• Big nostalgia hits

    From Bob Worm to All on Thu Nov 16 11:53:17 2023
    For some people it's the smell of waxed electronic components inside an old radio. For me, seeing the VGA 80x25 font for the first time in years almost crashed my brain from nostalgia overload. Even something as simple as seeing the word "CLICK!" when disconnecting from a (telnet) BBS sometimes sets me off.

    Last night I heard the distinctive ding-ding-ding of a Quake grenade and it triggered an immediate rush of excitement and fond memories, way out of proportion to the stimulus.

    So - how about you lot? What has unexpectedly slapped you in the face with nostalgia over the years?

    BobW

    BobW
  • From poindexter FORTRAN@21:4/122 to Bob Worm on Thu Nov 16 17:51:53 2023
    Re: Big nostalgia hits
    By: Bob Worm to All on Thu Nov 16 2023 11:53 am

    So - how about you lot? What has unexpectedly slapped you in the face with nostalgia over the years?

    Telix connect tones.

    The beeeeeeeeP of an IBM PC posting.

    The loud click a PC AT power supply switch made.

    the DOOM E1M1 midi file.

    The sound of a dot-matrix printer.

    The bootup sound of a Macintosh Quadra.
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  • From Apam@21:1/182 to Bob Worm on Fri Nov 17 13:05:42 2023
    BY: Bob Worm (21:1/205)

    |11BW|09> |10So - how about you lot? What has unexpectedly slapped you in the face|07
    |11BW|09> |10with nostalgia over the years?|07

    My son has a toy computer which makes sounds, mostly talking / singing, but every now and then it goes "online" and makes a modem connection sound.

    Andrew


    --- WWIV 5.9.0.development[NetBSD]
    * Origin: Cabinet of Curiosities - WWIV on NetBSD! (21:1/182)
  • From Bob Worm to Apam on Fri Nov 17 13:22:12 2023
    Re: Re: Big nostalgia hits
    By: Apam to Bob Worm on Fri Nov 17 2023 13:05:42

    Hi, Apam.

    My son has a toy computer which makes sounds, mostly talking / singing, but every now and then it goes "online" and makes a modem connection sound.

    I always wonder with these things whether they put that in as an Easter egg for the parents or if the generic "toy computer" sound module has just not been updated for 30 years :)

    BobW

    BobW
  • From Dr. What@21:1/616 to Apam on Fri Nov 17 08:19:59 2023
    Apam wrote to Bob Worm <=-

    My son has a toy computer which makes sounds, mostly talking / singing, but every now and then it goes "online" and makes a modem connection sound.

    A long time ago, ThinkGeek had a little box that looks like it was molded from the same molds as the U.S. Robotics 56K modem - just in a different color. Instead of lights, it had buttons and pushing each button generated a different modem sound.

    I think I still have mine somewhere.


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  • From Gamgee@21:2/138 to poindexter FORTRAN on Fri Nov 17 07:32:00 2023
    poindexter FORTRAN wrote to Bob Worm <=-

    Re: Big nostalgia hits
    By: Bob Worm to All on Thu Nov 16 2023 11:53 am

    So - how about you lot? What has unexpectedly slapped you in the face with nostalgia over the years?

    Telix connect tones.

    The beeeeeeeeP of an IBM PC posting.

    The loud click a PC AT power supply switch made.

    the DOOM E1M1 midi file.

    The sound of a dot-matrix printer.

    The bootup sound of a Macintosh Quadra.

    Can't say as I've heard that last one.

    I'll add:

    The sound of a floppy drive reading/writing a disk.

    The sound of an old MFM/RLL hard drive moving the heads around.

    The various modem connection/negotiation tones.

    Duke Nukem saying "Let's rock".



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  • From tenser@21:1/101 to Bob Worm on Sat Nov 18 07:05:13 2023

    On 16 Nov 2023 at 11:53a, Bob Worm pondered and said...

    For some people it's the smell of waxed electronic components inside an old radio. For me, seeing the VGA 80x25 font for the first time in years almost crashed my brain from nostalgia overload. Even something as
    simple as seeing the word "CLICK!" when disconnecting from a (telnet)
    BBS sometimes sets me off.

