though.
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May 16, 2019 01:44
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Weatherman posted:I bet you still remember your phone number from when you were 3 or 4, though. My parents still have it. 
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May 16, 2019 01:51
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My grandmother has the same phone number she has had since sometime in the 1950s. It used to be only 5 digits!
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May 16, 2019 02:26
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Horace posted:Well, of course it's a modem, but if you tell someone "my personal organiser has a modem" they picture you untangling a long white phone cord and moving a night stand so you can plug it into the phone jack in a hotel room. The acoustic coupler makes you feel like a spy. awww yeah that's the one, it seemed so futuristic to me to do email on a lil pocket device. I used to play Diplomacy via email, and just wanted to be able to write my orders during class and commit 'em over lunch still loved that Sharp Wizard, tho, got pretty fast typing on a v lovely keyboard Queen Combat posted:I remember we updated our LG washing machine by dialing a number and holding the phone to a place on the control panel. It was sold only with super-water-saving mode enabled but an over-the-phone update let it default to the 5 gallon setting so clothes would actually wash. see there are two things I wouldn't have guessed did a softmodem handset passthru thing, that's wild prolly better than everything being on wifi though 
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May 16, 2019 02:47
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stevewm posted:My grandmother has the same phone number she has had since sometime in the 1950s. So does mine, actually - but my parents now only have cellphones, and gave up their old number which used to be my great-grandfathers number (he built the house). I still write numbers 3+5, even if the standard seems to be 4+4 or even 2+2+2+2 now - and I didn't expect to feel quite this old at 35.
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May 16, 2019 02:47
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Someone on Reddit posted an essay about the evolution of the UK’s telephone numbering scheme. It’s way more interesting than it sounds mostly because it’s insane.
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May 16, 2019 03:09
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GreenNight posted:Any of you guys been to the Cray museum in Chippewa Falls, Wisconsin? If you're in the area, I highly recommend it. I didn't take nearly enough pictures but here are a few. This is 404 for me, but other people seem to be seeing it. My question is: why?
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May 16, 2019 03:09
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Veni Vidi Ameche! posted:This is 404 for me, but other people seem to be seeing it. My question is: why? Because Imgur is a trashheap.
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May 16, 2019 03:15
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Weatherman posted:I bet you still remember your phone number from when you were 3 or 4, though. I do, and if anyone else ever figures it out, my IT opsec is hosed. Then again, if anyone ever successfully connects me to a phone number from 25 years ago in  ... bra-loving-vo. I wouldn't even be mad if they drained all my accounts.
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May 16, 2019 03:51
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Danger - Octopus! posted:If you've watched Deutschland 83 or 86, you'll have seen the scenes set in Stasi headquarters complete with 70s/80s brown and green everything and lots of old rotary phones, heavy East German typewriters etc. The scenes in Stasi HQ were filmed on location because parts of the old Stasi headquarters have been preserved exactly as they were with furnishings and fittings intact. They're well worth the trip if you're around Berlin and into that period. So not only obsolete technology but a sort-of failed state too! If I had $Texas I would throw huge amounts of cash at researchers/set designers to make my home early-80s municipal in just this sort of way
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May 16, 2019 11:49
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Pastry of the Year posted:If I had $Texas I would throw huge amounts of cash at researchers/set designers to make my home early-80s municipal in just this sort of way There’s a quote from the Halt and Catch Fire people about how brass was everywhere in the Eighties. They went through many cans of spray paint shining the sets up.
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May 16, 2019 12:04
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The office I worked in, back in 1985 had a dot matrix printer in the room, encased in a much larger sound proofed box. The (A3 sized?) continuous paper came in large boxes and was fed in the back through a slot and back out through another slot, so it was still loud (but not as stupidly loud as when you lifted the lid). Of course the paper would get jammed or the perforations would tear off, but then we still had a typing pool and, I think, a mimeograph.
