Post the very best in obsolete and failed technology

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madeintaipei: Jul 13, 2012

Code Jockey posted:

That is incredibly badass.

This is the best thread.

Here ya go! There's a wiki page for everything!

Wikipedia posted:

Lieutenant Boris Kobzan survived a record four ramming attacks in the war. Alexander Khlobystov made three. Seventeen other Soviet pilots were credited with two successful ramming attacks. About 200 taran attacks were made by Soviets between the beginning of Operation Barbarossa and the middle of 1943, when enough modern aircraft had been produced to make the tactic uncommon. Some 270 ramming attacks were made by the Soviets during the whole war. However, Evgeny Stepanov stated in an interview that the VVS made more than 580 taran attacks.

e: Miiight want to take the above quote with a bit of salt.

# ¿ Jul 9, 2013 20:07

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# ¿ Apr 27, 2024 23:23

madeintaipei: Jul 13, 2012

Mr. Flunchy posted:

gently caress knows how you clear that up.

If it's anything like what you do with a cement mixer that breaks (and the other motherfucker doesn't clear), a looooot of quality time with a jack hammer, a crow bar, and a sledgehammer (remember your safety glasses kids).

# ¿ Jan 24, 2014 02:36

madeintaipei: Jul 13, 2012

Humphreys posted:

I kinda like the look of it, can see a bit of old Celicas/Capellas/Datsons in the design. Would drive. In that colour.

Yeah, I can see that. The 210/510 wagons always looked a bit lower in the back than the sedans.

The car itself is based on a '60's Fiat though. Hard pass. Should have called it the Saiga anyway, they already own the copywrite.

# ¿ Oct 4, 2018 16:58

madeintaipei: Jul 13, 2012

Lazlo Nibble posted:

You can’t just fire up an electric burner for a few seconds and warm a tortilla on it.

Checkmate.

You can on a ceramic cook-top.

King me.

# ¿ Nov 25, 2018 18:15

madeintaipei: Jul 13, 2012

Jerry Cotton posted:

OK so if you felt attacked by my "YouTube is shirt but this guy isnt" post you can literally go fuxj yourself.

We all can it's really nice.

Is this a #justfinnishthings... thing? At this point I'd believe any thing you'd say.

# ¿ Apr 21, 2019 22:09

madeintaipei: Jul 13, 2012

boo_radley posted:

Hello new thread title!

My personal account in obsolete tech was the nextcube! It was a tremendously dense cube, and the monitor used a weird rear end cable and was exceptionally fuzzy for being a grayscale monitor. I lucked into after reading a newsgroup posting- the seller made me promise if I got bored with it that I'd resell it or donate it and not burn it, since it was made out of magnesium for some insane reason and would burn like nobody's business.

I wound up booting it up twice, locking myself out and then keeping it in a closet. Young me didn't quite get Unix permissions quite as well as I might have.

So, did you burn it?

# ¿ Jul 30, 2019 04:15

madeintaipei: Jul 13, 2012

bring back old gbs posted:

i had a game gear, it fuckin suuuuuucked lol all the sonic games played bad

but i always heard stories of someones friend of a friend who knew a guy that actually had the TV adapter, no guf

Not only had the TV adapter but had the magnifier as well. Hadda 32x, too. It was a consolation prize of sort from my parents getting divorced and some fucker stole it from my dad's apartment.

# ¿ Aug 27, 2019 22:26

madeintaipei: Jul 13, 2012

Empress Brosephine posted:

We had a 2002 Volvo x70 that had motorized headlight wipers. I thought that was novel and not useful.

Toyota trucks in America, so the Tacoma and Tundra, have motorized headlights. There is a little thumbwheel on the dash that levels your headlights depending on how much you're hauling. It's a nice little touch which does more for fellow drivers than yourself.

The early '90's Toyota Soarer was available with ultra-sonic vibrating side mirrors to eliminate moisture build-up. I'm not sure it works any better than heated mirrors, but flagship cars gonna flagship.

