There was some game involving Grover… in space? … that had a soft cover that fitted over your keyboard to turn it into the game controls. How’s that for specific? This would have probably been in the mid to late '80s.
I miss Winamp when it was good. I haven’t looked at it since they released v3, I downloaded it, and I then deleted it about fifteen minutes later in disgust and went back to using whatever 2.x I’d previously had. Even that I finally gave up on when I got an iPod.
Hell, *I *had to program in FORTRAN77 in college… only about five years ago.
There used to be a lot of games that would have something like that. Normally they just went over the function keys and showed the function on paper in the little space between the numbers and the function row.
I didn’t have an IBM clone computer until 1998 or 99. My childhood computer memories are all Commodore 64 related.
There was a non-commercial SID chip (the C64 sound chip) editor that I entered from a magazine (remember those? Computer magazines that had code you entered by hand?) the name of which I do not remember. But I spent HOURS inputting individual notes from sheet music into that program and had a whole lot of floppies filled with the songs.
I actually knew about that. But I needed some sort of transition phase between the two. And you also mentioned why I’m not bothering to learn it now. Javascript’s not that bad. I’ve got avatars working on the Dope already.
That probably would have been a good transition. But it seems the project is more focused on compatibility with old programs, rather than taking the old syntax and moving it into the Windows paradigm. I’m not sure what I would have jumped to after it.
Also, I don’t get the need to stick with the old DOS-looking interface. They do realize that Qbasic was mimicking Windows, right?
Was that one basically like a really primitive version of Noteworthy Composer, with a staff graphic that you basically arrowed up and down to enter notes? I had thought it was called something more original than “SID Editor” but my memory has proven faulty before.
That’s the main screen, yes. The staff graphic’s not much wider than the note icon and the bottom of the screen consisted of a text representation of each note, and anything else that was entered. The latter consisted primarily of the attack, sustain, decay, release, and waveform for that particular voice, entered on a separate screen. Glissandos, playback colors, and other stuff could also be entered on that screen.
The Enhanced SID Editor added the capability for triplets, among other things.
This. Last fall my new work computer came with Office 2003, and “Microsoft Office Picture Manager.” It’s shyte. I still had Office XP at home, and discovered that I could take the PhotoEditor app folder from that machine and bring it to work, where it runs fine without a formal installation that ties it to the registry. Whew.
Been a long time since I saw Conan the Librarian. Program ran in the background on a Mac. It listened to the microphone, and whenever there was a blip of noise significantly above the ambient noise level in the room, Arnold Schwarzenegger’s voice would pipe up and say “QUIET.” If the noise in the room continued, Arnold would repeat himself with increasing intensity, eventually graduating to a very assertive “SHUT UP”; the final reminder was a protracted scream of “SHUUUUUUTUUUUUUUUP” with a fanfare of music to back it up.
I’m very much an old school geek, I long suspected most Dopers are too, glad to see this thread confirms it.
If I can help it, I prefer to have the old school version of programs on my computer rather than newer ones. My preferred email client (well, only one, really) is Pegasus Mail (I refuse to use Outlook at home (forced to here at work though)) - though it gets me blank stares when I mention it to folks (and I’m even more reluctant to change as my wife is a computer luddite, had to train her on Pegasus, and I’ll be damned if I have to train her on anything else).
My preferred program for viewing .gifs (just .gifs, I have other programs for other files (can’t recall the name of it but the one I use for viewing jpegs has a roadkill cat for its icon) is WinGIF. Old as the hills, but I’m so used to it for opening up the .gif files in my emails (of coruse when I edit or create .gif or .jpegs, I use a more civilized program like Photoshop or PaintShop Pro).
Of course I also have IE 3.1 (not my default browser, of course), I say purely for the nostalgia factor (same for Netscape. If I could find a copy of NSCA Mosaic, the nostalgia factor would be complete.)
This.
It was only a few years ago (which was a few years after the last board left that I called went to the great modem in the sky to meet his Sysop) that I realized that people don’t call BBSes any more and most don’t even know what they are now. sniff God, I miss those. (I also miss laughing at the n00bs who would say “I know the sysop of the Internet!” when the get laughed off the 'net for their n00bery. Those noobs who tried to have us call their bluffs are now considered 'net oldtimers!)
Stop! You’re making me misty-eyed! Next you’ll probably start talking about Usenet (see my comments about BBSes above. Didnt’ know that Usenet is dead until recently either.)
Oh man, you have no idea how warm and fuzzy this made me feel. This is like if I was raised in a foreign country speaking a foreign language, but moved to N. America at a young age. 25 years later, you don’t speak the language any more but you suddenly hear a snippet of it and, although you haven’t spoken the langauge in a quarter of a century, you still understand the jist of it and it instantly makes you homesick. I just felt that way now. Haven’t programmed in BASIC for about that long, but that sure takes me back!
I also have a version of that on my computer (as old school a version as I could find). Interestingly enough, to my immense pride, with all the neato games on my computer, with GUIs and finely rendered graphics and sound, and multimedia experiences, plus a Wii system, our kid’s favourite computer game? “The cat game!” (aka Neko) They love it, can’t get enough of it. And it makes me so proud.
I still have a fear of LFNs, when I make websites now, I still try to keep my file names, if at all possible, in 8.3 format (which means almost all my pages, except index.html, end in .htm).
Well, my first computer was an Apple IIe back in about '84 or so, so there’s lots of old programs that I fondly remember. But what about obsolete software you actually still use today? There are a couple I use because I’m not one to upgrade for the sake of upgrading. If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.
I still use Winamp 2.9 everyday. It plays MP3’s, can save different playlists, and it has a shuffle mode. That’s all I want so I’ve never found a need to upgrade. Paint Shop Pro 5 is my default image editor. It’s copyright date is from '99, but it’s fast loading and low on resources by today’s standards. I do have the latest version of PSP also, but for most basic editing PSP5 good enough.
I had been using Netscape Messenger 4.7 for my email up until last summer. Again, it can send email, recieve email, and it had an address book. That’s all I wanted so never bothered to change over to something else. It’s obsolescence was an advantage at times. It was immune to a lot of malware because it didn’t support the scripting being exploited. I finally moved to Thunderbird for email because I had long abandoned the Netscape browser, and Messenger didn’t recognize Opera. I had gotten tired of having to copy-paste links from emails that I wanted to open.
This would have probably been in the mid to late '80s.
(I also miss laughing at the n00bs who would say “I know the sysop of the Internet!” when the get laughed off the 'net for their n00bery. Those noobs who tried to have us call their bluffs are now considered 'net oldtimers!)