Things (online things/software) that went obsolete in the Internet age. [Archive]

Trebuchet

2011-Jan-23, 04:15 AM

Lycos, Hotbot, AOL (insomuch as they wanted to be a separate, parallel internet), all those email based BBS (bulletin board) systems, etc.

I'm going to be daring with a prognosis, but I think we can wager that online pr0n will be around the longest of all.

Since "pr0n" was probably just about the first application of cave painting, the printing press, and the internet, I'd say it'll be in a similar position for whatever replaces the www.

For defunct services, don't forget Prodigy and GEnie, both of which we once used.

ETA: And in other areas, the publication of the annual paper phone book used to be a big event at the large company I worked for. It's been a good 10 years now since they had one.

Inclusa

2011-Jan-23, 04:37 AM

What does ETA stand for?

Nick Theodorakis

2011-Jan-23, 04:53 AM

ETA = "edited to add." It's often used when someones adds significant material to the reply after posting.

JohnD

2011-Jan-23, 06:34 PM

Letters.
Telephone boxes (nearly) And keeping some coins in a seperate pocket "in case you needed to make a call".
Going to the dump with rubbish from the garage (sell it on eBay)
Dictionaries (for spellcheck purposes) or Thesauruses
Soon - newspapers? Records, tapes, CD-ROMs, of music.
Roadmaps - Satnav
Film cameras - just before the silver ran out.

John

Inclusa

2011-Jan-24, 03:44 AM

Sorry #7, I'm not referring to futures or real things; just anything on the Internet that has disappeared.

Nick Theodorakis

2011-Jan-24, 04:39 AM

Gopher, WAIS, archie, anonymous ftp (yes, the protocol still exists, and I'm sure it's being used, but it's not longer the great depository of archived information it was) ... usenet is not dead yet (there are still a few ngs I follow, but traffic is way down), but I don't see it lasting the next decade ...
Geocities (are Angelfire and Tripod still around?), friendster (mostly dead, and myspace is headed that way), napster was dead but the name got re-used

Nick

Jens

2011-Jan-24, 05:53 AM

FidoNet.

Swift

2011-Jan-24, 02:08 PM

Wordperfect, Lotus 1-2-3, VisiCalc, IBM OS2

rommel543

2011-Jan-24, 07:14 PM

Wordperfect, Lotus 1-2-3, VisiCalc, IBM OS2

We can hope those stay dead.....

Swift

2011-Jan-24, 08:06 PM

We can hope those stay dead.....
Actually, back when they were competitors, I liked 1-2-3 better than Excel, and Wordperfect was OK in its day.

kleindoofy

2011-Jan-24, 09:36 PM

Gopher, WAIS, archie ...
Wow, I had actually forgotten about those. Stone Age file transfer.

And, yes, anonymous ftp is still around, but not as it zsed to be.

Wordperfect, Lotus 1-2-3, VisiCalc, IBM OS2
Not to mention Ventura Publisher, Picture Publisher, and MS Works. (Was MS Works ever really alive?)

I still use WordPerfect 5.0 (DOS) occasionally when converting certain documents to TeX. It has one or two functions that make life easy.

jfribrg

2011-Jan-24, 09:52 PM

Wordperfect, Lotus 1-2-3, VisiCalc, IBM OS2

I remember using VisiCalc when we installed Lotus 1-2-3. After about 2 minutes using it, I concluded that VisiCalc would be dead very soon. Lotus 1-2-3 was that much better.

But Visicalc also spelled doom for a predecessor. The mainframe timesharing spreadsheets (that easily cost tens of thousands of dollars per year in usage fees) were dead within a year of Visicalc coming out.

Any predictions on what will spell the doom of Excel? I haven't a clue, but surely something will eventually replace it. Maybe some kind of cloud based program, which IMO is starting to sound eerily like those maineframe timesharing systems....

Swift

2011-Jan-24, 09:58 PM

Any predictions on what will spell the doom of Excel? I haven't a clue, but surely something will eventually replace it. Maybe some kind of cloud based program, which IMO is starting to sound eerily like those maineframe timesharing systems....
I do find that one of the funnier things about the whole "cloud-based" computing platforms. One of the big selling points of PCs were that they weren't just a dumb terminal, tied to a big server someplace. We seem to be going full circle.

kleindoofy

2011-Jan-24, 10:18 PM

... We seem to be going full circle.
Except that you don't need a SysReq key (at least not yet), there's no grumpy dispatch operator, and you get more than 30 seconds of cpu before having to re-log.

Oh the memories of waiting two hours for a free VMS terminal at 2AM at the university computer building.

slang

2011-Jan-24, 10:21 PM

ICQ... sigh.. and I even had a 6-digit ID!

