Technology That You Loved from the 70/80/90's? 207
modi123 asks: "I was spending a large chunk last weekend watching VH1's I love the 80's: Strikes Back with a couple of friends. We would comment and laugh at all the dreadful things we were into, and then the topic shifted towards old tech and gadgets from then. I brought up my old 486 Packard Bell (DOS 6.0, Windows 3.1, Doom, all for $3700.00), and it spiraled out from there. The usual things cropped up: Nintendos, Sega Master Systems, Apple II Gs, and so forth. Then it delved into more weird items: Rob The Nintendo Playing Robot, HyperCard, cell phones with 50 lb batteries, and the pager craze. I am curious what the /. community remembers as their favorite technology from previous decades (be it 70's, 80's or 90's). Perhaps we can even chart a timeline if people toss in when they first remember it."
Synths (Score:5, Interesting)
Back in the day, you could build your own. Now... can you even get the Curtis chips anymore? *nostalgic sigh*
Rest In Peace, Dr. Robert Moog. You will be missed, but your legacy lives on forever.
Re:Synths (Score:3, Informative)
Yeah, I sometimes regret selling my Moog Liberation and my Oberheim OB-8, but really, they were a pain to keep in tune...
Re:Synths (Score:2)
Some digital synths come close enough for me to the fat analog sound, though. I don't really miss analog too much, except for the KN
Re:Synths (Score:2)
Robotix [roboticsandthings.com], like Lego with motors... these are great for robot wars, stick all the pieces in the middle, everyone takes turns picking a piece from the pile till they're all gone, 15 minutes to build your robo-gladiator, and last robot standing is the winner.
Armatrons [samstoybox.com], one of which I recently scored for free when a buddies GF decided it was time to clean house. My daughter loves this one, we play a game where o
Re:Synths (Score:2)
From their website:
Moog Music presents the award-winning minimoog Voyager Performer Edition, an all analog performance synthesizer incorporating virtually all of the functions of the original minimoog synthesizer, produced from 1971 to 1984, and a number of new features that makes this the minimoog for the 21st Century.
100 Minute Cassetes (Score:4, Funny)
I didn't see how it could get any better than that...
Re:100 Minute Cassetes (Score:3, Informative)
Only to have the tape break (or get sucked into the capstans) because they had to manufacture it a little too thin for tolerances in order to get 100 minutes into that little space. One or two additional songs per side was not worth the risk.
C-90 was the way to go. An album per side, plus amybe selected songs or an EP to fill the side out. Plenty of room for a mix. Just enough for a walk to/from school and class breaks without having to change cassettes too frequently.
Re:100 Minute Cassetes (Score:2)
Now, I can't even remember the last time I saw a cassette, let alone used one.
Simple Games! (Score:5, Interesting)
One Word (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:One Word (Score:2)
Re:One Word (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Simple Games! (Score:2)
Re:Simple Games! (Score:2)
Atari Football?
Myself, give me a good Battlezone game. Of course, I came after the time of arcades, but...
Re:Simple Games! (Score:2)
Battlezone was way cool as well. Nothing like running for your life backwards all the while shooting at that red tank!
Merlin, Turbo Grafx, oh my (Score:2, Interesting)
The system received a face lift in Japan called the Super Grafx but it was abandoned after just a few months. I got one off eBay a few years ago and it was worth every penny.
Osborne I luggable (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Osborne I luggable (Score:2)
But the Osborne and Compaq stood out. (Not to disrespect the Kaypro or anything).
Capsella (Score:3, Interesting)
http://www.discoverthis.com/capsela.html [discoverthis.com]
They were a lot of fun, came with motors, gears, wheels, fan blades, all sorts of cool stuff. They weren't cheap though, but I sure enjoyed them. Looking at this site, either the price has come down, or I was really poor as a child.
I'd say I had this in the mid to late 80's.
Re:Capsella (Score:2)
Capsela was my first experience in mail order parts. After getting a basic set for my birthday I went for the add ons to make the fire fighting boat. It was also my first taste of the dreaded "S&H extra."
And those yellow floaty things... Thanks for the memories.
Re:Capsella (Score:3)
Heh, let's just say Capsela was one of the first things where I began to discover the limitations of the Indian Rupee. :-) M dad was so concerned about me breaking this expensive toy that he made sure he was around when I played with it. In fact, I had to ask for permission before I played around, and had to be accompanied while I remove the parts from the packaging.
