9 Nov
1998
9 Nov
'98
10:33 a.m.
Even if we ignore that the plain G3 systems would likely have been
enough? I heard that Apple sold out of their new G3s even before the
iMac came out. All of the detail to which you refer will be forgotten
in 15 years. By historic, I mean of the magnitude of the original
macintosh, or the PC XT, or Apple II, or Altair, or C64, and others.
These truly changed the face of computing, unlike the iMac.
> Of course, since the iMac has little historical significance, I doubt
it
Say what?! Jobs leaves Apple, Apple dies, Jobs rides his white horse
back
to Apple, saves Apple with the iMac. What do you want,
a big red sign
that says "COLLECT ME, I'M HISTORIC"?
-- Doug
______________________________________________________
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9 Nov
9 Nov
10:51 a.m.
On Mon, 9 Nov 1998, Max Eskin wrote:
Even if we ignore that the plain G3 systems would
likely have been
enough? I heard that Apple sold out of their new G3s even before the
iMac came out. All of the detail to which you refer will be forgotten
in 15 years. By historic, I mean of the magnitude of the original
macintosh, or the PC XT, or Apple II, or Altair, or C64, and others.
These truly changed the face of computing, unlike the iMac.
Puuhlease! (Is Roger Rabbit still around?)
What was historic about the Mac? It was a cheaper, better Lisa. A mere
evolutionary improvement over another Apple product (which was just the
commercializtion of one of PARC's concepts).
The Apple ][ was just an incremental improvement over the Apple 1.
The Altair was a small incremental improvement over the Mark-8, Scelbi,
etc.
The C64 was cheap. And the PC (not the PC-XT) was just IBM's badge on a
dull box.
This should teach you two things: don't underestimate small incremental
improvements and/or "panache", and don't be a revolutionary (nobody will
remember you).
-- Doug
2:21 p.m.
On Mon, 9 Nov 1998, Doug Yowza wrote:
Puuhlease! (Is Roger Rabbit still around?)
What was historic about the Mac? It was a cheaper, better Lisa. A mere
evolutionary improvement over another Apple product (which was just the
commercializtion of one of PARC's concepts).
Oh come on! Don't start this again. You're going to say that the
Macintosh was NOT historic?
Puuhlease (indeed)!
The Apple ][ was just an incremental improvement over
the Apple 1.
The Altair was a small incremental improvement over the Mark-8, Scelbi,
etc.
The C64 was cheap. And the PC (not the PC-XT) was just IBM's badge on a
dull box.
This should teach you two things: don't underestimate small incremental
improvements and/or "panache", and don't be a revolutionary (nobody will
remember you).
This is a much different story. The iMac has merely "reinvented" the
wheel. The Apple ][, Altair and C64 almost were the wheel. That's the
difference. If the iMac had a holographic display and used strictly voice
command to operate it, then it might be on order of the Apple ][ or
Altair.
Yes, its historical. But its no Macintosh.
(I want one.)
Sellam Alternate e-mail: dastar(a)siconic.com
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Always being hassled by the man.
Coming in 1999: Vintage Computer Festival 3.0
See http://www.vintage.org/vcf for details!
[Last web site update: 11/02/98]
2:32 p.m.
On Mon, 9 Nov 1998, Sam Ismail wrote:
Oh come on! Don't start this again. You're
going to say that the
Macintosh was NOT historic?
Puuhlease (indeed)!
Err, no, I was saying that "historic" does not mean "revolutionary".
History reports impactful events more than innovative events.
This is a much different story. The iMac has merely
"reinvented" the
wheel. The Apple ][, Altair and C64 almost were the wheel. That's the
difference. If the iMac had a holographic display and used strictly voice
command to operate it, then it might be on order of the Apple ][ or
Altair.
"Almost" indeed. Which wheel did the C64 almost invent exactly? It
doesn't matter that there wasn't a whole lot of computer innovation there,
the machine had impact (mostly due to it's price and game software).
The iMac will be seen as historic if it saves Apple (and that is yet to be
seen). And it will have a nice chunk of Jobs mythology behind it as well,
which sure doesn't hurt.
-- Doug
2:40 p.m.
On Mon, 9 Nov 1998, Doug Yowza wrote:
The iMac will be seen as historic if it saves Apple
(and that is yet to be
seen). And it will have a nice chunk of Jobs mythology behind it as well,
which sure doesn't hurt.