Floppy based OS distributions. Naughty GIF images. Collection CD's with loads and loads of crappy shareware sold for way too much money, after which you'd still have to pay for the shareware. Segfault.org

Gopher, WAIS, archie,

Hah, beat me to it.

anonymous ftp

Many of the old FTP sites still exist, although some only in a MIRROR subdir on others. But yes, it has surely lost its significance. Good(?) old days.. always packing a couple of floppies when going to the university, because that was the only place where one could access the FTP sites.

We can hope those stay dead.....

Actually, some of the things Swift mentioned were, at that time, (IMHO!), actually superior to the software that is most used now. Especially Wordperfect and OS/2. Just not in marketing strategies, legal, and less legal. Not part of the internet as such, though.

kleindoofy

2011-Jan-24, 10:52 PM

... superior ... Especially Wordperfect ...
Rumor had it that the DOS versions of WP were programmed directly in Assembler. That made the .exe much smaller than most other programs and it run faster and with less problems.

Although MS Word 5 for DOS had gained momentum, Word didn't really leave WP in the dust until the Windows versions came on the market, i.e. Winword 2. The Windows versions of WP sucked big time; it didn't just die: it commited suicide.

slang

2011-Jan-24, 11:21 PM

Although MS Word 5 for DOS had gained momentum, Word didn't really leave WP in the dust until the Windows versions came on the market, i.e. Winword 2. The Windows versions of WP sucked big time; it didn't just die: it commited suicide.

Yes, I specifically meant WP in the DOS era, compared to Word in that time. IMHO WP failed as windows application by insisting upon its own well-known user interface instead of adopting the Windows standard. It felt like it had gone through some automatic source converter to "windowsfy" it. In hindsight a very, very bad decision, but perhaps understandable when experience with WordPerfect was still a big bonus on almost anyone's CV.

Obligatory ancient joke: "F3!! F3!!!" ... <- Wordperfect user yelling for help.

pzkpfw

2011-Jan-24, 11:29 PM

...

Have to agree there. WP 5.1 for Dos was great, but the first windows versions really felt like they'd been written by people who didn't actually know how to write windows software. Edit: not just the U.I., but also the overall clunkiness (lag) of it.

One thing I miss is the macro programming model of Lotus 1-2-3. It was odd (though beautiful in its own way), but it worked and was easy to tweak. Programming Excel (and Word etc) works fine, but it just feels so much "harder" for the small/trivial tasks - the simple keystroke saver type stuff that macros were originally all about.

Edit2: Come to think of it, WP5.1 also had a "quick-macro" feature that worked so much better than the macro recorder in todays' Word.

Van Rijn

2011-Jan-25, 01:13 AM

I knew Lotus 123 quite well, and taught classes on it for a time, but was very angry with the company when they sued Borland on Quatro Pro (which was superior to Lotus and less expensive as well), instead of improving Lotus and competing honestly. They won that legal battle, but ultimately I think that attitude (sitting on their design too long) was one of the things that helped them lose the battle with Microsoft.

In its time, Word Perfect was far superior to Wordstar (which I hated). WP died as a serious product when Novell bought it. One of the big advantages for WP is that support calls were free, and the folks answering the phone knew the product, and were extremely helpful. Novell stopped that, and just didn't seem to care about the product in general.

OS/2 was an excellent product in its day. I think that if IBM had worked harder at it they could have taken the PC OS market away from Microsoft.

Rhaedas

2011-Jan-25, 01:23 AM

BBSes in general. As well as modems.

Nick Theodorakis

2011-Jan-25, 01:29 AM

I wrote my Ph.D. thesis on WordPerfect 5.1. I think at one time I probably didn't even need the "F-Key" template. I used a lot of WP5.1 macros, too. The best one I made was to automatically number my references. That was a huge time saver. (This was before Reference Manager).

Other obsolete things:
Procomm (and other dial up software)
Heck, modems, for that matter.
DeskView
Memory managers (QEMM386. e.g.)
WinSOCK

Solfe

2011-Jan-25, 04:30 AM

Those funny noises that came out of the modem as you connected. I sort of miss those.

Compton's encyclopedia on just one CD-rom. I thought it was the greatest thing. My friend and I looked up "motorcycle" expecting greatness; instead it was on paragraph about motorcycles in general. At the bottom of the window, there was a cross reference - "see amputation". My friend belted out "My God! Mom got to them too!!!"

Trebuchet

2011-Jan-25, 05:20 AM

Those funny noises that came out of the modem as you connected. I sort of miss those.

I don't miss them. I hear them every time I have to access the internet from my main residence.... Hopefully I'll be stepping into the 21st century there before too much longer. I've been held back a bit by the mess in the office and my hatred of Compuserve.

Solfe

2011-Jan-25, 10:09 PM

"Darth Vader: Where are those transmissions you intercepted? WHAT have you DONE with those plans?
Captain Antilles: We intercepted no transmissions... we have Compuserve! We barely get email!" - Riff Trax.

