Tech you miss/ new tech trends you hate - ok boomers

[AmpleApricots]

I had an bluetooth one by logitech. It was basically packed into a cloth and was waterproof (except the USB port for charging) It's fairly recent too so I think they're still selling it. It had great reviews but the cloth kinda just disintegrated while storing it, I didn't even use it much. They just don't build things to last anymore.

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One tech trend that really annoyed me for a while and is still going strong is this mini ARM computer stuff. People acting like making an LED blink from a computer is new and hot stuff, makes them an engineer and somehow needs some multi-core, multi-GB monster that runs a full fledged OS and an unthinkable stack of software weighting in at several hundred MB. It's even worse that "professionals" who do embedded systems started using these things for unspeakable crimes of over-engineering. (guest-starring "the cloud" because the device has an network adapter and of course) Don't get me wrong, I like these systems where a good and fully-fledged computer is needed because of their size and electricity footprint and I'd love to use one as a desktop one day but man, to do some easy toggle-stuff logic? It might be cheap and all but it seems nuts and introduces complexity, reliability problems and attack surfaces into systems that really don't need them. Especially annoying also that the people working with these literally can't think of better ways anymore (=things that don't involve python)

I've been putting together a Z180 system (the Z180 is the younger, mid 80s brother of the Z80 with QoL improvements and more speed) for fun. There are communities around that sort of stuff that sprung up with the ease and low price of modern PCB manufacturing. I've slightly changed a design I found online in favor of more stuff I need integrated on the mainboard as opposed to the ready made designs you can buy, like an RTC the Pi doesn't have. It will run CP/M. (the unsuccessful DOS probably nobody here is old enough to remember) The BASIC interepreter I already have running on it is 8kb big (a real feature-complete heavyweight) and it can also do CamelForth and the 512 kb of SRAM (together with the ROM a size I can comfortably address with the Z180, also my electronics supplier has these for like 3 bucks a piece) is more than plenty to write as big programs as you need for automation. I make LEDs blink with that all day without any reliability problems, software updates breaking shit, or cloud. Power draw is 60-100 mA at +5V, which is 0.3-0.5W. This isn't even modern technology. (although the Z180 CPU on my particular board prototype was made in 2015 and with that is amusingly newer than the PC I'm typing this on) I was thinking about designing a simple graphics card (really a hardware VT-100 emulator) for it, and maybe run some simple text processing like WordStar. This is all way more fun than buying some kit on adafruit and calling yourself an electrical engineer and also really simple if you read the right books, don't even need to be an old fart like me. Also the Pi sucks and doesn't make you a "Maker".

 

[Never Scored]

I've been putting together a Z180 system (the Z180 is the younger, mid 80s brother of the Z80 with QoL improvements and more speed) for fun. There are communities around that sort of stuff that sprung up with the ease and low price of modern PCB manufacturing. I've slightly changed a design I found online in favor of more stuff I need integrated on the mainboard as opposed to the ready made designs you can buy, like an RTC the Pi doesn't have. It will run CP/M. (the unsuccessful DOS probably nobody here is old enough to remember) The BASIC interepreter I already have running on it is 8kb big (a real feature-complete heavyweight) and it can also do CamelForth and the 512 kb of SRAM (together with the ROM a size I can comfortably address with the Z180, also my electronics supplier has these for like 3 bucks a piece) is more than plenty to write as big programs as you need for automation. I make LEDs blink with that all day without any reliability problems, software updates breaking shit, or cloud. Power draw is 60-100 mA at +5V, which is 0.3-0.5W. This isn't even modern technology. (although the Z180 CPU on my particular board prototype was made in 2015 and with that is amusingly newer than the PC I'm typing this on) I was thinking about designing a simple graphics card (really a hardware VT-100 emulator) for it, and maybe run some simple text processing like WordStar. This is all way more fun than buying some kit on adafruit and calling yourself an electrical engineer and also really simple if you read the right books, don't even need to be an old fart like me. Also the Pi sucks and doesn't make you a "Maker".

I'd like to expirment with the Z80 and I've been learning purely through youtube. Are there any written guides you've been using that you'd reccomend? I've stumbled across lots of old books on archive.org.

 

[AmpleApricots]

I'd like to expirment with the Z80 and I've been learning purely through youtube. Are there any written guides you've been using that you'd reccomend? I've stumbled across lots of old books on archive.org.

