ChronRevisited

@ChronRevisited@oldbytes.space

"Computer Chronicles Revisited" is a blog (and podcast) reviewing the people and products featured on the PBS series that aired between 1983 and 2002. Written by S.M. Oliva.

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ChronRevisited, to random

THIS WEEK IN 1989: Mandarin Software, a United Kingdom-based publisher of computer games including the motorsports simulator "Lombard RAC Rally," announced the results of a survey it conducted of 500 business executives to find out how they relieved stress at the office. The three most popular answers were playing computer games (202 responses), alcohol (197), and sex (3).

ChronRevisited, to random

I've been using LinkedIn as a research tool for the blog, primarily to look for people who appeared on "Computer Chronicles." But lately, every time that I log into LinkedIn the service is aggressively pushing racist, transphobic, and other bigoted content.

So I've deleted my account. No research is worth this crap.

ChronRevisited, to random

My favorite bit of marketing spin from the Fall 1987 COMDEX show: Lotus Development Corporation touting its new personal information manager, "Lotus Agenda," as "HyperCard for the PC, but without sound or pictures."

🤔​

ellieraeuk, to random

I was just watching a video on YouTube of someone ranking all the Star Trek movies (in case you were wondering: https://youtu.be/QEj54We8Z8c), and it's got me thinking about how I'd rank them too. I can tell you now the top two but lower down I'm not sure. I'll have a think about this and maybe make a thread.

ChronRevisited,

@ellieraeuk I suspect I'm in the minority of Star Trek fans--at least those with an online presence--in that I tend to dislike the films generally considered great, notably "The Wrath of Khan" and "The Undiscovered Country."

And yes, I've seen "The Final Frontier" about 167 times. And it keeps getting funnier every time I see it! 😛​

ChronRevisited, to random

Well it was bound to happen eventually. My research into the various people interviewed in the next "Computer Chronicles" episode I'm reviewing turns out to be a full-blown trans-genocide white supremacist. Fortunately this individual only gives a couple of quotes, so I'll just not use their name at all in the post and move on with my life.

Oddly enough, a much more notable guest from this episode, former Western Digital CEO Roger W. Johnson, left the Republican Party in the mid-1990s because he was an old "Eisenhower Republican" who had little interest in cancerous cultural wars. Johnson endorsed Bill Clinton in 1992. Clinton returned the favor, naming Johnson to head the General Services Administration during his first term.

digichelle, to random
@digichelle@hachyderm.io avatar

5.1 for in an VM? Yes, and it even prints! I could’ve gone one step further and printed the document to an actual printer, but I already have a printed copy, and I didn’t want to waste paper.

I already got this working with a host. Next stop: the , because why not?

A video of an Arch Linux VM running DOSBox. It starts with three terminal windows open on desktop 1, switches to desktop 2 with DOSBox-X, shows WordPerfect 5.1 for DOS printing a document, and switches to desktop 3 with the PDF output.

ChronRevisited,

@digichelle I know more than a few lawyers who would be interested in this. 😛​

jcs, to random
@jcs@jcs.org avatar

I made a bot account to post a random episode of Computer Chronicles every day

@compchron

ChronRevisited,

@jcs @compchron Nice work. 😃​

ChronRevisited, to random

In the latest "Computer Chronicles" episode I'm blogging, Paul Schindler reviewed "Klondike," a solitaire game for the Macintosh. It cost $50.

Fifty dollars for most Mac apps today would seem ridiculous--but for a solitaire game? And no, don't bother doing the "adjusted for inflation" calculation. This actually demonstrates why I find such calculations miss the mark. Even without accounting for inflation, customers have come to value software--and software developers--far less over the last 40 years.

Are0h, to random

I love basketball, so I talk about it a lot, and it's always the least knowledgeable people that have the most to say LOL!

Ha, just say you don't like black people, bro.

ChronRevisited,

@Are0h When I used to write about sports, my favorite know-nothing fan argument was, "They're paid millions to play a game most of us would play for free!"

