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UNIXcoffee928

Member Since 7 Sep 2005
OFFLINE Last Active Mar 26 2012 7:51 PM

Topics I've Started

Rana 1000 Disk Drive

Fri Oct 21, 2011 6:28 AM

I have a Rana drive that was packed away with the case disassembled, and, unfortunately, the screws were not in the box. The drive & circuitry is intact, but the case is apart.

Does anyone know the correct screw sizes that are needed to reassemble the drive's case?

1950's Advertising Generator

Sat Sep 17, 2011 3:38 AM

After going through lots of antique magazine ads, it's kind of amusing to reflect on the "Three Words of Advertising" (WIN FREE SEX), from the "Golden Age of Advertising", and how they are still used to sell everything, in TV commercials, today.

The 1980s really expanded upon those 3 words, and we ended up with the modern method of selling stuff, which kind of goes a little like this:

"BEST EXCLUSIVE NEW BIG FUN YOU CAN WIN TOMORROW'S SHINY NEW ULTIMATE INCREDIBLY SPORTY POWERFUL SLEEK EXCITING MODERN IMPORTED LUXURY FREE SEX TODAY!"

Now, I'm sure that since I've invoked that spell, you are most likely ready to buy anything from me, right at this moment, but that won't be necessary.

As it happens, I was studying Googie Architecture, and the old, tin, windup robot toys (the ones that shot sparks), at the same time, and I started thinking deeply about the somewhat ...umm... weird culture that America had during the 1950s. The women were being sold the Kitchen of the Future, the men were being sold the Car of the Future, and the kids were being sold a guaranteed future as an Astronaut Explorer. All this, and Elvis & the Cold War still managed to figure into the picture significantly... Strange times... It's no wonder that the all the kids that didn't end up becoming astronauts did a lot of acid in the late 60's & early 70s, ha!

I've always wondered things about the advertising climate that brought us Windex and those crazy, colorful Rabbititus polka-dots on the bags of Wonder Bread. ...Sooo, today, under the influence of Old Magazine Ads, Googie Architecture, and Tin Robots, I decided to delve into things a bit further. Here it is 2011, already, and the future that Jetsons re-runs prepared us for is just really not living up to the Hype.

Hmmm... but, what if it did? Muhaha... I decided to do a cursory study of the ways that "1950's Modern" advertising lingo, and sci-fi tech lingo, from that time period, was constructed. Here we have some serious Bastardization of the English Language, ha, where a whole new language was constructed, to sell products, or describe future products. This was done by "Creatively" manipulating prefixes & suffixes of words, and using plenty of Onomatopoeic spellings, particularly in any case that the last two letters of the word, "Sex" could make their way into the new word... ah ha, Windex, you tricky ol' product, you! lol.
It is interesting to note that the English Language, itself, was pretty much permanently mutated by many of the conventions used, as evidenced by many contemporary product names, which still follow some of the old guidelines for construction.


I thought that it would be pretty funny to construct a 1950's Product Name Generator, figuring that there must have been plenty of good ones that the board members of the Advertising Firms, with their Psychologist advisors, sitting around long oval conference tables, had missed, back in the day.

Something like this could easily be used to concoct all sorts of 1950's high tech gizmo names, to be used in a game, or just for amusement. I got a lot of giggles out of making up this list of prefixes & suffixes... when you start randomly stringing them together you get some hilarious stuff. Some is just funny stuff, with a 50's feel, but, it is quite likely that there are many future product names available by mixing the prefixes & suffixes. Right now, this is just a "Mental hack" to get to the core of the methodology that was used in the naming process. Eventually, though, I'll be able to construct language rule-sets from it.

I'll also, eventually, have to break it up into three lists, the third being the rule for the middle vowel (which acts as a link between the prefix & suffix), but I haven't gotten around to it yet.

I was wondering if anyone had any other applicable prefixes or suffixes to add to the lists. I'm at a bit of a disadvantage, having not lived during that time period, and probably missed a bunch.

Here's the lists, enjoy:





Prefixes:

Spoiler

Suffixes:

Spoiler

Hackers: Wizards of the Electronic Age

Mon Aug 22, 2011 1:02 AM

Now on youtube, here.

Of other interest, on youtube: "Get Lamp", the Text Adventure Documentary, and an interview with Steven Levy for the 25th Anniversary of the must-read/life-changing book: "Hackers".

On the subject of books, if you haven't read them yet, be sure to get the other two must-have computer history books, "What the Dormouse Said", and "Dealers of Lightning", which expand greatly on the information in Steven Levy's book: Hackers: Heroes of the Computer Revolution.

Have fun!

Were Infocom games ever released in languages other than English?

Thu Aug 11, 2011 2:45 PM

Does anyone know if the Zork series was ever officially or unofficially available in French, Italian, German, Spanish, etc.?

Looking for the OSS DOS XL manual

Tue Jul 12, 2011 9:23 AM

The only one that I found, searching the web, is damaged, and won't load properly... it loads half way, then fails:

http://atariwiki.str...DOSXL-V2-30.pdf

Does anyone have a good copy?


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