Re: Obsolete technology: 40 big losers

**Warlab** · 08-21-2009, 10:52 PM

How about a RadioShack TRS-80 ?

Loaded its software off of standard cassette tapes, and video was black and white on a CRT.

That thing was put out to pasture by "advanced" PC's like the Apple II and C64.

**El_Gringo_Grande** · 08-21-2009, 11:02 PM

Originally Posted by warlab

How about a RadioShack TRS-80 ?

Loaded its software off of standard cassette tapes, and video was black and white on a CRT.

That thing was put out to pasture by "advanced" PC's like the Apple II and C64.

The TRS-80 was what my high school used in computer class. Unfortunately I got kicked out of typing so they wouldn't let me take computer class.

I did help some of my friends do their homework by writing some basic programs and that seemed pretty easy.

But the C=64 had sprites and a dedicated music chip that you could do some really great things on. I remember paying my little brothers dollars to help type in some programs from magazines of the time. Hours to typing in assembly to play a really simple game. At first I didn't even have a cassette recorder so as soon as I shut it off the computer all the work would go away.

What I found really fun was trying to modify the program. Changing the sprites or the hit result logic. Assembler is really, really easy to program but to do anything takes so much work. The C=64 had some shortcuts compare to some other systems of the time but it was still tedious.

**Dick Blonov** · 08-21-2009, 11:41 PM

Originally Posted by Ferris Bueller

1.44mb? I remember when those came out and they were HUGE! I can remember sitting in front of an Apple II/C that didnt have a hard drive and ran everything off of five and a quarter inch floppies (REAL floppies)

Sorry Bro, real floppies were even bigger. I used them at work way back when.

DB

**KoopaTroopa** · 08-22-2009, 03:27 AM

I remember sitting in awe of the computers in the computer lab at my elementary school, playing on a green-screen monitor. The game I recall best was moving a little green triangle along a dashed line with the arrow keys. Incredible stuff.

I also remember accidentally formatting the family computer's boot disc. "FORMAT A:\? y/n" "Huh. I wonder what "format" means..." That was fun. It didn't really matter, we didn't really use it for anything. Computers had yet to assimilate themselves into human society back then.

**DrunkenPirate** · 08-22-2009, 06:52 AM

I still have a working Commodore 64 and a Commodore Plus 4.

**ScratchMonkey** · 08-23-2009, 04:35 PM

40. Giving someone your undivided attention during a social interaction
Status: Showing signs of illness
Oh, come on — talking without simultaneously texting or tweeting is so 2008.

My F2F conversations with my brother are always being interrupted by calls on his cellphone. I've a mind to just call him while he's here, and carry on the conversation on the phone, guaranteeing that everyone else will get shunted to voice mail.

**Temphage** · 08-24-2009, 12:31 AM

27. Holding up a lighter at a concert
Status: Showing signs of illness
Listening to a power ballad in a dimly lit stadium without a sea of gently undulating lighters for company is like spending time at Twitter without a sea of social media experts offering their insights and informed criticism: Something about it doesn't feel right. Sure, holding up thousands of illuminated cell phones might be safer — but even if the phones have virtual lighter apps installed, it just isn't the same.

This.

The cell-phone thing is just so... tacky. I have only the slimmest connection to this generation in terms of what is popular. I've never had anything to do with 'social networking', I tend to 'forget' my cell phone at home a lot, this craze of holding your cell phone up is just the icing on the Cake of Retarded.

**=DdogG=** · 08-24-2009, 01:49 AM

government agencies will use faxes for 25 more years...
any service based business will use the yellow / pink / white style carbon paper for decades to come...
I still use floppies on the lighting board and sound board at work... it IS a pain having to keep 3 or 4 spares around, plus a usb version to plug into my laptop to edit the files. I also have a few laptops that are notorious for needing to boot off of them (toshiba portege m200's) it is gratifying to edit a config.sys and autexec.bat file again though... you don't know how much you miss dos till you have to remember the syntax for loading dos drivers for a cdrom drive...
Photos developed... technically, this will never go away... even as we print 4x6's at home, we are still waiting to develop those digital photos...
phones are reattaching to cars with onstar and BT connections.... now you look completely insane as there is no bt headset or phone on your head... you are just driving down the road talking to yourself...

**BigGaayAl** · 08-24-2009, 12:15 PM

Originally Posted by ScratchMonkey

I've a mind to just call him while he's here, and carry on the conversation on the phone, guaranteeing that everyone else will get shunted to voice mail.

Brilliant Idea lmao. I imagine doing just that with someone in the future. What a wonderful way of letting your new hot-looking date know she has crapped in her own living room by twittering costantly to keep her frends up to date on the status of your date and her hair-day!

Oh the hilarities social interactions have to go trough in the name of progress.

**mat552** · 08-24-2009, 01:05 PM

My room is one of three in my house not equipped with ducting for central air or heat. When winter rolls around I shelve my LCDs and break out my 26'' CRTs. Works better than any space heater I've ever owned :P

**Acreo Aeneas** · 08-24-2009, 06:06 PM

Originally Posted by Ferris Bueller

1.44mb? I remember when those came out and they were HUGE! I can remember sitting in front of an Apple II/C that didnt have a hard drive and ran everything off of five and a quarter inch floppies (REAL floppies) that had something in the neighborhood of 32k of space on them. Did I mention the thing was greenscreen too?