Sure, dude, you'd gladly drag your 40-year-old knees up and down an NBA court 48 minutes a night up to 100 times a year and not get paid. That's totally believable.

ChronRevisited, to random

I've started writing up the next blog post, which covers the Fall 1987 COMDEX show in Las Vegas. My personal favorite product is the RayLAN, an early wireless networking setup from RayNet Corporation. It was a PC adapter board with an external receiver/transmitter and networking software from Novell. It shipped in 1988 for a retail price of $2,000.

floppydays, to random

Floppy Days is out today! Interview with the co-developer of the ground-breaking Visicalc, Bob Frankston! https://floppydays.libsyn.com/floppy-days-126-bob-frankston-visicalc

ChronRevisited,

@floppydays Enjoyed the show as always. I briefly discussed the history of VisiCalc, Lotus, and other early spreadsheets in a recent blog post.

https://www.smoliva.blog/post/computer-chronicles-revisited-086-lotus-hal-whatsbest-vp-planner-javelin-plus-silk/

ChronRevisited, to random

My next post will cover the Fall 1987 COMDEX show. Among the featured items from the "Computer Chronicles" reporting that piqued my interest was something called the Atari Transputer.

Sadly, this was not Jack Tramiel's attempt to offer a lower-cost and more progressive alternative to the Femputer from "Futurama."

ChronRevisited, to random

Computer Chronicles Revisited, Part 93 — The LaserWriter Plus, LaserJet II, and LaserLine 6

https://www.smoliva.blog/post/computer-chronicles-revisited-093-laserwriter-plus-laserjet-ii-laserline-6/

nina_kali_nina, to random

I watched a YouTube video of homesteaders who decided to give up on their "self-sustainable home" after two years, because life "has much more to offer". I mean, yeah, this is why there are communities, and this is why there's specialisation.

Growing food is hard work. Ten or hundrends time harder if you decide not to use chemical fertilisers and powered tools.

I'm thinking about it because I want to replace 8 sq m of dead bushes outside of the house with 8 blueberry bushes, and I know that it will take me a whole weekend, because I'm weak and didn't work on gardening since I was 16 (that's half of my life, btw).

ChronRevisited,

@nina_kali_nina I wonder what percentage of homestead YouTubers are just putting on an an act to see how long they can keep it going before reality sets in.

ChronRevisited, to random

No man ever liked talking about high-resolution graphics more than Gary Kildall.

ChronRevisited, to random

Two years ago on "Computer Chronicles Revisited," I covered a December 1983 episode on word processors. Among the highlights was a demonstration of "The Word Plus," a standalone spell checker, as most word processing programs of the day did not include one. This episode also marked the first appearance of Paul Schindler.

https://www.smoliva.blog/post/computer-chronicles-revisited-006-word-processing-1984/

ChronRevisited, to random

THIS WEEK IN 1987: In its quarterly filings with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) disclosed that it had filed a $1 billion lawsuit against Intel Corporation over an alleged breach of contract. Intel and AMD had a cross-licensing agreement for AMD to act as a "second source" for Intel's 8086, 80186, and 80286 CPUs. But Intel refused to share the designs for its newer, more profitable 80386 CPU.

An arbitrator would eventually rule that Intel violated the agreement and granted AMD a license to use any necessary Intel 80386 IP in its own cloned chip, the Am386. Intel would try to get the arbitrator's decision reversed, but it was upheld by the California Supreme Court in 1994.

ChronRevisited, (edited ) to random

Chronicles Revisited Podcast 7 — Two Plane Crashes That Changed PC History

Zenith Data Systems (ZDS) was a company often featured on ‘Computer Chronicles’ for its innovative PC compatibles. ZDS was never a major presence in retail, but it enjoyed great success in the government, business, and educational computing sectors throughout the 1980s and early 1990s. But after closing its doors in 1996, the Zenith name effectively disappeared from the American computer landscape and faded into history.