Trebuchet

2011-Jan-26, 12:53 AM

I don't miss them. I hear them every time I have to access the internet from my main residence.... Hopefully I'll be stepping into the 21st century there before too much longer. I've been held back a bit by the mess in the office and my hatred of Compuserve.

Gaaah! I didn't mean Compuserve (which is of course defunct), I meant Comcast! COMCAST! Doh!

Nick Theodorakis

2011-Jan-26, 03:19 AM

Oddly enough, I just realized I still remember my CompuServe login id (73770,1343). I can't believe I have neurons whose job it is to remember that.

Nick

ggremlin

2011-Jan-26, 06:34 AM

I give you, "Netscape Communications" and its browser.

slang

2011-Jan-26, 04:39 PM

Oddly enough, I just realized I still remember my CompuServe login id (73770,1343).

That was you!? Not a cute blonde from Cali!? *mumbles about calling lawyers*

I give you, "Netscape Communications" and its browser.

Hm.. but Netscape returned, as a Mozilla clone. Company went bust though. Mosaic (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mosaic_%28web_browser%29)!

grapes

2011-Jan-26, 04:50 PM

I wonder why no one has mentioned Microsoft Bob? Aaargggghhhh...get it off me!!...

Trebuchet

2011-Jan-26, 05:06 PM

I wonder why no one has mentioned Microsoft Bob? Aaargggghhhh...get it off me!!...

As a Bob myself, that one particularly offended me!

captain swoop

2011-Jan-26, 08:13 PM

Viewdata. Before the internet in the UK British Telecom had a viewdata based system called Prestel. Mainly used by business there was a home user service 'Micronet'. You got an email address and could send text emails but also graphices using viewdata codes. Up to 26 screens long. Chat areas, some 'real time' and other BB style. Again you could send viewdata graphics to them. There was a turn based strategy game called Starnet, there were dozens of players all in various alliances vying to become Emperor of a space empire. You got your own 'pages' to edit, up to 26 screens. Various magazines and special interest areas. What was best though was the first Multi User Role Playing Game in the world. Shades, a text based 'Infocom' style adventure that could host up to 36 players at once packed with puzzles, fights and very immersive for its day. Serious players bypassed the Viewdata interface and logged direct into the game with terminal software. Shades lived on after the demise of Prestel for a few years until graphics based games appeared.
I don't miss phoning whoever the distribution company was for the card you had to install and getting them to mail you a disk with a driver on it before you could finish repairing a customers gear.

ALso trying to fit Quark files, text files and all the pictures onto a clunky optical 'Zip' disk to get it to the Repro House for setting.

Swift

2011-Jan-26, 09:36 PM

Not an online thing, but a software thing... I do miss the days of DOS and autoexec.bat and config.sys files. I could deal with those and fix just about any problem that came up. I'm sure part of it is the old-dog/new-tricks problem, but I can't keep up with fixing registry problems and network configurations and all the current "stuff".

kleindoofy

2011-Jan-26, 09:54 PM

Viewdata. Before the internet in the UK British Telecom had a viewdata based system called Prestel. ...
The German Telekom was used to having a total monopoly on telecommunications. They actually thought they could monopolize the internet in Germany. At the same time that most countries already had budding forms of the internet, most modem models were still forbidden in Germany.

Then the Teleokom came out with this crappy service called "Bildschirmtext (Btx)." You had to buy a special terminal style computer for it (or use a PC-emulator). All it was was a 9600 modem with a tiny screen + keyboard. You had to pay per "page" view.

The Telekom did everything it could squash normal modem usage.

Well, they failed miserably at that and Btx sank like a lead balloon.

Then, even after the market opened up, since the Telekom (at that time, i.e. the late 1990's) still provided 99% of all phone lines, they tried to convince everybody that you had to use their "T-Online" browser. That browser connected by default to an AOL-style Telekom internet-within-the-internet "T-Online"-World. That "T-Online"-World tried to provide "everything you need."

It was nothing more than a perpetuated, post Btx attempt to monopolize the net in Germany. In fact, many people really thought the internet started and ended with the T-Online world. You could visit non-T-Online sites, but they always opened inside an enclosed T-Online world browser environment window, so the sheep still thought they were surfing through the graces of the T-Online world. It still exists to a certain extent (http://www.t-online.de/), but I don't know anybody who visits it or uses the crappy browser anymore. I never did. It's amazing how many people really thought the T-online browser was mandatory.

Later they called DSL "T-DSL" and tried to make everybody believe it was something different and special. It was just normal ADSL, but again the sheep followed the flock.

The Telekom has now lost almost all of its internet power and hasn't tried one of its marketing scams in years.

