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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

#81

Post by mattl »

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.

On the front cover is a phone number, which when called would go to a voicemail.

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

#82

Post by mattl »

frou_dh wrote: post #7
hkmurakami wrote: post #3

Pretty sad they're calling this an "app". If it's dated to 1996, clearly it's a "program"!

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

NeXTSTEP was around in the late 80s, came out in 1988.

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

#83

Post by mattl »

Joeboy wrote: post #51
gustavcedersjo wrote: post #49

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.

Frank Sidebottom was created as a fake fan of Chris Sievey's band The Freshies. Sievey had previously released a ZX81 program on a B side that played along with the record, showing lyrics, etc. Sidebottom was a character on the accompanying record for the game, called "The Biz" -- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Biz_(video_game)

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

#86

Post by digi_owl »

spatulon wrote: post #67
JimDabell wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Windows called them programs (until recently), and Android & iOS call them apps, so it's likely that most people have only started hearing the term in the last 10 years.

Best i can tell, win32 binaries are still programs, UWP binaries are apps.

All in all i can't shake the feel that apps are more "restrictive" in how they can be used...

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

#87

Post by EvanAnderson »

I am reminded of the last track on Information Society's[1] 1992 album "Peace and Love, Inc.", which was a recording of a 300 baud modem encoding an ASCII text message[2]. Their debut album, "Information Society"[3], used the somewhat obscure "CD+G" format, which included graphics that could be displayed by compatible players.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Information_Society_(band)

[2] http://www.textfiles.com/humor/is_story.txt

[3] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gmYPQq7JcEg

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

#88

Post by digi_owl »

laumars wrote: post #19
axaxs wrote: 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.

That's not an easter egg. That's just a dual format CD - you can burn them yourself really easily (I used to write these as MP3 CDs so systems that didn't support MP3 could still play a subset of the tracks). It was a really common practice to put in game music as audio tracks on game CDs. Dreamcast GDs also work a similar way where you can play the game audio in a regular CD player despite the data track being forma…

Some audio CDs also came like this. I have at least one that bundled some promo images of the artists.

F if i know today why i bought it though...

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

#89

Post by digi_owl »

mrkrabo wrote: post #27
slau wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Half life did the same, as I recall, as did many other titles. I assume that the CD simply had two "tracks," with the audio CD "partition," if I may call it that, being the first. This allowed the game developers to play music during the game using the CD-ROM drive's hardware audio decoding (remember that small molex that went from the drive to the soundcard?) without impacting the game's performance. These days, it'…

It will boggle your mind then to know that most games still have their sounds in .wav files, even the music sometimes. It's very rare for a game to have its music compressed, unless the hardware can decode it on the fly (think wma on the xbox, or adpcm on the ps)

Dunno. I was surprised a few years back when i discovered that one of the Unreal games used OGG compression for its music.

This because a friend didn't know about the format but wanted to play them.

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

#90

Post by [deleted] »

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...

[deleted]
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