Yet there’s another name–Heathkit–that is still fondly remembered today for its DIY electronic kits dating back to the 1950s. Heathkit was actually the progenitor of Zenith Data Systems. And the story of a how the Heath Company traced its own history back to a pair of airplane crashes that occurred 23 years apart provides an interesting look at how the modern PC industry was shaped by human events that had nothing to do with microprocessors.

https://www.smoliva.blog/post/chronicles-revisited-podcast-007/

ChronRevisited, to random

THIS WEEK IN 1986: Apple fired its advertising agency, Chiat/Day, which produced the famous "1984" Super Bowl commercial announcing the launch of the Macintosh. Reportedly, Apple was upset at the backlash from the firm's 1985 Super Bowl ad for Macintosh Office, which portrayed business executives as mindless "lemmings" following IBM's lead. As it turned out, insulting Fortune 500 executives was not a terribly effective way of convincing them to buy your product.

In any case, Apple's new ad agency, BBDO, promised to focus more on "retail-oriented" marketing and less on big, splashy Super Bowl ads.

ChronRevisited, to random

Two years ago on "Computer Chronicles Revisited," I covered a 1984 episode on operating systems. Herb Lechner sat in the co-host's chair as Gary Kildall appeared as a guest to discuss Digital Research's CP/M. We also get the first UNIX talk on the program, as AT&T was now in a position to commercially exploit its famous operating system.

https://www.smoliva.blog/post/computer-chronicles-revisited-005-concurrent-cpm-ms-dos-unix/

ChronRevisited, to random

Two years ago on 'Computer Chronicles Revisited,' I looked at a late 1983 episode on computer simulations. We're not talking SimCity so much as as simulators for military and industrial use. One of the surprising things I learned in researching this post was that one of the biggest military sim companies at the time was a division of Singer, the sewing machine manufacturer.

https://www.smoliva.blog/post/computer-chronicles-revisited-004-singer-link-som/

lori, to random

Anyway the best advice I can give moderators of any community is that if someone signs up for your site, has a gab link in their profile, and posts Nazi shit on tons of other sites, you do not have to wait for them to post Nazi shit on your site before you ban them. You can just ban them right away. It's actually totally fine to do that. Good actually.

ChronRevisited,

@lori This is where folks on the left can fall into the trap of over-regulating as opposed to "governing." They get too caught up in the notion of due process that they ignore bad outcomes.

craigmaloney, to random

I just sat down and with a bit of Python I replicated the functionality of EmailThis, a service for creating readable pages that it will then email to you.

I was happy to send EmailThis $19 to do this for me, but for whatever reason it didn't send me my confirmation email.

I also deleted my Pocket account that I pay $44.99 to because this does pretty much what I need it to do (save readable versions of links).

It's not pretty code. I'm not sure if I'll release it into the wild as a project, but it is a reminder that sometimes the best solution is to just write the damn thing yourself.

ChronRevisited,

@craigmaloney It’s funny how many big software companies today started out from that exact premise.

ChronRevisited, to random

Interesting decision this past Monday from the U.S. 11th Circuit Court of Appeals in Atlanta. The Court held that creating an iOS emulator was "fair use" under copyright law and Apple couldn't stop someone from selling virtualization software to help security researchers poke around its operating system. This precedent could establish fairly broad protections for all forms of emulation from copyright challenges.

What caught my eye was the 11th Circuit's finding that since iOS was an operating system it fell outside the "core" protections of copyright: "We have no doubt that iOS embodies a great deal of creativity. But it's still a functional program meant to run consumer electronic devices."

Another tidbit: The Court said that fair use allowed for emulation of the entire operating system. Apple couldn't restrict it to just certain parts.

Here's the full ruling.

https://scholar.google.com/scholar_case?case=1275885350611470301

ChronRevisited,

@rdnlsmith Good question. The 11th Circuit's opinion noted the emulator in this case "doesn't entirely replicate an iPhone" in that it can't be used to make calls, send messages, or access GPS, among other things. Nor can it interface with the App Store.

ChronRevisited,

@SapphicLawyer Pretty much. Digging deeper thru the opinion, Apple apparently tried to buy this company, and when the talks fell apart, Cupertino sent in the lawyers to destroy the company by force. 🤷​

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