Yeah. I had the Motorola International 3200 or Nokia 1011 in mind, which had LCDs, albeit non-graphical ones.
Acorn machines hold much of RISC OS in ROM too.
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GUI OS on an 80s word processor anyone?
https://www.cpcwiki.eu/index.php/SymbOS
http://www.symbos.de
https://iteroni.com/watch?v=oE1C3wFdiZU
Yeah, I was trying to remember if SL was also an optimization, bug-fix release. Seems like apple used to care about those kinds of things. Now it's just "Here's an entirely new OS, those old bugs are probably maybe fixed, but we may have introduced new ones!"
Yeah, especially for music production, I can see that. We used to record our band with a Tascam 4 track cassette recorder. The problem is that for video, unless you're going for that retro look, there's not really an equivalent.
Right, the Amiga was way ahead of its time. If only it hadn't been commodore in charge, it could have really continued to push the scene forward.
My point about the demos was that they really showcased the limits of the machines, and the folks who made them were so creative within the serious limitations of the hardware they were using. I know folks are still making C64 demos, largely for the challenge, and to show the outer limits of the machines' capability. So using that as a point of comparison, that's being generous to those platforms.
Hardware too - the non-functioning SD card slot in the C2D Mac Mini Server was never addressed either, "buy our new Mac Mini..."
Then enjoy these shots taken from some of my 80s machines.
I really do enjoy those images! I had a C64 as a kid, and while it eventually blew a cap when I was 12, ending my ill-fated coding career, I had a great time with it and the 1541. We never got the amstrads in the US, those seemed like they would have been great fun too!
Right, that's true. But damn it was buggy. So bad we ended up doing a charge-back on the credit card and using the money to get a PowerPC 7100. And very little software available at the time. Maybe deluxepaint 5 supported HAM8? I can't remember. But the amiga really crashed hard by that point, especially compared to the wonder that was the A1000. If only they'd done a solid release with the AAA chipset.The AGA chipset can achieve 262k colours in 640x400 with Hold & Modify 8.
Oh yeah, no question. It was both the video and sound that put PCs and even Macs to shame at the time.There's still incredible stuff being created for retro computers and the accomplishments are doubly impressive because of their limitations compared to that of 2000s machines.
It was! In 1992 my Amiga had PCM stereo sound as standard whereas all my dad's PCs possessed out of the box was a beep. There was no contest between playing Elite on my Amiga or a 386 and listening to the Blue Danube rendition performed by the PAULA sound chip versus the beep laden version from an internal speaker.
Well, that is the issue, right? I mean while I'd love to say I'm continuing to use the Plasma out of ecological sensibilities or a die-hard love of plasma, the only way I'd be able to get a new OLED is on credit. What could possibly go wrong? I mean, I do have ecological sensibilities as well, but money is also a truly decisive factor. I may get paid a pittance, and have to commute 3 hours each way, but at least it's stable. Relatively. For now.If they even had what we'd consider today as a display. For example, this is a version of the cellular phone that my dad used around 1992:
There was an area to input the phone number and very little else.
Unfortunately money is the factor here - we're currently experiencing a cost of living crisis in the UK and I really can't justify a new TV when I have basic financial priorities to cover. Also, I have other TVs - including an LED unit so it makes the case for buying a new one even more difficult.
Yeah, and then you insert your C-cassette -game and immediately, after waiting for 30-45 minutes the game loaded and you could play...maybe. Of course 4 times out of 10 the game crashed just before it was loaded. Oh, those were the days. If you managed to get the game loaded you really felt like you achieved something... 😂
Thank god for the disk drives (still slow) and turbo cardridges.
I was the king pin cracker 😱 during my junior high school years in my area in early-mid 80's. People would turn to me if they wanted a game or had an original to crack. I did many hundreds during those years. I even hacked into some BBS's including our local Universities and the Macintosh BBS. Did no bad things but only looked around. I have since gone to the light and operated on the other side.
Those days are long gone but I still have a C64 and even loads of the modern goodies including modern modules, wifi, OSSC, SID replacements etc. etc. I also have an Amiga 600 and loads of modern upgrades including the PiStorm etc. I have also run an RPi 400 with the Pimiga and Retropie -packages, great fun. 😎
I plan to turbo boost one of my vintage Macs too. Maybe an LC variant... lets see....
Ps. and yes - I agree about the bloat. I used to sell and support Macs back in the day. And I made my money because operating systems and software became more bloated and slower every year. People had to buy new computers frequently because if they upgraded their Os and sw they lost productivity timewise. Its hard to look professional and make money if the same thing that last year took 1h now takes 1.5hrs and more.
My C64 on the operation table:
Never heard of this cartridge before, but it seems really interesting. My friend told me about some guys that uses the original Game Boy to make music because it sounds much more "authentic". And going back to basics are essential, now we have so much available and despite some good works on music on all fronts of entertainment industry, to me we lack some genius pieces. The Donkey Kong on SNES limitations (video about how was the composing process) was memorable on how much you can produce with less, but it has it's costs that is time!
Yes and this model to me will make the IT industry in general suffer from bad product after other. In the past we as consumers had the choice of buying if we want the new version. But with SaaS (I hate this so much, but let's try to keep it cool) it gives the company a excuse to keep developing the software for how much it's bad or have problems, but the important it's to have "new features". Keep the program mediocre but the customers paying for it.
