Category: Tech

Hackers On The Net – 1

This is the start of the most significant blog posts I can ever possibly make. It’s about the most incredible and amazing magazine article I ever read, or ever could read, published in my lifetime. It predicted the future with uncanny accuracy. It’s about people who said, “This is what we are going to do.” And they did it.

Let me show you an example of what I’m talking about. Here is a laptop for accessing the Net.

terminal.gif

The year? 1972. That isn’t a typo. I’m talking about the year of the Watergate break-in. More in Part 2, coming up.

Now you’re playing with power!

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NOTE: This is a special guest blog written by honorable son Eric:

 

17 years before Nintendo’s motion-sensing Wiimote/Nunchaku, there was the Power Glove for the NES. An interesting early experiment in gaming technology, it was a barely functioning “glove” that sensed your arm and finger motions and let you control games with them.

In stark contrast to the Wiimote’s small and slim sensor bar, the Power Glove required that you place these three somewhat bulky sensors on the corners of your TV. It sold fairly well due to a successful marketing campaign, but it was totally impractical to use when compared to the normal controller.

The Power Glove was immortalized in the 1989 movie The Wizard, starring Fred Savage and a ton of Nintendo product placements. The clip above contains the infamous scene!

“I love the Power Glove. It’s so bad.” That quote can be taken in several different ways, don’t you think?
 

Continue reading Now you’re playing with power!

Picture This

Edna Mae Horner

The history of radio technology is clearly understood. There is little doubt as to who did what technically, and who did what to whom. Television has a much muddier picture, because there were many people working independently on its creation.

Edwin Armstrong made AM radio practical and he invented FM radio. Philo Farnsworth invented purely electronic (as distinct from mechanical) television. Both men were destroyed by David Sarnoff, a founder of RCA and its longtime chairman. More about “General” Sarnoff later.

AT&T — the original Ma Bell — had one of the labs that was trying to come up with a working TV system. In April, 1927, two months before my late mother was born, AT&T demonstrated mechanical television with 50 lines of resolution. Click here to read a bit about it, and see a simulation of how the picture may have looked. The photo above is of Edna Mae Horner, “one good-looking girl with fluffy hair,” who appeared on camera during the demonstration.

Oui Wii

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Eric has, at last, experienced the eagerly-anticipated Nintendo Wii! At a demo kiosk in the Natick Mall.

It’s been a long wait for the Wii, which was originally going to be called the Revolution. Here’s hoping Santa does a good job making sure they’re in ample supply for the Holidays Christmas! No! Wait! I got that backwards. Holidays Christmas. *Whew* There, that’s better.

There’s another Eric who’s anxious to play the Nintendo Wii. The foul-mouthed kid on South Park. Well, every kid on South Park is foul-mouthed. The language on the video above has been reasonably cleaned up with some judicious editing.

I’m not particularly a fan of the show, in part because of the needlessly gratuitous profanity. I made a point of watching the Scientology show, however, and it was quite good. I’m not saying the writers don’t score points against their targets, but for me the swearing muddies the message.

Special Guest Blogger

This installment of DogRat is brought to you by honorable son Eric.

If the space above is blank, blame YouTube™!

A new trailer for the highly anticipated video game Dairantou Smash Brothers X (known outside of Japan as Super Smash Brothers Brawl) was released this week at the Tokyo Game Show 2006. Like the other games in the series, DSBX is a crossover fighting game starring Nintendo characters, although this installment will include a guest character from the Metal Gear series by Konami, Snake.

The new trailer reveals several new arenas and one new character, Fox. The game is set to be released in early 2007 for the Nintendo Wii.

-Eric

Who Am I?

WHO R U

A friend where I work needed a favor. She had an idea for a presentation that required the old Who song “Who Are You” — but it couldn’t have the swear words in it.

I was in the radio business when the song came out, and there was a short, cleaned-up single version.  Not having the single handy, I made one of my own. Although the question should be asked, who am I to touch a Who song?

[audio:http://www.dograt.com/Sounds/Wordpress/OCT06/SongEdit.mp3,http://www.dograt.com/Sounds/Wordpress/OCT06/SongOriginal.mp3]

On the audio player is my edit, followed by the original. This was transferred from the vinyl LP I bought the week that the album was released in 1978. I don’t think the album is all that great, actually, so I never bought the CD.

Can you tell where the four edits are? The deletion at 4:38 was the trickiest.  It’s at 5:34 in the unedited cut.