This might sound like a class thing, but good to hear that even American kids fo
Re:Capsella (Score:2, Funny)
In my kit, the batteries were in one 'bubble', and the motors in another. I noticed that the power cord from some old radio fit in the Capsella motor plug, so I plugged it in. Then I plugged it into the wall. My little 'car' made a nice pop and went the fastest three feet of it's (short) life. Oops.
Re:Capsella (Score:2, Funny)
I think you're my new hero.
Re:Capsella (Score:2)
I was suitably impressed to such a degree that I did it again to get the fireworks show for a chum to see.
Re:Capsella (Score:3, Funny)
Which is why mine had so many little dents in them. From teeth.
Just like most of my old Legos did, come to think of it. Stubborn little f**kers.
(And also probably why I ended up with assorted little chips in my teeth. Bah, the price you pay for a productive childhood.)
Re:Capsella (Score:2)
this (Score:5, Insightful)
20 goto 10
run
ahh the joys of elementary school in the 80's.
Re:this (Score:3, Funny)
20 goto 10
run
Re:this (Score:2)
Re:this (Score:2)
Ah, BASIC. Is there nothing it cannot do?
Re:this (Score:2)
Re:this (Score:2)
tech/games I miss... (Score:2)
ISA slots... sure they are outdated now, but the cards seemed to slide in so much easier.
Sega CD. I swear I had to be one of the only people to have loved that add-on for the Sega Master System. ->> sewer shark.
Re:tech/games I miss... (Score:2)
All accesed from an Apple ][+ with an 80-column card and 300 Bps modem.
Re:tech/games I miss... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:tech/games I miss... (Score:3, Insightful)
Many Linux distributions still have Zmodem installed. I think the package is "lrzsz".
Just to plug SecureCRT, so far it's the fastest, most convienent, best SSH client I've ever used on any platform, which is sad considering it's a Windows app.
Re:tech/games I miss... (Score:2)
Zmodem rules. I use it all the time. SecureCRT (an ssh client for Windows) has support for it and it's great for logging in somewhere and quickly sending files to/from your local machine, no filesharing necessary.
So you add the overhead of an error checking and correcting protocol (zmodem) over top of a protocol that already checks for and corrects errors (tcp)? Why not just use sftp/scp and skip installing an extra piece of software on your server?
Just to plug SecureCRT, so far it's the fastest, mo
Re:tech/games I miss... (Score:2)
Actually, TCP does a pretty bad job on the error correcting side- packets aren't buffered properly (in that, if a machine suddenly becomes unreachable for a couple of days, TCP will simply never deliver the packets. Zmodem, on the other hand, will resume upon reconnect
Re:tech/games I miss... (Score:2)
Actually, TCP does a pretty bad job on the error correcting side- packets aren't buffered properly (in that, if a machine suddenly becomes unreachable for a couple of days, TCP will simply never deliver the packets. Zmodem, on the other hand, will resume upon reconnection, discarding spare packets and assembling it's file correctly. Just try to do THAT with a TCP protocol like FTP).
The whole point is that you are running zmodem over ssh which is a protocol that runs over TCP. You are adding the overhea
Re:tech/games I miss... (Score:2)
Zmodem rules. I use it all the time. SecureCRT
I have just decided to like you. Zmodem was, and is, an awesome inline transfer protocol. I wish it supported hierarchical structures (i.e. folders), but, like you, I use it with SecureCRT. You don't, by some chance, work for NYISO, do you?
Re:tech/games I miss... (Score:2)
Re:tech/games I miss... (Score:2)
I loved the SNES/Genesis generation. Those graphics were good enough for m
Re:tech/games I miss... (Score:2)
I guess many Americans might have missed it (the Amiga only really taking off in Europe) but the Amiga CD32 came out at around the same time. I remember seeing the game Microcosm on both platforms and the CD32 really showed up the Mega CD...
Re:tech/games I miss... (Score:2)
Cameras made from glass and metal (Score:5, Interesting)
Computers that you could understand. I mean understand the whole thing. I worked on PDP 8's and I could keep the entire thing in my mind. I could see the gates that changed state when an instruction executed. Now I'm lucky if I can figure out how the SDRAM refreshes.
Cinemascope and Technicolor. I loved the widescreen of Cinemascope and the soft vibrant colors of Technicolor.
Tube amps. Rich, warm sound, pretty orange glow.
Analog oscilloscopes. Tek 485, the finest portable scope ever made, Tek 7844, 2 completely independent excellent scopes in one box.
Hammond B3 organs and Leslie speakers. If you don't know why, find them and listen.
Re:Cameras made from glass and metal (Score:2)
Loved HP analog scopes, to which you could attach a logic analyzer that displayed everything in binary.