... ALso trying to fit Quark files, text files and all the pictures onto a clunky optical 'Zip' disk to get it to the Repro House for setting.
That's why I ended up buying my own machines (used). I had two old AM Varitypers, but I sold them both a few years ago. Who makes offset films anymore?

Solfe

2011-Jan-26, 11:10 PM

"eWorld" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EWorld), I guess iWorld didn't make sense. :)

I have a handful of 4 mb RAM. I have also noticed that "The Dance Baby" hasn't been around much either.

slang

2011-Jan-27, 12:13 AM

Prestel, Btx, I think it was called Viditel here. It was still in use a few years ago, be it very sporadic.

I have also noticed that "The Dance Baby" hasn't been around much either.

He evolved and procreated. Result (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XQcVllWpwGs). Hampsterdance? :)

captain swoop

2011-Jan-27, 12:29 AM

The German Telekom was used to having a total monopoly on telecommunications. They actually thought they could monopolize the internet in Germany. At the same time that most countries already had budding forms of the internet, most modem models were still forbidden in Germany.

Then the Teleokom came out with this crappy service called "Bildschirmtext (Btx)." You had to buy a special terminal style computer for it (or use a PC-emulator). All it was was a 9600 modem with a tiny screen + keyboard. You had to pay per "page" view.

The Telekom did everything it could squash normal modem usage.

Well, they failed miserably at that and Btx sank like a lead balloon.

France had something similar with their 'minitel' system, Viewdata with dedicated terminals. Prestel was just a subscription. You needed Viewdata emulation (I had a BBC Model B in 'Mode 7' it was viewdata) and you supplied your own Modem or got the BT 'Accoustic Coupler' that you plugged your phone into.

That's why I ended up buying my own machines (used). I had two old AM Varitypers, but I sold them both a few years ago. Who makes offset films anymore?

In the late 90s when I was at EMAP publishing they had just stopped sending their Proofing out and had a couple of Apple Colour Lasers installed, they cost a fortune but paid for themselves in a few months of not having to pay for Cromalins. As it happens I set up the Apple Lasers for Emap, I was working for the company that supplied them. We had to do a structural survey to make sure the floor would take them and they had to be set dead level so the fuser oil stayed where it was supposed to.

kleindoofy

2011-Jan-27, 12:49 AM

...not having to pay for Cromalins. ...
I had a Fuji ColorArt setup for analog proofs. It was fantastic.

When I started sending off data for CTP, I would still make tableau films for proofs, but since I was image setting so little, I couldn't keep the developer chemicals up for proper density and the proofs started losing their color correctness.

For a while I used Imation Rainbow 2730 thermosublimation printers (I still have a couple I got off Ebay, but don't use them anymore), and currently use an Epson Stylus Pro 4880 with an Efi RIP.

Edit as disclaimer: I never bought the machines mentioned above (including the imagesetters) as new machines*, That would have been much too expensive. Buying them used, I was always slightly behind the newest equipment, but that didn't matter as long as the product came out right. I just compensated with longer hours, hand programmed transfer curves, constant density and gray curve checking with a densitometer, etc. But, the machines paid for themselves many times over just in saved costs, not to mention the convenience of not having to make a mad dash to the repro people on Friday evening.

*except the 4880, that was brand new.

Trebuchet

2011-Jan-27, 03:15 AM

grapes

2011-Jan-27, 03:26 AM

kleindoofy

2011-Jan-27, 03:35 AM

I'm SO glad it's not just me. ...
It's not, but it's also not an old-dog/new-tricks problem.

In the past, most people could tweek the config.sys and autoexec.bat. These days only few can really fool around in the registry. A goof in the config.sys and autoexec.bat just meant a few boot straps, with a system diskette if necessary. These days a goof in the registry is an express ride down the road to perdition.

At least we can start up regedit without saying "what, I have to type it in?"

edit: what I really miss is how every program (windows) used to have its own local .ini file in ascii. Then they went binary and now it's all in the registry. It used to be so easy to just do a quick edit of the .ini. Ah, the good 'ol days.

Van Rijn

2011-Jan-27, 08:06 AM

I knew DOS very well, but I've kept up pretty well on the OS front. On the other hand, I'm not doing well with Office 2010. I avoided Office upgrades at home, and at work, my department skipped Office 2007, but had to upgrade to Office 2010 to keep Microsoft support. Office 2010 is incredibly frustrating. The UI switch from menu to ribbon is massive, and I'm spending a ridiculous amount of time hunting down things that I used to be able to do in seconds through the menus. In many cases, where there used to be easily understood words, there are now icons that don't mean anything to me. The UI makes it so hard to find things I usually end up Googling for help. I expect I'll eventually adapt, mostly, but I doubt I'll ever like it.

captain swoop

2011-Jan-27, 10:30 AM

I had a Fuji ColorArt setup for analog proofs. It was fantastic.

