Boomer Tech Thread - *crack* *sip* Yep, the C64 was a good computer.

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
To counter this. Cell phones have a transmission failure rate between 10% to 20%. What this mean that every tower and setup can only take 80 to 90% of calls at any one time. This is why when there is an emergency you will not get through with your call where the region/nearby regions the emergency is happening.

A regular landline, as long as the infrastructure is not damaged your call WILL get through. One of my friends father was a AT&T lineman so I got other information about why Landlines were better in certain things than current technologies.

Also did you know that land lines had 3 to 5 volts on their lines. A few people made chargers back then.

As I have stated before nothing is really obsolete if it's still usable.

If we are talking about software Microsoft Works was one of my favorites. I have it on one of my computers. Also Microsoft publisher was simple and easy to use at the time.
 
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A regular landline, as long as the infrastructure is not damaged your call WILL get through. One of my friends father was a AT&T lineman so I got other information about why Landlines were better in certain things than current technologies.

Also did you know that land lines had 3 to 5 volts on their lines. A few people made chargers back then.
Free electricity!
An old trick when growing up was to go check the landline when the power went out and the neighborhood turned dark. If it was silent then it was a power outage, if there was a dial tone then a fuse or something had blown up locally.

Fiber optics became a really big thing for landlines, one strand could handle something like 40,000-60,000 calls simultaneously.
 
Also did you know that land lines had 3 to 5 volts on their lines. A few people made chargers back then.
Very low current though. I wonder if there were any devices actually intended to do this. Alarms on dedicated lines would seem like one possible application, but I doubt the power a line could provide would be enough.
 
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Maybe this is veering a little too far from the current topic in the thread right now, but the PowerPC line of products from the '90s and '00s are still some of Apple's best products. A shame they had to move to Intel.
Care to elaborate why you feel that way? Was it the procs themselves, or the whole package?

The early PPC years were right in the height of the Beleaguered era, where Apple had real trouble moving hardware at times.
 
Care to elaborate why you feel that way? Was it the procs themselves, or the whole package?

The early PPC years were right in the height of the Beleaguered era, where Apple had real trouble moving hardware at times.
Well, the processors themselves were alright, if not a little too hot at times (the G5 Power Macs come to mind!), but the whole package is what made them special. Products such as the original iMac were wholly unique both then and even now. It is true, though, that they were first introduced, Apple was in the middle of their dark age of a million products with barely any difference.
 
This goofy ray-tracing stuff in games these days just seems so unnecessary. Like VR and 3D TVs (remember those?), I expect they'll be a niche thing at best. I know that I certainly don't see the need for buying any expensive video card that supp-


Whelp, (cracks Monster,) time to check out video card reviews on Cnet.

…Jesus, what have they done to Cnet?
 
Also did you know that land lines had 3 to 5 volts on their lines. A few people made chargers back then.

3 to 5V? How did that work over the distances? The analog landlines in my country usually would run at 60V and then be pulled down to *I think* 14V when used. Upstream there was a resistor in series and the phone would pull a few mA when you lifted the receiver (that's how they'd register that) and you'd get a few mW out of that, which also would mean you wouldn't be able to be called if you decided to steal that electricity, as upstream would think your receiver is lifted.

Interesting thing about landlines was that (at least here) they usually were completely disconnected from the normal electricity net except upstream so even when the power in your whole neighborhood failed, the landline phones could still be operated off the power of the phone grid. (fancier touch dial phones, yes maybe even with screen and number memory and all that jazz if you were Mr. Moneybags, would lose all that function but could still be operated as phones in the most basic sense of the word, even if the dial tone would sound all weird in that scenario) Now the smartphones would still all work because they run off battery, the cell towers don't though and that'll only get worse with 5G. The old analog landlines were more failure resistant in case of catastrophe or emergency.

Anyways.. If you started draining those few mA in order to charge a battery or whatever, you wouldn't be able to be called anymore and also the phone would stop working because it needed those itself to work, if it wasn't fancy and had a power supply. then In order to be ringed that voltage also would be alternated, modulated at 25 Hz (here) (I don't know the correct english term but that literally was what made the bell ring in old phones, in newer phones that AC current would be converted to DC first and then used to feed some sound IC) so that'd also blow up your battery in a scenario where you somehow managed to shave off so little mA that both upstream didn't think you lifted the receiver and your phone still would work. I mean possible to deal with too if you're really bored but it wouldn't make much sense.

