Old Tech thread

[HareBrain]

A303 Near Hampshire, England

And in all that time, the average speed on the bit that goes past Stonehenge has remained the same.

 

[Cthulhu.Science]

Haven't you heard of cephalopaths?

I thought cephalopaths communicated with Octopuses and squids telepathically.

 

[Pyan]

Early (1906) product from Caterpillar.

 

[dask]

 

[Pyan]

Exactly 100 years later. Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose...

​

 

[Alex The G and T]

Also, the camera has become quick enough to freeze the motion without posing, still, on a kickstand.

 

[Robert Zwilling]

Those scooters could go up to 35 miles an hour and you probably had to be pretty agile to hang on.

 

[Cthulhu.Science]

I saw a social media post poking fun of a fellow airplane passenger sporting a discman.

But then I started thinking about the quality of sound off of SoundCloud and other online services and I found this article:

"... the Spotify menu to check the sound settings, and was astounded to find that the “very high quality” that the Premium service boasts is a measly 320kbps MP3 encoded file. For those using their free plan, the quality is capped drastically lower at 160kbps... Comparatively, uncompressed CD-quality is almost 29 times higher – sitting at 1,411 kbps."

Spotify vs CD vs Tidal: Is the debate over hi-res audio still relevant? - The AU Review

A couple of weeks ago, I found myself listening to an old favourite from my adolescence, Nine Inch Nails’ 1999 opus The Fragile. As a teenager, I played this double album to death on my Discman to the point where I can still vividly recall every subtlety that Trent Reznor meticulously laid down...

www.theaureview.com

Now I want to go find a Sony discman for my next flight.

Truth is, I bought one for my mom a couple years ago so she could continue to play her CDs in her new car. So I need one for myself.

 

[Vertigo]

I saw a social media post poking fun of a fellow airplane passenger sporting a discman.

But then I started thinking about the quality of sound off of SoundCloud and other online services and I found this article:

"... the Spotify menu to check the sound settings, and was astounded to find that the “very high quality” that the Premium service boasts is a measly 320kbps MP3 encoded file. For those using their free plan, the quality is capped drastically lower at 160kbps... Comparatively, uncompressed CD-quality is almost 29 times higher – sitting at 1,411 kbps."

Spotify vs CD vs Tidal: Is the debate over hi-res audio still relevant? - The AU Review

A couple of weeks ago, I found myself listening to an old favourite from my adolescence, Nine Inch Nails’ 1999 opus The Fragile. As a teenager, I played this double album to death on my Discman to the point where I can still vividly recall every subtlety that Trent Reznor meticulously laid down...

www.theaureview.com

Now I want to go find a Sony discman for my next flight.

Truth is, I bought one for my mom a couple years ago so she could continue to play her CDs in her new car. So I need one for myself.

I had completely forgotten about those special cassettes to allow you to play such things in a cassettes only car radio. However I also remember how those early CD players used to skip in cars (despite "shock absorbing plates").

 

[Pyan]

I had completely forgotten about those special cassettes to allow you to play such things in a cassettes only car radio. However I also remember how those early CD players used to skip in cars (despite "shock absorbing plates").

And if you're really retro, you can get a cassette to 8-track adapter, giving you CD→cassette adapter→8-track adapter...

 

[Toby Frost]

I had completely forgotten about those special cassettes to allow you to play such things in a cassettes only car radio. However I also remember how those early CD players used to skip in cars (despite "shock absorbing plates").

I used to have a brilliant contraption to deal with this. It was basically a bit of foam on four springs, with a board under it. You put the CD player on the foam, then put the contraption on your passenger seat as you drove, and hopefully, perhaps, the springs would soften the wobble and stop the player jumping. I think Sony made mine, but I suspect that Heath Robinson owns the patent.

 

[Alex The G and T]

I went to find a picture of an old FM transmitter adaptor which plugged into the headphone jack of an ipod, or whatever player with a headphone jack; which can be played through the car radio.

They are now making them for bluetooth to FM. Coming next WiFi to Wax cylinder.

 

[psikeyhackr]

I have finally broken down and purchased a "new" used computer. My 18 year old Gateway just couldn't cut it anymore. It could not run the latest versions of Virtual Box and Blender.

It is a Dell Core i7 with 4 double threaded cores. To Linux it looks like 8 cpus.

I am testing it with a benchmark I modified from January 1983 Byte magazine, the Sieve of Eratosthenese(?). Who can spell Greek names? Oh man, 40 years. Anyway, it is only 7 years old and 8.4 times as powerful as my single threaded dual core.

It came from Blairtech through Amazon for $150. I paid $1700 for my IBM PC and I was an employee. So much power that cheap, absolutely shocking. Who besides gamers and video editors doing rendering need more power than this?

 

[psikeyhackr]

And if you're really retro, you can get a cassette to 8-track adapter, giving you CD→cassette adapter→8-track adapter...

View attachment 111540​

I am fairly sure I saw one of those back in the day. It got power from the sensor of the conductive tape that triggered the solenoid that moved the head.

AhAhahaaa! You are driving me crazy making me remember that crap!!!

God, I hated 8-tracks!

 

[Alex The G and T]

I took an 8 track cassette apart, to see how it works. It shouldn't.
They wrap the tape around the outside of the spool and pull tape out of the inside of the spool, in a perpetual loop.. Forever and ever and ever.

The spool has some hundreds of wraps.

This can't possibly work.

 

[psikeyhackr]

I took an 8 track cassette apart, to see how it works. It shouldn't.

The spool has some hundreds of wraps.

This can't possibly work.

Not for very long. The spool gets tighter and tighter towards the center and the magnetic material used on the surface had a special formula to make it more slippery. Of course this meant that it was not as good at recording.

Most people are not that picky about sound quality. The wow & flutter was bad enough.

 

[Cosmic Geoff]

I once had a slim credit-card sized scientific calculator a few mm thick. It was a pretty cool device, but it eventually got broken and I was never able to find a replacement. I imagine there's a phone app for it these days.

 

[hitmouse]

I went to find a picture of an old FM transmitter adaptor which plugged into the headphone jack of an ipod, or whatever player with a headphone jack; which can be played through the car radio.

I’ve got one of those. I used it until I got a car a few years ago that has a socket for the ipod connector. Now I have a streaming service I use the ipod less and less, but it is still in the car.
Interestingly, that vehicle, which must be 10 years old now, still has a cd player.

 

[Dave]

that vehicle, which must be 10 years old now, still has a cd player.

We've just purchased a new car. No audio tape (every 2002 car did). No CD player (every 2012 car did). Won't support my iPod via the USB socket. It won't support a portable CD/DVD player via the USB socket. It does however, Bluetooth iPhones and Androids but that means having a music App on the phone and paying monthly for a service, or else listening to frequent adverts. I think I could download music files onto a USB stick and that would work. I haven't tried.

And while it does have an excellent radio, as I just mentioned in the moaning thread, many places don't have good radio reception, even in 2023.

I guess we could just talk to each other, or sing instead.

 

[farntfar]

we could just talk to each other, or sing instead.

Oh! Day of terror.