I still have code written in the early 90s on my old 386SX-16, on overwritten AOL and CompuSpend floppies. They've been dropped, squashed, left in cars, left in damp storage sheds and otherwise abused, and they still read perfectly.
I hope you have at least backed up the ones that you care about!
I'm not sure when the change happened, but the quality of floppy disks dropped dramatically around 1994 or so. Of course, AOL and CompuServe bought the cheapest disks they could for the home mailers - they only had to be good enough to install once on your PC or Mac, and then they were as good as landfill. I worked at a university lab in the mid 1990's and I can't tell you how many people lost hours of work because they relied on these garbage floppies.
Then again, I still have an original set of AOL 1.0 5.25" disks for the Apple II that still work:) (yes, they're original, for "beta testers" of AppleLink, complete with original packaging, postage and letter saying "Hi, we're now AOL!". No, they're not for sale)
A friend told me she'd tried to buy some beer at a liquor store, and when asked for an ID, she'd used her passport. "Don't you have a driver's license?" the person behind the counter had asked, "Anyone can get a passport." So I guess the driver's license is the "real" ID in the US...
Hmm, that's interesting because in New Jersey, you need to provide a Passport AND your birth certificate when getting a license now - even if you're just renewing a previous license!
The passport? OK, fine. The birth certificate? C'mon, thats got to be easier to forge! But the worst part is the attitude that the information people are giving you when they inform you that you don't have the right documents with you, though the website indicates one or the other is fine. Hmmm, maybe its this privitization of the department.
Commodore never released a 68060 based machine. The highest was the 68040 based A4000, which I believe hit 25MHz stock. They may have had things in R&D, but they never saw the light of day.
If you wanted a faster machine, 3rd parties created boards with 33, 40 and 50MHz 68040 CPUs.
In one of the later iterations of Amiga's technology ownership (Escom, Gateway, etc) there was possibly a 68060 based machine (the A4000T refererenced). However, not many - if any - of these machine ever made it to normal consumers.
There were a few companies that created 68060 accelerators for A2000, A3000 and A4000 machines. These typically ran at 50 or 66MHz. Everything worked, however, there was at least one library patch for the OS necessary and the 060 processor caused a few problems with older software. Some of these accelerators also supported a PowerPC chip as well (601/603 variety, probably), as Amiga folks were following Apple's lead here.
I never saw a 68060 based Amiga, but they existed. Unfortunately they also commanded a high price (I believe several hundred dollars) because, I would assume, the rarity of the chip. I am fairly confident that the 68060 was never produced in any significant quantity. There was never a 68050 (at least for the public).
I've been meaning to do this as well. I've seen that there are special scanners that are the size of standard photos - any thoughts on those? Recommendations?
I've tried using a flatbed scanner, but it takes forever. To improve efficiency, I put multiple photos on one scan, but then you need to do lots of processing to separate the images out. Its a real pain.
First of all, Cringely doesn't even attribute this information to a real source in his article, so there is no way anybody can even verify this. He just says two good sources, which mean almost nothing.
True, unnamed sources are almost as good as no source. HOWEVER, this is Bob Cringely who actually does know a boat load of people in the industry. At a minimum, think of the face time he's had with Gates and Allen from at least the "Triumph of the Nerds" PBS special.
Then again, you could take my statment as bunk as well; it is your right.:)
I'm shopping for a card for a friend now, and have noticed that the midrange is good, but for high resolution play at 1600x1200 or 1920x1200, the midrange is barely cutting it now, so it becomes important to get the most bang for your buck, especially if you have an LCD with native high res and want to maintain quality.
I just upgraded to a GeForce 6600 GT from a Radeon 9500 Pro and I've had both of these hooked up to a Dell 2405FPW. While I am running my 2D space in 1920x1200, I don't tend to run any of the 3D games at this resolution.
Sure, it'd be nice to run at that native resolution and if I was willing to drop $400-$500 on a video card, I could get great frame rates there. However, it is much easier to buy mid-range (price, cooling, power, slot overlap, etc). The 6600 GT is a nice step up from the 9500 Pro, but most LCD monitors have the ability to stretch the image out removing any requirement to run at native resolution. As well, the monitor's stretch algorithm also performs some basic form of anti-aliasing on the image as well. Yes, it isn't true AA, but in the blur techniques they use to extrapolate pixels, you get some AA.