    Last night I heard the distinctive ding-ding-ding of a Quake grenade and it triggered an immediate rush of excitement and fond memories, way out
    of proportion to the stimulus.

    So - how about you lot? What has unexpectedly slapped you in the face
    with nostalgia over the years?

    The 4.3BSD boot banner after the kernel loads on a VAX-11.

    The sound of the floppy diskette on the original Macintosh.

    Using VM/CMS on an IBM mainframe with x3270 and the 3179G
    fonts and color scheme. The "RUNNING" string in the lower
    right corner.

    The "Username:" prompt from VMS.

    Logging into a Plan 9 terminal.

    Reading C.

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  • From Bob Worm to poindexter FORTRAN on Fri Nov 17 20:09:12 2023
    Re: Big nostalgia hits
    By: poindexter FORTRAN to Bob Worm on Thu Nov 16 2023 17:51:53

    Hi, Poindexter.

    Telix connect tones.

    I'm too young for this one, unfortunately, and YouTube only wants to give me clack-clack daisy wheel printing noises.

    The beeeeeeeeP of an IBM PC posting.

    Hmm. I'm with you, there. The ones with a proper paper speaker.

    Along similar lines I think I probably yelped with excitement when I got the distinctive pan pipe "hooo" sound out of my Acorn the first time it booted. Hadn't heard that for probably two decades!

    the DOOM E1M1 midi file.

    Some legend has made a very fine replica of that on SID. Actually there are at least two versions out there but the one I'm thinking of is very faithful to the original.

    The sound of a dot-matrix printer.

    When I read this I thought "I don't miss that..." but, actually, while looking for the Telex sound I stumbled across footage of a 9 pin dot matrix and it definitely took me back!

    The bootup sound of a Macintosh Quadra.

    This one's a complete mystery to me, I shall look it up!

    BobW

    BobW
  • From Bob Worm to Dr. What on Fri Nov 17 20:13:29 2023
    Re: Re: Big nostalgia hits
    By: Dr. What to Apam on Fri Nov 17 2023 08:19:59

    Hi, Dr. What.

    A long time ago, ThinkGeek had a little box that looks like it was molded from the same molds as the U.S. Robotics 56K modem - just in a different color. Instead of lights, it had buttons and pushing each button generated a different modem sound.

    That sounds delightfully pointless. I very kindly gave away my US Robotics Sportster 28.8k which could be made to go at 33.6k by just ATZ-ing it so that form factor would tick a box for me.

    I know it's bad form to regret being generous, and actually it allowed some good friends of mine to get online before they otherwise would have, but damn - I'd love to get that back now.

    BobW

    BobW
  • From Bob Worm to Gamgee on Fri Nov 17 20:29:58 2023
    Re: Re: Big nostalgia hits
    By: Gamgee to poindexter FORTRAN on Fri Nov 17 2023 07:32:00

    Hi, Gamgee.

    The sound of a floppy drive reading/writing a disk.

    I always loved the overlapping "neeeeer neeer noot" noises of dual 5.25" floppies self testing at boot.

    Nowadays when I'm listening to a floppy drive it's usually because I'm looking out for that horrible scraping noise that tells me "that one's got dirt in it".

    The various modem connection/negotiation tones.

    My mate Martin claimed he could tell what rate a modem was going to sync at by listening to the connection tones. Annoyingly he actually could, +/- a couple of kbaud. Nerd.

    Duke Nukem saying "Let's rock".

    Oh, wow - you just gave me a flashback to Dan Douglas' Duke Smoochem 3D, an amazingly accurate replica of UK life built in the Duke3D engine. It's the most British thing ever...

    BobW

    BobW
  • From Bob Worm to tenser on Fri Nov 17 20:38:28 2023
    Re: Re: Big nostalgia hits
    By: tenser to Bob Worm on Sat Nov 18 2023 07:05:13

    Hi, tenser.

    The 4.3BSD boot banner after the kernel loads on a VAX-11.

    The sound of the floppy diskette on the original Macintosh.

    Using VM/CMS on an IBM mainframe with x3270 and the 3179G
    fonts and color scheme. The "RUNNING" string in the lower
    right corner.