If you talk about with an actual physical Z80 machine, there are lots of old computers who carried the Z80 but they have many downsides, mainly they're not easily to interface with modern devices (screens, weirdo disk drives and such) and are also often very speed- and most of all memory (memory used to be very expensive) constrained. The upside is that they often come with some kind of chipset that allows you to do graphics and sound, which for example my computer doesn't have yet. I only have serial ports for now which is fine for an Z80 system and if you want to do on hardware I'd warmly recommend the Z180 as it has two integrated UARTs, lots of other peripheral stuff in-chip which makes the design simpler and is clock-per-clock faster than the Z80 and also has an MMU that can address up to 1 MB of RAM. Mine is clocked at about 18 Mhz but can go up to 33 which is blazingly fast compared to the old machines or more modern Z80 designs, while still not being "silly fast". Also 512 kb RAM is *a lot* in this environment and allows you to program with higher-level programming languages with more ease than 64 kb and less do.

Of course old computers are expensive collectors items and I wouldn't really recommend it to do some hardware stuff on them as you will invariably break something and feel bad. The more modern homebrew systems are more fun to engineer on and you can put together one of for less than $100 if you snoop around a little and just buy one of the already ready-made designs. Everything's still manufactured and available plentiful and cheap, I'd recommend such a system for developing if it has to be real hardware. Or if it has to be even cheaper any classic computer emulator will do too. Here I'd recommend an Amstrad CPC 464 emulator which is a good reference Z80 machine that's not too limited so it doesn't get too boring. I don't know what's en vogue there emulation-wise but I remember some good emulator that let you compile z80 asm and directly view and edit memory of the emulated machine which makes assembler programming really comfortable. Then you still have the emulated multimedia goodness that lets you do stuff that looks cool.

That all aside, now to the Z80-related books:

Alan Zaks "Programming the Z80" (3rd revision) is the Z80s "The C Programming Language" and THE reference. If you can't/won't get any other book get at least this one. Then to get closer to the Hardware I'd recommend "The Z80 Microprocessor - Architecture, Interfacing, Programming, and Design" by Ramesh S. Gaonka and maybe "Microprocessor Interfacing Techniques" also by Zaks. On top of that the Z80 datasheets which you can download as PDF anywhere. If you read all those books you know everything not only about programming the Z80, but also about building a computer based on one and you'll also get a general idea about tackling the more complicated 8-bitters and will understand 16 bitters and the evolutionary step they were better. The most important thing though is not to be intimidated. The Z80 is a very nice and easy 8-bitter to work with, especially compared to ones that were in other systems from back then, eg the 6502. You'll also gain a foothold to attack the more complicated 16 bitters, for example the Motorola 68k which is a beast and a bitch and a half of a CPU.

 

[ToroidalBoat]

I talked about this before in the "things that piss you off thread" in General, but I miss when search engines were good.

Around 2000, advertising was taking over the internet, and search results were always cluttered up with links to gambling sites and advertisements. Then searches -- at least on Google and YouTube -- were improved to where one could always find results quickly.

Fast forward to Current Year. Tech companies -- at least Google -- got the idea that they should "socially engineer" people through algorithm manipulation and "suggested results." And it seems non-Google search engines are always too "stupid." Now finding anything on the internet can be quite an infuriating ordeal. It's just like back when ads took over the internet.

 

[Trans Fat 41g]

The new camera technology for the Galaxy S20 sounds like a huge rape on the battery, production level cameras (loosely speaking here) on phones would need a power supply that can handle that constant cycle.

 

[ToroidalBoat]

The new camera technology for the Galaxy S20

Speaking of cameras, I miss when one could easily take standard definition pictures and videos. Also, I miss standard definition being standard. Not everyone needs UHD 4K or 1080p all the time.

(wow I sound old)

 

[snailslime]

I don't understand why every phone company thinks removing the headphone jack is a good idea.

 

[ToroidalBoat]

I don't understand why every phone company thinks removing the headphone jack is a good idea.

"Apple did it, so it must be cool!" - phone companies?

 

[Spedestrian]

Fast forward to Current Year when tech companies -- at least Google -- got the idea that they should "socially engineer" people through algorithm manipulation and "suggested results." And it seems non-Google search engines are always too stupid. Now finding anything on the internet can be quite an infuriating ordeal. It's just like back when ads took over the internet.