(This alternating voltage btw. was the reason the old timey phones most of you probably only saw in movies had the crank the actor would energetically crank before he started to talk, it's to generate that alternating current. No, the wheel on rotary phone had a different reason - it was really about generating the pulses for the numbers you were dialing. More "modern" phones had fancy inverters for that AC)

So, now the thought process could be, "eh, the telecom company is rich and I don't really like making phone calls anyways so I don't try to be subtle and just pull as much as I need" Yeah no that'd just get your line automatically disconnected and make some irate telecom workers show up in your neighborhood and eventually at your place. If it goes to court then the issue wouldn't be stealing electricity, but screwing with the telecom infrastructure which in most countries was and still is, like, "we're looking at prison time" illegal.

Even if you somehow managed anyways what you'd get out of the line would've paled next to one of these fancier pocket calculator solar cells or a hand crank. So yeah, it's an urban myth. Sorry.
 
My very first PC. Though being a Kraut it was branded "Schneider". Followed that was a C64, then a 386. Then a P2 at 180mhz I believe.

Good times. Countless hours spent typing in Basic code from some hobbyist magazine, just to play a simple game. On both Amstrad and C64.

The P2 is when I got onto the internet. It was so new and so so different to how it is now. Some things are better now, but a lot are worse, and the anonymity and freedoms lost suck ass. I've seen it, Gandalf, I was there. I've seen corporations take over.
 

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Interesting thing about landlines was that (at least here) they usually were completely disconnected from the normal electricity net except upstream so even when the power in your whole neighborhood failed, the landline phones could still be operated off the power of the phone grid.
Checking the phone to determine what kind of outage it was was normal when I grew up. If there was no dial tone it was really bad and starting to prep(this almost always happened in winter) wasn't a bad idea. Just in case.
 
3 to 5V? How did that work over the distances? The analog landlines in my country usually would run at 60V and then be pulled down to *I think* 14V when used. Upstream there was a resistor in series and the phone would pull a few mA when you lifted the receiver (that's how they'd register that) and you'd get a few mW out of that, which also would mean you wouldn't be able to be called if you decided to steal that electricity, as upstream would think your receiver is lifted.

Interesting thing about landlines was that (at least here) they usually were completely disconnected from the normal electricity net except upstream so even when the power in your whole neighborhood failed, the landline phones could still be operated off the power of the phone grid. (fancier touch dial phones, yes maybe even with screen and number memory and all that jazz if you were Mr. Moneybags, would lose all that function but could still be operated as phones in the most basic sense of the word, even if the dial tone would sound all weird in that scenario) Now the smartphones would still all work because they run off battery, the cell towers don't though and that'll only get worse with 5G. The old analog landlines were more failure resistant in case of catastrophe or emergency.

Anyways.. If you started draining those few mA in order to charge a battery or whatever, you wouldn't be able to be called anymore and also the phone would stop working because it needed those itself to work, if it wasn't fancy and had a power supply. then In order to be ringed that voltage also would be alternated, modulated at 25 Hz (here) (I don't know the correct english term but that literally was what made the bell ring in old phones, in newer phones that AC current would be converted to DC first and then used to feed some sound IC) so that'd also blow up your battery in a scenario where you somehow managed to shave off so little mA that both upstream didn't think you lifted the receiver and your phone still would work. I mean possible to deal with too if you're really bored but it wouldn't make much sense.

(This alternating voltage btw. was the reason the old timey phones most of you probably only saw in movies had the crank the actor would energetically crank before he started to talk, it's to generate that alternating current. No, the wheel on rotary phone had a different reason - it was really about generating the pulses for the numbers you were dialing. More "modern" phones had fancy inverters for that AC)

So, now the thought process could be, "eh, the telecom company is rich and I don't really like making phone calls anyways so I don't try to be subtle and just pull as much as I need" Yeah no that'd just get your line automatically disconnected and make some irate telecom workers show up in your neighborhood and eventually at your place. If it goes to court then the issue wouldn't be stealing electricity, but screwing with the telecom infrastructure which in most countries was and still is, like, "we're looking at prison time" illegal.

Even if you somehow managed anyways what you'd get out of the line would've paled next to one of these fancier pocket calculator solar cells or a hand crank. So yeah, it's an urban myth. Sorry.
It might be a myth and I am wrong on the voltage as myself never made one myself. I thought it was 3 to 5 volts on the line. I would never have thought it would be that high of voltage on a landline ( heh yea yea I know its the amp thing too) However....
Somebody made a charger... for their phone... using their landline.

