Post the very best in obsolete and failed technology

The Something Awful Forums > Main > Post Your Favorite: Carefully Curated > Post the very best in obsolete and failed technology

LethalGeek: Nov 4, 2009

Killer robot posted:

All of this eventually went away. On the hardware side, DVD killed VCD quickly in the developed world (though early adopters saw another round of PC hardware decoders for DVD, and there was also Super Video CD which used DVD's MPEG-2 but on a CD)

I had the Creative DVD playback kit from those days, what a pain in the rear end that was. It required that the video be looped back through the decoder so it could put the actual video on an overlay frame to work correctly. This naturally made any higher resolutions look like complete poo poo since the signal was being passed through all that extra hardware.

Hell there was a time when nearly all 3D accelerators were doing this same thing since they weren't built up enough to do all the mundane video processing. I had one of the first 3dfx ones that had 2D AND 3D in the same hardware :smug:

. Man what a trip that was seeing fully rendered 640x480 with texture smoothing and everything.
Edit: The Voodoo Rush, apparently I was one of the only people who got the silly thing. It kicked rear end at the time though.

LethalGeek has a new favorite as of 21:44 on Oct 10, 2012

# ¿ Oct 10, 2012 21:37

Adbot: ADBOT LOVES YOU

# ¿ Apr 26, 2024 08:33

LethalGeek: Nov 4, 2009

Shugojin posted:

e: Re: optical media - it seems more and more poo poo we do as cloud storage, or at least flash memory. Console games might make it stick longer though, unless they start making it possible to slap in bigger hard drives with near hot-swap ease.

The Wii U allows you to plug in any USB HDD and it will format it for itself and let you dump anything you want on there. So yeah that's coming.

# ¿ Jul 22, 2013 00:58

LethalGeek: Nov 4, 2009

Humphreys posted:

These wonderful places

If there is one thing I miss from VA it's this place http://www.goochlanddriveintheater.com/. Hell they even managed to get upgraded to a pure digital setup.

$8 bucks to see 2 movies, food is way way cheaper than other theaters, no idiots making enough noise to bother me. Can't beat $3.75 for an honestly large thing of popcorn :sun:

Though I usually got a burger.

# ¿ May 4, 2014 22:57

LethalGeek: Nov 4, 2009

GreenNight posted:

I'm building around a 1800 sq foot house, and to put in cat5e with a 12 port punch down block with 1 ethernet port to each bedroom is currently $500. Having ethernet run to behind where the TV is going as well.

I don't know the going rate for this kind of work but I just did this myself and the 1000ft of wire, plates, and key pieces cost ~$175 off monoprice for cat6 stuff. Plus throw in a good drill, paddle bits, wire running fiberglass and a lot of my drat time since I did this blind with the walls up. Sounds like this is being done in a house that doesn't have the walls up yet though, which takes a lot less time (did this in college). Given all that eh $500 doesn't sound bad. $1000 for cat6 is just stupid though as others have said, 1Gbs is overkill for home unless UltraHD 16k or such happens.

I only went cat6 cause I plan on dying in this house and I imagine sometime in the next 40 years 10Gb switches are going to come down from their $7000 or so price. It was only a few extra bucks to get it over cat5 equipment sans the actual switch/NICs.

On the plus side I became very familiar with my house's crawl space. Ok it's not a plus but at least I know it's all good down there.

# ¿ May 26, 2014 10:06

LethalGeek: Nov 4, 2009

Grraarrgghh posted:

Nowadays, Gates is only Hitler to the neo-hippie slacktavist Facebook crowd, since he wants to murder African children.

Murder African children what now? :psyduck:

The gently caress these people talking about?

# ¿ Jun 4, 2014 21:32

LethalGeek: Nov 4, 2009

Jose Pointero posted:

A buddy of mine back in middle school had one of these. It had a pretty kick rear end motorcycle stunt game that I can't remember the name of. We would sometimes fire up terminal programs and I'd call his computer with my Tandy 1000SX and we'd chat. It was so much better than just chatting with our voices on the phone because computers!