I generally agree, but I don't think it's the deliberate manipulations that are making search results shitty again. I mean, those are shitty in their own right, but the issue of not being able to find what you're looking for strikes me as more of a concept drift type of thing. Basically, the predictive capability of machine learning models tends to decay over time, so they need to be periodically refreshed/retrained to remain accurate. Finding the optimal way to do this (e.g. when to retrain, what data to use, making sure the model still captures what it needs to) is a difficult task that a lot of companies have yet to solve in any reasonable way. Hell, even Google's relatively polished algorithms shit the bed spectacularly sometimes.

One practical example of concept drift you've probably experienced is continuing to get search results for shit you aren't interested in anymore. Maybe you used to watch a particular YouTube channel fairly often, stopped because you got sick of it, but continued to get recommendations for their videos for months/years after you last watched that channel. Or maybe you've done a lot of unusual searches for some very particular reason — shopping for Christmas gifts, planning a vacation, writing a paper, etc. — only to find that all your search results are fucked because the algorithm thinks you're a Brazilian socialist who collects Barbie dolls. That's concept drift.

The other thing that can turn your search results into absolute dogshit is trying to maintain any semblance of privacy. Machine learning algorithms work best when they've got shitloads of training data to work with, hence why Google's reCAPTCHA has had the entire world marking crosswalks/traffic lights/road-related shit for years. If you aren't constantly logged in to your Google account so they can profile your searches and tune their model towards you then you'll end up with a mishmash of default normie shit and whatever datapoints they can scrounge together from secondary sources (search history for your IP address, information from cookies, etc.) It sucks that search engines require a Faustian bargain to be worth a shit anymore, but that's where we're at.

If you've got some examples of times when you thought that deliberate manipulations were fucking with your results I'd be interested in hearing about them. It definitely seems possible, I just don't think I've run into it in any significant way.

 

[The Littlest Shitlord]

I miss when people didn't walk around with headsets that made it seem as though they were talking to themselves. I'd rather be able to effortlessly identify and avoid the weirdoes who actually do talk to themselves since they are almost always mentally ill, and it's an annoying enough habit that I'll shun them even if they aren't.

I also can't stand the way that you don't seem to be able to do a verbatim web search any more; now everything wants to be "clever" and tries to guess what you really meant. No, fuckwad, I typed what I really wanted to search for, because I'm not fucking retarded. There are many things that are just literally impossible to search for now because of this.

 

[byuu]

I also can't stand the way that you don't seem to be able to do a verbatim web search any more; now everything wants to be "clever" and tries to guess what you really meant. No, fuckwad, I typed what I really wanted to search for, because I'm not fucking exceptional. There are many things that are just literally impossible to search for now because of this.

The most annoying thing is when they remove one of your keywords. I have to put every single keyword in quotes to not get shit I didn't search for.

 

[אΩ+1]

Having to fill in Multiple Google reCapcha forms were it mistakes a car trailer for a bus for you to post on 4chan.

 

[אΩ+1]

Also the local city concoil has decided that in order to use parking meter you have input the license plate and some of the machines don't even have coin slots.

 

[AmpleApricots]

Then it's also often the most important keyword. I just don't use google anymore. Yandex has been surprisingly good and metasearch engines like the various searx instances or metager often work well too. There are searx instances that filter out cloudflare protected sites in the results (because they're a bitch to browse with tor) and this has the pleasant and unintentional side effect that it also filters all these shitty blogspam sites and garbage like "lifehacks" that SEO their way into the top results while usually being painfully unhelpful.

I also use two browser instances, one that's only allowed to connect via tor for general browsing and another one that makes a direct connection for normal stuff that's attached to my identity anyways, like online shopping and banking. Even with all the browser fingerprinting the algorithms don't seem to have caught up to that yet.

I also use a paid-for email provider that doesn't do advertising, allows even anonymous payment and usage and at least promises to not sell user data. (and is in a country where doing so could fuck it seriously) Giving companies all that private stuff just to not pay a few bucks a year is literally not worth it. I generally don't mind paying resonable prices for a service if the service is good and it means I'm not gonna be used like AI-fodder for shitty corps like Google. That people want everything for free brought us this mess.

 

[Dont Mind Me]

I miss swappable batteries for shit. "Oh fuck, my phone's at 10%. Good thing i have another battery in my bag!"