When I started sending off data for CTP, I would still make tableau films for proofs, but since I was image setting so little, I couldn't keep the developer chemicals up for proper density and the proofs started losing their color correctness.

For a while I used Imation Rainbow 2730 thermosublimation printers (I still have a couple I got off Ebay, but don't use them anymore), and currently use an Epson Stylus Pro 4880 with an Efi RIP.

Edit as disclaimer: I never bought the machines mentioned above (including the imagesetters) as new machines*, That would have been much too expensive. Buying them used, I was always slightly behind the newest equipment, but that didn't matter as long as the product came out right. I just compensated with longer hours, hand programmed transfer curves, constant density and gray curve checking with a densitometer, etc. But, the machines paid for themselves many times over just in saved costs, not to mention the convenience of not having to make a mad dash to the repro people on Friday evening.

*except the 4880, that was brand new.

My last job in a studio was a contract about 6 years ago with a company that produces most of the UKs Greetings Cards. One of the projects was to bring their proofing in house, they were sending out. We leased a pair of Xerox Colour proofers and put them onto Efi Rips in Xeon boxes (the only none Macs in the building) It was saving them something like £100.000 a year in repro costs. plus they have more control over their colour matching, no one else to blame :)

Inclusa

2011-Jan-28, 05:18 AM

It sounds fun that people do know so much about technological history.

Van Rijn

2011-Jan-28, 08:34 AM

It sounds fun that people do know so much about technological history.

"History"? Ouch. You make it sound like something that happened a long time ago.

captain swoop

2011-Jan-28, 09:18 AM

It did

Trebuchet

2011-Jan-28, 10:17 PM

Nothing's older than last year's computer.

kleindoofy

2011-Jan-28, 10:56 PM

OS version size doesn't matter, it's what you do with it that counts. ;)

ravens_cry

2011-Jan-29, 05:17 AM

I would say shareware has largely died out. The Internet may also have helped kill adventure games, with ease of access to walkthroughs and hints and tips.

Inclusa

2011-Jan-29, 07:02 AM

Yep. Walkthroughs generally spoil games, even though they get monotonous sooner or later.

Trebuchet

2011-Jan-30, 02:46 AM

I rather miss the old text adventures. The graphics (supplied by my imagination) pretty much beat anything available even today.

Solfe

2011-Jan-30, 03:14 AM

I still have Netscape Communicator on my old mac, it seems to die when it tries to read certain scripts but it is serviable on wikipedia or more specifically the copy of Wikipedia for Schools that I downloaded to my hard disc.

It is especially funny to watch someones jaw hit the floor when I use a 12 year old iBook to view Wikipedia pages at school. They can't believe I can do that because OS 9 can't handle the new wireless cards and there is no compatible java to run the log on script; but the kicker is I can truthfully say "Oh, no! I'm not connected, I simply downloaded Wikipedia!"

ravens_cry

2011-Jan-30, 11:31 AM

Solfe

2011-Jan-30, 04:55 PM

Wikipedia for Schools? 2 GB compressed, 4 GB expanded. I keep it on an SD card so I can have it on whatever PC I am using.

Here is a link: http://schools-wikipedia.org/

kleindoofy

2011-Jan-30, 09:39 PM

Wikipedia for Schools? ...
I'll bet there's a long list of entries missing, at least in the version for countries which labor nanny filters.

nightmarepatrol

2011-Jan-30, 10:14 PM

Except that you don't need a SysReq key (at least not yet), there's no grumpy dispatch operator, and you get more than 30 seconds of cpu before having to re-log.

Oh the memories of waiting two hours for a free VMS terminal at 2AM at the university computer building.

I still admin some VMS systems, It's a shame that OS is on the way out.. It gave the IT world so much and asked for nothing in return.

Solfe

2011-Jan-31, 12:04 AM

Oh, yeah there are tons of things missing. But is handy for looking general information. They also ripped out all of the annoying citation because by the time you get to the end user, the links are likely dead.

It is best used in the library where you already have a zillion books, but have no idea where to start.

Infinity Watcher

2011-Jan-31, 03:44 PM

I would say shareware has largely died out. The Internet may also have helped kill adventure games, with ease of access to walkthroughs and hints and tips.

Not so sure about this one, severely wounded I'd say rather than killed: Myst is still around and Telltale games have been making a lot of good adventure games recently (monkey island, Sam and Max etc, personally I'm hoping for a remake of Day of the Tentacle since I never got to play it the first time around)

kleindoofy

2011-Jan-31, 11:56 PM

I find it amusing how some people discard things as "old fashioned," only to re-invent them.

Working in publishing, I use a fax machine very often. Somebody recently had a laugh at that and said that the fax is dead, ancient, and out. Use email!

Ok, I said, but what about things that are old and already printed or have handwritten notes on them (e.g. galley proofs)?

