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[#] Wed Sep 04 2019 00:48:08 EDT from ParanoidDelusions

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Oh, I also got a real Amiga 500 recently. Paid $329 for it, which is way too much, but the guy swore it worked, he was in Irving, and I was driving to L.A. that weekend to go to Mumford and Sons with my wife (this is a compromise that means I never have to go to Dave Matthews, which seems like a fair trade, to me...) Anyhow. So, I go down, drive the 45 minutes down to Irving, meet the guy and do the trade, he says, "My brother is the computer guy and he is deployed right now, so if there is any problem, let me know and I'll make it right." Get it home, plug it in, floppy reads me 30 year old copy of the iconic Juggler demo... but the keyboard won't work. Only the top row of keys respond. I bought an Amiga 500 because they didn't have real time clocks, so they don't have VARTA batteries, which are infamous for leaking and eating motherboards. When the keyboard didn't work, I turned it open and opened the trapdoor expansion, and there was a RTC memory card with a leaking VARTA battery that had vented up onto the connector for the keyboard membrane.

I bought a new keyboard membrane from the UK for $35... got the guy to refund me so my out of pocket cost was $179. Removed the leaky battery and washed everything down with vinegar, distilled water, and IPA. Assembled it all, and got it working. Then I bought a thing called a Gotek which is a floppy disk emulator. Allows you to hook up a thumb drive with up to 999 floppy disk images on it. Got myself a switch that allows you to chang the drive assignments of the external and internal floppy, because the floppy images want to be the first, internal drive (df0: in Amiga) not the external (df1:). Got an RF modulator and hooked it up by component in to an LCD TV. All told, about $330 into it... and here I am, on Uncensored, in the MiSTer FPGA Minimig Amiga core, while the real Amiga sits out on the other room looking really cool. If you want to relive your old classic retro machines - I can't recommend MiST, MiSTer and other FPGA platforms enough as the saner alternative to trying to keep 34+ year old machines alive and running.

[#] Wed Sep 04 2019 10:10:23 EDT from darknetuser

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The floppy disk emulator sounds like a really cool idea, because my actual floppies demagnetized long ago hahaha

[#] Wed Sep 04 2019 21:45:39 EDT from ParanoidDelusions

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Google Gotek. It works on multiple different retro platforms - you just have to flash it for the appropriate system. They mostly get used for Amiga and Atari ST platforms - but they're intended for Roland synthesizers, I believe.

[#] Mon Sep 16 2019 05:34:17 EDT from fleeb

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Wait... that device converts your floppy interface to a USB interface? That's interesting.

[#] Mon Sep 16 2019 10:01:16 EDT from IGnatius T Foobar

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The ones I've seen emulate a floppy drive using an SD Card, and have buttons to activate any of hundreds of floppy images stored on the card as the disk actually inserted in the drive. Then you can put the SD Card into a modern computer to load software onto it.

I don't think it emulates a full USB stack.

[#] Wed Jul 29 2020 15:26:53 EDT from ParanoidDelusions

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Mon Sep 16 2019 10:01:16 EDT from IGnatius T Foobar
The ones I've seen emulate a floppy drive using an SD Card, and have buttons to activate any of hundreds of floppy images stored on the card as the disk actually inserted in the drive. Then you can put the SD Card into a modern computer to load software onto it.

I don't think it emulates a full USB stack.

Actually, a USB thumb drive. I've got one in my Amiga 500, and otherwise, it works exactly as Ig describes. Pop the thumb drive into my PC, download disk image files (amiga .adf files) then pop the thumb drive into the Amiga, enter the setup software, put the .adf images into "slots", then I can scroll through the .adf files in their slots and they mount on the Amiga and are seen as floppy disks in a floppy drive. 

 

 

 



[#] Tue Sep 29 2020 09:21:30 EDT from IGnatius T Foobar

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What's probably really cool is that the parts and tooling required to interface with old computers are dirt cheap now.

[#] Sun Nov 08 2020 14:40:04 EST from ParanoidDelusions

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Yeah. There has been a recent jump in interest in retro platforms across the board - and lots of "makers" are putting out really cool devices that connect new stuff with the old stuff. 

Tue Sep 29 2020 09:21:30 EDT from IGnatius T Foobar
What's probably really cool is that the parts and tooling required to interface with old computers are dirt cheap now.

 



[#] Sat Oct 29 2022 11:49:59 EDT from BLADE-RUNNER

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SO... who's getting a Meta headset ?

