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Domain: sbrowning.com
Stories and comments across the archive that link to sbrowning.com.
Comments · 17
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Re:Ads?
K ref="http://www.atarimagazines.com/ads/">Antic Magazine Ad Gallery, Vintage Computer Ads, and especially the Obsolete Technology web page.
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What William Shatner Did before PricelineWhen I ran accross this add I had to laugh
Though they are a new low!!
- subsolar
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Re:Bill GatesSpeaking of Bill...
The headline testimonial in this ad refers to the May '83 issue of Byte Magazine, which, by odd coincidence, I had right in front of me in a little stack of obsolete literature keeping my monitor at a comfortable height. Curious, I turned to the referenced page 34 of the mag and found the glowing words of praise just as they appeared in the advertisement. This is not the interesting bit. What I found amusing was the closing paragraph of the article:
"Radio Shack could probably make money issuing just a mediocre portable computer. Instead, it produced an exceptional machine. The designers of this machine--including Bill Walters of Radio Shack, Bill Gates of Microsoft, and several others at both companies--should be congratulated. And I have a feeling they will be--all the way to the bank."It's past 4am and I'm kind of tired, so you'll have to add your own Microsoft/Bill Gates/Radio Shack joke here.
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William Shatner
These Commodore ads with William Shatner are priceless!!
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William Shatner
These Commodore ads with William Shatner are priceless!!
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An interesting trendAbout a year ago, I was talking to a friend of mine how hardware is getting better and simpler every year.
When you buy a PC today, the specs include memory and CPU and not much else. We're pretty close to the day where CPU won't matter for personal workstations (my P200, now almost 3 Moore-generations old, is still a highly usable NT machine; until last year I did most of my coding on a Linux P90 with 12 VC's). The web is accelerating this trend, since any machine that can run 10 browser windows will always be useful.
Memory is similarly stagnating; unless you work with Photoshop or its ilk, chances are you have no use for >256MB.
Anyway, my prediction at that time was within five years, the only spec on a new desktop PC will be the screen size; you'll buy a 20" PC or a 35" PC, and not care about what's inside. A month later, Viewsonic conveniently propped up my assertion with a campaign pointing out all PC's are the same; the only differentiator is the monitor (they favored Viewsonic monitors for the best PC experience).
Looking at these ads, you can see the trend vividly -- the IBM copy, for example, has a box of tiny type listing the diagnostic capabilities, the printer port speed, and a dozen other things no one would care about today.
In fact, all of the really successful computers have tons o'specs. Most of the ones touting usability, etc. without benefit of hard numbers were flops.
We live in exciting times.
cheers,
mike -
An interesting trendAbout a year ago, I was talking to a friend of mine how hardware is getting better and simpler every year.
When you buy a PC today, the specs include memory and CPU and not much else. We're pretty close to the day where CPU won't matter for personal workstations (my P200, now almost 3 Moore-generations old, is still a highly usable NT machine; until last year I did most of my coding on a Linux P90 with 12 VC's). The web is accelerating this trend, since any machine that can run 10 browser windows will always be useful.
Memory is similarly stagnating; unless you work with Photoshop or its ilk, chances are you have no use for >256MB.
Anyway, my prediction at that time was within five years, the only spec on a new desktop PC will be the screen size; you'll buy a 20" PC or a 35" PC, and not care about what's inside. A month later, Viewsonic conveniently propped up my assertion with a campaign pointing out all PC's are the same; the only differentiator is the monitor (they favored Viewsonic monitors for the best PC experience).
Looking at these ads, you can see the trend vividly -- the IBM copy, for example, has a box of tiny type listing the diagnostic capabilities, the printer port speed, and a dozen other things no one would care about today.
In fact, all of the really successful computers have tons o'specs. Most of the ones touting usability, etc. without benefit of hard numbers were flops.
We live in exciting times.
cheers,
mike -
An interesting trendAbout a year ago, I was talking to a friend of mine how hardware is getting better and simpler every year.
When you buy a PC today, the specs include memory and CPU and not much else. We're pretty close to the day where CPU won't matter for personal workstations (my P200, now almost 3 Moore-generations old, is still a highly usable NT machine; until last year I did most of my coding on a Linux P90 with 12 VC's). The web is accelerating this trend, since any machine that can run 10 browser windows will always be useful.