The answer was that I should scan them and send them as a PDF in an email.

Ok, but I asked, wouldn't it be cool to have a machine that scans the pages one by one automatically and then sends them off as data to another machine that prints them out right away?

This was received with a very positive response, yes that would be cool.

I honestly don't know if he didn't realize I had just described a fax machine to him. :doh:

captain swoop

2011-Feb-01, 12:10 AM

I remember selling and setting up fax server software, we used to use the Mac Se/30, it was a IIx in an 'old style all in one box but with expansin capabilities and lateron a processor upgrade. They could take 128MB of ram a lot for thye time. They made ideal little servers for Desktop Fax. They were overtaken by Email by the late 90s though.

Romanus

2011-Feb-01, 01:54 AM

Geocities: not technically extinct, but long gone in the U.S., anyway.

To whoever mentioned the text-based games, let me also mention Sierra's adventure games (Space Quest, King's Quest, etc.), along with Sierra itself.

Solfe

2011-Feb-01, 02:59 AM

I still play Simutronics Gemstones IV. Addiction does not care about the advances of the real world. :)

Does anyone else remember AOL when there would be an 8 pm rush where you got bumped off line and then were subjected to 30 minutes of busy signal?

Nick Theodorakis

2011-Feb-01, 03:04 AM

To whoever mentioned the text-based games, ...

Newsgroups: alt.religion.kibology
Subject: Infocom presents Tetris

You are looking at the shaft. A large red block, four units by one unit,
is above your head, dropping slowly. It has its long edge horizontally
aligned.

>turn the block

I don't know how to "turn" something.

The block descends lower.

>rotate block

The block rotates in mid air, now with the long edge vertically aligned.

The block descends lower.

>move block left

The block shifts to the left.

The block descends lower.

>drop block

You aren't holding the block.

The block descends lower.

>move block down

The block drops into the narrow gap, filling the four columns. The
columns flash twice, then vanish, dropping the blocks above them down. A
musical tone is heard.

[Your score increased by 20!]

A square grey block, two units by two units, is now overhead, slowly
dropping.
...

Swift

2011-Feb-01, 01:55 PM

Does anyone else remember AOL when there would be an 8 pm rush where you got bumped off line and then were subjected to 30 minutes of busy signal?
Sure.

Actually, I don't remember particularly getting bumped off-line, but things would noticeably slow down. If you were home during the day, you'd also notice a slow-down when the kids came home from school.

Swift

2011-Feb-01, 01:56 PM

You are looking at the shaft. A large red block, four units by one unit,
is above your head, dropping slowly. It has its long edge horizontally
aligned.

>turn the block

I don't know how to "turn" something.
...
:lol: ROFL

pzkpfw

2011-Feb-01, 06:20 PM

Man, I've dabbled in "Adventure" on a Prime Minicomputer and "Pyramid Adventure" and some others of the same well-known author on a TRS-80 (and its System-80 clone). Later tried some vampire based one on an Apple IIe (with colour pictures!), "The Hobbit" on a Sinclair spectrum ('Thorin sits down and starts to talk about Gold', repeat) and "Hitch Hikers Guide to the Galaxy" on (I forget what computer I saw that on). Much later, various "Kings Quests" on an old (it wasn't then) PC.

Never ever finished one of them. Bored bored bored. I just can't be wired correctly for that sort of thing.

Van Rijn

2011-Feb-01, 07:53 PM

I liked the original "Adventure" (which didn't have a great parser but had wonderful scenes and good puzzles), and the Infocom text adventures. There was somebody else, can't remember the name, that did a number of text adventures, but they all had terribly short text descriptions, and I hated them.

I generally didn't like the graphical adventures. The problem there is that some important bit would always turn out to be essentially impossible to find without a walkthrough telling you where to look. That is, I could click around the screen showing a room for half an hour, quite sure I'd looked everywhere possible, then, in frustration, turn to a cheat sheet for clues, and find there was something there after all. After that, I'd spend another fifteen minutes clicking around to find the specific pixel (which would look like all the other pixels) that, when clicked on, would turn up a vital note, or some such. In the early days, I believed that most people would return to text adventures due to massive frustration with the awful graphical ones.

Trebuchet

2011-Feb-01, 07:55 PM

kleindoofy

2011-Feb-01, 10:48 PM

I have three scanners that still need the SCSI port: two small drum scanners (3000/5000dpi) and a nice A3 high end flatbed scanner. They were all expensive, are all in perfect working condition, run every day, and I'll be damned if I'm going to scrap perfectly good hardware and buy expensive new crap that's only half as good just because of the gdarned port.

SCSI in aeterna, or until the scanners blow up.