I have yet to get rid of my 1.44" floppies. Though the 5.25" ones went to the trash long ago. Ironically, I still have a 5.25" floppy drive laying around the basement somewhere.

26. Putting in a videotape to watch a movie
Status: On life support
Dearly beloved, we gather here today to mourn the passing of VHS. The lucky twin of the long-deceased Betamax (whose cause of death remains a source of controversy decades later), VHS gave us hours of videotape-watching enjoyment — and almost as many hours of trying to adjust the blasted tracking knob to get a steady picture.

28. Watching a movie in laser disc
Status: Deceased
The only proof that anyone ever actually watched movies on laser disc is the (at this writing) 5,282 entries posted on eBay by people trying to dump their LDs. But whether fact or fiction, the technology is definitely obsolete now.

29. Using proper grammar and punctuation
Status: On life support
txting and iming has made proper grammar seems kinda old skoo, dont u thnk? heres hoping 4 capitalization & punctuation 2 make a comeback in emails & other writing. the gr8 gatsby probly wuld hv been way less gr8 if it wuz written like this. lol

31. Flipping on an incandescent light bulb
Status: On life support
More and more nations are saying so long to the traditional incandescent light bulb and encouraging their citizens to use relatively ecology-friendly, energy-saving bulbs. Cartoon characters getting "bright ideas" have yet to adapt, however.

32. Sitting in front of a CRT monitor
Status: On life support
I won't miss staring at blurry, hard-to-read text on a CRT screen. But I will miss the dramatic effect of seeing one of those bad boys dropped from a third-story window. Flatscreen monitors may be more aerodynamic, but they just don't blow up as well.

33. Playing music on an audiocassette
Status: Nearly deceased
You can try to rewind, but the life of the cassette is on its last legs. If anyone knows a practical application for four boxes of late-1980s, early-1990s rock tapes, please advise.

Hmm. Hm. Did all of those things. Though I still watch VHS movies every so often (as I have some recorded programs that never made it to DVD). The Walkman cassette player is in the basement and hasn't seen the light of day since freshman year of high school (8 years ago). I switch to a CD player shortly after filing away my cassettes into a drawer.

My very first computer (cost around $3200) was back in 1995 and we had a 17" 800 x 600 CRT monitor (in beige) to go with it. Some four-to-five years later, we bought our first 15" LCD monitor and since then that thing has been in the basement somewhere gathering dust. Since it still works and no one seems to want it, my dad hasn't been loathe on throwing it into the trash.

**Sir-Nerd** · 08-24-2009, 09:20 PM

Before this monitor (Samsung 932 19 inch) i had a 17 inch Trinitron for a good 6 years. For some reason a cathode ray gun blew and it stopped producing shades of red.

Also went to a university and sifted through the computer labs garbage for fun and came across a bunch of 8 inch and 5 inch floppies with DOS on them. Decided to take them as a gift for Dad, he likes that sort of thing. Dad has an old "laptop" from IBM that weighs more than my tower in the attic. He also has 3 25MB hardrives hooked up to a old computer with some old windows installed as welll.

VHS WILL NEVER DIE, i have 3 dozen or so tapes stacked behind me with old shows as well as family video.

**Greyed** · 08-25-2009, 01:07 AM

Originally Posted by mat552

My room is one of three in my house not equipped with ducting for central air or heat. When winter rolls around I shelve my LCDs and break out my 26'' CRTs. Works better than any space heater I've ever owned :P

Heh, I did the reverse for the same reason. my wife and I own ferrets and the little buggers do well in the chill but anything over 82F and they overheat. We made the decision that they would live in the computer room with us. We're both avid gamers and we felt if we weren't in the same room with them all the time they would be neglected.

You can see the problem brewing. 2 gaming PCs and monitors cranking out heat in the one room where we can't let it get over a certain temperature. When we adopted our first ferret we both had 19" CRTs. One Vegas summer of trying to keep that room cool enough for the ferrets all the time was enough. We replaced the CRTs with a 22" LCD on my desk and a 19" LCD on hers.

When it came time to replace our ancient 29" TV in the living room we wanted to get a 40"+ widescreen. Plasma or LCD? *eyes AC bill through the summer months...* LCD.

**Acreo Aeneas** · 08-25-2009, 05:35 PM

We save some on our heating bill during winter too. Gotta love a bedroom with 4 PCs and a slew of other electronics. Most of the house is warm when everything in the bedroom is running. It just becomes unbearable sometimes as the room's temp will heat up to 87 F.

**sporkife** · 08-25-2009, 06:10 PM

Originally Posted by El_Gringo_Grande

A guy I knew growing up had a computer and it had a removable media that I remember being bigger than a LP record and about a half inch thick. Might have been some kind of magnetic tape. I vaguely remember him saying that the thing cost $10K.

I...I found this huge tape reel in the basement a while ago. Big blue plastic case, close on an inch thick, with a big black tape reeled up in it. Is that what I'm looking at?

Originally Posted by Dick Blonov

Sorry Bro, real floppies were even bigger. I used them at work way back when.

DB

I also have some parts of a Windows DOS on 8" floppies. Man, those things are huge.

Phonebooks are nice, though. Faster than teh internets (cause they're in a drawer next to the phone) and more accurate. Plus they make great firestarters.

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