It would have been really nice to see a continued evolution of the 6502 past the 65816. I learned assembly language on the 6502--such a simple instruction set. The tiny register file would have become a blocker, admittedly. But--out of pure nostalgia, I suppose--I would like to see a 32-bit extension of the architecture with a big register file, an FPU, and an MMU.

Same.  On all of the above.  But understandably, CPU makers don't invest in architectures that aren't getting any traction.  If the Apple IIgs had been a blockbuster, we would have seen it.  WDC had a 65832 on the drawing board as late as 1988, but by then the market had spoken: both Apple and Commodore threw their hats in with Motorola.

Ya, lack of support due to lack of interest.  I thought there were some compatibility issues too which of course burnt a lot of things, but i could be wrong, never really tried doing much with the one i had.. 

Hardware and OS was pretty cool from what i remember. Not ground breaking since GUIs were not 'new' at that point, but an advancement.

Apple II compatibility was actually pretty good.  IIgs had the "Mega II" chip which was basically an entire Apple IIc on a chip.  This chip also appeared in early Apple II emulator boards for the Mac.

It had a GUI that ran in color.  It even had a network  that was decent for the machines at the time.  The Apple IIgs was in all aspects a great machine and a worthy successor.  There is only one reason it failed, and that is, Steve Jobs deliberately made it fail.

Ya, lack of support due to lack of interest.  I thought there were some compatibility issues too which of course burnt a lot of things, but i could be wrong, never really tried doing much with the one i had.. 

Hardware and OS was pretty cool from what i remember. Not ground breaking since GUIs were not 'new' at that point, but an advancement.

Jobs also did kill the Newton, just as it was about to take off. Still annoyed about that, i was a huge Newton fan.

Sat May 30 2026 11:56:31 EDT from IGnatius T Foobar

Well, the Apple failure was the IIgs... an 8/16 bit machine when Amiga was a 16/32 bit machine. 

Gonna call this out with a post of its own, because it deserves it.

The IIgs did not fail because it was 16 bit.  The IIgs failed because Steve Jobs wanted it to fail.

The IIgs was faster, cheaper, and had better sound than the original Mac.  It had a W65C816 CPU that could have gone 4 MHz (maybe even higher).  Jobs crippled it down to 2.8 MHz so it wouldn't beat his precious Mac in benchmarks.  

So they cheated it on developer resources, set the price way too high, and basically positioned it as an end-of-the-line toy for schools.   It could have competed with the Amiga and Atari ST.

It was just Jobs doing what Jobs did.  He neglected the IIgs just like he neglected his pancreas.

Well, the Apple failure was the IIgs... an 8/16 bit machine when Amiga was a 16/32 bit machine. 

Gonna call this out with a post of its own, because it deserves it.

The IIgs did not fail because it was 16 bit.  The IIgs failed because Steve Jobs wanted it to fail.

The IIgs was faster, cheaper, and had better sound than the original Mac.  It had a W65C816 CPU that could have gone 4 MHz (maybe even higher).  Jobs crippled it down to 2.8 MHz so it wouldn't beat his precious Mac in benchmarks.  

So they cheated it on developer resources, set the price way too high, and basically positioned it as an end-of-the-line toy for schools.   It could have competed with the Amiga and Atari ST.

It was just Jobs doing what Jobs did.  He neglected the IIgs just like he neglected his pancreas.

Was it Mr. Bubble or Mr. Bubbles? Did the Fruit of the Loom have a Cornucopia or not? Was the Amiga a 16 bit, a 32 bit or a 16/32 bit machine? 

If we're going to bring up the Mandela Effect, count me in as part of the millions of people who thought the jingle in the commercial went "Mr. Bucket, you put your balls in my mouth"

From the developer's perspective, Amiga was full 32 bit from the very beginning.  Motorola 68000 CPU was 32 bit instructions with a 16 bit address bus, much like the 8088 was 16 bit instructions with an 8 bit address bus.  One of the most famous "low end unix systems" at the time was this one (photo below), the Fortune 32:16 ... named after the very architecture that Motorola used for the chip.