IsaacKuo

2011-Feb-01, 10:53 PM

One online thing that went away was MIDI background music on web pages. It is not missed.

nightmarepatrol

2011-Feb-01, 11:00 PM

pzkpfw

2011-Feb-01, 11:13 PM

Not exactly online or software, but how about the "legacy" PC ports -- serial, parallel, even SCSI? (I just pulled a "scuzzy" scanner card out of an old computer yesterday, preparatory to recycling both the box and the scanner. Not sure why I bothered!) Also the MIDI port that used to get used for joysticks. And the legacy mouse and keyboard connectors.

I already have a colour laser, but last weekend I bought a new ink-jet. I hate replacing ink, but the thing was only $39, is a "multi-function"... and I only plan to use it for scanning. (I have a flat-bed scanner-only already; but it's not compatible with my current OS).

captain swoop

2011-Feb-02, 12:19 AM

I still have a bunch of SCSI devices, all work very well and I too have no intention of getting rid of them until they conk out. Macs used to come with a SCSI port built in.
I remember spending amny an hour getting a customers SCSI chains to play nice. Make sure they are all on a different address, make sure there is only termination on the end, swap cables to different places in the chain, swap devices to different places. It was an art :)

captain swoop

2011-Feb-02, 12:20 AM

Who remembers Wax Thermal printers that used a big block of coloured wax instead of liquid ink?

Nick Theodorakis

2011-Feb-02, 12:37 AM

Who remembers pen plotters?

Nick

loglo

2011-Feb-02, 02:23 AM

Who remembers floppy disk drives the size of a car?

Trebuchet

2011-Feb-02, 02:52 AM

Who remembers pen plotters?

Nick

Me! I kind of liked them, as long as I didn't have to maintain the good pens.

Somewhat off-topic funny story brought to mind by the pen plotter reference:

In the late 1980's I worked for a small company just taking its first steps into the world of CAD/CAM. I had pretty much dragged them into the CAD side, having also done that in my previous job. Our first equipment was two PC-based drafting stations (Compaq 386-16, 2D software) and an HP pen plotter. Folks just loved watching that plotter do its thing.

The entire engineering area was non-smoking, but one day I came in and there was an older guy standing there watching the plotter, smoking a really offensive cigar. I thought to myself "Who does he think he is, smoking that cigar in here like he owns the place?" I didn't say anything, however, because I was still pretty new there. When he left, I asked someone else who he was. He actually did, in fact, own the place.

And since I'm rambling, another plotter story. The fab shop downstairs had an automated machine for burning shapes out of steel plate. It wasn't NC, just used a photocell head to follow a full-size template of the part to be burned. The manufacturing guys had to lay out the templates by hand. One day they asked me if our plotter could do that job for them, on parts we had designed using the system. Initially, that was a piece of cake. Then they asked me to do a big part, eight feet long. It had to be done in two sections, since the plotter could only handle paper up to about six feet long. When I got the first plot out I taped the halves together, using registration marks I'd put on, and checked it for scale. The width was fine but the length was significantly off. Although the plotter was advertised as accurate to 1/2 percent, 1/2 percent of eight feet is about 1/2 inch, which not acceptable. It was also sensitive to the thickness of the paper as it rolled over the drum. I had to carefully adjust a setting in the plotter to get the length to come out spot on. A few hours of my time saved lots of time in the shop from then on.

Van Rijn

2011-Feb-02, 03:11 AM

Who remembers floppy disk drives the size of a car?

Nah, I just remember 8 inch floppy drives and dishwasher size hard drive systems. And, at one point one huge room with about 600 of the dishwasher sized drives (for a massive ~600 GB total capacity in 1989).

Swift

2011-Feb-02, 03:36 AM

Who remembers pen plotters?

Nick
I remember the Wax Thermal printers captain swoop mentioned, but I used several pen plotters. They actually worked great. OK, not so good for a text document, but perfect for graphs. I even did some work programming output to them from some instruments.

Solfe

2011-Feb-02, 05:59 AM

I have a Syquest 88 mb disc drive (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SyQuest_Technology) and a Windows 98 machine with a built in Iomega Zip drive (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zip_drive). I have exactly two discs that work with each. Boy that was like burning data to gold plated floppy disc.

I also have a USB floppy drive which I bought around the same time I was taking a course that required a 1.4 mb floppy disc or two 800 K discs. The funny thing about that class was I bought the discs out a vending machine outside of the classroom that also had ham sandwiches, pretzels and gum. The discs were a $1.75 each while the sandwich was $1.50, he pretzels were $0.55 and the gum was $0.25. The cheaper items were actually edible.

There are a couple of PS2 mice and keyboards lurking in my basement. The rear their ugly heads and laugh at me whenever I lose a USB device.

Van Rijn

2011-Feb-02, 07:23 AM

I think I still have a USB iomega drive stored somewhere, but I haven't used it in years, and only have a few cartridges too. One trivial thing I liked about it was that the cartridges were just about identical to the data blocks on the original Star Trek show - about the right size, thickness, colors, and they had a nice solid "clunk" when you set them down. But CD-R & CD-RW was far cheaper. Sigh.