 

[Pargon]

I just want backward compatibility in my consoles. Sony should be Tutsi/Hutu'd for pulling it and never bringing it back. Now if I want to play Suikoden V I need to rely a machine whose hardware has been degrading for ~20 years. Fucking assholes.

 

[ToroidalBoat]

algorithm thinks you're a Brazilian socialist who collects Barbie dolls

everything wants to be "clever" and tries to guess

Exactly. Search engines or searches on sites should search for what you just input, not this "predictive" bullshit. Imagine if a file search on a computer tried to "guess" what file you were looking for, based on algorithms or what you searched for before.

 

[Hal]

I hate how technology and cars looked in the early 2000s. I think because it was the start of the new millennium people wanted their stuff to look futuristic and different. So stuff from that era has this glossy, bulky look to it. Even if I have nostalgia for a lot of tech from that era I'm glad we long since moved on because stuff has aged horribly from that time.

 

[Smaug's Smokey Hole]

Yeah I started using stuff last year because of how exceptional some programs became.

Like who the fuck is designing this stuff? It used to be that a newer version of a program was clearly better, but now it's better to keep a few older versions just in case something horrible goes wrong.

But I guess Middle Managers filling positions with pajeets yields unwieldy programs instead of hiring people for all positions who actually understand what the program's purpose is supposed to be.

It really makes the anger-veins on my head swell up when they, usually Microsoft, switch places of functions or renames them for no real reason other than trend. How do I do this in Office? Just click on... where the fuck did they put it in this version and what do they call it now... The ribbon is great, just keep that shit consistent. Credit to Adobe, the Photoshop interface is almost exactly the same as it's been since 4.0, they have been adding useful things but "Filters" haven't been moved to the Edit menu and renamed "Effects" - that would be a Microsoft move.

Almost the worst thing is them doing that in Windows and the control panel. Things are sorted alphabetically and maybe I want Program & Features which would be towards the end. No, it's Apps and Settings now so it's at the beginning, nope, it's Uninstall & Change Programs so it's at the end, no wait, it's Add and Remove Programs - oh wait they grouped the control panel into clumps that are not sorted alphabetically and then moved one setting to that god awful metro interface and it can only be toggled there - why do I have to google how to change my network profile from public to private there should just be a toggle! And the guide is for Windows 8 and not Windows 8.1 so it doesn't work... they changed it again.

Wolfenstein: The New Order is probably the worst in this regard. It's a short game, about 7-10 hours with only a single-player campaign, and yet it's 45 goddamn GB. I'm assuming that the absurd size is coming from the game's FMV sequences but it's absolutely horseshit that it's that big at all for such a short game.

That's likely the Megatexture atlas, Rage was smaller because it had to ship on Xbox 360 that used DVDs.

If you've got some examples of times when you thought that deliberate manipulations were fucking with your results I'd be interested in hearing about them. It definitely seems possible, I just don't think I've run into it in any significant way.

Maybe not manipulation, just google assuming what I was looking for(and throwing up some sponsored content), but I recently tried to find out the title/director of a crappy low budget movie about nuns ascending a tower to... resurrect god or kill all of existence, I don't remember, that's why I tried to find it. The plot is that god died and his omnipotence spread to every human and made them into omnipotent gods. This fucked up everything because it enabled people to indulge in whatever desires they had without repercussions and that spiraled out of control quickly. The movie, having no budget and can't show any of this, is three old women taking breaks from walking up stairs to tell fucked up stories.

There's also a recent horror movie called The Nun so I got page after page of results for that movie, the top results were puff-pieces and a lot of the search terms in my queries were ignored in favor of showing The Nun results. A couple of years ago I googled the movie mentioned above and found it, so I know it's possible.

I hate how technology and cars looked in the early 2000s. I think because it was the start of the new millennium people wanted their stuff to look futuristic and different. So stuff from that era has this glossy, bulky look to it. Even if I have nostalgia for a lot of tech from that era I'm glad we long since moved on because stuff has aged horribly from that time.

Some people say that the 2000's didn't have a look like previous decades, that it was neutral.

This is the 2003 PT Cruiser, it's WindowsXP's fisher-price start button in car form.

 

[thx1138]

It's not really a trend but gosh I miss SGI. Man, those were neato computers. Of course, modern video cards have a lot of SGI's DNA in them.