Many vehicles, for example the Citroen DS, have had headlights which turn with the front wheels. I had an Oldsmobile Aurora, instead of moving lights they put white bulbs in the headlight cluster corners which activate when the headlights and blinker are both on. These bulbs are pointed out from the corners of the car just enough to peek around a turn. I thought that was an elegant solution for a problem I didn't know I had.

# ¿ Sep 7, 2019 18:55

madeintaipei: Jul 13, 2012

KozmoNaut posted:

I think every car sold in the EU has to have that since 2000 or something. It's nice, if people remember to use it.

Having a switch inside the vehicle that moves the lights from LHD to RHD configuration sounds good. Beats jamming a socket on 10 inches of extension and slowly turning one of four adjustment rods until the lights are aligned.

My truck is now two inches taller than stock in the rear, which forced me to change the headlight assemblies. The stock lights had no provision for aiming the lights up/down without using shims. Cheap assholes, the Chinese aftermarket provided a better product at less than half the price of OEM.

# ¿ Sep 7, 2019 19:36

madeintaipei: Jul 13, 2012

Powered Descent posted:

Does this feature automatically level the lights, or does it let you manually adjust the setting? I'm usually in favor of having manual controls for things, but in this case I could see so many people just raising the lights to the max upward angle they'll go, saying "oh, this is so much better than only seeing stuff from waist-height down" and then blinding every single oncoming driver for years and years.

Manual, the truck doesn't know what attitude it is in. The most use I've gotten out of it is pulling a trailer that gets emptier, but has proportionaly more weight on the hitch, as the morning goes on.

I feel you though. Automatic dimming hi-beams does not mean leaving them on hi all the time. Turn the loving fog lights off, it's not foggy! Bunch of savages in this town. :rant:

# ¿ Sep 7, 2019 20:34

madeintaipei: Jul 13, 2012

Mercury Ballistic posted:

I have owned two Tacoma's since 2001 and this feature is news to me. Is this a non us market feature?

As far as I know, Toyota is super weird on options. Even intermittent wipers are just an option, like, you could spec a Tundra out to 65k and not have them. Ex: first truck I drove with the adjustable headlights was a Tundra work truck with bench seats, four stalks on the column, no intermittent wipers, roll-up windows, and plastic seats. I found the build sheet in the glove box, two options: adjustable headlights and cruise (the fourth stalk). Wanna say it was $150 for both, dealer optioned.

# ¿ Sep 7, 2019 23:13

madeintaipei: Jul 13, 2012

VictualSquid posted:

Stencils used to be very popular.
I used one of those through college, it probably still is in some moving box in storage.

Back in those days there were supply stores near colleges and tradeschools with large racks of useful stencils, right next to the crayons for the younger kids.
Starting from the common stuff, like circles or metric screwheads.
Ending with more exotic stuff like NATO symbols or hydraulic logic circuits.

My mother worked in public schoolswhen I was a child and so had access to a teacher's supply shop. They had everything: transparency templates, Mobil playsets, crayons and markers in any size and color, oversize teaching props (huge plastic hearts and poo poo), all you need to facilitate any lesson plan. How did I spent my $5 a week allowance? Stencils, stencils, stencils. Didn't even know what half of them were useful for but boy did I have fun channeling my inner Moebius.

# ¿ Oct 5, 2019 22:47

madeintaipei: Jul 13, 2012

packetmantis posted:

New York's hottest club.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5laG1E0Q4b8

# ¿ Oct 5, 2019 23:14

madeintaipei: Jul 13, 2012

BogDew posted:

It's a common effect. They did it as far back as War Games. In that case it was a program setup to "type" no matter what was pressed.

Most UI stuff on sets are playback or comped in later (as most phone screens don't look great on camera).

Some sets get semi interactive and have controls respond to touch or movements or something like a basic flash interface.
I think the Matrix sequels had it so controls moved pitch and yaw displays.