Hmm.. after seeing images of the guy during his "makeup years" (1972-early 80's), this now make sense:
Peter Gabriel -- "Red Rain"
Red rain is coming down
Red rain, Red rain is pouring down
Pouring down all over me
I am standing up at the water's edge in my dream
I cannot make a single sound as you scream
It can't be that cold, the ground is still warm to touch
This place is so quiet, sensing that storm
Red rain is coming down
Red rain, Red rain is pouring down
Pouring down all over me
Well I've seen them buried in a sheltered place in this town
They tell you that this rain can sting, and look down
The aliens have created life for us
Hay ay ay no pain, Seeing no red at all, see no rain
Red rain is coming down
Red rain, Red rain is pouring down
Pouring down all over me
Red rain-
There sprouts a human, o'er there a puppy
To return again and again
Just let the red rain splash you
Let the rain fall on your skin
It's like fertilizer, oh yeah
To create a new child
Red rain is coming down
Red rain, Red rain is pouring down
Pouring down all over me
And I can't watch it yet
No eye formed yet
It's so hard to lay down in all of this
Red rain is coming down
Red rain is pouring down
Red rain is coming down all over me
I see it, Red rain is coming down
Red rain is pouring down
Red rain is coming down all over me
I'm bathing in it, Red rain coming down
Red rain is coming down
Red rain is coming down all over me
I'm begging you, Red rain coming down
Red rain coming down
Red rain coming down
Red rain coming down
Over me in the red red sea, Over me, Over me, Red rain
Well the nice thing about E2 was that people were much more willing to put up weird, freaked-out, author-was-on-drugs entries, which gave E2 a much more free-wheeling air, in contrast with wikipedia's vaguely stuffy feel (though wikipedia's content seems... less stuffy).
As much as I still enjoy E2, I think the key term here is "was". Somewhere in the last 2-3 years, E2 seemed to migrate away from the free-form policy and now wants to be more "serious". All well, good and respectible, but its now missing that feel that used to make for a good laugh during lunch break when you'd stumble across some silly description of the sound of fingernails scratching a blackboard.
I still visit, but I feel less motivated to contribute. It's the impression I get, at least...
Hmmm.. I used to enter the mini assembler on Apple II demo units and do:
!300: INX
! TXA
! JSR $FDED
! JMP $300
* 300G
...which would result in the screen going nuts until someone hit reset. Thought I was being cool at the time, though I probably killed a few sales of the machine to people who thought it was defective units:)
Amiga's Sidecar had an Intel CPU and ran DOS from within the Amiga OS using Janus software and there were bridgeboards that could run Windows for later models. How hard would it be to write an OS which could address both CPUs and pass instructions to the most suitable processor?
It's not impossible, and it could be done. However, its not very practical from a cost perspective. With the cost of G4/G5 and x86 chips individually costing hundreds of dollars, it certainly makes up a significant chunk of the overall cost of a machine. Do you want to shoulder this extra charge? Some may, but most have no idea what the heck a CPU is and don't care.
Also, think what kind of message this sends to have two general purpose CPUs. Hey, PCs currently only have one (disregard dual setups), so why does this Mac thing have two different ones? I can still get to my Hotmail account, right? Why does the Mac need this kind of hack? Again, most people don't care. Sure, you could buy the co-processor card, but with the way that Steve Jobs has simplified the lineup, do you really think he'd allow for a major fragmentation of what the Apple development community is targetting?
If the application was written in QT, why didn't we see this sooner? Isn't that the whole idea of using QT - to get a cross platform set of GUI components so that you only really need to worry about the program logic underneath?
I guess its possible that if the Windows version is using DirectX and the "other" versions are using OpenGL, that could be the cause for delay. However, I think QT might abstract the GL library anyway?
Finally I can put midis on my webpages again!:)
Boy, I missed those since Netscape 4.
Who needs MIDI anymore when someone will just create a Flash animation that makes sound? Especially great when its on another tab or in a minimized window and you suddenly hear moans from the "shoot the zombie banner ad". Hrumph.