I think I did get rid of my last 5 1/4 inch floppy drive, when there was an electronics waste pickup. I got rid of a variety of obsolete and dead hardware then.

The keyboard I'm using now is an older dual USB/PS2 Microsoft keyboard. It's HEAVY, and I think it's built like a tank (it's fallen on the floor more than once with no ill effects). It's tied to a KVM switch, and I go back and forth between an old Windows 98 box with 450 mhz PIII and a fairly current box. Separately, I have an I3 HTPC system running Windows 7, with my first solid state drive for the OS, and a quiet 2TB media drive.

Van Rijn

2011-Feb-02, 08:03 AM

Oh, I just remembered. There is a 5 1/4 drive I haven't gotten rid of: The 1980 Apple II+ floppy drive. That, along with the the Apple II+ are special to me. Not sure if they still work though, it's been a number of years since I tried it last, but that old tech tends to be fairly robust.

nightmarepatrol

2011-Feb-02, 11:59 AM

I don't think anybody has mentioned punch cards yet. I remember getting them with my phone bill.

If I mentioned magnetic drums would anyone here remember them?

captain swoop

2011-Feb-02, 12:28 PM

Syquest Drives were great, we could just squeeze one issue of a Magazine on a syquest back in the days when the slides and photographs were sent to the repro house to be scanned, Quark just used low res aliases of them. Then we brought the scanning in house.

Befoe I was on the 'user' end I worked for an Apple Dealer and we used to repair loads of Syquest drives. Users would pull the disks out before the heads had retracted and rip them off. We used to solder them back together again :)

captain swoop

2011-Feb-02, 12:29 PM

Pen Plotters live on as Vinyl Cutters in sign makers. Like Dinosaurs live on as Birds.

Swift

2011-Feb-02, 03:43 PM

I don't think anybody has mentioned punch cards yet. I remember getting them with my phone bill.

If I mentioned magnetic drums would anyone here remember them?
My first computer class, in 1976, was on PL1 programming and it was all done on punch cards. So yes, I remember them. I didn't mention them because I consider them pre-Internet.

IsaacKuo

2011-Feb-02, 03:49 PM

Another thing which has died in the internet age is the e-mail virus hoax. Back in the old days before Microsoft "improved" things, it was laughably absurd for malware to propogate via e-mail.

Solfe

2011-Feb-02, 05:28 PM

I saw the funniest Facebook status hoax: "If you don't like the look of the new Facebook layout, press crtl-w to get rid of it."

Solfe

2011-Feb-03, 01:47 AM

Does anyone remember a gimmick two people could surf the same website in two different locations?

swampyankee

2011-Feb-03, 02:20 AM

Lynx. Ramis II (a database system).

Solfe

2011-Feb-04, 05:24 AM

I am really surprised at how many people mention Macintosh's on this thread. Those Motorola machines get a lot of love.

captain swoop

2011-Feb-04, 02:16 PM

I think it was the OS that people liked, OS7 was great. Also apart from the horrible things produced under Gil Amelio when he tried to take Macs to the 'mass market' they are all so well engineered

dgavin

2011-Feb-04, 08:41 PM

Actually, back when they were competitors, I liked 1-2-3 better than Excel, and Wordperfect was OK in its day.

Actualy the Lotus Notes/Lotus 1-2-3 suite is now a product called GroupWise. So it's not quite dead yet...

kleindoofy

2011-Feb-05, 02:05 AM

Adobe is abandoning PageMaker, which is kind of like saying the Titanic has announced it has no further trips planned.

You can still officially buy the latest version, but it's also the last version.

captain swoop

2011-Feb-05, 06:32 PM

Pagemaker is what 'made' the Mac I have a soft spot for it but Quark is still the best. In Design just doesn't 'do it' for me.

jaeger

2011-Feb-06, 01:17 AM

My first computer class, in 1976, was on PL1 programming and it was all done on punch cards. So yes, I remember them. I didn't mention them because I consider them pre-Internet.

Reminds of something that you make sure to only do once in your life - drop a tray of punch cards (me - grad school as a teaching fellow - final semester grades for the entire department).

Nick Theodorakis

2011-Feb-06, 01:32 AM

I dropped a carousel of slides right before my thesis defense, but I was able to get them (mostly) back in the correct order before my seminar.

Nick

kleindoofy

2011-Feb-06, 01:40 AM

I learned the hard way when a strong breeze sent two stacks of galley proofs sailing all around the room. Trying to figure out which generation was which was a language.

These days I always put a small custodian line at very the top of the page with detailed information about the content, date, generation, etc. of the proof.

When authors and editors ask what it's for, I just say "open the door when you have the window open and you'll find out."