Much of that stuff is a pain on set as it's on playback loops so if anything ties in with the action actors have to figure out the timing or a cue. It's better to get it comped in later, plus it causes less continuity errors.

Stuff like the displays on Trek were video playbacks on CRT screens. So the shutter speed on cameras were locked as to not have refresh pulsing.

Later on LCD screens fixed that, in amusing ways, like the tiny windows on Enterprise that could just fit a screen for the starfield.

Nowadays it's massive panels that project proper lighting into the set. Oblivion is one example of that, the apartment set was all display panels.

The other amusing thing is interfaces in movies inspiring things, such as Minority Reports's floating touch interface, with its little nods of awkwardness of use with the whole thing sliding off when Cruise's character goes in for a handshake that sold it as possible.

This tends to bleed into actual development where reality bites as while something like a minority report thing is roughly doable. It would be exhausting to use and very error prone.

Thank you very much for this! The following poster, too!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7tFe6-MnJVU

# ¿ Oct 21, 2019 20:44

madeintaipei: Jul 13, 2012

Kinda/sorta related, the real underlaying the unreal in a very real way:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wm3squcz7Aw

Really:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YJg02ivYzSs

e: The first one makes more sense with the full video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5rPKeUXjEvE

madeintaipei has a new favorite as of 22:38 on Oct 21, 2019

# ¿ Oct 21, 2019 22:10

madeintaipei: Jul 13, 2012

My take on building up a stereo: make it big, cheap, and loud. If you don't have to untangle twenty yards of unlabled wire any time you change something, why bother? Just lol if all the lamps in your house work because your haven't scavanged the power cords as speaker wire. Curbs on trash day are my Best Buy.

A good friend of mine went big into record collecting recently. No real audio experience, she just wanted something that worked and didn't beat up the vynil. Immaculate bent-arm deck on rubber-spring isolators, neatly bundled wires in plastic conduit, vintage JBL 3-ways, stainless steel amp and pre-amp. Every item well researched and carefully installed. Sounds great, looks good.

Total heresy to me, of course. That didn't keep us from having a thirty minute phone conversation the other day about our hi-fi's. Like smoking weed with your granddad and two weeks later there's a professional grow-op in the basement.

I miss going over to people's houses and making a bee-line for the stereo. The annoyed look on wive's faces as your mild-mannered friend rocks out to Tool at 120db while the dog runs straight into the wall in panicked confusion was always fun. There was always that person who couldn't change the oil in their car but could explain what, "holographic pre-amp", meant.

# ¿ Nov 18, 2019 15:14

madeintaipei: Jul 13, 2012

e:^^^Get out of my head.

Phy posted:

Isn't "carved into rock somewhere out of the wind and rain" still the most permanent option for recording things?

Somewhere in the deepest cave humanity has explored, carved in solid rock by feel alone, forever unseen and uncommented upon, is a lonely reminder of our struggle against death, against time. All the shining glory of our artistry on Earth, in the heavens and beyond, will lose it's luster, crumble, and be erased before it. One thing has remained and will remain. An archetypal depiction of a forgotten troglodyte: nearly hairless, smooth and strangely muscled, it's one eye sightless.

# ¿ Dec 6, 2019 19:23

madeintaipei: Jul 13, 2012

Wipfmetz posted:

And one of them is a "One Remote Control For All Devices"-Type-Remote? Which does actually only control only one of the devices and only half the buttons actually do something.

My Hifi-of-Thesus has seen a few Pioneer components. All of them could be daisy chained together with 1/8 in. cables so one remote controlled everything. Never managed to have two of those components at once, but the option was there.

The new TV can control volume on my A/V receiver but can't turn it on or off, so the receiver's remote may as well have one button. Can you guess which remote I always lose?

# ¿ Aug 12, 2020 07:19

madeintaipei: Jul 13, 2012

Humphreys posted:

It's for Burn:

And lol at this quote:

Obviously my order arrived today and they are all in very good condition! Pity about the poo poo cover art on Judge Dredd

Gotta love that trope of 'action guy with gun pointing lower rightl. Who woulda thought so many were left handed?