Had several tube amps and even a few tube radios and phonographs.
My first computer was an Intel SDK 85 breadboard setup with 7-segment HEX display and HEX keypad. Programmed it in HEX ASM code. Later got an
Re:Cameras made from glass and metal (Score:2)
Oh, Amen! And I say that partly because that's what our church has. Though our best organist has moved to California, and we haven't yet found someone who can put it through the paces like he could.
I'll put a Mellotron and an Optigan [optigan.com] (or Talentmaker) up there with the things that need to be found and listened to.
Re:Cameras made from glass and metal (Score:2)
Everyone's favourite girlfriend... (Score:2)
Re:Everyone's favourite girlfriend... (Score:2)
Amiga forever and ever, and some days more!
I loved those machines. Over the years, I had an A500, an A2000 and an A1200. I had also gutted an IBM PS/2 tower to use as a SCSI HDD tower, which I had connected at different times to the 2000 and the 1200.
I had the 2000 decked out with two SCSI controllers (one was on a processor accelerator card -- 68030/68883 16MHz) and I had, between the two busses, four HDD's, a zip drive, and an Irwin tape drive. It was configured such that I could not only boot from
Re:Everyone's favourite girlfriend... (Score:2)
Analog Magtape Walkmans (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Analog Magtape Walkmans (Score:2)
Which is a pain in the arse when you're using them to record, since you inevitably forget to track to the end of what you've already recorded and stomp over something you wanted to keep.
Re:Analog Magtape Walkmans (Score:2)
Sure, the thing won't SKIP, but you will get "warble" in the sound if the walkman is being held the right way. Its subtle, but the flywheel's centrifugal force is effected by the bounce of the jog, and you'll hear it in the sound. Then again, if you're jogging or doing some other activity that would cause a modern* portable CD player to skip, you probably won't even notice the warble.
* by modern, I'm re
300 baud modem, CGA color (Score:3, Interesting)
And, I had a CGA monitor, with EGA envy. I dreamed of EGA color for (what seemed like) years, and then VGA came out and my world was never the same.
Which colors to choose, Magenta, Cyan, White, Black, or the ever popular Red, Green, Yellow, Black? I just couldn't ever pick.
Re:300 baud modem, CGA color (Score:4, Interesting)
The other thing I remember from that era was running a small multi-line BBS. It was lots of fun and I got to know a lot of cool people. Tragically, after my BBS went down due to a hardware disaster in 1987, my social life took a giant dive it has not recovered from since.
I love the Internet, but nobody seems to have created a really good way to bring local people together in a friendly way
D
Re:300 baud modem, CGA color (Score:3, Informative)
TI Hex, Octal, Decimal calculator (Score:2)
It's been a while, but I seem to remember the caclulator would do binary conversions, too.
Tech and replacements (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Tech and replacements (Score:3, Informative)
I still have to carry a pager because there's a significant difference in the coverage areas of cell towers and pagers. There are some areas that are exclusively one or the other and still a couple spots with neither.
Fax - I have a piece of paper to send to you. Do I:
sit down at the computer
open the scanning app
scan the image
hit save
desktop...filename....save
open the e-mail client
new message
To: Mabel
Subject: the letter
File..Attach...Desktop...which file was it again? Oh,
Re:Tech and replacements (Score:2)
Re:Tech and replacements (Score:2)
Pagers (Score:3, Interesting)
We all had those pagers for a short period of time as we got used to them, and the contract was smoothed out. When it was finalized, we all got new pagers with one button that did everything depending on how long you held the button down. Upon hearing how we were to interact with the new pagers, one of my colleagues quipped, "God save us from technology!"
More laughing... (Score:2)
Man, that was a great show. I think you could make a plausible case that business casual clothing wouldn't exist (in the US, anyway) if hadn't been for Detective Crockett.
Genuine, no-fooling teletype (Score:2)
Also used Nixie tube display DVMs and freq counters, and an acncient Wang computer that had a modified IBM selectric typewtiter for a printer when I worked for Tracor Westronics.
Them was the days.
1K of awesome power! (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:1K of awesome power! (Score:4, Funny)
Let's just say my 10 year old cousin didn't quite see the point of listening to screeching noises for half an hour only to play a text adventure game with shoddy fonts. :-)
Re:1K of awesome power! (Score:2)
Re:1K of awesome power! (Score:3, Interesting)
I'm not just saying this from misty-eyed nostalgia, the Sinclair ZX81 was a computer that an enthusiast like me could understand at the lowest level because of its ingenious use of the simplest of hardware. Simple hardware meant not so many features but to this day with a electronic engineering degree under my belt that's the only desktop computer I've fully understood every part of how it works at every level. Sure I know how this PC works at a more than superficial technical level but I dont r
DOOM? Wrong decade! (Score:2)
And that was 1994, not the 1980s. DOS 3.3 and Windows 2.0 were all the rage on PCs in the 1980s.
