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Radiohead album hides an app that only runs on an '80s computer

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Re: Radiohead album hides an app that only runs on an '80s computer

#51

The Swedish band Adolphson-Falk included a computer program in the innermost track of its album “Över tid och rum” from 1984.

Various people did, I'm sure somebody must have compiled a list somewhere but I can't immediately find it. Off the top of my head I recall Sigue Sigue Sputnik and Frank Sidebottom including software on their records.

Re: Radiohead album hides an app that only runs on an '80s computer

#52
post #16

Reminds me of the original Quake game on CD, which, if put into a normal CD player, would play through the NiN soundtrack.

Another older example: Out Run game for ZX Spectrum. You would load it from the A side of the tape and, when finished, you could play the game soundtrack on the B side while gaming. Double win: you get awesome music and you wouldn't need to rewind the tape!

Re: Radiohead album hides an app that only runs on an '80s computer

#53
post #28

We didn't have "apps" in the 80's we had "programs".

That may be the case for the Spectrum, but not for the Mac.

They have always been referred to as "applications" on the Mac, and I know that was abbreviated as "apps" by the mid-90s. It wouldn't surprise me to discover that abbreviation was used by Mac users as far back as the 80s.

Re: Radiohead album hides an app that only runs on an '80s computer

#54
post #16

Reminds me of the original Quake game on CD, which, if put into a normal CD player, would play through the NiN soundtrack.

It is called Redbook Audio, because that is what the standard for audio cds is called. Technically, this would have to be called Orangebook because it mixes Redbook and Yellowbook (the standard for data on cds). See https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rainbow_Books

A list of games can be found here: https://www.giantbomb.com/redbook-audio/3015-6487/games/

Re: Radiohead album hides an app that only runs on an '80s computer

#56
post #47
post #46

You 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.

Here's a nice short read with graphics:

http://gfxzone.planet-d.net/articles/zx_spectrum_graphics-ar...

Another spiritual successor to this 'image compression scheme' are compressed texture formats in modern GPUs.

Re: Radiohead album hides an app that only runs on an '80s computer

#57
post #39
post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

NeXTSTEP was around in the early 90s and used the file extension .app

Oh that’s a good point you have there and app is just an abbreviation of Application which I think philosophically was a subset of Programs / Programmes.

It's always Program; in British English Program and Programme are not interchangeable and mean something quite different. A Program is a piece of computer software, a Programme is a series of planned events or a sheet of paper/booklet listing a series of details about an events. That we use the two distinctly is pretty powerful and the ambiguity of using one spelling is removed.

Re: Radiohead album hides an app that only runs on an '80s computer

#58
post #28

We didn't have "apps" in the 80's we had "programs".

That may be the case for the Spectrum, but not for the Mac. They have always been referred to as "applications" on the Mac, and I know that was abbreviated as "apps" by the mid-90s. It wouldn't surprise me to discover that abbreviation was used by Mac users as far back as the 80s.

Atari's GEM/TOS also had applications, abbreviated as "app", in the mid-80s. I don't know where people got the idea that "app" is something recent, but I've started seeing people say it in a few places lately. It's not true at all, we definitely had apps in the 80s.

Re: Radiohead album hides an app that only runs on an '80s computer

#59
post #23
post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Application" was around way earlier, as shorthand for "application program" (to be distinguished from "utility program", and, possibly, "game") For examples look at the search hits in https://archive.org/stream/1981-03-compute-magazine/Compute_... . I wouldn't call this an application, though. "App" is completely wrong, as it was introduced by Apple for user-facing programs running on a mobile phone (if Android had…

"App" significantly predates the iPhone. Binary/warez sites regularly used "apps" as a shorthand, NeXTSTEP used .app before Apple bought it...heck, Apple called an early Mac development framework "MacApp". We've been calling applications "apps" for going on thirty years at a minimum.

Mobiles pre-smartphone boasted of their 'Java App Library', too. I don't know anyone who used one deliberately though, with the slow and extortionately priced data of the time.

Re: Radiohead album hides an app that only runs on an '80s computer

#60

Very cool - brings back memories of loading programs from a cassette tape on an old TRS-80 back in high school, and watching those " " stars blink in the top corner. I believe the cassette players we used used to also play the signal as audio at the same time it was uploading to the PC. Then, after a few minutes: "Hammurabi, I beg to report..."

I remember pirating games using my moms double casette deck in the kitchen. It played the signal as audio while copying.

This never occurred to me until you said it. Did that work??
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