    The "Username:" prompt from VMS.

    Logging into a Plan 9 terminal.

    I feel like I'm detecting a theme, here :)

    Reading C.

    If reading C gives you warm and fuzzy feelings then it's clearly not my C :)

    BobW

    BobW
  • From Nightfox@21:1/137 to Bob Worm on Fri Nov 17 13:23:30 2023
    Re: Re: Big nostalgia hits
    By: Bob Worm to Gamgee on Fri Nov 17 2023 08:29 pm

    I always loved the overlapping "neeeeer neeer noot" noises of dual 5.25" floppies self testing at boot.

    Nowadays when I'm listening to a floppy drive it's usually because I'm looking out for that horrible scraping noise that tells me "that one's got dirt in it".

    Years ago, I found a YouTube channel where someone has made a setup he calls the "Floppotron", which plays music with floppy drives. He has a bunch of floppy disk drives connected to a computer that uses software to engage the floppy drives' motors to produce various tones, and it looked to me like the software can load a MIDI file and play it with the floppy drives.

    Nightfox
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  • From tenser@21:1/101 to Bob Worm on Sat Nov 18 10:44:46 2023
    On 17 Nov 2023 at 08:38p, Bob Worm pondered and said...

    Reading C.

    If reading C gives you warm and fuzzy feelings then it's clearly not my
    C :)

    Heh. That one was a bit of a subtle dig at C for being
    outdated. But I write (and read!) a lot of C....

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  • From Bob Worm to tenser on Fri Nov 17 23:45:49 2023
    Re: Re: Big nostalgia hits
    By: tenser to Bob Worm on Sat Nov 18 2023 10:44:46

    Heh. That one was a bit of a subtle dig at C for being
    outdated. But I write (and read!) a lot of C....

    I have to admit, if I'm doing anything serious it's C all the way. I try to use python for quick stuff but my brain just doesn't work like that.

    For leisure programming it has to be ARM assembler.

    Call me whatever you like. That's my taste :)

    BobW

    BobW
  • From Bob Worm to Nightfox on Fri Nov 17 23:55:08 2023
    Re: Re: Big nostalgia hits
    By: Nightfox to Bob Worm on Fri Nov 17 2023 13:23:30

    Hi, Nightfox.

    Years ago, I found a YouTube channel where someone has made a setup he calls the "Floppotron", which plays music with floppy drives. He has a bunch of floppy disk drives connected to a computer that uses software to engage the floppy drives' motors to produce various tones, and it looked to me like the software can load a MIDI file and play it with the floppy drives.

    I remember that, yes. The first few of those seemed really well done, a lot of effort put in to remake tracks around the limitations of the medium. Then I ran into more videos years later which included stepper motors and played multiple tones at once. It just seemed like analogue audio was being fed into the motors, not so much art to it, kind of spoiled it for me.

    Maybe I'm just grumpy.

    BobW
    BobW
  • From Nightfox@21:1/137 to Bob Worm on Fri Nov 17 16:47:51 2023
    Re: Re: Big nostalgia hits
    By: Bob Worm to Nightfox on Fri Nov 17 2023 11:55 pm

    Years ago, I found a YouTube channel where someone has made a setup he
    calls the "Floppotron", which plays music with floppy drives. He has a

    I remember that, yes. The first few of those seemed really well done, a lot of effort put in to remake tracks around the limitations of the medium. Then I ran into more videos years later which included stepper motors and played multiple tones at once. It just seemed like analogue audio was being fed into the motors, not so much art to it, kind of spoiled it for me.

    hmm.. I hadn't really noticed. I thought the tones were all from the motors of the various floppy drives.

    Nightfox
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  • From Spectre@21:3/101 to Bob Worm on Sat Nov 18 10:11:00 2023
    The sound of a floppy drive reading/writing a disk.

    I always loved the overlapping "neeeeer neeer noot" noises of dual 5.25" floppies self testing at boot.

    There's always the Disk ][. Goes through the chugga chugga chugga during
    boot, as it ramps the head across 24 tracks to make sure its at 0 for boot load. if the head is sitting anywhere closer than track 24, it just beats the head against the mechanical stop cause it can't tell where the head is positioned.


