Tech stuff you thought was magic

jimgoose

Greenmachine wrote: »

Years ago a program call x-copy on the amiga seemed amazing. Especially when used to copy an x-copy disk. I had no idea at the time how data was stored on computers. I was just happy fooling around with monkey island and superfrog and god knows how many other games.

xcopy was a mind-funk right enough. Then you discover Unix, multiple filesystems/spindles, and move is copy and copy is move, except when it isn't. :pac:

eamonnq

Irish Guitarist wrote: »

It looks so simple but it's producing beautiful music. It's also therapeutic, even almost hypnotic, to actually watch the record just spinning.

You need to get out more!!

syklops

In the world of nanotechnology, hydro-phobic materials. That still amazes me.

Greenmachine

jimgoose wrote: »

xcopy was a mind-funk right enough. Then you discover Unix, multiple filesystems/spindles, and move is copy and copy is move, except when it isn't. :pac:

You have me now. Never used UNIX, I am a still a pitiful Windows user.

The stuff the guys from the demo scene did back then amazed me too. Granted it was already over a decade old when I first came across it. A few kb were enough for a progressive musical sample, multiple moving objects layered with color. I would expect heaps more now from the GB's of space left on physical media, some time travel, a 3d universe printer or something lol.

syklops

jimgoose wrote: »

xcopy was a mind-funk right enough. Then you discover Unix, multiple filesystems/spindles, and move is copy and copy is move, except when it isn't. :pac:

Despite using it on an almost daily basis, I'm still in awe of SSH tunnelling.

Idjit

When I was in Primary School we were brought to a science fair kind of thing. There was a computer there (the huge old computers with fat grey monitors) with a touch screen.

I still remember it as it was the first time in my life I saw a touch screen functioning in person. You could drag the cursor with your finger, and click on folders. That was it.

But this was such absolute magic to me, I never would have believed then that as an adult I would have a touch screen device for a phone. Even now I sometimes look at my younger sister and marvel at the fact that she was born into this technology, I got to see it being introduced.

branners69

Jade182 wrote: »

Even now I sometimes look at my younger sister and marvel at the fact that she was born into this technology, I got to see it being introduced.

My kids still get a laugh out of the fact that televisions didnt have a remote control when I was younger. I can now control tvs, receivers, media players etc from my phone!

Dravokivich

branners69 wrote: »

My kids still get a laugh out of the fact that televisions didnt have a remote control when I was younger. I can now control tvs, receivers, media players etc from my phone!

I remember using match sticks to tune channels!

Idjit

branners69 wrote: »

My kids still get a laugh out of the fact that televisions didnt have a remote control when I was younger. I can now control tvs, receivers, media players etc from my phone!

When I was small we had one of the old tuner televisions too. I used to love them It's so strange that in the same childhood I had one of those televisions..and then I got to use a touch screen computer!

I'm part of a strange in-the-middle generation haha

One eyed Jack

The Casio Remote Control watch -


https://dpagett.files.wordpress.com/2009/06/casio-remote-control-watch.jpg


Well, I didn't think it was magic, but the other people in the bank weren't sure what was going on when the tv showing the Aertel page with the share prices started switching channels and blasting up full volume of it's own accord, until they switched it to standby, and normality was restored... until it turned back on! :eek: :pac:


I had to stop before I got caught

ra0044

Tech support who " dialed in " to your pc at work and took control of your cursor to sort out the issue you were having.

Lots of fun watching the tech support guy randomly clicking in and out of folders and menus because he also had no idea what the hell was up with the stupid thing either. Let alone just nudging the mouse about and denying you were messing with it to frustrate him even more. Simpler times.

This to me was an incredible step in computing as I was able to install the same software on my mothers pc at home so I could mend her computer without having to to talk her step by painfully slow step on how to accomplish the simplest of tasks. No more screaming down the phone in frustration when she randomly clicked on things I couldn't see and she couldn't describe.

syklops

Jade182 wrote: »

When I was small we had one of the old tuner televisions too. I used to love them It's so strange that in the same childhood I had one of those televisions..and then I got to use a touch screen computer!

I'm part of a strange in-the-middle generation haha

I think my mother can attest to being the in the middle generation. She was born in a house with no running water and part of her job from aged five was to go down to the well in the morning and get some water to make the tea. Her sister went to Australia as a missionary and they waited for 8 weeks for a letter confirming whether she got there safely or not.

Now she has a HTC One android smart phone, and used Skype to talk to my sister and me when we were in Central Europe. She has a laptop, she can work the Sky+, and emails cousins in America.