I'd like to relive 1988, though: Gas was 88 cents a gallon. Oh, wait, I can, if gas stations would only start stocking biogasoline...
Re:DOOM? Wrong decade! (Score:2)
Only if you automatically assume that $1.40 What plant product do you currently buy at less than a dollor a gallon that you are using as an estimate for biofuel costs by the way?
Waste vegetable oil goes for $20 barrel on wholesale, $0 on retail (and they're glad to be rid of it).
Re:DOOM? Wrong decade! (Score:2)
You are limited by your perspective. Waste vegetable oil is available under $20 for 50 gallons, usually free. That's most of what biodiesel is. The rest of what's used in the process are cheap household products you can pick up for a couple dollars at any decent grocery store. Cost of production is just under 70 cents/gallon on average, and doesn't change much (feel the power of renewable resources).
HP-65 (Score:2)
KIM-1
Printing terminals
LED readouts
PONG
Rabbit-ear TV (3 channels)
Really long phone cords, so you could talk around the house.
Polyester leisure suits
Carburators
3 to 2 prong plug cheats
5 Pound Cell Phone (Score:2)
[Someone should set up a site for the early cell phone users]
Mine was a Mitsubishi which was huge, the base contained the large battery. The base unit connected to the handheld had a slide-out handle to carry it around. Together, the assembly was about the size of a Kleenex box.
Motorola subsequently came out with a totally handheld version - that was really cool at the time.
Free porn (Score:5, Funny)
CompuServe GIF, 320x200 256 color VGA displays, uudecode, and alt.binaries.pictures.erotica. 300 floppies of 100dpi 256 color porn.
HP-11C (Score:4, Interesting)
Commodore 64 (Score:3, Informative)
Ah, yes there was the 1541 Foppy drive, but it cost about as much as the whole computer and it might be not vintage enough for C64 purists...
Dungeon! (Score:2)
In the early '80s I'd leave my after-school job (night manager of a McDonald's - ugh!) and drive to the local Cal State campus, where you could log into the mainframe's public account and play games in the 24-hour computer lab - but only if there were 25 or fewer users on the system, campuswide. Lots of nights, I'd leave the computer lab at 7 a.m. and drive back to high school for a day of classes.
I installed Dungeon it on my FreeBSD se
The internet has always been here, right? (Score:4, Insightful)
Weird... of course, that's all nonsense.
When I stop to think, I remember playing Jungle Hunt on my uncle's TI computer, which had cartridges, but could also save data to a cassette tape. Most schoolwork was hand-written, though I wrote a few papers the hi-tech way, on my Dad's (expensive!) computer with no hard drive, but TWO floppy drives, one for the Word Perfect diskette, and one for the save diskette. When I went off to college, I had to use actual, paper maps to figure out how to get there. And I brought along a Macintosh computer with an 80 MB hard drive. And Tetris!
I know why I take modern technology for granted, though. This IS my life. The internet has totally pervaded my existence. What would my life be like without these technologies?
I spend most of my day sitting in front of a computer... at work and often at leisure as well. I have now moved hundreds of miles away from the company I still work for, communicating primarily over email, writing code in a language invented less than a decade ago, adding features to a system that runs over the internet. Checking changes into a source control system that is, likewise, hundreds of miles away. Or updating my other source of revenue, a website that I built entirely using free tools and which I host in a server also hundreds of miles away from my home. When people pay for something on my site, they are shunted to s different server on the other side of the country. When a customer lives in Zambia, or the Netherlands, or in North Pole, Alaska, it's interesting but no surprise. But when a customer actually lives somewhere in my area, I'm startled. I wonder with an curious shiver if I may have actually SEEN this person before -- that would be amazing!
I had some serious vision problems last year (long-term damage from an infection I had as a kid), and went through a series of operations to replace various parts of both eyes (and advances in medicine are off-topic here, but again, thank you modern technology). But as long as one eye could make out magnified text on a 21" monitor, I could still do my work and still earn a living... it didn't make a difference at all that I couldn't see well enough to leave the house.
So how would my life have been different if I'd been born 50 years earlier? Even 10 years earlier? I can't even imagine it.