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  • From Spectre@21:3/101 to Bob Worm on Sat Nov 18 15:32:00 2023
    Call me whatever you like. That's my taste :)

    Careful or we'll spin your nipple nuts and call you Frank....

    Spec


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  • From Dr. What@21:1/616 to Bob Worm on Sat Nov 18 09:04:17 2023
    Bob Worm wrote to Dr. What <=-

    That sounds delightfully pointless.

    It is. But I still have it (somewhere).

    I know it's bad form to regret being generous, and actually it allowed some good friends of mine to get online before they otherwise would
    have, but damn - I'd love to get that back now.

    I think we all have our "vintage regrets" for one thing or another.

    I had picked up a Microcom 2400 modem with MNP-5. I used it for years until upgrading it to a 9600 BPS modem. I sold the 2400 modem to someone, who sold it to someone, etc. Last I had heard, it was on its 6th owner, still going strong and had gotten many, many people on the BBSs and, later, on the Internet.

    My hope is that it's enjoying a cushy retirement in someone's vintage hardware collection.


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  • From Gamgee@21:2/138 to Bob Worm on Sat Nov 18 09:07:00 2023
    Bob Worm wrote to Gamgee <=-

    Re: Re: Big nostalgia hits
    By: Gamgee to poindexter FORTRAN on Fri Nov 17 2023 07:32:00

    Hi, Gamgee.

    The sound of a floppy drive reading/writing a disk.

    I always loved the overlapping "neeeeer neeer noot" noises of
    dual 5.25" floppies self testing at boot.

    Oh yes, my first PC was a Kaypro PC, running (I think) MSDOS 2.11. Came
    with two 360's and no HD. Eventually I added one, but those early days
    were fun.

    Nowadays when I'm listening to a floppy drive it's usually
    because I'm looking out for that horrible scraping noise that
    tells me "that one's got dirt in it".

    Heh. Yeah that's never good to hear.

    The various modem connection/negotiation tones.

    My mate Martin claimed he could tell what rate a modem was going
    to sync at by listening to the connection tones. Annoyingly he
    actually could, +/- a couple of kbaud. Nerd.

    Well, the different speeds/protocols did negotiate differently. I never
    did it, but with enough practice/effort, I'd think one could learn the differences. :-)

    Duke Nukem saying "Let's rock".

    Oh, wow - you just gave me a flashback to Dan Douglas' Duke
    Smoochem 3D, an amazingly accurate replica of UK life built in
    the Duke3D engine. It's the most British thing ever...

    Hehe, haven't heard of that one.



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  • From poindexter FORTRAN@21:4/122 to Gamgee on Fri Nov 17 09:10:00 2023
    Gamgee wrote to poindexter FORTRAN <=-


    The bootup sound of a Macintosh Quadra.

    Can't say as I've heard that last one.

    https://froods.ca/~dschaub/AppleSounds/Startup/StartupMacQuadra.wav




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  • From poindexter FORTRAN@21:4/122 to tenser on Sat Nov 18 08:52:00 2023
    tenser wrote to Bob Worm <=-

    The sound of the floppy diskette on the original Macintosh.

    I was at university when the Mac 512K model became "the" thing for
    students. Get your Apple Credit card at the local university, pick up a
    Mac, Applewriter printer and external floppy drive (you'll need it!)
    and you're on your way.

    I think those cards were something like 28% interest. Robbery, but it
    had to be given the potential risk they were taking - even with parents
    co-signing for them.

    Reading C.

    I bought K&R C a while ago to put into my bookcase. I'd thought about
    writing some C code again, it's been years.



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  • From poindexter FORTRAN@21:4/122 to Bob Worm on Sat Nov 18 08:56:00 2023
    Bob Worm wrote to Dr. What <=-

    I know it's bad form to regret being generous, and actually it allowed some good friends of mine to get online before they otherwise would
    have, but damn - I'd love to get that back now.

    When I started my BBS, I was working for a company where my boss had
    iterated through technology without really understanding it. We had a
    dial-up WAN, which he'd bought dozens of 2400 baud modems for it - but
    they didn't do any error correction and the end points were on crappy
    phone lines. All those got replaced with error correcting modems and
    left in a box.

