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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

#71

Post by DalekBaldwin »

cyberferret wrote: post #15
pasta wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As I remember this was done on an Apple computer. In the command line you could do this with they 'say' command. The parameter -v is used for the voice. And I think "Fitter Happier" is 'Fred'. say -v Fred "fitter.happier.more productive" Edit: other sources say it was 'Bruce'. But I don't have an Apple, so I can't check.

My go to favourite is 'Karen' for the Australian accent. Her voice is far more natural sounding that most of the others I've auditioned, and I use her as the default and pepper all my deployment scripts with 'say' commands now.

My default is Fiona. It seems like the cadences of a Scottish accent help mask the shortcomings of TTS technology.

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

#72

Post by DalekBaldwin »

ilamont wrote: post #68
jxramos wrote: post #2

I 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…

Radiohead also released an EP of OK Computer B-sides called "Airbag / How Am I Driving?" It's absolutely brilliant, but relatively unknown. If you haven't heard it seek it out.

It's included in disc 2 of the re-release.

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

#74

Post by 52-6F-62 »

ilamont wrote: post #68
jxramos wrote: post #2

I 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…

Radiohead also released an EP of OK Computer B-sides called "Airbag / How Am I Driving?" It's absolutely brilliant, but relatively unknown. If you haven't heard it seek it out.

Yes, it's great!

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

#75

Post by JoeDaDude »

collyw wrote: post #28

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

From the video, it looks like it is loading a BASIC program and then running it. So the term "program" is a better description to this rather than "app" or even "application program" which (to me at least) implies something precompiled and ready to run.

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

#76

Post by cmrdporcupine »

lokedhs wrote: post #40
frou_dh wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

The Atari ST operating system used .APP as well. This was in 1985.

.app was rarely used though. Most things used the .prg extension.

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

#77

Post by pvg »

Joeboy wrote: 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…

So there was no separate text mode at all, it seems (which is what I assumed looking at the video). Did it make the text scrolling sluggish?

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

#78

Post by Gracana »

kakarot wrote: post #73
collyw wrote: post #28

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

Ok... Then explain why it was common to encounter the phrase "killer app" in marketing materials in the 80's.

I thought this was a relatively recent term. Can't find anything on archive.org that would indicate it was used in the 80s:

https://archive.org/search.php?query=%28killer%20app%29%20AN...

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

#79

Post by tehmaco »

jxramos wrote: post #37
SCdF wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a New Zealander, I'm not an Aussie but I am still disappointed she can't say "Strewth" properly! She gets 'arvo' and 'stone the crows' right though, so that's something ;-)

You just answered a question I pondered earlier today as I watched the MacOS X demo I linked to above somewhere. And that is to the question if a native speaker would recognize the synthetic speech as unnatural. As the video progresses it lands on international languages such as Arabic and Chinese among other things. To my ear and my best memory of how those languages sound the synthetic versions came out pretty conv…

There's a short film on YouTube that explores that idea:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vt4Dfa4fOEY

It's a very strange experience hearing it!

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

#80

Post by mattl »

Gracana wrote: post #78
kakarot wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ok... Then explain why it was common to encounter the phrase "killer app" in marketing materials in the 80's.

I thought this was a relatively recent term. Can't find anything on archive.org that would indicate it was used in the 80s: https://archive.org/search.php?query=%28killer%20app%29%20AN...

Wikipedia says:

> The first recorded use of the term in print was 1987, in PC Week 8 Sept. 107/2. "Everybody has only one killer application. The secretary has a word processor. The manager has a spreadsheet."

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