What I am annoyed about (it's always something, innit?) is that there are NO Bluetooth trackballs! Hello Logitech!
Though it doesn't appear to be Bluetooth specifically, Kensington does offer a wireless version of their Expert Mouse.
Kensington has always produced trackballs that are the size of a billiards ball. I've tried the ones where the balls are the size of a large gumball (about 1" across) and I've never thought they moved easily. The large Kensington balls have always worked very well for me, and combined with a wrist rest and ergonomic keyboard, I've pretty much eliminated most of my "computer related pains".
If you haven't worked with trackballs yet, consider this: when you use a mouse, where is your movement? Most likely, you're resting on your wrist (probably the ball opposite your thumb) and stretching/retracting/twisting off of that pivot point- not a natural movement. With a trackball, the movement is in your fingers. Specifically with the ones like Kensington makes, its your index/middle/ring fingers doing the movement. This kind of movement is at least a little more natural.
I don't work for Kensington or any computer product company; I just like to share my findings with people because people who use computers all day for work don't need to destroy their eyesight or hand/wrist joints.
The 2600 was released in 1977 though the more common version was released in 1982, and games were limited to 4K IIRC and not even 1K of system RAM.
Two things. First, there was no difference in capabilities between the revisions of the 2600. Second, the games were limited to 4K with 128 bytes of RAM. However, people got VERY clever over the years and figured out how to actually make the system go up to 64K (Though I don't think I ever saw a game larger than 32K; Summer Games and a driving game were the only two I think that ever got that large). Its actually quite impressive to see a device built for playing pong and "circus atari" to do something like Summer Games.
The test I'm doing is starting a new HL2 game in ravenholm and walking towards the tree while looking up at the sky. You will see a light or dark shadow trail the limbs.
Hmm. On GTA:SA, I don't see any such effects. I haven't played HL2, so I don't know if the rendering engine is doing anything like motion blur or something that otherwise makes the monitor appear at fault.
This is my first 2405FPW, but it also was purchased refurbished; maybe I have your original;-)
I think I know what your problem is with the 2405FPW. The ghosting is easily visible if you're using the VGA / DSUB interface and you're running at native (1920x1200) resolution; you should only use the DVI interface at that high a resolution. I did a comparison between the two interfaces to my ATi Radeon 9500 Pro and found that 1920x1200 with VGA/DSUB ghosted/trembled/blurred. DVI is rock solid.
Granted, I did this comparison on a PC, but for the bits that matter here (DAC VS straight digital out), the video cards should be created equal.
Remember, VGA/DSUB is only really spec'd to drive up to 1600x1280 (or somewhere close to that), and its basically a hack to do 1920x1200 (they lower the refresh rate to 56Hz or something like that, though your video card thinks its at 60Hz). As well, your video card is a digital device. It uses RAMDACs to convert this digital signal to analog to run over VGA to hit your (traditionally) analog-speaking CRT monitor. Now that we have flat panel displays, we can completely cut out the digital-analog-digital conversions by going straight digital (via DVI). Yes, flat panel monitors exist that only have VGA connectors - they've got analog-to-digital converters in them. If you've got a flat panel running anything over 1280x1024, you should really consider running DVI.
As far as the 2405FPW goes, the only complaint I've had with it is that the black isn't as deep a black as I've seen on CRTs or some other LCDs. But pixel refresh rate? Works excellent for a 60fps 1st person shooter game, and flipping the RGB pixels on/off, I see no noticable lag or ghosting. I'm a very happy customer.
Last time I checked, a Lisa emulator is underway in the MESS suite. Was able to boot into Office 7/7, but not very stable.
I think much of the problem comes from the fact that there isn't a lot of documentation out there on the hardware details (especially given the custom MMU and other hardware bits).
Uh, the Amiga was done a year later, and kick ass all over the Lisa. Can you say color and multi-tasking?
Hate to respond to a troll, but to clarify any confusion this might introduce. The Lisa DID have multitasking - it was one of the features stripped out for the Macintosh.
Basically, they wanted to have multitasking in the Mac, but without a MMU it made things a bit difficult to do. The Lisa had custom MMU hardware which significantly added to the cost of the machine. This was too much for the more affordable Mac.