The mentality of Hardware is Cheap, Programmers are Expensive it's nothing new in the industry, but it will only be much worse as time passes by. If any of you are interested in more explained (but friendly) watch the first 5 minutes of this presentation explaining about code optimization on "modern/easy languages" and what it's the way to make it more efficient (spoiler: it need to input more bare metal code to optimize slow functions, but it don't completely solves the problem)
The next big thing? The only problem with that it's today or recently tech it's so present in everyone's lives that it's something that it's openly discussed even with non tech enthusiasts at a point that it needs excitement for it to attract investment and generate hype to have more capital and repeat again. The FOMO put all of this on steroids.
VR? I think that interesting, but as a niche market. AI? To me it's as fun as playing chess against a great computer that I can't win.
But as someone much more intelligent than me said: "The excitement of people about this new things are inversely proportional to the knowledge that they really have about it."
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That would have been incredible. I remember a 100Mhz 486DX/4 managing to decode a then-standard 128kbps MP3 on a mainboard with a good chipset and memory interleaving and like 99% CPU load under Linux but the very same CPU failing at the same task on a cheaper mainboard because it wasn't quite fast enough.
That is why my mini runs Windows 10 almost exclusively. Compared to 10.13, Win 10 is just the better option.
PS--Just got my new mini fan as the old one sounds like a jet engine.
Maybe getting a new fan in there will calm this baby down long enough to use in OS X.In those days computing hardware was expensive and programmers were, relatively speaking, cheap. Therefore there was a significant benefit to optimization. Today it's just the opposite. Computers are dirt cheap and programmers are more costly.
There's still incredible stuff being created for retro computers and the accomplishments are doubly impressive because of their limitations compared to that of 2000s machines.
It's interesting that, today, there are people developing real applications for the C64. As for the demo scene definitely impressive stuff for the hardware limitations. Unfortunately, those impressive feats can't be used in a real application (unless you consider a demo a real application).
Oh yes, no doubt. While the flashing cursor was immediate, loading Mission Impossible was almost an impossible test of patience. And that 1541? The damned thing was loud, and got so hot, we ended up removing the top cover and running a fan on it whenever we used the computer. The power transistors got so hot they could scald you. I’m sure running ”1541 Sings” didn’t help.
Thank you for your service! We lived in a town where we had no small number of games which proudly announced the additional work that “Bandit Boy” did to get those games to us.Thank god for the disk drives (still slow) and turbo cardridges.
I was the king pin cracker 😱 during my junior high school years in my area in early-mid 80's. People would turn to me if they wanted a game or had an original to crack. I did many hundreds during those years.
Those days are long gone but I still have a C64 and even loads of the modern goodies including modern modules, wifi, OSSC, SID replacements etc. etc. I also have an Amiga 600 and loads of modern upgrades including the PiStorm etc. I have also run an RPi 400 with the Pimiga and Retropie -packages, great fun. 😎
I plan to turbo boost one of my vintage Macs too. Maybe an LC variant... lets see....
Ps. and yes - I agree about the bloat. I used to sell and support Macs back in the day. And I made my money because operating systems and software became more bloated and slower every year. People had to buy new computers frequently because if they upgraded their Os and sw they lost productivity timewise. Its hard to look professional and make money if the same thing that last year took 1h now takes 1.5hrs and more.
My C64 on the operation table:
If you have no clue, anything can seem exciting. Case in point: The first PC I got as a kid was hopelessly obsolete. But the guy who gave it to me said "It has 2,048 kilobytes of RAM". I had no idea what that meant but 2,048 sounded like a lot, and KILObytes sounded like a lot too. So I was like WOOOOOW.
As I said, I have no idea about specifics, rather than it working. Maybe it was a 32kbps mono mp3.
And that's cool, because e.g. the somewhat recent port of Prince of Persia to the C64 is great in terms of playability. Many other 8-bit ports of this game done in the 1990's are horrible.
Yes, the C64 scene is more alive now than it has been in 30 years!
There is even a bitcoin mining software for the C64. But, you won't get rich by using it - no matter how long you use it. 😜 😝 But....there is no bloat!! 😎
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Wasn't that the mission? To see if you could load it.
Depending on the year 2,048 kilobytes of RAM was a lot as 2,048 kilobytes of RAM is 2 megabytes.
“Another visitor! Stay a while! Looooooaaaad foreveeeeeeerrrr!”Wasn't that the mission? To see if you could load it.
Yes, whereas LSDJ and Nanoloop made distinctly 8 bit sounds and fuelled the chip tune genre, the Korg DS-10 cartridge was an emulation of a 1970's analogue synthesizer - even so, there was a certain orthodoxy around the music people made with it...which, naturally I ignored
Oh yeah, but I remembered, cartridges were essentially instant load. Take that, SSDs!
It might just be that slow, I just received my Late2012 Mac Mini with a HDD last night and tried to use it on the HDD. I couldn't even make a USB with OCLP it was so slow, every time I clicked on something I thought it crashed. Luckily I bought an SSD for it before it came in, but I thought I could get past an hour of trying the HDD before needing to pull it out. The biggest surprise was even in Safari the thing would halt every time I clicked a link.
After the SSD, everything is normal.