    I was told to clean out the storage room and toss anything they
    couldn't use. I tossed them into the back of my car and gave out
    probably 2 dozen of them with a copy of COMMO loaded on a floppy disk.

    A year or so later when I asked a caller how he heard about my BBS, he
    said someone had given him a modem and a floppy disk with my BBS in the
    dialing directory... It was one of mine!




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  • From poindexter FORTRAN@21:4/122 to Dr. What on Sat Nov 18 09:02:00 2023
    Dr. What wrote to Bob Worm <=-

    I think we all have our "vintage regrets" for one thing or another.

    AT&T 6300
    IBM PC XT
    Compaq Portable II
    Mac IIci
    HP Pavilion, this little toaster-shaped Celeron 533. The first
    Synchronet BBS I ran.




    ... XT or AT, it makes a big difference.
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  • From Bob Worm to Nightfox on Sat Nov 18 19:39:28 2023
    Re: Re: Big nostalgia hits
    By: Nightfox to Bob Worm on Fri Nov 17 2023 16:47:51

    Hi, Nightfox.

    hmm.. I hadn't really noticed. I thought the tones were all from the motors of the various floppy drives.

    I think the early videos were actually using floppy drive seeks to make the notes. Good stuff.

    It was the later videos where I feel like they were "cheating", possibly those ones were not even by the same guy, I don't know.

    BobW

    BobW
  • From massive@21:3/178 to Bob Worm on Sat Nov 18 14:07:59 2023
    The gentle ticking of the Amiga floppies as they check to see if
    a disk had been inserted.

    -andy

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  • From tenser@21:1/101 to poindexter FORTRAN on Sun Nov 19 09:52:05 2023
    On 18 Nov 2023 at 08:52a, poindexter FORTRAN pondered and said...

    tenser wrote to Bob Worm <=-

    The sound of the floppy diskette on the original Macintosh.

    I was at university when the Mac 512K model became "the" thing for
    students. Get your Apple Credit card at the local university, pick up a
    Mac, Applewriter printer and external floppy drive (you'll need it!)
    and you're on your way.

    I think those cards were something like 28% interest. Robbery, but it
    had to be given the potential risk they were taking - even with parents
    co-signing for them.

    The 512K "Fat" Mac was our first home computer. It wasn't
    until years later that I realized how much of a positive
    influence that had on how I thought about computing.

    Reading C.

    I bought K&R C a while ago to put into my bookcase. I'd thought about
    writing some C code again, it's been years.

    I got Brian to sign my copy of the first edition a few
    years ago (well, like 15). I should have asked Dennis
    to sign my copy of the 2nd Edition one time when I was
    in his office, but didn't for some reason.

    I got Steve Klabnik to sign my copy of The Rust
    Programming Language, but then, I talk to him really
    often.

    I got Paul Horowitz to sign a copy of, "The Art of
    Electronics" for my daughter. :-)

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  • From Bob Worm to Spectre on Sat Nov 18 21:32:25 2023
    Re: Re: Big nostalgia hits
    By: Spectre to Bob Worm on Sat Nov 18 2023 10:11:00

    Hi, Specre.

    There's always the Disk ][.

    I assume that's an Apple thing?

    Goes through the chugga chugga chugga during
    boot, as it ramps the head across 24 tracks to make sure its at 0 for boot load. if the head is sitting anywhere closer than track 24, it just beats the head against the mechanical stop cause it can't tell where the head is positioned.

    When I first revived my Acorn most of the software I could find was in disk images (I suppose disc in Acorn parlance) due to the jazzy way it handles file types. So to get basically anything working I had to code a raw disk writer in BASIC. Turns out while BASIC starts array indices, etc, at 1 (yuck), the underlying OS is zero based so when you make a system call to write track 40 it obediently tries to grind the head past the end of its track. Sounds very break-ey, won't be doing that again!

    BobW

    BobW
  • From Bob Worm to Spectre on Sat Nov 18 21:34:24 2023
    Re: Re: Big nostalgia hits
    By: Spectre to Bob Worm on Sat Nov 18 2023 15:32:00

    Careful or we'll spin your nipple nuts and call you Frank....