[#] Sat Oct 29 2022 11:57:01 EDT from Nurb432

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Not me.

I do have a headset that you shove a phone into.  its fun to play with, and neat to watch 3D movies.

Sat Oct 29 2022 11:49:59 AM EDT from BLADE-RUNNER
SO... who's getting a Meta headset ?

 



[#] Sat Oct 29 2022 14:15:05 EDT from IGnatius T Foobar

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There are some people saying that virtual reality is going to be as big a change as the rise of smartphones and ubiquitous Internet connectivity.

It's obviously good for some kinds of games, so I'll probably get one when Nintendo does something with it.

It's obviously good for pr0n, but I have a human partner and it's kind of hard to beat that level of reality.

3D movies appear to have come and gone.

[#] Sat Oct 29 2022 14:34:17 EDT from zelgomer

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I have squandered enough of my life staring at a screen. I've gotten to the point that I don't want my video games to be realistic and immersive anymore. If I want to experience a 3D world, I should be going outside. And I don't do that enough as it is.

[#] Sat Oct 29 2022 16:14:19 EDT from Nurb432

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Which is too bad, there was a lot of potential there. 

 

It also works for people that work in CAD ( like designing houses, neighborhoods ) and people who like 'games' like opensim, and a few other industries too.

 

And hey battlezone in true 3D would be cool.. 

Sat Oct 29 2022 02:15:05 PM EDT from IGnatius T Foobar


3D movies appear to have come and gone.

 



[#] Tue Nov 01 2022 06:35:39 EDT from darknetuser

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2022-10-29 11:49 from BLADE-RUNNER
SO... who's getting a Meta headset ?



I don't, for the time being. Specially if it is related to Meta, which is a corp that eats babies and sharpens their bones to stab another babies with them.

[#] Tue Nov 01 2022 06:40:16 EDT from darknetuser

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2022-10-29 16:14 from Nurb432
Which is too bad, there was a lot of potential there. 

 

It also works for people that work in CAD ( like designing houses,

neighborhoods ) and people who like 'games' like opensim, and a few

other industries too.

 

And hey battlezone in true 3D would be cool.. 

Some friends of mine work at a startup. Their star product is a program that generates network maps and then displays them as a pretty graphic. They have a department working on a VR interface so they can show the generated maps to management as a pretty VR world.

It is funny, but not a practical use of resources at this point IMO.

As a friend of mine always says, you will know when a technology is ready for mass adoption when it becomes practical and actually useful for the porn industry.

[#] Tue Nov 01 2022 07:01:59 EDT from Nurb432

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I thought porn adopted VR first? 

 

Tue Nov 01 2022 06:40:16 AM EDT from darknetuser

Some friends of mine work at a startup. Their star product is a program that generates network maps and then displays them as a pretty graphic. They have a department working on a VR interface so they can show the generated maps to management as a pretty VR world.

It is funny, but not a practical use of resources at this point IMO.

As a friend of mine always says, you will know when a technology is ready for mass adoption when it becomes practical and actually useful for the porn industry.

 



[#] Wed Nov 02 2022 09:52:47 EDT from IGnatius T Foobar

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The porn industry seems content with the cheap goggles into which you drop your phone. (Fun fact: a simple device that focuses each of your eyes on a separate picture is called a Stereopticon.)

I think there's a lot of potential there since everyone already owns a smartphone.
The screen is big enough for the googles to see a pair of images, and it's got all of the position and orientation sensors already in place.

For VR porn to become fully immersive it would require a system that could provide touch and smell and taste sensations that would generally require "jacking in" rather than simulating the experience with a headset.

[#] Wed Nov 02 2022 12:07:54 EDT from Nurb432

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i have 2 phone headsets. they are cool. not perfect but cool.  One has a removable face plate so it can do AR too. Some of the 3D walk thru things are neat.  OpenSim was too, until the developer stopped work on the client and then pulled it from the store

aside from the obvious 3D movies you can watch, you can watch 2D movies and its like a 50" screen



[#] Thu Nov 03 2022 10:31:17 EDT from zelgomer

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What are the health effects of those things? I'd be worried about destroying my eyes even worse than they've already been destroyed.

[#] Thu Nov 03 2022 18:31:47 EDT from Nurb432

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I assume in moderation it would be fine.

I have lazy eye, and ironically i can actually see 3D in these things and not get headaches.  Went to a 3D imax once. I made it 1/2 thru the opening credits and i thought my head was going to explode. i kept avoiding it but when tron 2 came out, i just had to risk it.