Memory is similarly stagnating; unless you work with Photoshop or its ilk, chances are you have no use for >256MB.
Anyway, my prediction at that time was within five years, the only spec on a new desktop PC will be the screen size; you'll buy a 20" PC or a 35" PC, and not care about what's inside. A month later, Viewsonic conveniently propped up my assertion with a campaign pointing out all PC's are the same; the only differentiator is the monitor (they favored Viewsonic monitors for the best PC experience).
Looking at these ads, you can see the trend vividly -- the IBM copy, for example, has a box of tiny type listing the diagnostic capabilities, the printer port speed, and a dozen other things no one would care about today.
In fact, all of the really successful computers have tons o'specs. Most of the ones touting usability, etc. without benefit of hard numbers were flops.
We live in exciting times.
cheers,
mike -
An interesting trendAbout a year ago, I was talking to a friend of mine how hardware is getting better and simpler every year.
When you buy a PC today, the specs include memory and CPU and not much else. We're pretty close to the day where CPU won't matter for personal workstations (my P200, now almost 3 Moore-generations old, is still a highly usable NT machine; until last year I did most of my coding on a Linux P90 with 12 VC's). The web is accelerating this trend, since any machine that can run 10 browser windows will always be useful.
Memory is similarly stagnating; unless you work with Photoshop or its ilk, chances are you have no use for >256MB.
Anyway, my prediction at that time was within five years, the only spec on a new desktop PC will be the screen size; you'll buy a 20" PC or a 35" PC, and not care about what's inside. A month later, Viewsonic conveniently propped up my assertion with a campaign pointing out all PC's are the same; the only differentiator is the monitor (they favored Viewsonic monitors for the best PC experience).
Looking at these ads, you can see the trend vividly -- the IBM copy, for example, has a box of tiny type listing the diagnostic capabilities, the printer port speed, and a dozen other things no one would care about today.
In fact, all of the really successful computers have tons o'specs. Most of the ones touting usability, etc. without benefit of hard numbers were flops.
We live in exciting times.
cheers,
mike -
An interesting trendAbout a year ago, I was talking to a friend of mine how hardware is getting better and simpler every year.
When you buy a PC today, the specs include memory and CPU and not much else. We're pretty close to the day where CPU won't matter for personal workstations (my P200, now almost 3 Moore-generations old, is still a highly usable NT machine; until last year I did most of my coding on a Linux P90 with 12 VC's). The web is accelerating this trend, since any machine that can run 10 browser windows will always be useful.
Memory is similarly stagnating; unless you work with Photoshop or its ilk, chances are you have no use for >256MB.
Anyway, my prediction at that time was within five years, the only spec on a new desktop PC will be the screen size; you'll buy a 20" PC or a 35" PC, and not care about what's inside. A month later, Viewsonic conveniently propped up my assertion with a campaign pointing out all PC's are the same; the only differentiator is the monitor (they favored Viewsonic monitors for the best PC experience).
Looking at these ads, you can see the trend vividly -- the IBM copy, for example, has a box of tiny type listing the diagnostic capabilities, the printer port speed, and a dozen other things no one would care about today.
In fact, all of the really successful computers have tons o'specs. Most of the ones touting usability, etc. without benefit of hard numbers were flops.
We live in exciting times.
cheers,
mike -
James Tiberius Kirk
JTK: must... resist... VIC-20...
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a better URL
this would be a more direct URL:
http://www.sbrowning.com/vintage/
Josh
Computers are like air conditioners.
They stop working when you open windows. -
Re:Bah, Who Cares?
> The fact of the matter is these computer
> systems died because they couldn't compete
> with the PC.
Oh, you mean systems like this one couldn't compete with the PC?
(yes, I know he's just trolling, but what the hell).
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Further proof..
Before there was priceline, there was the commodore vic-20 http://www.sbrowning.com/vintage/index.php3?p=35
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BURN THE SITE DOWN
TRASH AND MORE TRASH
Talk about bad fucking memories.. I know remember why I hate the shack
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BURN THE SITE DOWN
TRASH AND MORE TRASH
Talk about bad fucking memories.. I know remember why I hate the shack
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more vintage ads
I've got a bunch of vintage computer ads on my website. These are much older, circa 1981