Anything Ronco! (Score:2)
When I was little, I always thought the glass froster was the best thing. What if you had guests over for a party and you ran out of frosted glasses? Ronco glass froster and ozono-depleting CFC's to the rescue. Thanks to the power of Ebay, I have one....with the ozone-depleting CFC cartridge....man, those were the days....
Greyscale magic (Score:2)
You could make actual databases that real people with little tiny desktop computers could use over a network AND you could do a lot of it by dragging boxes around on a screen.
It was just amazing.
I'd have to say... (Score:2)
Hewlett Packard 100/200LX (Score:2)
320x200 LCD large screen, beautiful reflective
Real clicky tactile feel "old hp" keys
Ran "Derive!" for portable REAL symbolic math and solution solving
Based on DOS 5.0 (or dos 3?)
Single Serial Port
Weeks on two AA batteries
PCMCIA socket for a modem (although adios battery)
"right" sized.
Sigh. I would drop $1000 tomorrow, no questions asked, if someone came out with a linux version of that device. I used mine until the keys started getting flakey and then sold it. I regret selling it
The Amiga 500/1200 (Score:2)
Re:The Amiga 500/1200 (Score:2)
Ah, so you were the one writing games that wouldn't run on my A500 with 68020 accelerator and non-AutoConfig 32-bit memory?! ;-)
Commodore! (Score:2)
I also have a soft spot for the venerable Amiga, being the first WIMP system I started using. It was also a great games machine as well - it was the first system to really make 3D work for things like flight sims.
Grab.
VINYL! (Score:4, Insightful)
I still have a good-sized collection of 80's and 90's (and some 70's) vinyly records. Some of them are a little scratched, but most of them sound great.
Actually, my collection has been growing in recent years as people are ditching their collections at yard sales.
Let me head off the likely next comment, though. Vinyl doesn't sound better than CD's, neither does it sound worse, for the most part. It sounds different. I have a good turntable, though, and that makes a big difference. The highs seem a tad crisper on my sound system from vinyl than from CD, but the noise floor is higher, and there is more frequent distortion on the vinyl.
Newvicon Tube. (Score:2)
Most probably don't recognize what a Newvicon tube is; it is the predecessor to the CCD, and was used to make video cameras.
These cameras produced a stunning picture. Even at SDTV resolutions, the details were crisp and the colours were vibrant.
The place where the Newvicon tube fell down and the CCD did a better job was when it came to high-motion footage (e.g. sports). The Newvicon tube tended to blur the motion a tad.
A couple of years ago, I saw, on VH1 Classic, some footage of U2 in a live perfor
Re:Newvicon Tube. (Score:2)
Re:Newvicon Tube. (Score:2)
I miss that camera -- with it being big enough to sit on your shoulder, your videos weren't nearly as shaky as they are with camcorders small enough to slip into your wallet.
Re:Newvicon Tube. (Score:2)
I totally forgot about the old Quasar video camera my family had bought around 1983, which utilized a Newvicon tube.
> I miss that camera -- with it being big enough to sit on your shoulder, your videos weren't nearly as shaky as they are with camcorders small enough to slip into your wallet.
Amen to that! I had a Panasonic camcorder that I bought in 1986 or 1987, I don't remember exactly when. It was one of the last models they offered with a Newvicon tube, and I bought it at a severe discount
Pinball (Score:4, Insightful)
Ahh to have the days of three-games-for-a-quarter back!
Toys? (Score:2, Interesting)
When the Tamagatchi craze hit I was working in Target's toy department. I was constantly being harassed by customers (parents more so than kids), and bounced anyone who thought they could wander in the back stock room. I had a fist full of complaints against me when people asked me (for the millionth time) "Where can I find a Tamagatchi?", I would point behind me and reply "Over there - the empty shelves in the shadow of the three foot by four foot sign that says TAMAGA
Etherhose (Score:2)
Then came thin wire, over standard RG coax, and networking took off.
HP-65 Calculator (Score:2)
And of course, it used RPN.
Ed Almos
Budapest, Hungary
Re:Wizardry for teh win! (Score:2)
Re:Wizardry for teh win! (Score:2)
Now, though, write-protecting a disk image isn't as easy as that...
In my world it would be "chmod -r". I know it works in some of the emulators I have used in the past. YMMV, of course, since I don't have a Mac.
Re:Calculator (Score:2)
My parents bought one for my older brother for his high school graduation. I don't remember the model number, but it was a very early, very basic four-function TI. It cost about $100. Back in 1973. Ouch.
Re:Calculator (Score:2)
Re:Calculator (Score:2)