Yes, I know the Amiga OS never used the MMU on models that did infact have it (any non-EC 68030 and 68040), but that also explains why we all know about the Guru Meditation. (Yes, OK.. "enforcer" used the MMU, but wasn't an integrated part of the OS!)
Unlike a CD, you can bounce around as much as you like wearing a walkman, and the thing won't skip.
Sure, the thing won't SKIP, but you will get "warble" in the sound if the walkman is being held the right way. Its subtle, but the flywheel's centrifugal force is effected by the bounce of the jog, and you'll hear it in the sound. Then again, if you're jogging or doing some other activity that would cause a modern* portable CD player to skip, you probably won't even notice the warble.
* by modern, I'm referring to the fact that early (1989-1994) portable CD players typically didn't have skip protection. This feature was eventually added under the title of "safe for playing in your automobile" usually for an additional 10% in price.
Yeah, I sometimes regret selling my Moog Liberation and my Oberheim OB-8, but really, they were a pain to keep in tune...
Though my current band doesn't require them, I've got no plans to ever sell my Moog Taurus pedals. A fat, rich bass that just can't be found anywhere else. There is just no substitute for old analog technology for certain things.
Yes, the 1960's had the modular Moog, and in 1970 an engineer at Moog created the MiniMoog from spare parts lying around in the attic. Four designs later, they ended up with the classic MiniMoog "Model D" circa 1970. Later when Moog Music was purchased by Norlin, other models came out that didn't quite have the same charisma, but kept the company alive.
Its interesting that you mention "musical keyboard" and that Moogs were easier to use than the competition.
The main competitor to the Moog in the 1960s was the Buchla 100 (and later models), which was quite a different beast. Not only did it not have a keyboard (it used an array of touch sensitive pads along with the common set of dials, lights and switches), but the patch cord system was significantly different. On the Moog, you used standard 1/4" plugs (like a guitar patch cord). You could plug anything into anything, giving you a very wide range of possibilities. On the Buchla, you had two different types of cords. Some were banana plugs, some were patches. Control voltage (like pitch, volume, triggers, etc) would be through banana plugs, and audio (sound output) would be through patch cords (or something close to that; my memory is fuzzy here). Because of this strict separation of wires and their purposes, it made it a little easier to get sound out of a Buchla because you knew that A plugged into B, not A into 2. Since Moog used the same cords all around, you could effectively plug a control into an audio, which may prevent you from getting any sound in your complex patch setup.
The keyboard is the other interesting point. Moog selected the keyboard because he played piano and was familiar with it. Remember, when the Moog and Buchla came out, nobody had ever seen these things before, so how DO you define how to make sound out of a variable-pitch thing like this? Nobody had set the rule that a synthesizer is a keyboard instrument at that time; Moog made his that way, and people adopted it. Buchla took more of an engineer's approach to it, and provided triggers and pressure pads, etc. Which was easier to play? Go to the synthesizer section of a music store today and see which became the popular format for some kind of answer to that question.
What about other competition? Though Moog was the first and most popular, old analog synthesizers are infamous for their poor oscillator stability. What this means is that as the temperature of the device changed, the pitch of your "middle C" wasn't quite in tune 10 minutes later; you actually had to warm up, re-tune, play, and re-tune some more as you worked with your Moog. Wendy Carlos' "Switched on Bach" was a long and tedious project, simply because she could only play parts at a time before having to re-tune. The competition eventually came around in the form of the company "ARP". What ARP did was not much different from what Moog had been producing, but the HUGE difference was the improved oscillator stability. This made synthesizers almost road-worthy enough to bring on gigs. However, there was still one more problem: the size of the devices.
Enter: MiniMoog. Improved oscillator stability, compact design, and enough sound possibilities to use on the road. Though not as flexible as the modular Moogs, it did one heck of a job. Thats the significance of the MiniMoog in a nutshell. The Moog name was revitalized.
OK, enough typing for now. Highly recommend "Switched on Bach" for early Moog music, and google Suzanne Ciani for Buchla 100 samples (she is probably the most famous Buchla artist over the years, doing a lot of advertising tracks and such).