    Surely that's impossible without at least one live chicken and a Rabbi?


    BobW
  • From Bob Worm to Gamgee on Sat Nov 18 21:43:23 2023
    Re: Re: Big nostalgia hits
    By: Gamgee to Bob Worm on Sat Nov 18 2023 09:07:00

    Hi, Gamgee.

    Well, the different speeds/protocols did negotiate differently. I never
    did it, but with enough practice/effort, I'd think one could learn the differences. :-)

    Oh this was not the "that's a 14.4k melody" vs. "that's 33.6k" - this was always *trying* to connect at 56k but usually getting around 40k due to the distance of the call.

    Oh, wow - you just gave me a flashback to Dan Douglas' Duke
    Smoochem 3D, an amazingly accurate replica of UK life built in
    the Duke3D engine. It's the most British thing ever...

    Hehe, haven't heard of that one.

    It's rather good, I'd encourage anyone to watch it. For anyone who hasn't been to the UK it would be very random but, I presume, that would be fun in and of itself.

    BobW

    BobW
  • From Bob Worm to poindexter FORTRAN on Sat Nov 18 21:47:55 2023
    Re: Re: Big nostalgia hits
    By: poindexter FORTRAN to Bob Worm on Sat Nov 18 2023 08:56:00

    Hi, Poindexter.

    A year or so later when I asked a caller how he heard about my BBS, he
    said someone had given him a modem and a floppy disk with my BBS in the
    dialing directory... It was one of mine!

    That's a fantastic pay off. Did you work out if you were the "someone" in that story or if one of the original recipients had passed it on?

    BobW

    BobW
  • From poindexter FORTRAN@21:4/122 to Bob Worm on Sat Nov 18 18:10:42 2023
    Re: Re: Big nostalgia hits
    By: Bob Worm to poindexter FORTRAN on Sat Nov 18 2023 09:47 pm

    That's a fantastic pay off. Did you work out if you were the "someone" in that story or if one of the original recipients had passed it on?

    It was definitely one of "my" modems, someone I'd given a modem to had upgraded and handed the modem down to someone else, who ended up back calling where they'd come from.

    ...Change specifics to ambiguities
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  • From Blue White@21:4/134 to All on Sun Nov 19 10:09:10 2023
    My first computer was a TI 99/4a. It had the cassette tape drive instead
    of floppies. Much like the sound of that modems make, the sound of the cassette deck reading the programs from tape is a big nostalgia thing.

    They actually start out sounding a little similar.

    I got to the point where I could tell if the program that was being read
    from the tape had an error in it (or if it had an error when it was written
    to tape) because of the sounds the process would make near the end of the reading the program in. I don't remember it now, but ~12 y/o me knew. :)



    ... "Mmmmmmmm.....chocolate."
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  • From Dr. What@21:1/616 to poindexter FORTRAN on Sun Nov 19 15:48:38 2023
    poindexter FORTRAN wrote to Dr. What <=-

    I think we all have our "vintage regrets" for one thing or another.

    AT&T 6300

    Not a regret, but certainly a disappointment.

    At a previous company, I discovered an AT&T 6300 system (CPU, terminals, printers, cables, the works) on a pallet in the warehouse. It was slated for destruction. I tried to get someone to let me buy it for scrap, but they wouldn't allow me to. I later learned that someone just didn't want to do the paper work. :(


    ... The girl of your dreams is unavailable except in print.
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  • From poindexter FORTRAN@21:4/122 to Dr. What on Sun Nov 19 16:36:25 2023
    Re: Re: Big nostalgia hits
    By: Dr. What to poindexter FORTRAN on Sun Nov 19 2023 03:48 pm

    At a previous company, I discovered an AT&T 6300 system (CPU, terminals, printers, cables, the works) on a pallet in the warehouse. It was slated

    They were beautiful computers - built by Olivetti, an Italian company. 8086, if I recall - a proper 16-bit CPU.
    --- SBBSecho 3.20-Win32
    * Origin: realitycheckBBS.org -- information is power. (21:4/122)
  • From Spectre@21:3/101 to Bob Worm on Mon Nov 20 11:18:00 2023
    There's always the Disk ][.