30 years ago a lot of information was word by mouth within nerdy communities and you took their word for it. The interwebs was not easily up to the general public. This is what I heard back then that someone made a battery charger off from their phone line so there is some validity to this.
 
Not exactly "boomer", but I remember when YT first went online. In the '00s before YT, streaming video wasn't really a thing, and internet videos were usually in the form of brief, relatively low resolution downloadable clips. The closest equivalent of "streaming video" that was widespread back then was flash animations like Homestar Runner. Then YT came along with streaming video that was played in a Flash player plugin. And at first, "YouTube" seemed like an annoying new fad to me.

Later Flash went the way of 8-track tapes, but streaming video stayed huge.

(also I saw 8-track tapes in a thrift store recently)
 
Silly addition but I was nostalgic for it the other day. TV tuner cards. I remember being a kid in the 90s, my Dad bought one and I thought it was the coolest thing to watch TV on the computer. Other TVs in the house occupied, head to the computer room and watch the Simpsons. Need to type up homework? Turn on the TV while doing it. So cool at the time. I can’t recall if it had DVR capability but the hard disk on that computer was so small it wasn’t like my Dad could stockpile any videos to begin with.

Never bothered to get one when I built a computer in the mid-2000s, there wasn’t anything worth watching on broadcast television then (or now).
 
Silly addition but I was nostalgic for it the other day. TV tuner cards. I remember being a kid in the 90s, my Dad bought one and I thought it was the coolest thing to watch TV on the computer. Other TVs in the house occupied, head to the computer room and watch the Simpsons. Need to type up homework? Turn on the TV while doing it. So cool at the time. I can’t recall if it had DVR capability but the hard disk on that computer was so small it wasn’t like my Dad could stockpile any videos to begin with.

Never bothered to get one when I built a computer in the mid-2000s, there wasn’t anything worth watching on broadcast television then (or now).
I had one of those on my old early 2000's vaio. It kicked so much fucking ass.
Shame that analogue TV is dead. I just wish that someone would take that bandwidth and start up a pirate TV station or something.
 
I heard a story about a guy who ran a BBS server or something, supposedly first type of BBS in his city back in the day. What I don't get about it, or can't wrap my head around it, that it was based on a landline? People who wanted to take part in the discussion there would have to know his home number? And then call to post? Or something, someone more knowledgable enlighten mem it sounds nerdy and interesting.

I don't think they would post over any Windows system? Which makes it even more interesting, real hacker stuff! :D

But yeah when he told me that I figured back then, as much as boomeristic it may sound, the internet was truly for the initiated, and now...shiiiiet.
 
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I heard a story about a guy who ran a BBS server or something, supposedly first type of BBS in his city back in the day. What I don't get about it, or can't wrap my head around it, that it was based on a landline? People who wanted to take part in the discussion there would have to know his home number? And then call to post? Or something, someone more knowledgable enlighten mem it sounds nerdy and interesting.
Do you not know what a modem is? They turn digital information into audio signals (and back again) that can be transmitted over landline.
 
I only know about it as a concept but I'm too dumb to comprehend it because I had no hands-on experience.

In this case, I can't fathom how you call someone at home to leave a message on a forum, very abstract and intriguing.
 
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I heard a story about a guy who ran a BBS server or something, supposedly first type of BBS in his city back in the day. What I don't get about it, or can't wrap my head around it, that it was based on a landline? People who wanted to take part in the discussion there would have to know his home number? And then call to post? Or something, someone more knowledgable enlighten mem it sounds nerdy and interesting.

I don't think they would post over any Windows system? Which makes it even more interesting, real hacker stuff! :biggrin:

But yeah when he told me that I figured back then, as much as boomeristic it may sound, the internet was truly for the initiated, and now...shiiiiet.
Yes, they called the number he provided. He would have had to have a second line or else the normal phone would be unusable. Answering the phone when a modem calls you is no fun.
Here's randome picture of a BBS yoinked from google. They're text based.
compbbs.jpg

As you can see there's the ability to download files and not just discussions. BBSs were the pirate bay of yesteryear. The scene groups that cracked everything had their own numbers to call for the hot new releases. It can be very expensive to call internationally and download something over a slow-ass modem though, but these pirates were kind and willing to mail the games to those that couldn't download them. For a small fee in addition to the cost of floppys and postage. Ads in computer magazines was also an easy way to sell warez.
 
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There's something autistically beautful about it. Such a treasure trove of info it must've been, and it was such a good "low IQ" barrier, unbelievable. We have to go back to that shit lol. Now I'm bummed out, fucking touchscreens literally ruined the planet.
 
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