Keith Emersons' heart stopping sounds at
the close of the single "Lucky Man" was
probably my first exposure to synthesizer
music.
What's interesting is that the "Lucky Man" Moog track was just a warm-up for Emerson; he didn't realize that they were recording.
As the story goes, he was playing along with the studio tape and figuring out what to do for his solo. When the tape finished, he looked over at the mixing room to tell them that he was ready to record, but they all had huge grins on their face because they loved what they had heard, and recorded. He was a bit disappointed that they had recorded it because, I believe, they wrote directly to the master. Erasing and re-recording would have been very difficult, and thus they kept the original.
Makes you think - what would Keith Emerson have played if he had the 2nd chance?
OK, how quickly is this turning into one of the following:
"my OS is better than yours, so therefore my stack is better".
"I've got this obscure stack for my old/obsolete/obscure machine, so it r0x!"
Linux, of course!
OS X, of course!
etc..
I'd be interested in seeing WHY a stack is better, and this means real data or stories like performance numbers or efficiency observations, etc.
On the other hand, machines built since 1998 have been fast enough and stacks have probably been optimized enough that we don't even notice anymore. For example, it was huge when Solaris 2.5.1 was replaced by Solaris 2.6; the stack was reworked because of "we're the dot in dot.com" web serving duties in 1997. However, those days people were still running SPARCstation 5/10/20's for their webs (read: 40MHz CPUs) and it made a difference. Today, your 500MHz+ CPUs don't really hiccup that much from stack inefficiencies. Sure, slashdot the darn box and you'll see some numbers, but the sites that are regularly hosting that kind of traffic are probably running heavier-duty machines.
Slashdot Mirror
I hope you have at least backed up the ones that you care about!
I'm not sure when the change happened, but the quality of floppy disks dropped dramatically around 1994 or so. Of course, AOL and CompuServe bought the cheapest disks they could for the home mailers - they only had to be good enough to install once on your PC or Mac, and then they were as good as landfill. I worked at a university lab in the mid 1990's and I can't tell you how many people lost hours of work because they relied on these garbage floppies.
Then again, I still have an original set of AOL 1.0 5.25" disks for the Apple II that still work :) (yes, they're original, for "beta testers" of AppleLink, complete with original packaging, postage and letter saying "Hi, we're now AOL!". No, they're not for sale)
Hmm, that's interesting because in New Jersey, you need to provide a Passport AND your birth certificate when getting a license now - even if you're just renewing a previous license!
The passport? OK, fine. The birth certificate? C'mon, thats got to be easier to forge! But the worst part is the attitude that the information people are giving you when they inform you that you don't have the right documents with you, though the website indicates one or the other is fine. Hmmm, maybe its this privitization of the department.
OK, lets try to set this straight.
Commodore never released a 68060 based machine. The highest was the 68040 based A4000, which I believe hit 25MHz stock. They may have had things in R&D, but they never saw the light of day.
If you wanted a faster machine, 3rd parties created boards with 33, 40 and 50MHz 68040 CPUs.
In one of the later iterations of Amiga's technology ownership (Escom, Gateway, etc) there was possibly a 68060 based machine (the A4000T refererenced). However, not many - if any - of these machine ever made it to normal consumers.
There were a few companies that created 68060 accelerators for A2000, A3000 and A4000 machines. These typically ran at 50 or 66MHz. Everything worked, however, there was at least one library patch for the OS necessary and the 060 processor caused a few problems with older software. Some of these accelerators also supported a PowerPC chip as well (601/603 variety, probably), as Amiga folks were following Apple's lead here.
I never saw a 68060 based Amiga, but they existed. Unfortunately they also commanded a high price (I believe several hundred dollars) because, I would assume, the rarity of the chip. I am fairly confident that the 68060 was never produced in any significant quantity. There was never a 68050 (at least for the public).
I've tried using a flatbed scanner, but it takes forever. To improve efficiency, I put multiple photos on one scan, but then you need to do lots of processing to separate the images out. Its a real pain.
WWAAAAHHHHHH!!! A video of me being a dork that I left in a public VCR got posted to the internet! WWAAAAAHHHHHH!!!