    I assume that's an Apple thing?

    Yup the original Apple 5.25" drive. The whole thing was dumber than rocks
    and could be made to do all sorts of non standard things with any software
    that someone cared to write for it.

    Spec


    *** THE READER V4.50 [freeware]
    --- SuperBBS v1.17-3 (Eval)
    * Origin: A camel is a horse designed by a committee. (21:3/101)
  • From Spectre@21:3/101 to Bob Worm on Mon Nov 20 11:33:00 2023
    Well, the different speeds/protocols did negotiate differently. I

    Oh this was not the "that's a 14.4k melody" vs. "that's 33.6k" - this was

    If my rose sounding ears are recalling right, 300, 2400, and 28.8k were all pretty easy, anything else was tougher going and harder to pin down.

    Spec


    *** THE READER V4.50 [freeware]
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    * Origin: A camel is a horse designed by a committee. (21:3/101)
  • From Bob Worm to Spectre on Mon Nov 20 07:02:10 2023
    Re: Re: Big nostalgia hits
    By: Spectre to Bob Worm on Mon Nov 20 2023 11:18:00

    Hi, Spectre.

    Yup the original Apple 5.25" drive. The whole thing was dumber than rocks and could be made to do all sorts of non standard things with any software that someone cared to write for it.

    I vaguely remember in Woz's book he said that floppy controllers were phenomenally expensive, to the point where it put them out of reach for home applications, so he knocked something together from shift registers and whatever else could be obtained at a good price.

    While that meant more work for the host it "freed" everyone from the rigid notion of tracks and sectors. You could send the head wherever you liked while it was reading and writing, with spiral writing being one common way to do it. Apparently spiral written disks sound nice, but I've never heard it myself.

    BobW
  • From Spectre@21:3/101 to Bob Worm on Tue Nov 21 18:34:00 2023
    I vaguely remember in Woz's book he said that floppy controllers were phenomenally expensive, to the point where it put them out of reach for home applications, so he knocked something together from shift registers and whatever else could be obtained at a good price.

    While that meant more work for the host it "freed" everyone from the rigid notion of tracks and sectors. You could send the head wherever you liked while it was reading and writing, with spiral writing being one common way to do it. Apparently spiral written disks sound nice, but I've never heard it myself.

    All true... Woz seemed to be a bit like that, make the most of what you've
    got and software the rest. Spiral tracks and half tracks were pretty common
    in copy protection methods. But both were pretty short lived in
    effectiveness. If'n I recall right there might have been the odd reversed track sequence, where 0 is still at the outside to boot and everthing else is backwards. Most drives, at least the original Disk ]['s could also cope with more than 24 tracks, patch the DOS to allow more some would do 25/6 out of
    box otherwise you could wind in the stop and get a few extra tracks.

    Spec


    *** THE READER V4.50 [freeware]
    --- SuperBBS v1.17-3 (Eval)
    * Origin: A camel is a horse designed by a committee. (21:3/101)
  • From Bob Worm to Spectre on Tue Nov 21 10:03:13 2023
    Re: Re: Big nostalgia hits
    By: Spectre to Bob Worm on Tue Nov 21 2023 18:34:00

    Hi, Spec.

    Most drives, at least the original Disk ]['s could also cope
    with more than 24 tracks, patch the DOS to allow more some would
    do 25/6 out of box otherwise you could wind in the stop and get
    a few extra tracks.

    It's crazy the lengths we used to go to for an extra 1KB. I remember saying to someone years ago - imagine if we squeezed the juice out of modern hardware the way we used to out of 8 bit computers. Flying cars and stuff.

    BobW
  • From J0Hnny A1Pha@21:4/158 to Blue White on Tue Nov 21 11:15:44 2023
    My first computer was a TI 99/4a. It had the cassette tape drive instead of floppies. Much like the sound of that modems make, the sound of the cassette deck reading the programs from tape is a big nostalgia thing.

    Mine too! I recently purchased one on eBay to relive the nostalgia. That was a good little computer, and I learned Basic on it. Man, so many memories of loading programs from cassette...

