Ya, without him there would have been no commodore as they would not have made the transition from calculators and stuff.. He brought Atari back from the dead as a competitor too. Pushed tech a bit further than it was ready to be pushed.  Brought computers to the masses, ( even more than Clive did in the UK i think, but it would be a close competition ) and in effect he built the foundation of the "dock", but missed the "big boat" as it sailed past him.

Never got to meet him but i think i would have liked him ( unlike many of the others of his day )

Tue Dec 29 2020 20:39:43 EST from ParanoidDelusions

He perplexes me. He is absolutely the Anti-Moore, the Anti-Gates, the Anti-Jobs. He was the antithesis of everything they were. 

But possibly the most influential to the early success of home computing of all of them. 

 

And,the MOS 6502 drove nearly everything from that era and drove the 8 bit home electronics revolution.

The Atari 2600 to the NES were all MOS 6502 or variations. It is amazing that they managed to drive themselves into the ground when they were selling the chip that was the heart of *everyone's* machine.

One of its successors, the 65816, was used in the Super Nintendo and the Apple IIgs, among other places.  It isn't their fault that the whole world got its panties soaked over the IBM PC.

I had a z80 in my ][GS ( transferred it over when i upgraded from a ][+ )

Sat Jan 30 2021 20:12:30 EST from IGnatius T Foobar

One of its successors, the 65816, was used in the Super Nintendo and the Apple IIgs, among other places.  It isn't their fault that the whole world got its panties soaked over the IBM PC.

Not sure how we got so far off track - but it was probably my fault. :) 

Sat Mar 27 2021 12:35:02 EDT from IGnatius T Foobar

I guess DTP is now a subset of Vintage Computing. No one designs for dead trees anymore :_)

Unfortunate, but i imagine mostly true. "Print" is an afterthought. 

Sat Mar 27 2021 12:35:02 EDT from IGnatius T Foobar

I guess DTP is now a subset of Vintage Computing. No one designs for dead trees anymore :_)

Yet that has now become one of the biggest complaints about our software after it was upgraded.   Printing vanished.  "how can i do my job"  Um, its there, on the screen like it was before..   " whaaaaa"  "ok fine, we built a workaround and asked the vendor to restore that feature someday.  go away"

People still like their paper.

I may have mentioned this before, but back in late 80s i worked with a online reporting vendor for the mainframe, so we could reduce printing costs of reports at the plant, that get tossed the next morning ( 200k a month ... if you included everything, from the printer, to supplies, to the dedicated team and their electric carts to deliver it all, and disposal costs of the mountains of paper once they collected it back ) .   2 hour presentation with the big wigs, even cost analysis stuff so it wasn't just a 'pretty demo in a vacuum' but had hard numbers.   "yes, that really looks great, and we thank you for doing this for us, but we like our paper"  and everyone left.  I learned something that day :)

Thu Apr 15 2021 13:54:52 EDT from IGnatius T Foobar

It's true. Look at any of your typical productivity software that was developed during the PC Era. Everything centered around creating documents that were meant to be printed. In the Post-PC Era, documents are now created to be read online. It's about creating content that can be read on any device, and can be interacted with.

And it isn't as if you *can't* print it if you want a hard copy. It just isn't the primary medium anymore.

Also, the things we print have EXPANDED. It just isn't documents anymore. People design and print cards, books, flyers, photography, and physical objects now - and there are more people with digital devices than ever before in history. 


Handcrafted art is probably more affected by digital creation and print than print is by web based, digital only documentation. I think I've given the example before - until the mid 90s local grocers were hand inking their "Weekly specials" on butcher paper. Now, they use DTP and large format printers to print out slick, high gloss specials notices. 

Kinkos can help. 

Fri Apr 16 2021 08:35:29 EDT from LoanShark

And it isn't as if you *can't* print it if you want a hard copy. It

just isn't the primary medium anymore.

Well, I can't print at the moment. Can u help?

They dont exist around here anymore. its all FedEx branded now.

We had a music store back in the 90s. They sold T-shirts too ( go figure, i know.. no surprise there )   One hanging up on the wall, looked just like the kinko 24 hour logo thing   but instead it was kinkys, open 24 hours.

Simple,. but funny,.

Fri Apr 16 2021 10:58:11 EDT from ParanoidDelusions

Kinkos can help. 

Fri Apr 16 2021 08:35:29 EDT from LoanShark

And it isn't as if you *can't* print it if you want a hard copy. It

just isn't the primary medium anymore.

Well, I can't print at the moment. Can u help?

 

Do you remember all those product joke stickers from the 70s/80s?

IMAGE LINK
 

I used to have a couple of notebooks full of them.  

These eventually morphed into Garbage Pail Kids. 

But yest, I loved these. Very "MAD" magazine. 

Fri Apr 16 2021 19:11:44 EDT from zooer

Do you remember all those product joke stickers from the 70s/80s?

 

 

IMAGE LINK
 

When they were creating those joke names do you think it was one guy or a group of people?  Did they laugh at their creations or was it mundane? 

I would suspect it was a team. I got many inside bubblegum cards in the 70s

Sat Apr 17 2021 08:31:01 EDT from zooer

When they were creating those joke names do you think it was one guy or a group of people?  Did they laugh at their creations or was it mundane? 

I imagine a lot of it was just a job, but that the really good ones cracked them up, too. 

Sat Apr 17 2021 08:31:01 EDT from zooer

When they were creating those joke names do you think it was one guy or a group of people?  Did they laugh at their creations or was it mundane?