Comments on: Scanning in geek history

Computer fan preserved decades-old ads and brochures from the dawn of the computer age and is now sharing them online.
Images: Revival of the retro PC

[randalllewis]

Atari broke my heart

I have the Atari catalog shown in this article and I remember how these XL units broke my heart. I had the original Atari 800, which was a cutting edge computer. I was hoping Atari's long promised new XL line would up the ante on Commodore's technology and be good look too (because admit it the C64 was one ugly machine). Then the first XL came out: the 1200, essentially an 800 in a new and unattactive package with a crippled interface. The rest of the line wasn't much better and the high end model, the 1450XLD was an enormous computer with a huge empty space where you could stick a second 5.25 floppy drive. The XL's black and white cases weren't so bad- it was those awful silver function keys. They showed the every fingerprint and they would even line up straight after just a few uses. When Jack Tramiel took over Atari shortly thereafter, his redesigned 8 bit machines- the XE's where no beauties but were much more handsome than the XL's. I still have a 130XE that works to this day.

[randalllewis]

Typos

That should read: "They showed every fingerprint and would NOT even line up straight after just a few uses."

[Jim Harmon]

I loved the Atari

I started on an Atari 400 (flat membrane keyboard) and upgraded to a 1040XT.

[brian_p]

more nostalgia

If you want more of this kind of thing:
http://atarimagazines.com/
http://www.cyberroach.com/analog/

[JFDMit]

Memories...

Thanks for the article. Browsing the old ads brought back long forgotten memories of the hardware and software that occupied so many of my formative years (they also remind me why I never seemed to have any money at the time). I didn't realise my tech addiction had such deep roots.

I remember when my first generation 8086 IBM PC got its first "hard drive." A box the same size as the CPU arrived, in which there was a large slot that accepted the 12" Winchester disk that held a quite staggering 1 megabyte of memory. I remember turning to my colleague and saying "I can't imagine anyone ever needing more than 1MB. Another reason, perhaps, why I don't have any money.

[Mallardd]

Star Trek Episode

There was a Star Trek episode where some digital beings hijacked the Enterprise and used it as a temporary storage dump for all of their planet's data. Sorry I don't remember the exact storyline as it was years ago, but I seem to remember a line where they mention the actual RAM capacity of the ship's computer. Does anyone know how much it was? I think it was in terabytes? The title of the Episode was something like "101101".

[Joe Blow]

630 KiloQuads ... Whatever the Hell Those Are!

The name of the "Star Trek: The Next Generation" episode you're talking about was "11001001", and the critters that used the Enterprise computer to store their planet's data were the Binars, with names like Zero Zero, Zero One, One Zero, and One One (not much of a population, but easy to look up in the phone book!). According to the "Star Trek: The Next Generation" Technical Manual, the memory capacity of that version of the Enterprise was 630 KiloQuads, whatever those are. Of note, Voyager was reported to have as much as 47 billion TeraQuads - talk about a memory upgrade!

OK, so Joe Blow is a Trekker (_not_ a Trekkie - those are dorks who are wannabe Trekkers! ;) )

All the Best,
Joe Blow
Star Fleet Lieutenant Commander (Retired)
The Federation of Planets

[ahickey]

Atari Trivial

The old Atari factory in Ireland is now one of Dell's facilities.

[baswwe]

Copyright Infringement - When will it stop?

He is in violation of the DMCA. Those photos are copyright and he is not paying dues to the owners.

This amounts to theft.

No mention of that in this biased CNET article.

If this is OK (to copy these pictures), then it is okay to copy music.

[Jim Harmon]

DMCA does not apply

You're probably right, the photos probably are copyrighted. Although I haven't visited the site, I suspect that the vast majority were created prior to the DMCA and are therefore not covered by it.

In addition, the original artwork was not digital - and therefore not covered by DMCA. The fact that they've been scanned into digital format by someone other than the copyright holder does not change this.

[nightveil]

Sorry, no.

The material presented here is of a historical nature. None of the
machines or services or software referenced are being sold any
more and in at least three cases the companies referred to no
longer exist.

This fails pretty squarely in to the domain of fair use as the site is
only up for historical and nostalgic reference.

[booboo1243]

Your argument is irrelevant

Even if these photos are protected by copyright law, the owner of the copyright has to prosecute the violator in the court of law, which has not happend yet.
The music industry, on the other hand, does prosecute on a daily basis.
Your argument is therefore irrelevant because it was never put to the test (of justice) in the first place.