]]>https://uncensored.citadel.org/readfwd?go=Gadgets?start_reading_at=2099565327Sat, 30 May 2026 09:10:44 +05002099565327@Uncensored

I think it was a fail due to same reasons as the others, but the hardware was better. And the OS, well it showed the way to the future. 

Much like the time i had a 128, the only real reason i had it really was to run CP/M. I got it for free. ( well the machine, not the Z80 card, for some odd reason i already had that. Not sure why or where i got that, but it was in my box-o-junk.. ). 

Fri May 29 2026 23:38:06 EDT from ParanoidDelusions

Well, the Apple failure was the IIgs...

Well, the Apple failure was the IIgs... an 8/16 bit machine when Amiga was a 16/32 bit machine. And Ig - I think the Amiga was kind of a bridge between the 16 and 32 bit machines for Commodore - but it is all so hazy now - and with the fact that we jumped timelines whenever they turned on the Large Hadron accelerator so you can't trust your memories to be right in this reality - I never know what is true anymore. 

Was it Mr. Bubble or Mr. Bubbles? Did the Fruit of the Loom have a Cornucopia or not? Was the Amiga a 16 bit, a 32 bit or a 16/32 bit machine? 

Depends on your timeline, I think. 

Whiskey is the only thing consistent... well, no - not even that - it used to make me violently drunk and unpredictable - but Vodka was safe.  I clearly remember disliking Whisky and Bourbon for that very reason and preferring Vodka. Now - Vodka is what makes me end up in a fight at the night club or puking in the gutter waiting for the Uber - and Whiskey just gives me a bad headach

And along these lines of greatness that never took off.. id love to have got my hands on an Atari Transputer.. 

oh, i totally agree they were out in left field due to the push-back of not being 'compatible'. I only speak of the tech, i do think it was an improvement, not drastic, but incremental. But, if no one buys them or writes for them...its academic even if it was drastic. And not just the +4, but in general, important lessons were learned. Even apple of the day learned  it with the 'architecture cross over' period with "universal binaries".

And related, compatibility concerns is why the iAPX 432 architecture never took off. It was a much better than the 8088/86, but failed due to that reason. And yes, that is where 1/2 my current nickname comes from.

Wed May 20 2026 01:15:10 EDT from ParanoidDelusions

The Plus 4 and C16 were hated. They had no real purpose. They were real oddball systems among any of the 8 bit systems at the time. 

I think we've touched on a basic intrinsic difference between you and I that goes beyond our politics - but may influence that, too - in a weird metaphysical way - that may at least partially explain our friction. 

I ran a Citadel on a C-128 in CP/M mode on 2 1571 disk drives for several months - that a Sacramento Citadel developer ported just for me, just for the C-128 CP/M mode. I was lucky - to be in Sacramento - one of the hubs of Citadel development - where someone was there who would do that for me, right? I've always been... the dumbass with smart friends who would help me do things a bit beyond my pay grade - and that did turn into a lucrative career for a long time. 

But anyhow, so many BDOS errors that eventually all the Sac Cit devs convinced me to dump it and get a MIC-504 and an Adds Viewpoint terminal as big as a Microwave and run my Citadel off that. And that worked well, on a dual disk system, for a long time... until I bought a Nec V10 8086/286 clone with an ESDI c

Mon May 18 2026 07:37:20 EDT from Nurb432

Was never really a commodore fan, other than the 128 could run CP/M native and wasn't the size of a microwave, or an overly priced Apple Ii GS with a Z80 board made to run CP/M, ironically from Microsoft.. ( which i did have, but paid almost nothing for it )..  But i did have a Plus4 at one point due to a 'deal i couldn't pass up'  ( and was given a C16 as a bonus ) and i thought at the time, they were nifty and better than the vic20/64 line.    Still preferred my Atari tho so it became closet food, later on museum dust collector..

