- Joined
- Sep 18, 2018
Damn I honestly miss seeing payphones.
There is a Chinese restaurant in my area that not just has a payphone, but it is a rotary dial on it too.
Boomer Tech Thread - *crack* *sip* Yep, the C64 was a good computer.
- Thread starter Glad I couldn't help
- Start date
There is a Chinese restaurant in my area that not just has a payphone, but it is a rotary dial on it too.
- Joined
- Jan 28, 2018
It's not surprising they disappear when even literal hobos now have multi-core computers that also make phone calls in their pockets, but still. There's something special about analog telephony and the call sound quality later on was amazing. Today's compressed to hell garbage sounds like shit and it's not just my ears getting worse.
- Joined
- May 25, 2013
oh yeah, actual land lines weren't _super_ great but they were way beyond cell phones
I remember how Art Bell lived in a constant state of nerd rage at people who called his show on cells
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- Aug 29, 2019
He was right. People who called in to shows on cell where just annoying.
Even today when I need to make an important call or something I may need to be on hold for a long time I call from my landline.
Phone calls have only gotten worse over time now that everyone uses cell. VoLTE is nice but doesn't do much for the reliability.
I guess my favorite boomer tech is ham radio. HF radio will never stop being magical to me.
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- Sep 7, 2016
Landline ~ISDN audio~
That was really good, it sounded as good as radio so it was also used for remote guests in radio.
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- May 25, 2013
last I saw even most "land lines" are voip boxes and are just as bad
yeah I've used ISDN lines in broadcasting up through... at least 2010 if not later
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- Aug 29, 2019
ISDN was fucking awesome and it is a shame it never really caught on in the USA for residential use. It was like having your own mini-T1 line. 2 dedicated 64kbps channels so you could have a phone call and internet on the same line. Broadcast loved it because it let them cheaply send reliable 128kbps stereo with out having to order a real T1 to the sites.
The dedicated service you get from your ISP out of their gateway isn't that bad because they can QoS it. The 3rd party voip "vonage" type services suck if you don't get all up in your router and tweek things.
- Joined
- Nov 3, 2019
An Olivetti PCS286 was my first. It had a Maastricht 1992 theme, and I was like, 1992, that's ages away. 20 megs of disk space. Ports of Call and, I think, Captain Comic were games I played on it.
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- Sep 7, 2016
And the latency! Quake had a ping in the 60's instead of 300's like normal modems. It was night and day.
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- Dec 7, 2020
Yeah. My second monitor is 16:10 but the display is relatively small and the entire thing is kind of square-shaped. It fits in on the side of my desk very well.
- Joined
- Jan 28, 2018
I constantly like to try out different things in my setup. Not always all experiments go well but it's basically never that I don't learn something, even if it's just that it doesn't work.
A bit ago I got a small 11" Notebook I really enjoy using not despite but because of the small screen, together with ratpoison I got a very nice, low-end workflow. Although low resolution because of the small size it's still relatively high pixel density and fonts and graphics just look really sharp and nice.
That whole experience made me think that I actually might enjoy one of those 13"-15" "portable" monitors for general, text-related stuff (which is really most of what I do) and some games on my desktop. Such a small screen with high resolution would also have an even higher pixel density and would be great for upscaling of old computers/emulators (another thing I do) because bilinear scaling wouldn't be nearly as blurry as on a more "average DPI" screen. The choice is basically down to 4k (16:9/16:10) vs. 1080p. Even though 4k seems attractive last time I had a HiDPI 4k screen Linux/X was still really dumb about them (especially with the more legacy programs I use) and that experience burned me somewhat, although nowadays scaling works better. Ideally such a screen would be able to be talked to at 1080p optionally and just do aspect correct integer scaling to 4k internally to have the best of both worlds (1080p general compatibility and lower processing demand+4k sharpness) but it's a rare feature. It'd be cool to build a tiny desktop (with all the advantages of not being a notebook) with a small and comfy screen in my study I can easily look past or just put aside. We'll see.
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- Dec 7, 2020
Briefly last summer I had my desktop behind my main monitor and a widescreen as a second display ontop of the desktop leaning down. I might try that again.
- Joined
- Sep 25, 2019
I hate Word 2003 and still use an older version to this day.
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- Jan 2, 2020
So the other day I was having a conversation with my mom and for some reason she thought I had an apple computer as a kid. I didn't. I had one of these:
I distinctly remember that keyboard, and the robot that always appeared on screen with every game i played on it
And it was hooked up to a TV that looked like this:
Yes, I had a TV with a built-in NES. My parents got it at a place called TOPS, which doesn't even exist anymore. In fact, thats's where I got my first few Sega Genesis games (and the system itself).
I distinctly remember that keyboard, and the robot that always appeared on screen with every game i played on it
And it was hooked up to a TV that looked like this:
Yes, I had a TV with a built-in NES. My parents got it at a place called TOPS, which doesn't even exist anymore. In fact, thats's where I got my first few Sega Genesis games (and the system itself).
- Joined
- Sep 23, 2018
I think I had a buddy who had something like that too. Did it have a drawing/painting game too? I remember going over to his house once when is parents were not there and we found it quite funny to draw penises on the screen. But then he kept drawing more penises and more penises long after the joke got old and eventually I found an excuse to go back home.
Wonder whatever happened to that guy. Maybe it's best that I don't know.
- Joined
- Aug 1, 2021
Given how autistic the community around some of these old machines are, still can get a lot of life out of them. Commodore Amiga scene alone somehow keeps that computer limping forward and semi useable. Last I checked, some fucker even made a Youtube client for it recently.
IBM keyboards before they decided membrane was a good idea over buckling springs. Model F/M are still solid keyboards, and make for impromptu self defense weapons.
IBM keyboards before they decided membrane was a good idea over buckling springs. Model F/M are still solid keyboards, and make for impromptu self defense weapons.
- Joined
- Jan 2, 2020
Yea, they had a bunch of different games that came in cartridges
I believe the paint one was on the CAD cart.
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- Jan 27, 2020
- Joined
- Feb 28, 2015
insert gif from saving private ryan of the dude turning old here
- Joined
- Jan 2, 2020
My family's very first computer was an white IBM Aptiva tower that ran Windows 95. It had a door that would auto-slide down to reveal the CD/Floppy drives (you had to push it back up though)
I think we got it at OfficeMax/Depot or Staples (I forget which one it really was). It was a package bundle that came with a monitor, keyboard, and speakers (no printer though, we had to get that seperately). It also came with a red binder that had a bunch of software
That's just only a few of the software it had. It also had a few Sierra games like "The Lost Mind of Dr. Brain", and "Torrin's Passage".
This is "Creative Writer", the program I used to do any school work that required typing (like an essay or book report).
I think we got it at OfficeMax/Depot or Staples (I forget which one it really was). It was a package bundle that came with a monitor, keyboard, and speakers (no printer though, we had to get that seperately). It also came with a red binder that had a bunch of software
That's just only a few of the software it had. It also had a few Sierra games like "The Lost Mind of Dr. Brain", and "Torrin's Passage".
This is "Creative Writer", the program I used to do any school work that required typing (like an essay or book report).