Replace the BGM folder of VtM: Bloodlines with the soundtrack of Lost Highway.

# ¿ Sep 24, 2020 23:48

madeintaipei: Jul 13, 2012

Johnny Aztec posted:

....That is a Duck Person...

Anyhow.
I have an old TANDY system in a generic AT case. Turns out it is just a re-branded AST Advantage. 486 SX system. Bit of an oddity.
I am at an impasseeeee on getting it running, for now, because of the Dallas Real Time Clock Chip.

This is a Clock chip AND a CMOS battery in one package. The Real time part works, but the battery is long flat.
System won't go past that until it's replaced. It is a fairly common issue with boards of this era.

Options are: Unsolder and replace with a new-ish Dallas Real Time Clock chip

OR

IT"S HACKING TIME!

Unsolder that sucker, flip out your knife and START CUTTING!

You break the connection to the internal battery, and install a modern lith-ion CMOS battery holder.

Edit: Just to be clear, those are images I stole off the interwebs.
I have not actually done this yet.

If it's stupid and it works...

# ¿ Dec 6, 2020 20:20

madeintaipei: Jul 13, 2012

Literally Lewis Hamilton posted:

Definitely still a thing for immigrants calling home, people in prison, boot camp cadets, etc. There's also still plenty of olds on landline plans without long distance.

Holy gently caress, is the jail/prison phone thing hosed (just like the rest of it). My best friend has to pay $50 a week just to talk to her husband once a day for 15 min. He's locked up in the combined city/county jail, middle of town and maybe 10 min from their house. It's a single kiosk for each wing, too, so every motherfucker there is waiting on the thing. One day short of a year, so $2,550 all told.

That's more expensive per week than commisary and library fees combined. No Kindle for you, paperbacks only from a single authorized supplier. They can get anything but, gently caress me, does it take time and money.

# ¿ Dec 23, 2021 17:42

madeintaipei: Jul 13, 2012

Not fax, but still landline dependent stuff:

The business I'm in requires you to use a hand held computer for everything. Loading product into inventory in the morning, generating invoices during the day, making orders for next week in the afternoon. Everything has to go through a piece of technology from 2006, refurbed multiple times, running a spiffed up version of software from the mid to late 80s.

The newer versions of these computers communicate through cell service throught the working day, but that's not always possible. A cornerstone of using the thing is "communicating", or "T-Comming", every single day. This is vital. Without sending a record of what you've done, you do not get paid.

Some devices have a SIM card for cell service, some can operate through open WiFi, but they can all connect with home base through a landline. Docked computer, to modem, to phone line and back again.

It's reliable. So reliable that I've "communicated" these computers during hurricanes. As long as the nearest telephone pole is not on fire, you will be able to continue sales.

The whole business (regardless of company) operates, at the lowsest level, on old and reliable tech.

There is a major distributor of my product that abandoned their AS/400 system less than five years ago. It was new and shiny at the time, worked until decomm, with nary a burble inbetween. Layers of poo poo built upon it for decades, but it just worked. The systems now still follow the old AS/400's workflow. At ground level, it's just new buttons to press.

It will work as long as you, at least, have a landline.

# ¿ Dec 25, 2021 21:58

madeintaipei: Jul 13, 2012

Vincent Van Goatse posted:

I didn't even know early '90s PC audio cards were allowed to vote.

Only the 32bit versions.

# ¿ Jan 2, 2022 04:09

madeintaipei: Jul 13, 2012

Dick Trauma posted:

It's not gunpowder or black powder. It's some sort of flash powder. Potassium chlorate mixed with... I don't know. It's basically a tiny firecracker.

The tape version, at least, is an outgrowth of the Maynard tape primer. An easier way to prime a musket or rifle than using a flash-pan full of gunpowder. Being made of paper, it had a tendancy to swell, break, or otherwise not feed through it's mechanism. If that's a tiny firecracker, so is the later percussion cap. Because they are.