Thread content, the Tandy 1000 line of computers. Or just Tandy/Radio Shack computers period. This was mine:

640K of RAM, color monitor! Was the first computer I bought with my own money, after using my parents TRS-80 Model 3 for most of my childhood.

Don't forget they had their own unique sound chip or some poo poo. Actually let me go look this up.

"The PCjr's enhanced graphics and sound standards became known as "Tandy-compatible"."

Oh so that's what happened. I just remember a lot of my old DOS games that it actually had a Tandy option in the sound which stood out to even my 5yo self at the time. I got a lot of mileage out of that little 80286 machine I had :3:

# ¿ Jun 8, 2014 10:58

LethalGeek: Nov 4, 2009

I'm really sad hardware keyboards in phones seem to be obsolete :smith:

# ¿ Jun 20, 2014 23:38

LethalGeek: Nov 4, 2009

What's the cost difference between the two?

# ¿ Jun 29, 2014 03:02

LethalGeek: Nov 4, 2009

minato posted:

Dell has taken a page out of Apple's book and is no longer shipping Ethernet ports either. Our wireless network is flakey enough that we need to cart around a USB->Ethernet dongle to lose. <>

We've gone full-circle - my Toshiba Satellite from ~2000 was so old that it didn't even have an Ethernet port. It had a fax/modem port though.

Holy poo poo tell me this isn't actually a thing. I loving hate everyone who thinks wireless is an acceptable solution to anything network wise. It's fine for "good enough" but god drat it the only reason we shouldn't have a copper wire connecting a machine to the world is because it's got a fiber one instead :colbert:

PS Another reason to hate both Apple & Dell.

# ¿ Jun 10, 2015 21:30

LethalGeek: Nov 4, 2009

GreenNight posted:

The majority of the new HP laptops don't have an ethernet port either. They give you a dongle that connects to the laptops docking station port. Hell, the HP event I went to last month, their thinnest laptops don't even have a docking station port, they were pushing wireless docks.

I can't be bothered to find it but whatever smilie where it gets so mad it explodes should go right here.

This will do: :rant:

# ¿ Jun 10, 2015 21:42

LethalGeek: Nov 4, 2009

Collateral Damage posted:

I bought the TB->GbE adapter for my macbook because I thought I needed it. I think I've used it twice in three years.

It's one of those things you don't notice until you do and then it drives you nuts. People call up at my CJ job complaining about slowness and it's always because Windows is failing to route properly and using the wireless connection over the wired. 300KB/s sounds like enough until those collective seconds start to add up. Hell even Nintendo told everyone playing their online games "Go buy an ethernet adapter for $20" because that extra little bit of delay just will make you twitch once you notice it. Not to mention when wireless just plain fails because of reasons.

# ¿ Jun 10, 2015 23:53

LethalGeek: Nov 4, 2009

Ozz81 posted:

This could potentially solve that problem, I've done it more than once for clients in environments that have both wired/wireless but move around a lot: https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/kb/2526067

So far it's worked great - if they're docked or using wired ethernet most of the time, set that adapter to first priority, and set wireless to second. When they undock it'll auto-switch and vice versa, haven't seen an issue (so far).

I came across a while ago and sent it up the line. They did as much to everyone's computers and it kinda solved it but sometimes it still get stuck on the wireless. It happens a lot less in windows 7 than it did in XP. Guessing it has something to do with our network topology at this point? :shrug:

I tried either way

# ¿ Jun 11, 2015 22:10

LethalGeek: Nov 4, 2009

Lowen SoDium posted:

Actually, the current reason for using them is for remote control of the phone with a cordless headset. Press a button on your wireless headset and you phone goes off hook or on hook.

