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Commodore 64 Confuses Austrian Police
toomanyairmiles writes, "It seems that Wolfgang Priklopil, the communications technician who kidnapped Austrian pre-teen Natascha Kampusch, relied on a Commodore 64 as his primary machine. Interestingly this is presenting some problems to the Austrian computer forensics people. Major General Gerhard Lang of the Federal Criminal Investigations Bureau told reporters it would 'complicate investigators' efforts' and would be difficult to transfer the files to modern computers 'without loss.' Could this be the latest in the criminal world's security strategy? Can we expect to see Spectrums, Archimedes, and Atari STs turning up in police investigations soon?"
My Basic skills will rule them all
back in the day we didnt have no old school
I'll have that bugger fixed in no time!!! ...as long as it involves writing elementary BASIC loops, LOAD "$",8,1 or beating Space Taxi or Questron.
Did you ever notice that *nix doesn't even cover Linux?
I also hear they are having trouble getting information from his IBM typewriter. Apparently he used White Out to clear the data.
//TODO: Insert catchy phrase
In my mind I see the secretaries at the Austrian police station behind their typewriters, listening hard and trying to make sense of what exactly is being said on those strange tapes...
If he was really serious about losing data, he would have used Windows 95... Mu ha ha ha!
We must ban all Commodores, to save the children of course. Think of the children!
If the C64 confused them wait tell they find people storing porn on an abacus or two.
There are still active CP/M user groups around. Why the hell? I honestly don't know, but there are. I recall selling a bunch of old equipment - 8086 boards, 10mb hard drives, etc, and the guy was overjoyed that his club got new stuff to play with. This was 2 years ago too... I guess the one man's junk saying is true.
1q2w3e4r5t6y7u8i9o0pqawsedrftgthyjukilo;p'azsxdcf
does the story about a girl kept in a dungeon for eight years revolve around the kidnapper's computer. Tor
My other account has a 3-digit UID.
Well, actually surprisingly reliable, 5 1/4" floppies have always had far fewer problems for me, bad sectors a plenty on 3 1/2" media but i don't once remember needing to leave Central point utilities trawling a 5 1/4" disc for several hours to repair bad sectors.
Can't Transfer the Files:
...and the number one reason why Austrian Police Can't Transfer the Files:
10.There's no USB port
9. Austrian govenment mandate that all computers must be able to play music from "The Sound of Music".
8. Investigators were at Oktoberfest the day they taught pre Windows XP forensics.
7. Unable to install popular folk dancing software on Commodore 64.
6. Jokes about the situation being hopeless but not serious in Austria have become true.
5. Police still worried about riots after UPC Arena name change.
4. There's no USB port
3. The floppy drive is WAY to big
2. The modem baud rate is slower than pooh
1. Can't copy and paste without a mouse
>>10mb hard drives, etc, and the guy was overjoyed that his club got new stuff to play with.
He was probably looking forward to undeleting the contents of the drives. How long do you figure it took him to do so?
Hope you scrubbed them first.
Huh?
Of course they'd lose information. Haven't you seen how bad Arial screws up ASCII porn... Uh Nevermind
But why would someone go out of their way to continue to use it?
Are you kidding? Obviously, because the hottest geek chick on the planet is into them! See:
"Super-hot super-smart geek-chick"
Beer is proof that God loves us, and wants us to be happy.
i'd hit it so hard, if you pulled me out you'd be the king of britain [bash.org]
Quickly becoming a meme:
Only a terrorist wouldn't use Windows.
One man's linux zealot is another man's freedom fighter?
Blessed are the 1337, for they shall pwn the earth.
10 REM hide your stuff from the fuzz 20 POKE 53280,0 : POKE 53281,0
Dumb Asses. They just need to go to the goodwill and get a complete.. tricked out vintage system of their own. Data loss my eye.
Now see? All they had to do was post the question on slashdot as how to connect a C64 to modern machines and they could have had the files off in a jiffy. But NO... they just had to try to figure it out on their own.
The guy kidnapped a little girl and kept her for 8 years. He's obviously a nut case. I don't think you can back his choice to use a Commodore 64 with reason.
On Slashdot, we don't think he's crazy for hideous crimes. We think he is crazy for using an old computer.
Avoid Missing Ball for High Score
Plus you can make them double-sided with a simple hole punch! Don't try that with your usb thumb drives kids.
I Am My Own Worst Enemy
Of course, here's the funny story. I got the computer, and figured `ok, what do I do with it?' ... so I tried to remember BASIC, and put in this program as soon as I got it working at the office --
10 I = I + 1 ;
20 PRINT "HELLO THERE # ", I
30 GOTO 10
(sorry if I got this wrong. This is the last time I did any BASIC, and it was years before that that I'd last done any.)
In any event, it's still running today. It's up to (let me check) 509176235. It's doing roughly 4.2 iterations/second, with most of the cpu obviously going to scrolling the display. Of course, if I do the math, that only works out to about four years, so I'm not sure what the discrepancy is.
In any event, it's lasted several office moves, and now it's in my garage, with a wal-wart transformer connected and some AA's in the battery slot. The batteries will run it for a remarkably long time, and I just replace them every year or so.
I've been tempted to pull it out and play with it a bit, but I'm reluctant to lose all my uptime ...
Dude, they're in EUROPE. Someone just needs to head for the University, find the demo party, pry Dieter away from his Amiga and be like "oh qiuck, we need the data from these floppies... yes, if you want to make a mod so the data all prints out along a sin-wave line while the SID chip kicks out the collected works of David Hasselhof, that's fine... oh my, you can make the text appear on shiny spheres? So much the better!"
Dude, I think I can see my house from here.
My guess is that he got the machine thirty years ago, it did what he needed, and he never felt a need to replace it.
Exactly.
Coincidentally, he did the same with a girl, 10 years ago.
MY questions are: Why are people questioning the hardware choices of a psycho kidnapper? Are they actually looking for a coherent thought process they can relate too? Do they want to find one? Should they turn themselves in the nearest psychiatric ward if they do?
You can't take the sky from me...
You sir are the Steve Wozniak of the using-Amigas-to-pirate-movies scene.
You wouldn't call them smart just because they're hot, would you?
If it was going to get you laid.... :-p
So in the future DRM will prevent people from listening to Britney Spears? This is Slashdot, damnit, you're not supposed to defend DRM here!
Circumcision is child abuse.
WTF is wrong with wrong with using an old computer?! I'm typing this on an old 386 right now, in fact.
In the basement, I have an Altair that I kidnapped from the local uni 25 years ago, that I've been teaching to read Perl and play with Lego Mindstorms. I've named her "nappy", because she likes the nappies and ice cream. I feed it to her on punch cards. We are such a happy computer family together, I don't have to hit her much anymore. I love you, you love me, lalalalaOH SHIT THE COPS ARE HERE@!^&@!!
+++ATH
NO CARRIER
Please help!!! I was kidnapped by Moodie-1 20 years ago and forced to port Linux to his collection of obsolete computers!
US-UK-Israel: The real Axis of Evil