 

But i did see a sx-64 once at a store. "well, that is interesting, wonder when Atari will do that"  lol.  But honestly 5" was a bit small, perhaps it was ok for games but trying to do 'work' on it, not for me. Even something like a kaypro was pushing it, but was 'doable' .  I think later on that plasma display HP had on one of theirs, same thing, sure its portable and interesting, but too small. At least i think it was HP, but either way it was the same basic form actor as the SX, just dos+plasma. Its been a while so i could have the company wrong.  Osborne, same issue.. I was given one of them along the way ..  neat, but too small to "use"

And i could be wrong on commodore users moving to 16 bit.   Us Atari folk were..  and of course the PC and Apple communities were starting the migration...

Engineering wise, I think the 264 series as just fine and were better than the '64' series. Tho i agree it was not dramatic and was more incremental, it was an improvement for their 8bit line. The practical issue was lack of mainstream software support. I think they were one of the first real episodes of "well, its better hardware, but not fully compatible" and the fall out that happens when no one writes for/buys them due to that. ( Atari had that same issue, tho i forget which model line, ( xl? i don't remember now. been too long ). They were also better hardware than the previous generation, but were only like 90% compatible with previous, so they sort of got left out to dry )

They both also came out at a bad time, consumer market was moving away from 8 bit from what i remember.  Sort of too little to late syndrome.

Mon May 18 2026 16:23:33 EDT from setho

The C16 and Plus 4 were both terrible machines. Never really fully baked.


The C128 was a great machine. Probably their best outside of the Amiga line.....

Was never really a commodore fan, other than the 128 could run CP/M native and wasn't the size of a microwave, or an overly priced Apple Ii GS with a Z80 board made to run CP/M, ironically from Microsoft.. ( which i did have, but paid almost nothing for it )..  But i did have a Plus4 at one point due to a 'deal i couldn't pass up'  ( and was given a C16 as a bonus ) and i thought at the time, they were nifty and better than the vic20/64 line.    Still preferred my Atari tho so it became closet food, later on museum dust collector..

But i did see a sx-64 once at a store. "well, that is interesting, wonder when Atari will do that"  lol.  But honestly 5" was a bit small, perhaps it was ok for games but trying to do 'work' on it, not for me. Even something like a kaypro was pushing it, but was 'doable' .  I think later on that plasma display HP had on one of theirs, same thing, sure its portable and interesting, but too small. At least i think it was HP, but either way it was the same basic form actor as the SX, just dos+plasma. Its been a while so i could have the company wrong.  Osborne, same issue.. I was given one of them along the way ..  neat, but too small to "use"

So, I'd love an SX-64 - working. It would be another thing to worry about how I'm going to get it fixed when it inevitably dies. Face it - the lifespan on anything with a built in 5" CRT is at best on as limited days as the rest of us. There is an event horizon where it simply won't be repairable - or if so, it won't be quite the same. I'm sure you can find a 4:3 15khz  LCD and work out the pins to drive it - or put an upscaler in between and drive it to some other LCD - but the CRT is part of the charm. I'm out on the West Coast though - and I do not trust any of the shipping companies to get one from the East Coast to Phoenix in one piece. 

I'd also like a Vic 20. The problem with Phoenix, is it is State 48 - and Phoenix had most of its boom at the end of the 90s to present - so non-natives outnumber natives probably 4:1 here - and that means that when they moved... at the end of the 90s - they dumped all their obsolete technology they had sitting in garages or attics or basements - so for ]]>https://uncensored.citadel.org/readfwd?go=Gadgets?start_reading_at=2099563358Wed, 13 May 2026 08:51:35 +05002099563358@Uncensored It's made me realize that the stuff that I like (and quite frankly, I >don't really touch) is meaningless to my kids. They'll either throw >most of it away, or donate it if anyone cares. To them, it will look >like old junk. > Life is weird like that. When my grandpa kicked the bucket (causing absolutely nobody to be sad, because he was an absolute bastard) his family pretty much raided his house in search for valuables. You could tell the morons there don't know the value of things. For example, he had an Uniform from the times when he was a thug for The Party, some trench "tools", and a lot of artisanally crafted pieces of furniture which had been passed to him by his father. His family went straight to grab his computers, phones and shinny things. Today, the computers, phones and shinny things are obsolete, but I can hang my hat on a perch that has been with my family for more than four generations, and I can show friends and visits Socialist paraphernalia with a traceable History. Not to mention a bunch of it is worth a whole lot of money for collectors these days. My father is not worried I am going to waste his legacy. Most of his cool stuff are music, comics and watches - I like music and old comics, and I know better than trash working watches. So. The one with a problem in that regard is me because I cannot pass down any of my things to my horses. ]]>https://uncensored.citadel.org/readfwd?go=Gadgets?start_reading_at=2099563352Wed, 13 May 2026 07:28:51 +05002099563352@Uncensored