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May 16, 2019 12:20
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I found one of these at a junk shop circa 1999/2000: A TI TimeRunner (http://www.datamath.org/Personal/PS-9500.htm). I played with it a lot and typed stuff into the notes function, but as a 12 year old I didn't really need reminders for anything ("8 a.m., go to school") and I didn't need to store any addresses, so the usefulness was pretty limited. It was impressively slim--almost 2-dimensional--and ran on a watch battery. I thought it felt like the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy would, especially when it was in the flip cover.
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May 16, 2019 14:47
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spookygonk posted:The office I worked in, back in 1985 had a dot matrix printer in the room, encased in a much larger sound proofed box. The (A3 sized?) continuous paper came in large boxes and was fed in the back through a slot and back out through another slot, so it was still loud (but not as stupidly loud as when you lifted the lid). Of course the paper would get jammed or the perforations would tear off, but then we still had a typing pool and, I think, a mimeograph. If it was in a soundproofed enclosure and was still very loud it was probably a hammer bank printer. Similar to dot matrix, but instead of having 9 or 16 or however many pins in a single head that moves across the entire page, hammer bank printers use an array of pins built into a "bank" that oscillates quickly back and forth across the page, forming the lines of text one (horizontal) row of dots at a time. They're still in limited use today - even the fastest xenon-fusing laser printers are just starting to catch up to their page per minute capabilities.
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May 16, 2019 21:37
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spookygonk posted:The office I worked in, back in 1985 had a dot matrix printer in the room, encased in a much larger sound proofed box. The (A3 sized?) continuous paper came in large boxes and was fed in the back through a slot and back out through another slot, so it was still loud (but not as stupidly loud as when you lifted the lid). Of course the paper would get jammed or the perforations would tear off, but then we still had a typing pool and, I think, a mimeograph. I have a lot of affection for dot matrix printers and I've just realised why:  2,300 sheets from a single box. None of that 'PC Load Letter' bullshit or having to fill the papertray every time you want to print anything: that bastard would stay full for a whole month. And it never jammed, either. As long as no-one dropped something heavy on the paper as it was fed, it would motor on relentlessly.
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May 16, 2019 22:00
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Shut up Meg posted:I have a lot of affection for dot matrix printers and I've just realised why: oh yeah, that was excellent! growing up we had a p cheap epson printer, so sometimes the cogs would tear at some of the guide strips on the side and you'd have to realign some new paper- but it was a really easy fix I remember when my parents went over to inkjet, but still had like two or three boxes of dot matrix feed paper- most of printing stuff for high school papers involved a lot of perforation tearing
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May 16, 2019 22:24
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Platystemon posted:Someone on Reddit posted an essay about the evolution of the UK’s telephone numbering scheme. Tom Scott's video on this is great too (and probably deserves to be a video on his channel proper rather than the side one). https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LsxRaFNropw
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May 16, 2019 22:30
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twistedmentat posted:I'm watching the LRG episode about the Dot Matrix printer that does different fonts, and I am reminded of the old one we had with our IIGS. The thing was so loud and would shake the table so much it was kind of terrifying. But its super satisfying to pull the tracks off the pages once you're done. I went shopping for a new dot matrix printer at my last job, since the call accounting system used one (guestroom makes a call, it prints a line). loving things were $500+ for a printer that you could find sitting by the side of the road for free by the dozens 10 years earlier.
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May 17, 2019 03:29
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Epson Action Printer 2250  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RuItnAODTcM The sounds this thing made are permanently burned into my brain. We had it connected to a Tandy 1000 TX running Personal Deskmate 2 printing from Deskmate's Text program. The Tandy had a card edge printer port like the connector on a game cartridge that you had to buy a special cable for. https://computerpreservation.ecrater.com/p/23013784/tandy-1000-trs-80-printer-cable-34-pin There are all kinds of adapters now, but such was most certainly not the case in the early 1990s. - https://www.tindie.com/products/CyberneticSys/tandy-1000-ex-hx-printer-port-adapter/ Vanagoon has a new favorite as of 04:23 on May 17, 2019 |
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May 17, 2019 04:19
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Rev. Bleech_ posted:I went shopping for a new dot matrix printer at my last job, since the call accounting system used one (guestroom makes a call, it prints a line). loving things were $500+ for a printer that you could find sitting by the side of the road for free by the dozens 10 years earlier. Yeah it's pretty comical. The ribbons are a fortune too. We replaced one and found out the "broken" one had just been unplugged, it was built into a console that had been retrofitted with various poo poo for 20+ years and I guess someone messed it up at the last install of some new thing.