(Sorry, just in one of those moods)
True, unnamed sources are almost as good as no source. HOWEVER, this is Bob Cringely who actually does know a boat load of people in the industry. At a minimum, think of the face time he's had with Gates and Allen from at least the "Triumph of the Nerds" PBS special.
Then again, you could take my statment as bunk as well; it is your right. :)
I just upgraded to a GeForce 6600 GT from a Radeon 9500 Pro and I've had both of these hooked up to a Dell 2405FPW. While I am running my 2D space in 1920x1200, I don't tend to run any of the 3D games at this resolution.
Sure, it'd be nice to run at that native resolution and if I was willing to drop $400-$500 on a video card, I could get great frame rates there. However, it is much easier to buy mid-range (price, cooling, power, slot overlap, etc). The 6600 GT is a nice step up from the 9500 Pro, but most LCD monitors have the ability to stretch the image out removing any requirement to run at native resolution. As well, the monitor's stretch algorithm also performs some basic form of anti-aliasing on the image as well. Yes, it isn't true AA, but in the blur techniques they use to extrapolate pixels, you get some AA.
My two cents, at least.
Peter Gabriel -- "Red Rain"
Red rain is coming down
Red rain, Red rain is pouring down
Pouring down all over me
I am standing up at the water's edge in my dream
I cannot make a single sound as you scream
It can't be that cold, the ground is still warm to touch
This place is so quiet, sensing that storm
Red rain is coming down
Red rain, Red rain is pouring down
Pouring down all over me
Well I've seen them buried in a sheltered place in this town
They tell you that this rain can sting, and look down
The aliens have created life for us
Hay ay ay no pain, Seeing no red at all, see no rain
Red rain is coming down
Red rain, Red rain is pouring down
Pouring down all over me
Red rain-
There sprouts a human, o'er there a puppy
To return again and again
Just let the red rain splash you
Let the rain fall on your skin
It's like fertilizer, oh yeah
To create a new child
Red rain is coming down
Red rain, Red rain is pouring down
Pouring down all over me
And I can't watch it yet
No eye formed yet
It's so hard to lay down in all of this
Red rain is coming down
Red rain is pouring down
Red rain is coming down all over me
I see it, Red rain is coming down
Red rain is pouring down
Red rain is coming down all over me
I'm bathing in it, Red rain coming down
Red rain is coming down
Red rain is coming down all over me
I'm begging you, Red rain coming down
Red rain coming down
Red rain coming down
Red rain coming down
Over me in the red red sea, Over me, Over me, Red rain
(apologies to Mr. Gabriel)
As much as I still enjoy E2, I think the key term here is "was". Somewhere in the last 2-3 years, E2 seemed to migrate away from the free-form policy and now wants to be more "serious". All well, good and respectible, but its now missing that feel that used to make for a good laugh during lunch break when you'd stumble across some silly description of the sound of fingernails scratching a blackboard.
I still visit, but I feel less motivated to contribute. It's the impression I get, at least...
It's not impossible, and it could be done. However, its not very practical from a cost perspective. With the cost of G4/G5 and x86 chips individually costing hundreds of dollars, it certainly makes up a significant chunk of the overall cost of a machine. Do you want to shoulder this extra charge? Some may, but most have no idea what the heck a CPU is and don't care.
Also, think what kind of message this sends to have two general purpose CPUs. Hey, PCs currently only have one (disregard dual setups), so why does this Mac thing have two different ones? I can still get to my Hotmail account, right? Why does the Mac need this kind of hack? Again, most people don't care. Sure, you could buy the co-processor card, but with the way that Steve Jobs has simplified the lineup, do you really think he'd allow for a major fragmentation of what the Apple development community is targetting?
Just my two cents..
I guess its possible that if the Windows version is using DirectX and the "other" versions are using OpenGL, that could be the cause for delay. However, I think QT might abstract the GL library anyway?
Well, its about time anyway.
Who needs MIDI anymore when someone will just create a Flash animation that makes sound? Especially great when its on another tab or in a minimized window and you suddenly hear moans from the "shoot the zombie banner ad". Hrumph.