I forget whom as its been over a decade, but i tried to donate to some of the more rare stuff to some organization out west, including a bunch of classic computer books/magazines.   They never wrote me back. So it all went to friends locally. 

Tue May 12 2026 21:53:29 EDT from IGnatius T Foobar Subject: vintage computers

Well, there's the Vintage Computer Federation, which is over in Wall, NJ.
donations@vcfed.org to find out if you have anything they're looking out for. It looks like they're also having a swap meet on May 30.

Which machines are you keeping? If I remember correctly, the SuperPET and the KIM-1 were your favorites.

Only things i kept from of my museum after the 'great purge' years ago was a PX8, and my a Newton. I accidentally kept a T/S 1000, in its box, but that was because it was in a closet instead of the garage on the racks with the rest of the stuff, i had forgot it was there. But it was given away last summer. 

Even my HP calculators which don't take up much space went bye bye. ( tho i did have several models, so not insignificant space.. ) 

Sort of miss my old scope, but its not like i used it anymore and was taking up bench space. its not like i'm building radios or something anymore.  Did get a small LCD one, about the size of a phone, to use on the cars. Sort of neat really. But will collect dust most of its life here.

Sun Nov 02 2025 22:22:32 UTC from IGnatius T Foobar

I seem to recall having said "I wish PD were here, he knows this stuff" more than once.

I wish you could *heart* posts on Citadel still. :) I know you hate that idea, because it is FB/X social media BS. 

Anyhow... I'm here. I'm rusty. I'm f'kin around with an Apollo Computers V4 stand alone Amiga clone FPGA device right now - it is toasted. Block read errors and just acting like Jack Nicholson in one flew over the cockoo's nest after he gets fixed. I'll try to log in sober tomorrow and tell more about it - but for now - if you want Amiga emulation in FPGA - get a MiSTer - not a V4. The V4 is far more powerful - but super unstable. I ate $120 in CF cards this week trying to flash and upgrade it to the latest cores. Ouch. 

While true in theory, and tho im not really too involved in the scene now now, im still filling drives with AI model training data before the plug is pulled on us digital-serfs and we go underground.   Every TB counts.

A couple id like to have, they are in the PB range, so out of reach for me.  

And don't be too sad about my ROM/software purge, i really don't believe i had anything that isn't already 'out there'.  Be more sad of the hardware purge i did perhaps 10 years ago.  Over 100 retro machines. out the door.  Everything from a radio shack micro color, to a Kayroro and osborne, to a TRS80 md2 with printer and disk drives, apple 6100 and original mac laptop, a M100... a C16 and Plus4, a QL and 2 or 3 2068s.. bag of HP calculators and a couple of their pocket computers.  Couple 8 bit and 16 bit Ataris..   Oh and a Mattel aquarius, which few people have ever seen in the wild.   A sparcstation 10...  A few had their original boxes even.    Tons more ( im sure literally since some were so big . lol ).     All given away to people, none to the trash or sold off. Gifts      I did keep the shelves tho, repurposed them for tools. 

Only things i kept was a PX-8 and a now dead newton ( i think dead think. i need to try again doing a hard reset sometime ) .  And a T1000 in its box. but gave that away a few weeks ago.

Couple years ago guy at work gave me a 1200xl. ( i forget exactly when now, but not too long ago ) I didn't want it, but he was so proud of it and happy to offer it to me, i didn't want to say no.  But its gone now too, it left with the T1000.

Sat Nov 08 2025 22:50:49 UTC from darknetuser

 It barely takes any room.