I can't imagine anyone seeing a bigger change in technology than she did.

paulbok

One eyed Jack wrote: »

The Casio Remote Control watch -


https://dpagett.files.wordpress.com/2009/06/casio-remote-control-watch.jpg


Well, I didn't think it was magic, but the other people in the bank weren't sure what was going on when the tv showing the Aertel page with the share prices started switching channels and blasting up full volume of it's own accord, until they switched it to standby, and normality was restored... until it turned back on! :eek: :pac:


I had to stop before I got caught

Not as much fun as changing the channel as the ball gets kicked into the box during football matches in pubs.:D

I got caught and put out.:o

alb

Bittorrent is amazing, moreso because it was one of those hindsight ones where it should have been obvious, because the idea is not all that complicated.

Bitcoin still blows me away. The invention of a scarce, p2p transferable digital resource without any entity in charge is incredible, most thought it was impossible, and it took 20 years. This also introduced me to some of the existing tech it's built on like digital signatures, which still amaze me. I can sign a message with my private key, you can verify that I have by only knowing my public key - effecitvely proving to someone you possess a password without having to tell them the password. Cryptography is fascinating.

Increases in storage also blow my mind, It'll soon be possible to carry a video library and an entire music store around on your phone

dublinman1990

I remember having floppy disks from 4th year in school only 7 years ago. Then we had USB sticks. I bought my first 2GB stick in Eason's about 4 years ago for €7.

Now in 2015; people can now buy Hard Disk Drives with at least a massive 500GB of storage up to a maximum of 1 or 2 TB for at least €60 & upwards. To learn that these things can have the ability with not just storing only various documents; but other things like movies, TV shows and tons of photos and music.

A complete revolution in external storage technology for the masses.

milltown

Going from typing in lines and pages of BASIC into a Sinclair ZX81 to play a sh!t game to loading great (at the time) games from a tape onto the ZX Spectrum in mere minutes was mind blowing. As was the fact that a C90 cassette could hold a dozen or more games that could be borrowed for an evening and enjoyed at leisure.

Looking back and comparing, it's hard to listen to companies nowadays moaning about how piracy is killing their business. The hassle that's involved these days in getting a pirated game to actually run is ridiculous. Or at least it was the last time I tried it.

eamonnq

milltown wrote: »

Going from typing in lines and pages of BASIC into a Sinclair ZX81 to play a sh!t game

You forgot all the time it took to find the typo that caused the game to not run (or the 20 more typos after you found the first one!!).

Greenmachine

One eyed Jack wrote: »

The Casio Remote Control watch -


https://dpagett.files.wordpress.com/2009/06/casio-remote-control-watch.jpg


Well, I didn't think it was magic, but the other people in the bank weren't sure what was going on when the tv showing the Aertel page with the share prices started switching channels and blasting up full volume of it's own accord, until they switched it to standby, and normality was restored... until it turned back on! :eek: :pac:


I had to stop before I got caught

Remember kids bringing them into school after trips to america in the 80's. Strangely I was more of jealous of their aerlingus peanuts. I naturally assumed they were infinitely better than the one from the pub. Many a laugh was had in school with the joys of the universal remote casio watch.

milltown

eamonnq wrote: »

You forgot all the time it took to find the typo that caused the game to not run (or the 20 more typos after you found the first one!!).

The good old syntax error. May it rot in hell.

_Brian

ED E wrote: »

The odd time I'm in PC world or DID I love to do similar to their salespeople.

Same..
Was in Pc World one day playing dumb and the sales person told me not to worry about buying AMD, he said AMD was just a brand name Intel used to sell cheap product and they were made in the same factories.. :eek:

Greenmachine

_Brian wrote: »

Same..
Was in Pc World one day playing dumb and the sales person told me not to worry about buying AMD, he said AMD was just a brand name Intel used to sell cheap product and they were made in the same factories.. :eek:

Jesus that is shocking.

Capt'n Midnight

jimgoose wrote: »

Ah, one bearing failure from death - that's the spirit!
"If only we could fall
like cherry-blossoms in Spring,
Pure and radiant!"

BANZAI!!

spinning rust :P

Your file was so big.
It might be very useful.
But now it is gone.



A crash reduces
Your expensive computer
To a simple stone.

bonzodog2

Capt'n Midnight wrote: »

spinning rust :P

Your file was so big.
It might be very useful.
But now it is gone.



A crash reduces
Your expensive computer
To a simple stone.

Ah yes. I remember with fondness the haiku error messages of BeOS.
edit:https://www.gnu.org/fun/jokes/error-haiku.html

Capt'n Midnight

Forward Error Correction. And I still think it's magic.

It means you can play Chinese Whispers as long as you want and never get a wrong message.



The double base paring of DNA. It's nearly as simple as binary having just four values. But the core instructions for how to make the complex ribosomes needed for life haven't changed much in the last few billion years. Given the number of generations* involved it's amazing how little life has diverged.

*Clostridium perfringens , the organism responsible for gas gangrene can double it's numbers in as little as 6.3 minutes.

dodzy

MONSTER branded HDMi cables. A thing of beauty.

Mallagio

dodzy wrote: »

MONSTER branded HDMi cables. A thing of beauty.

Always smelt like dung though