Maybe. I think the turnaround will be attributed to Jobs with the iMac
being a footnote to that. Of course the G3 PowerMacs, which deserve all
the credit, will take a backseat (those are some nich machines!)
Sellam Alternate e-mail: dastar(a)siconic.com
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Always being hassled by the man.
Coming in 1999: Vintage Computer Festival 3.0
See http://www.vintage.org/vcf for details!
[Last web site update: 11/02/98]
10 Nov
10 Nov
1:52 a.m.
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2:55 a.m.
On Tue, 10 Nov 1998, Cameron Kaiser wrote:
count), although where Commodores are concerned the
Amigas were the real
innovators. They defined "multimedia machine" when the term wasn't even
known.
The term "multimedia" was known -- I remember suffering through some bad
performance art back then. And the MindSet PC (1984) was positioned as a
graphics and sound machine to differentiate it from IBM, but the Amiga did
a better job (I bought mine to play with computer music).
-- Doug
4:16 a.m.
New subject: History of "Multimedia" (Was:iMac AddOn (was:Future Collect
On Tue, 10 Nov 1998, Doug Yowza wrote:
The term "multimedia" was known -- I
remember suffering through some bad
performance art back then. And the MindSet PC (1984) was positioned as a
graphics and sound machine to differentiate it from IBM, but the Amiga did
a better job (I bought mine to play with computer music).
In 1970 a college art prof told me that "multimedia" is 2 or more Kodak
Carousel projectors plus a sound track. In response to questions he did
insist that no substitutions were permitted.
In 1979 I used the cassette relay of a TRS-80 model 1 to advance slides
on a Carousel. But it was only one. I've never had a "multimedia" system.
Has "multimedia" changed since then :-?
Now all of the hype is "3D". I have used some 3D illusion systems, such
as StereoGraphics. But all of the "3D" stuff that is being hyped is on
purely two dimensional video monitors. What's going on?
Can anyone explain to me in what way a processor is "3D"??
--
Fred Cisin cisin(a)xenosoft.com
XenoSoft http://www.xenosoft.com
2210 Sixth St. (510) 644-9366
Berkeley, CA 94710-2219
4:22 a.m.
New subject: History of "Multimedia" (Was:iMac AddOn (was:Future Collect
At 10:16 AM 11/10/98 -0800, Fred Cisin (XenoSoft) wrote:
Now all of the hype is "3D". I have used some 3D illusion systems, such
as StereoGraphics. But all of the "3D" stuff that is being hyped is on
purely two dimensional video monitors. What's going on?
Can anyone explain to me in what way a processor is "3D"??
Grain of salt taken, some new processors include extra instructions
(like Intel's MMX) that can be used to optimize some 3D calculations,
particularly those involving transforms, matrix multiplies, etc.
as well as mapping of a 2D bitmap texture onto what appears to
be a 3D cube on a 2D monitor.
- John
5:38 a.m.
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8:41 a.m.
New subject: History of "Multimedia" (Was:iMac AddOn (was:Future Collect
On Tue, 10 Nov 1998, Tony Duell wrote:
To get on-topic (I hope)... There were attempts at
making 3D displays
using LCD spectacles controlled by the vertical sync signal to the
monitor. You saw one frame though each eye. It worked well, apart from
the flicker (even at about 100 frames/second).
Sure, I've got a pair (they got real cheap after they flopped) and some
game software that exploits the effect. The high-end version had small
active matrix LCD's built right into the goggles that actually presented a
different image to each eye.
But I don't think those are 10 years old yet. Weren't there older
displays that simply presented different images to the left and right side
of the CRT, and you looked into the view finder. Or am I thinking of the
GAF ViewMaster?
-- Doug
11 Nov
11 Nov
1:03 a.m.
New subject: History of "Multimedia" (Was:iMac AddOn (was:Future Collect
At 07:38 PM 11/10/98 +0000, Tony Duell wrote:
To get on-topic (I hope)... There were attempts at making 3D displays
using LCD spectacles controlled by the vertical sync signal to the
monitor. You saw one frame though each eye. It worked well, apart from
the flicker (even at about 100 frames/second).
Anybody have one of those in their collection?