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May 17, 2019 04:24
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That reminds me of Retro gamers trying to buy old CRT tvs because old school systems won't be the same on a modern tv even with adapters. A friend of mine recently sold one that had been sitting in his dads basement for 300bux. Seriously wtf?
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May 18, 2019 21:37
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Was it some kind of super special model or something? I've got a 28" BeoVision MX8000, which has two RGB-capable SCART inputs and outrageously good sound quality, and I feel like I overpaid for it, at ~$40. I should look into how much they go for nowadays.
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May 18, 2019 21:57
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KozmoNaut posted:I've got a 28" BeoVision MX8000, which has two RGB-capable SCART inputs and outrageously good sound quality, and I feel like I overpaid for it, at ~$40. this is the important part. post it in the retrogames thread over in Games and see if anyone wants to bite first.
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May 18, 2019 22:27
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I understand people buying professional video monitors that were used in broadcasting and medical imaging but there’s a glut of free CRT TVs that are high and high quality all over Facebook marketplace, Craigslist, and other local classifieds services. I have two, one propped up on it’s side for arcade games. Both 27 inch and both free.
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May 18, 2019 22:34
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The 26" Panasonic from 1997 probably doesn't have inputs that support the HD hardware mods people play with.
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May 18, 2019 22:48
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KozmoNaut posted:Was it some kind of super special model or something? Nope, it was just a large screen crt that they required to rent a Uhaul to move. Something tells me the guy who bought it wanted to make hay about how much he paid for it. I had a Sony Wega for years, it eventually started blanking out and I had to give it a smack to get it to come back on. I think it was because I was watching BRds and playing PS4 on it.
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May 19, 2019 01:33
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twistedmentat posted:That reminds me of Retro gamers trying to buy old CRT tvs because old school systems won't be the same on a modern tv even with adapters. for fighting game tournaments there's a few frames of input lag due to the analog->digital converter using HDMI
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May 19, 2019 01:37
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The number of 24” rgb trinitons ir other shadowmasks I’ve just junked over the years is frightening. In college I did tech support for a monitor manufacturer/ reseller, had like 5 at home at one point.
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May 19, 2019 01:46
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Weatherman posted:I bet you still remember your phone number from when you were 3 or 4, though. I still remember my two best friends phone numbers and the local takeaway shop number from 30 years ago.
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May 19, 2019 04:31
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Remulak posted:The number of 24” rgb trinitons ir other shadowmasks I’ve just junked over the years is frightening. Is shadowmask another word for CRT or just some kind of sorcery?
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May 19, 2019 04:59
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It's a kind of CRT. From Wikipedia,quote:The shadow mask is one of the two technologies used in the manufacture of cathode-ray tube (CRT) televisions and computer monitors which produce clear, focused color images. The other approach is the aperture grille, better known by its trade name, Trinitron.
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May 19, 2019 05:31
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twistedmentat posted:Nope, it was just a large screen crt that they required to rent a Uhaul to move. Something tells me the guy who bought it wanted to make hay about how much he paid for it. That's nuts. I spent $300 on my 20" professional RGB monitor (because I'm that guy), the giant consumer CRTs show up at my local thrift stores for like $50!
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May 19, 2019 06:42
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I had a 22" CRT I bought from a Goodwill for nearly a decade before I had maxed the alignment screws and it was too fuzzy to see anymore. Don't remember the brand, though. Going from it to an 18" widescreen lcd was jarring, though. Currently rocking a 27" AOC, but I'm very tempted to get a 40" or so 4k lcd television - I'm nearly 40 and my eyes are getting bad.
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May 19, 2019 07:40
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