Swords into plowshares, or at least into a children's toy.

# ¿ Jan 6, 2022 18:32

madeintaipei: Jul 13, 2012

Humbug Scoolbus posted:

I get my groceries delivered because I don't have a car and I have severe rheumatoid arthritis. Walking two miles while carrying heavy bags is absolute agony.

Especially without pants on!

# ¿ Jan 12, 2022 18:09

madeintaipei: Jul 13, 2012

Humbug Scoolbus posted:

Hey! Freeballing is life buddy!

Awfully hard to carry groceries in one of those little carts, when all the space is taken up by your enormous balls!

Obsolete and failed grocery store technology: buggies with castors on the front and fixed wheels in the back. Sure, it makes them easier to move in large numbers with one person. For everything else, they suck.

Yes, I'm ignoring POS and inventory systems running in shells on top of shells, themselves decades old. Yes, I'm ignoring the entire checkout process. I'll even forgive ancient timeclocks that require manual adjustment of hours because they only work half the time (that's management's problem, lol).

But none of those things encourage people to turn their buggy around in place without looking and smack me square in the nads. Twice this week alone and I've only worked Mon & Tues. One person even tried to push through me after saying sorry.

Sorry to rant, but my testes sad and swollen.

# ¿ Jan 12, 2022 19:33

madeintaipei: Jul 13, 2012

DrBouvenstein posted:

You had to haul bottles up yourself? Weird...I've never seen a stove like this, outside small camping stoves or grills. Which I would never personally use inside because they often have less complete combustion and you'd be at a higher risk for CO and other byproducts.*

That arrangement is super common in Asia. Just (a) burner(s), no oven, so an undercounter tank is all you need.

You could probably chart the expansion of many Japanese cities, post war, by looking at gas tank deliveries. They radiated out from city center as the suburbs filled out and actual gas lines were laid.

India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, the entirety of SE Asia, both urban and back country China, parts of Africa, and many other burgs, the gas cylinder is the primary cooking fuel for many, many people.

# ¿ Jan 28, 2022 17:45

madeintaipei: Jul 13, 2012

LifeSunDeath posted:

Here, I'll save you some money with one weird trick:

The Russians used a pencil. Now, the West and East Germans, the Czechs, the Chechnians, Americans, and Croats also used a pencil. I know this because my family members of those nationalities all showed me the trick. No one wants their car cassette player to eat tape.

# ¿ Feb 11, 2022 17:46

madeintaipei: Jul 13, 2012

Thomamelas posted:

A former producer for The Amazing Race was talking about a bunch of behind the scenes stuff for the show. And something he mentioned is that they absolutely loved when couples would say they are doing this to try to save the relationship. With the hope that the challenges would bring them together. And the producers loved it because putting rocky relationships in a stressful situation will make for drama.

Powerful, "Well, we had the first kid young. Then we had the second to save our marriage", vibes.

This does not, in fact, save the marriage.

# ¿ Feb 16, 2022 20:35

madeintaipei: Jul 13, 2012

El Spamo posted:

This kills the marriage

Ironically, a pair of scissors might have had a better effect!

# ¿ Feb 16, 2022 20:52

madeintaipei: Jul 13, 2012

my turn in the barrel posted:

I didn't see one but when I bought my marantz gear back in ~2000 I had to buy an entire collection of 30 other things. All I sold off was a Sansui G9000 and a Marantz 1150d a couple years back for most of what I paid for it all.

There was a couple of surround processors in there. But I just looked and only saw one of them in the storage closet. It's a Yamaha DSP-1 I'm in the process of moving all that stuff so I'll have to see what else I come across.

I know I have a laserdisc player, CED player, betamax, 8 tracks, rtr recorders etc.. all squirreled away that either came in that collection or from garage/estate/rummage sales back then. At the time anything that wasn't a DVD player or Ipod/Mp3 player was considered worthless so I got all kinds of neat tech for peanuts.

Hmmm. Splatter target on a turntable. Could make some neat art.