Yes, I've got one for the Amiga, and it probably falls under the ten-year
rule by now. LCD shutter, big like soft plastic goggles, connected
to the spare game port. It shipped with some sort of "space potato" meteor
battle shoot-em-up, and I recall a few 3D rendering packages at the time
could make images for it, which were Amiga interlaced bitmaps that had to
be viewed with a special viewer to generate the magic sync.
At 04:41 PM 11/10/98 -0600, Doug Yowza wrote:
But I don't think those are 10 years old yet.
Weren't there older
displays that simply presented different images to the left and right side
of the CRT, and you looked into the view finder. Or am I thinking of the
GAF ViewMaster?
As recently as four-five years ago, a company (Simsalabim?) was selling
a monitor hood like this at Siggraph, and software to split-render a
3D Studio scene. This year, I saw a company selling a monitor with
a lenticular lens cover, giving postcard-style 3D without goggles.
- John
15 Nov
15 Nov
9:43 p.m.
New subject: History of "Multimedia" (Was:iMac AddOn (was:Future Collect
On Tue, 10 Nov 1998, Tony Duell wrote:
I'm hoping to eventually locate some X-Specs 3D which worked at television
frequencies. I think they plugged into the Amiga joystick port, and just
liquid crystal shutters. The 3D modes were done on interlaced screens,
with the image for one eye drawn on the odd lines, and the image for the
other eye drawn on the even lines. The shutters would activate in synch
with the interlacing.
I *think* these glasses are classic by now.
Some 3D rendering software actually generates images for these glasses
(Imagine from Impulse at least) and I think I saw programming libraries
for them on Aminet.
Ah... here are some games on Aminet:
LanderGame.lha game/misc 257K 344+X-Specs 3D Lunar Lander game
RaiderGame.lha game/misc 77K 344+Space strategy game for X-Specs 3D
No sign of the libraries, but I've seen them somewhere.
One of the original games that shipped with the X-Specs involved giant 3D
killer space potatoes. Space Spuds? One of the local Amiga stores <sigh>
used to demo that game.
There were also freeware/shareware games that used the red-blue 3D
glasses. The ones I used to play were "3D Breakout" and "Orbit".
Now all of the
hype is "3D". I have used some 3D illusion systems, such
as StereoGraphics. But all of the "3D" stuff that is being hyped is on
purely two dimensional video monitors. What's going on?
To get on-topic (I hope)... There were attempts at making 3D displays
using LCD spectacles controlled by the vertical sync signal to the
monitor. You saw one frame though each eye. It worked well, apart from
the flicker (even at about 100 frames/second).
Anybody have one of those in their collection? -tony
--
Doug Spence
ds_spenc(a)alcor.concordia.ca
http://alcor.concordia.ca/~ds_spenc/
16 Nov
16 Nov
4:44 a.m.
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3:52 p.m.
New subject: History of "Multimedia" (Was:iMac AddOn (was:Future Collect
On Mon, Nov 16, 1998 at 06:44:25PM +0000, Tony Duell wrote:
Do you, perchance, have technical manuals for E&S board set that is part of
VAXstation 8000 (or, for that matter, any docs on this VAXstation)? I hope
this box will be running NetBSD/vax soon, and getting X11R6 to run on it
would be good :)
--
Sergey Svishchev -- svs{at}ropnet{dot}ru
I'm hoping
to eventually locate some X-Specs 3D which worked at television
frequencies. I think they plugged into the Amiga joystick port, and just
liquid crystal shutters. The 3D modes were done on interlaced screens,
with the image for one eye drawn on the odd lines, and the image for the
other eye drawn on the even lines. The shutters would activate in synch
with the interlacing.
That's how the Evans and Sutherland 3-d glasses for the PS390 image
display unit worked. The control box for the glasses seems to be a simple
divide-by-2 flip-flop triggered off the vertical sync pulse. It operates
the 2 LCD shutters.
1:22 p.m.
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9536
days inactive
9543
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15 comments
10 participants
participants (10)
-
ard＠p850ug1.demon.co.uk -
cisin＠xenosoft.com -
ckaiser＠oa.ptloma.edu -
dastar＠ncal.verio.com -
ds_spenc＠alcor.concordia.ca -
jfoust＠threedee.com -
kshuppe＠threedee.com -
maxeskin＠hotmail.com -
svs＠ropnet.ru -
yowza＠yowza.com