Though it doesn't appear to be Bluetooth specifically, Kensington does offer a wireless version of their Expert Mouse.
Kensington has always produced trackballs that are the size of a billiards ball. I've tried the ones where the balls are the size of a large gumball (about 1" across) and I've never thought they moved easily. The large Kensington balls have always worked very well for me, and combined with a wrist rest and ergonomic keyboard, I've pretty much eliminated most of my "computer related pains".
If you haven't worked with trackballs yet, consider this: when you use a mouse, where is your movement? Most likely, you're resting on your wrist (probably the ball opposite your thumb) and stretching/retracting/twisting off of that pivot point- not a natural movement. With a trackball, the movement is in your fingers. Specifically with the ones like Kensington makes, its your index/middle/ring fingers doing the movement. This kind of movement is at least a little more natural.
I don't work for Kensington or any computer product company; I just like to share my findings with people because people who use computers all day for work don't need to destroy their eyesight or hand/wrist joints.
Two things. First, there was no difference in capabilities between the revisions of the 2600. Second, the games were limited to 4K with 128 bytes of RAM. However, people got VERY clever over the years and figured out how to actually make the system go up to 64K (Though I don't think I ever saw a game larger than 32K; Summer Games and a driving game were the only two I think that ever got that large). Its actually quite impressive to see a device built for playing pong and "circus atari" to do something like Summer Games.
<SOH>ALLYOURBASEAREBELONGTOUS<EOH>
Very strange...
Hmm. On GTA:SA, I don't see any such effects. I haven't played HL2, so I don't know if the rendering engine is doing anything like motion blur or something that otherwise makes the monitor appear at fault.
This is my first 2405FPW, but it also was purchased refurbished; maybe I have your original ;-)
Remember, VGA/DSUB is only really spec'd to drive up to 1600x1280 (or somewhere close to that), and its basically a hack to do 1920x1200 (they lower the refresh rate to 56Hz or something like that, though your video card thinks its at 60Hz). As well, your video card is a digital device. It uses RAMDACs to convert this digital signal to analog to run over VGA to hit your (traditionally) analog-speaking CRT monitor. Now that we have flat panel displays, we can completely cut out the digital-analog-digital conversions by going straight digital (via DVI). Yes, flat panel monitors exist that only have VGA connectors - they've got analog-to-digital converters in them. If you've got a flat panel running anything over 1280x1024, you should really consider running DVI.
As far as the 2405FPW goes, the only complaint I've had with it is that the black isn't as deep a black as I've seen on CRTs or some other LCDs. But pixel refresh rate? Works excellent for a 60fps 1st person shooter game, and flipping the RGB pixels on/off, I see no noticable lag or ghosting. I'm a very happy customer.
Last time I checked, a Lisa emulator is underway in the MESS suite. Was able to boot into Office 7/7, but not very stable.
I think much of the problem comes from the fact that there isn't a lot of documentation out there on the hardware details (especially given the custom MMU and other hardware bits).
Hate to respond to a troll, but to clarify any confusion this might introduce. The Lisa DID have multitasking - it was one of the features stripped out for the Macintosh.
Basically, they wanted to have multitasking in the Mac, but without a MMU it made things a bit difficult to do. The Lisa had custom MMU hardware which significantly added to the cost of the machine. This was too much for the more affordable Mac.
Yes, I know the Amiga OS never used the MMU on models that did infact have it (any non-EC 68030 and 68040), but that also explains why we all know about the Guru Meditation. (Yes, OK.. "enforcer" used the MMU, but wasn't an integrated part of the OS!)
Sure, the thing won't SKIP, but you will get "warble" in the sound if the walkman is being held the right way. Its subtle, but the flywheel's centrifugal force is effected by the bounce of the jog, and you'll hear it in the sound. Then again, if you're jogging or doing some other activity that would cause a modern* portable CD player to skip, you probably won't even notice the warble.
* by modern, I'm referring to the fact that early (1989-1994) portable CD players typically didn't have skip protection. This feature was eventually added under the title of "safe for playing in your automobile" usually for an additional 10% in price.
Though my current band doesn't require them, I've got no plans to ever sell my Moog Taurus pedals. A fat, rich bass that just can't be found anywhere else. There is just no substitute for old analog technology for certain things.
