It reminded me a strage fate of Syd Barrett...
Radiohead album hides an app that only runs on an '80s computer
41–50 of 152 posts
Re: Radiohead album hides an app that only runs on an '80s computer
#42We didn't have "apps" in the 80's we had "programs".
I wonder what synonyms there are for 'computer program.' Does 'application' count?
Are there any synonyms for 'pedantry' that you can think of?
Re: Radiohead album hides an app that only runs on an '80s computer
#43I remember listening to OK Computer some years ago and I must have been studying or something or other and the track "Fitter Happier" came on. Those familiar know how it goes, the Stephen Hawking voice droning on about all these ideals worth pursuing ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HimvFbossU8 ). I sat back half listening that evening and this funny response came out in my head, where I responded to the monotone na…
Ha, funny you bring up that track – one of my first late nights programming was soundtracked by Fitter, Happier on repeat. I was so in the flow I didn't even realize it was repeating itself. Only when I sat back to take a break did I notice. The weird thing was the immense wave of depression that broke over me when I did.
It is not a meaningful coincidence.
Re: Radiohead album hides an app that only runs on an '80s computer
#44That's cool, I still have my old Spectrum at home, but I would need to find a cassette player for it, but I assume they've started making those again.
Re: Radiohead album hides an app that only runs on an '80s computer
#45> "Congratulations....you've found the secret message syd lives hmmmm. We should get out more." Is what the message reads. Are they referring to the late Pink Floyd guitarist Syd Barret?
They're more directly referring to the backmasked message on Pink Floyd's Empty Spaces, which goes: "Congratulations. You have just discovered the secret message. Please send your answer to Old Pink, care of the Funny Farm, Chalfont."
Re: Radiohead album hides an app that only runs on an '80s computer
#46You see those blocky colours in the youtube video? Those are the Spectrum's "attribute file", a small colour overlay that goes on top of the higher resolution 1-bit monochrome bitmap part of the machine's video ram. Gives you a "hi-res colour computer" while saving a ton of ram, but at the cost of creating horrible artifacts when differently coloured objects get too close together.
The same principle is still used in consumer video encoding (and all but the highest-end professional video), where's it's described as eg. 4:2:2 or 4:2:0, the numbers describing how many pixels' worth of chroma (colour) data are provided for each block of luma pixels.
Re: Radiohead album hides an app that only runs on an '80s computer
#47You see those blocky colours in the youtube video? Those are the Spectrum's "attribute file", a small colour overlay that goes on top of the higher resolution 1-bit monochrome bitmap part of the machine's video ram. Gives you a "hi-res colour computer" while saving a ton of ram, but at the cost of creating horrible artifacts when differently coloured objects get too close together. The same principle is still used in…
Where can I read more about it.
Re: Radiohead album hides an app that only runs on an '80s computer
#48You see those blocky colours in the youtube video? Those are the Spectrum's "attribute file", a small colour overlay that goes on top of the higher resolution 1-bit monochrome bitmap part of the machine's video ram. Gives you a "hi-res colour computer" while saving a ton of ram, but at the cost of creating horrible artifacts when differently coloured objects get too close together. The same principle is still used in…
Where can I read more about it.
For the modern incarnation, look up "chroma subsampling".
Re: Radiohead album hides an app that only runs on an '80s computer
#49The Swedish band Adolphson-Falk included a computer program in the innermost track of its album “Över tid och rum” from 1984.
Re: Radiohead album hides an app that only runs on an '80s computer
#50That's cool, I still have my old Spectrum at home, but I would need to find a cassette player for it, but I assume they've started making those again.
https://www.specnext.com/
That's 4 to 8 times too fast!
Cool, it seems apparent that nerds that grew up in the 80's have money now, seeing as all these things are coming back.