# ¿ Mar 3, 2022 01:10

madeintaipei: Jul 13, 2012

SubG posted:

If you get scared by a moon creature you just pull in your arms and legs.

"Looool. What are you wearing? Hey, Grixltb, we got another one!"

"Ulululu, quit fuckin' with it. Is it scared? Lookit that. It's scared. Come on little buddy, it's ok."

"Sprinkled moon dust on ya, now you got space cooties!"

"Throw dirt on it. Yeah, real mature. Dick."

# ¿ Aug 23, 2022 22:56

madeintaipei: Jul 13, 2012

TotalLossBrain posted:

Wearing a helmet inside the pressure vessel

This looks more like an anti masturbation suit tbh

Fella.

# ¿ Aug 23, 2022 23:44

madeintaipei: Jul 13, 2012

GreenNight posted:

Sounds like a dare.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fUwbNxRLInw

# ¿ Aug 23, 2022 23:56

madeintaipei: Jul 13, 2012

Groke posted:

They all look like bad taxidermy jobs.

Funny you should say that.

# ¿ Sep 12, 2022 19:36

madeintaipei: Jul 13, 2012

Serperoth posted:

Taking a long drag on my unfiltered Gauloises cigarette before starting the countdown to end all life on Earth. As the clock ticks, I call my mistress, then my wife.

Get outta my head.

Where are all the ashtrays?

# ¿ Sep 27, 2022 00:03

madeintaipei: Jul 13, 2012

Grassy Knowles posted:

Vita, which means it began obsolete

I love my drat Hotline Miami machine.

You use the Vita as an emulator, or am I missing something?

I ask because my daughter's PSP is one of her favorite machines to get poo poo working on. If the Vita does anything better, inquiring minds want to know.

# ¿ Apr 28, 2023 23:42

madeintaipei: Jul 13, 2012

namlosh posted:

That doesn’t look like a submarine but it does look cool as hell. Are those narco ships unmanned and remote controlled I wonder

Generally, no.

Stick some poor bastards in the hull and make it clear that failure is not an option. If you trust reporting on crews that get caught, they range from blackmailed fisherman to actual employees of whatever cartel is running the shipment.

These narco-subs themselves range from speedboats converted into semi-submersible boats to actual mini-subs designed and built for task.

The best case scenario for the crew in an emergency or after being found is scuttling the boat, hopping off, and having the coast guard pick them up. If there is no evidence, the Navy or CG didn't know about the shipment beforehand, and everyone keeps their mouths shut, the crew are just shipwrecked sailors in the eyes of the law. That doesn't mean they can't get charged with other things, but they can avoid drug trafficking charges.

# ¿ May 5, 2023 17:03

madeintaipei: Jul 13, 2012

Lowen SoDium posted:

A bit of an odd request but I figured this thread might be my best chance to find what I am looking for.

I am wiring a short story and I want to reference a specific old tv that I used to have when I was a kid in the 80s and need some details or reference pictures.

It was a 12-16inch color tv that I am 90% sure was Zenith brand. If it wasn't Zenith, I am sure that it was a brand that doesn't exist any more and I am almost positive it was a US manufactured TV. It was a "portable" TV, more of a luggable. It had a handle built in to the housing. It was housed in a white plastic and it had separate knobs for VHF and UHF on the front. It had fine tuning knobs set inside of the channel knobs It didn't have a coax input, just the 75ohm screw terminals.

Anyone know what this TV was or know of one that was similar?

Kinda like this?

# ¿ May 11, 2023 16:06

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# ¿ Apr 27, 2024 23:23

madeintaipei: Jul 13, 2012

3D Megadoodoo posted:

I've often wondered about his choice of coiffure. Cutting you own hair (as I've done) doesn't mean you HAVE to do a really ugly bowl cut that makes everyone think you're a crazy bitter divorced misanthrope hoarder believer, even when you are.

Are you tellin' on yourself? 😉

# ¿ Jul 28, 2023 07:24

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

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