Its interesting that you mention "musical keyboard" and that Moogs were easier to use than the competition.
The main competitor to the Moog in the 1960s was the Buchla 100 (and later models), which was quite a different beast. Not only did it not have a keyboard (it used an array of touch sensitive pads along with the common set of dials, lights and switches), but the patch cord system was significantly different. On the Moog, you used standard 1/4" plugs (like a guitar patch cord). You could plug anything into anything, giving you a very wide range of possibilities. On the Buchla, you had two different types of cords. Some were banana plugs, some were patches. Control voltage (like pitch, volume, triggers, etc) would be through banana plugs, and audio (sound output) would be through patch cords (or something close to that; my memory is fuzzy here). Because of this strict separation of wires and their purposes, it made it a little easier to get sound out of a Buchla because you knew that A plugged into B, not A into 2. Since Moog used the same cords all around, you could effectively plug a control into an audio, which may prevent you from getting any sound in your complex patch setup.
The keyboard is the other interesting point. Moog selected the keyboard because he played piano and was familiar with it. Remember, when the Moog and Buchla came out, nobody had ever seen these things before, so how DO you define how to make sound out of a variable-pitch thing like this? Nobody had set the rule that a synthesizer is a keyboard instrument at that time; Moog made his that way, and people adopted it. Buchla took more of an engineer's approach to it, and provided triggers and pressure pads, etc. Which was easier to play? Go to the synthesizer section of a music store today and see which became the popular format for some kind of answer to that question.
What about other competition? Though Moog was the first and most popular, old analog synthesizers are infamous for their poor oscillator stability. What this means is that as the temperature of the device changed, the pitch of your "middle C" wasn't quite in tune 10 minutes later; you actually had to warm up, re-tune, play, and re-tune some more as you worked with your Moog. Wendy Carlos' "Switched on Bach" was a long and tedious project, simply because she could only play parts at a time before having to re-tune. The competition eventually came around in the form of the company "ARP". What ARP did was not much different from what Moog had been producing, but the HUGE difference was the improved oscillator stability. This made synthesizers almost road-worthy enough to bring on gigs. However, there was still one more problem: the size of the devices.
Enter: MiniMoog. Improved oscillator stability, compact design, and enough sound possibilities to use on the road. Though not as flexible as the modular Moogs, it did one heck of a job. Thats the significance of the MiniMoog in a nutshell. The Moog name was revitalized.
OK, enough typing for now. Highly recommend "Switched on Bach" for early Moog music, and google Suzanne Ciani for Buchla 100 samples (she is probably the most famous Buchla artist over the years, doing a lot of advertising tracks and such).
What's interesting is that the "Lucky Man" Moog track was just a warm-up for Emerson; he didn't realize that they were recording.
As the story goes, he was playing along with the studio tape and figuring out what to do for his solo. When the tape finished, he looked over at the mixing room to tell them that he was ready to record, but they all had huge grins on their face because they loved what they had heard, and recorded. He was a bit disappointed that they had recorded it because, I believe, they wrote directly to the master. Erasing and re-recording would have been very difficult, and thus they kept the original.
Makes you think - what would Keith Emerson have played if he had the 2nd chance?
- "my OS is better than yours, so therefore my stack is better".
- "I've got this obscure stack for my old/obsolete/obscure machine, so it r0x!"
- Linux, of course!
- OS X, of course!
etc..I'd be interested in seeing WHY a stack is better, and this means real data or stories like performance numbers or efficiency observations, etc.
On the other hand, machines built since 1998 have been fast enough and stacks have probably been optimized enough that we don't even notice anymore. For example, it was huge when Solaris 2.5.1 was replaced by Solaris 2.6; the stack was reworked because of "we're the dot in dot.com" web serving duties in 1997. However, those days people were still running SPARCstation 5/10/20's for their webs (read: 40MHz CPUs) and it made a difference. Today, your 500MHz+ CPUs don't really hiccup that much from stack inefficiencies. Sure, slashdot the darn box and you'll see some numbers, but the sites that are regularly hosting that kind of traffic are probably running heavier-duty machines.
My rant, anyway :-)