Sort of funny.

Cleaning up my old storage drive last weekend, wiped out 1000s of roms for Atari, Commodore.. etc.    'why waste the space'

Sat Nov 08 2025 19:28:39 UTC from darknetuser

Also I have a very complete Atari ROM collection which includes lots of stuff from the Atari 8bit computers.

Ya, they were some talented folks. 

Thu Nov 06 2025 17:57:20 UTC from IGnatius T Foobar

Early Atari machines were very meh. If you were a kid you were much
better playing with sticks and stones than playing Atari consoles.

Atari VCS (2600) games looked like crap ... and yet, years later, now that I know how those games were actually implemented (racing the beam, no frame buffer) I am quite impressed at what they were able to accomplish with such outrageously limited hardware.

I do agree with the lack of games, ( tho Myst was an option ) but its their fault as due to the nearly non-existent marketing no one wanted to make anything for it.  But the hardware, was ahead of its time. I actually had one for perhaps 30 years..  i bought it.. use it about a week. "eh im bored'  and shelved it until a few years ago when i gave it to a collector at the office. Sure, trying to compare it to today, its garbage, but not in 'its day'. It just got a bad rap.  Sort of like one of my cars that i have, it was just fine but due to FUD marketing by competition it was perceived as trash, when it really wasn't.

Had a few games, CD drive, external memory card.. extra controllers. Original box...

Even today tho i can still see Skylar talking..   lol 

Wed Nov 05 2025 14:26:07 UTC from darknetuser

BUT.. the Jaguar from what i remember was pretty impressive for
its day. Just poor, nearly non-existent marketing.

The Jaguar is widely regarded as crap these days, and I mean by actual retro fans who think every old piece of technology is fun. I don't think I ever saw good games for it and I don't think many had good performance.

I was thinking the AtariST line, which i was a HUGE fan of, even tho this was Amiga territory.  Never was a gamer.  8Bit Atari ( again, computers not console ), i thought were competitive, at lest most of the time, they had a few screw ups ( everyone did back then ). 

BUT.. the Jaguar from what i remember was pretty impressive for its day. Just poor, nearly non-existent marketing.

Tue Nov 04 2025 19:51:51 UTC from darknetuser

2025-11-02 22:50 from Nurb432
I did mess with it a bit. Mostly 'emulation' of Z80 cp/m
however, not the Atari scene, and never was really into
gaming.  ( i am one of those who sort of think the line is
blurred here, its sort of emulation of hardware, but its sort of
not.. )

But honestly I got bored quickly as if i really wanted to do
that, it was easier on a 'real' machine, and went back to what
FPGAs are meant to be for us hobbyists: experimentation and
proof of concept, since its hard to justify the cost of taping
out a chip just for a hobby..

Early Atari machines were very meh. If you were a kid you were much better playing with sticks and stones than playing Atari consoles.

Games started getting up to speed with the 3rd generation. And I say the ZX Spectrum looks like a cool platform. You can still find modern frameworks to code for the original Spectrum machines.

I did mess with it a bit. Mostly 'emulation' of Z80 cp/m however, not the Atari scene, and never was really into gaming.  ( i am one of those who sort of think the line is blurred here, its sort of emulation of hardware, but its sort of not.. )

But honestly I got bored quickly as if i really wanted to do that, it was easier on a 'real' machine, and went back to what FPGAs are meant to be for us hobbyists: experimentation and proof of concept, since its hard to justify the cost of taping out a chip just for a hobby..

Thu Oct 30 2025 20:54:16 UTC from ParanoidDelusions

Interesting to see you guys talking about MiSTer and MiSTerPi. I don't remember anyone here being very into Retro emulation when I stopped coming around here last. 

Interesting to see you guys talking about MiSTer and MiSTerPi. I don't remember anyone here being very into Retro emulation when I stopped coming around here last. 

*insert image of RPI on fire in a dumpster here*     

lol 

Pi CM5 All the way !

What's your experience with the Pi 5 so far, myte?  Does their new I/O chip bring the Pi up to comparable speed with other ARM boards on the market?