The Cisco phone I have at work will work with a cordless headset without the stupid lifter thing. That said it would gently caress up once in awhile despite being on whatever goofy settings it was supposed to be on to make it work. Happier with a software phone but I'm not a typical end user either way.

# ¿ Jun 18, 2015 08:28

LethalGeek: Nov 4, 2009

Instant Sunrise posted:

I have a 26" Toshiba HDCRT that's sitting in storage until I get moved in to my new place, it makes HD and SD look good. Right now though, I'm just using my PC, which I stuck a CableCARD tuner into a few years ago. (Which itself, is pretty much another failed technology at this point)

It sucks it never took off but I love my cable box PC. Makes everything about SMART TVs look as dumb as they actually are.

# ¿ Aug 18, 2015 01:39

LethalGeek: Nov 4, 2009

Efexeye posted:

It's only obsolete because they don't make drivers for it any more but I loved my Ergodex DX-1. I still have it and would use it if I could!

All those keys can be repositioned however you want, as many times as you want, and you can assign whatever macros you want to any key. Awesome for gaming and for video editing.

Amused me how much you set this up like my sadly also obsolete keyboard http://www.amazon.com/SteelSeries-Merc-Stealth-Gaming-Keyboard/dp/B00292OW1U. I had the sense to go buy another one before they got too rare but I wonder how long the driver package is going to work either way.

LethalGeek has a new favorite as of 17:43 on Aug 20, 2015

# ¿ Aug 20, 2015 16:47

LethalGeek: Nov 4, 2009

Collateral Damage posted:

Doesn't have anything to do with sales figures. It's just easier to develop for a more limited platform first and then port to PC than the other way around.

The biggest thing now is both the xbox one and PS4 both use the same enough x86-64 AMD CPU, I would think developing for them and a PC at the same time is trivial compared to porting in the past.

# ¿ Dec 27, 2015 10:58

LethalGeek: Nov 4, 2009

7c Nickel posted:

I have a CRT TV that was produced right before the big switchover to flatscreens. It weighs 235 pounds.

Congrats you will die with that TV :v:

# ¿ Mar 8, 2016 20:30

Adbot: ADBOT LOVES YOU

# ¿ Apr 26, 2024 08:33

LethalGeek: Nov 4, 2009

Instant Sunrise posted:

The US uses a system called "CableCARD" where you have to buy a CableCARD tuner, and rent a special PCMCIA card from your cable company that contains the decryption keys. Of course, the only tuning software on PC that will work with CableCARD is Windows Media Center, which was axed from Windows 10.

Of course, while CableCARD has been around for a while, for the longest time, you couldn't buy a standalone CableCARD tuner. Legally, CableCARD tuners could only be sold as a part of a pre-built PC. And then in 2009 CableLabs, the company that sets the Cable TV standards, relaxed the requirements, and you could buy standalone CableCARD tuners. But by then the writing was on the wall for Cable TV and more and more people were using streaming services instead.

So there were only a handful of CableCARD tuners made. But with Microsoft dropping Windows Media Center from Windows 10, the people who bought CableCARD tuners are poo poo out of luck.

Also I should mention that CableCARD was a finicky pain in the rear end to set up on a PC. Cable companies only supported it because they were legally required to by the FCC, and it showed.

Im still happily running one of said CableCARD devices. http://cetoncorp.com/products/infinitv/ has been happily humming along for shoot 5 years now I think. Though you are absolutely right that every 6 months or so I have to kick something on the machine to get it going again. Recently we nearly lost all program guide updates as DST breaks something at MS end that they had to fix and they did it the day before we finally ran out of guide.

Thankfully there's no good reason to update a HTPC to Windows 10, or 8 for that matter. It's going to happily run 7 until 2022 or whenever the last security updates go out then I'll see what I'll have to do. I love my little computer box though.

# ¿ Mar 18, 2016 06:56

The Something Awful Forums > Main > Post Your Favorite: Carefully Curated > Post the very best in obsolete and failed technology