    .jA.

    --- Renegade v1.33/DOS
    * Origin: R3TR0/X BBS: retrox.us:1992 (21:4/158)
  • From boraxman@21:1/101 to Bob Worm on Fri Nov 24 21:29:17 2023
    Years ago, I found a YouTube channel where someone has made a setup he the "Floppotron", which plays music with floppy drives. He has a bunch floppy disk drives connected to a computer that uses software to engage floppy drives' motors to produce various tones, and it looked to me lik software can load a MIDI file and play it with the floppy drives.

    I remember that, yes. The first few of those seemed really well done, a lot of effort put in to remake tracks around the limitations of the medium. Then I ran into more videos years later which included stepper motors and played multiple tones at once. It just seemed like analogue audio was being fed into the motors, not so much art to it, kind of spoiled it for me.

    Maybe I'm just grumpy.


    There was another channel where a Dot Matrix printer was used to make music, including the track of E1M1 of Doom. Can't remember what channel, but if you search for dot matrix doom e1m1 I'm sure it will come up.

    --- Mystic BBS v1.12 A48 (Linux/64)
    * Origin: Agency BBS | Dunedin, New Zealand | agency.bbs.nz (21:1/101)
  • From boraxman@21:1/101 to Bob Worm on Fri Nov 24 21:41:18 2023
    For some people it's the smell of waxed electronic components inside an old radio. For me, seeing the VGA 80x25 font for the first time in years almost crashed my brain from nostalgia overload. Even something as
    simple as seeing the word "CLICK!" when disconnecting from a (telnet)
    BBS sometimes sets me off.

    Last night I heard the distinctive ding-ding-ding of a Quake grenade and it triggered an immediate rush of excitement and fond memories, way out
    of proportion to the stimulus.

    So - how about you lot? What has unexpectedly slapped you in the face
    with nostalgia over the years?

    BobW

    BobW

    Seeing my XT system back in action, a CGA font on a Green monochrome Amdek monitor and hearing the PC speaker in actions on my old 486.

    The first 386 I had, was the first machine with a sound card, modem, 256 colour and a hard drive, and it had lots of shareware preloaded, so it was fun to poke around.

    I still use these systems from time to time, and I STILL play Quake, so its just as current for me, but it feels different now to when it was the first time.

    ... Running Windows is better than washing them!

    --- Mystic BBS v1.12 A48 (Linux/64)
    * Origin: Agency BBS | Dunedin, New Zealand | agency.bbs.nz (21:1/101)
  • From Atari8Guy@21:3/171 to tenser on Tue Nov 28 01:31:14 2023
    On 18 Nov 23 07:05:13 tenser wrote...


    On 16 Nov 2023 at 11:53a, Bob Worm pondered and said...
    For some people it's the smell of waxed electronic components
    inside an old radio. For me, seeing the VGA 80x25 font for the
    first time in years almost crashed my brain from nostalgia
    overload. Even something as simple as seeing the word "CLICK!"
    when disconnecting from a (telnet) BBS sometimes sets me off.

    Last night I heard the distinctive ding-ding-ding of a Quake
    grenade and it triggered an immediate rush of excitement and
    fond memories, way out of proportion to the stimulus.

    So - how about you lot? What has unexpectedly slapped you in the
    face with nostalgia over the years?

    The 4.3BSD boot banner after the kernel loads on a VAX-11.

    The sound of the floppy diskette on the original Macintosh.

    Using VM/CMS on an IBM mainframe with x3270 and the 3179G fonts and
    color scheme. The "RUNNING" string in the lower right corner.

    The "Username:" prompt from VMS.

    Logging into a Plan 9 terminal.

    Reading C.

    --- Mystic BBS v1.12 A48 (Linux/64) * Origin: Agency BBS | Dunedin,
    New Zealand | agency.bbs.nz (21:1/101)

    To which Atari8Guy replies...

    The Atari disk drive fart noise. and the song it plays during the self
    test. Also that walking robot demo.

    --- RATSoft/FIDO v09.14.95 [JetMail 1.01]
    * Origin: STar Fleet HQ - Real Atari! bbs.sfhqbbs.org:5983 (21:3/171.0)