Ewww.  So many better options out there than RPI products. 

Mon Feb 03 2025 11:51:22 UTC from myte Subject: Pi

Pi CM5 All the way !

Mon Jan 20 2025 21:15:05 UTC from IGnatius T Foobar

Is the MISTer Pi an FPGA based solution like its predecessor, or does it really emulate all those gates in software?

It uses the same FPGA as the DE10 Nano. It uses fewer layers of circuit boards though. It works with the same cores as the original MISTer.

I didnt real real close, but my guess it would be a FPGA hat, but of lesser power then the Mister, so i suspect its a bit of both now.

Mon Jan 20 2025 21:15:05 UTC from IGnatius T Foobar

Sorry for the post necro but the MISTer Pi looks like an affordable
alternative to the DE10 Nano based MISTer. It lists for about $180 USD

No need to apologize, every new member of our community adds something valuable.

Is the MISTer Pi an FPGA based solution like its predecessor, or does it really emulate all those gates in software?

Most retro fans i know have moved on from FPGA to just regular emulation.  While technically FPGA is more 'accurate' since its basically hardware ( i know, its a bit fuzzy ), but emulation software is close enough for most people.

The real hardcore, do neither and find the real thing and bring it back to life.

Wed Sep 04 2019 04:48:08 UTC from ParanoidDelusions

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.

Sorry for the post necro but the MISTer Pi looks like an affordable alternative to the DE10 Nano based MISTer. It lists for about $180 USD complete and for the MiniMig core, not all circuit boards are needed. If I weren't trying to conserve funds, I'd preorder for the next available batch. I've still got a stock A1200 and an A500 that I never use due to FS-UAE on my Linux box replacing them.

Also, my G4 Mac Mini running registered MorphOS costed about the same as the MISTer Pi and I program it about as much as the other Amiga-likes. After seeing how powerful the Flutter framework is I'm tempted to make a spinoff for AmigaE but that's for another discussion.

Anyone want to buy a pager? i have a few in a box, no batteries. Cheap, free shipping.

lol 

i think of games as more user-interactive than a 'movie'. 

But yes, some game aspects would be play ( no pun.. hell, sure, a pun )

I know it cant be done with current tech, but it would be cool if you could be immersive in the film. and move around the scenes. 

I guess when movies are 100% AI and not just green screen-CGI, it might be doable. 

Tue Nov 14 2023 09:24:48 EST from IGnatius T Foobar

And that's really the bottom line: 3D is a novelty, and it seems to have a natural tendency to remain a novelty. It doesn't appear to have enough appeal to be a fundamental advance in motion picture presentation, like sound and color both were.

I know you didnt ask me, but  my theater experience was Tron Legacy.

Tried a couple others on my headset: Toy story 1, Solo ( the star wars thing...  no idea of the actual content just watched to see the 3D ), and one of the avengers movies, i think it was the first one, infinity war and several demo files i picked up. Oh and of course Legacy again, since i missed it totally on the big screen and wanted to see what i missed..  seemed to be nothing really as the 2D version was about the same really.  A friend of mine liked 3D porno. Honestly didnt care for at any of that, seemed silly to me.

And of course i had a 3D client for OpenSIm, which has since vanished, to my frustration. and a few google cardboard demo apps which uses the gyroscope and accelerometer to move you around in-world. Good way to lose your balance an fall out of an office chair  :)  One you could walk down the hall, and it tracked motion into the 'scene'. 

Oh, and the AR thing that used a cube with what looked almost like QR codes on all 6 sides, so it could identify them and their position as it moved.... ( "merge cube" ) To me, that was neat. The cube would vanish and it woudl be replaced with an 'object' that you could move around and such. ( like a museum bust, for example, or a game piece ). Seen tables like that too, sort of like the chess board on starwars.. where the table was a design it could 'hide' with a fake object.  AR had a lot of promise with stuff like that.  May still with these new AR glasses that keep coming out ( not bulky headsets ), donno

I think it *could* if done well. But the few movies i saw were mostly a gimmick. Even tho i cant watch it on big screen without my head exploding from pain,  i was able on my phone-based VR headset, so i did see a few of them.  Sure, 'interesting' but they didnt 'use' it.   Now, for 3D architecture design walk thru, or CAD work and such, ( anyone here remember VMRL ? ) it was great. But movies, it was 'well, ok', and i could see that it had promise, but no follow thru.

Oh, and might have mentioned it before, but i have a slight case lazy eye, but not one you can see, its the signal that is delayed, just enough. Which im sure helps contribute to my almost constant migraines. So my depth perception, while there, is not the same as most people. As a kid i hated paying ball. "hey, the ball, catch it"  look up, see a ball, one eye washes out from the light, then it hits my face )  When i was a little kid my parents got me a view-master. I had no idea at the time what it as for, i looked. saw 2 images of the road runner and the coyote, sort of 'up in the air'. "um, ok, thanks..." and put it away. Flash forward to when i was about 15 or so, and i learned what it was all about  in history class ( i think.. might have been art class. ) and figured out how to merge the images and see it in 3D.. was the coolest thing i have ever seen :)  Went down and bought a bunch at the toy store that same day.  So when VR headsets came out, i was thrilled to death. Just to see it a non-st

Sun Nov 12 2023 09:24:36 EST from zelgomer

I actually think it just doesn't bring that much value.

Ah, figured by then it was digital too.  

But i rarely do theaters, so dont follow it much.. ( as mentioned.. )

Sat Nov 11 2023 18:15:15 EST from IGnatius T Foobar

IMAX is film, and film can be polarized. 

I could be wrong but i thought that is how the one movie i saw worked. I do know they were passive polarized glasses, and it was only one screen.  It was an imax theater, so donno what was going on in the back end. perhaps 2 projectors? i donno, us serfs dont get to look behind the curtain, so to speak.

Sat Nov 11 2023 12:56:18 EST from IGnatius T Foobar

(It was easier with film, since you can polarize one side vertically and the other horizontally, but that isn't possible with video [yet?].)

Once upon a time there were standards.. but no one honors them anymore. ( back to your greed statement.  gotta have walled gardens )

Sat Nov 11 2023 12:56:18 EST from IGnatius T Foobar

 someone like SMPTE or VESA could call out a set of standards for 3D video, 

Ah, that was after this as some people in our group had their own.  As it was also my last movie,  i never got to see the slow roll back to make a buck. ( actually now that i think of it.. was the first in at least a decade and last movie of any kind in a theater for me. Never was a fan of the 'big screen', being glued to a chair for 2 hours, and sitting so close to random humans ) 

Mon Nov 06 2023 13:24:13 EST from darknetuser

Then they started selling you the googles alongisde the ticket, without giving you an option to save a few bucks by using googles you already owned instead.

Or the problem with a lot of 3D capable TVs being 3-4x moar expensive than their 2D counterparts.  Then the problem with "passive goggles" where different manufacturers put the polarization in different directions for Left and Right, so you couldn't use one passive goggles for a different brand of TV.  Oh, and then the "active goggles" which were even moar proprietary, in some cases they were model-specific!

Gee, I wonder why 3D never caught on.

Mon Nov 06 2023 12:33:05 EST from darknetuser

I thought the reason why 3d didn't take over movies is because theatres got greedy and wanted to charge you for googles even if you brought your own.

The one 3D movie i went to see at the local imax, Tron legacy ( that i regret.. i basically missed the movie due to the instant migraine during the opening credits ) they used polarized glasses of some sort. You got to keep them afterwards.  Just recently ran across them and tossed them. 

Mon Nov 06 2023 12:33:05 EST from darknetuser

I thought the reason why 3d didn't take over movies is because theatres got greedy and wanted to charge you for googles even if you brought your own.

Was cleaning yesterday ran across my 3D headset ( that works with a phone for the display ) 

Had so much promise.   but no. fizzled out. 

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.   

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

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.

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.

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 ?

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.

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. 

Because it wouldn't exist?

Nope...those are tools for the Home Handyman room.

I've heard that joke tons of times.  I still laugh at it each time.