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MacFlim: Full-motion video on B&W Macs

macflim.com

11–20 of 64 posts

Re: MacFlim: Full-motion video on B&W Macs

#11
post #4
post #3

What a bizarre, mostly useless; yet absolutely neat utility. Of course, disk space is the immediate reason why it's so impractical.

I'm sure Apple has an ADB->USB dongle for $19.99 that you can use to connect a larger bit of storage. Actually, did these guys have SCSI ports on the back? SCSI->USB or SCSI->TB4 would be an fun cable.

A fantastic off-the-shelf solution is already available: https://www.bigmessowires.com/floppy-emu/

It can emulate a floppy or hard drive. I tend to use a 2GB hard drive image which makes hacking on classic Mac a delight.

Re: MacFlim: Full-motion video on B&W Macs

#12
post #7

Hi. I am the author of macflim. This is the old video, I am finishing the techdemo that have sound, there is a video on youtube ( https://youtu.be/YRe6I5AICJ0 ). I'll update the macflim.com website later today. And yes, diskspace is one of the reason why it is impractical, but with a SCSI2SD, one can get 4 2Gb partitions on you mac for around $100. And yes, it is bizarre and useles, hence absolutely necessary. If you…

flim sounds like a strange way a French person would pronounce "film" for fun

Re: MacFlim: Full-motion video on B&W Macs

#13
post #4
post #3

What a bizarre, mostly useless; yet absolutely neat utility. Of course, disk space is the immediate reason why it's so impractical.

I'm sure Apple has an ADB->USB dongle for $19.99 that you can use to connect a larger bit of storage. Actually, did these guys have SCSI ports on the back? SCSI->USB or SCSI->TB4 would be an fun cable.

Not ADB, but AppleTalk might have handled it.

Re: MacFlim: Full-motion video on B&W Macs

#14
post #11
post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm sure Apple has an ADB->USB dongle for $19.99 that you can use to connect a larger bit of storage. Actually, did these guys have SCSI ports on the back? SCSI->USB or SCSI->TB4 would be an fun cable.

A fantastic off-the-shelf solution is already available: https://www.bigmessowires.com/floppy-emu/ It can emulate a floppy or hard drive. I tend to use a 2GB hard drive image which makes hacking on classic Mac a delight.

The floppyemu is awesome for floppy emulation or for old HD20-like hard drives. But they are too slow for macflim.

As I say on the link, you need either a real scsi disk, or, better an scsi emulator, like a SCSI2H https://store.inertialcomputing.com/SCSI2SD-s/100.htm, a RaSCSI https://www.tindie.com/products/landogriffin/rascsi-macintos..., a BlueSCSI https://gumroad.com/l/bluescsi-1b or a MacSD http://macsd.com/

The Mac(s) on the video have a SCSI2HD v5.5, with 4 2Gb partitions on a microsd. I can mount the first partition on my linux to copy stuff onto it (in general via the minivmac emulator).

Re: MacFlim: Full-motion video on B&W Macs

#15
post #7

Hi. I am the author of macflim. This is the old video, I am finishing the techdemo that have sound, there is a video on youtube ( https://youtu.be/YRe6I5AICJ0 ). I'll update the macflim.com website later today. And yes, diskspace is one of the reason why it is impractical, but with a SCSI2SD, one can get 4 2Gb partitions on you mac for around $100. And yes, it is bizarre and useles, hence absolutely necessary. If you…

flim sounds like a strange way a French person would pronounce "film" for fun

It is an inside joke about a French movie made from barely legal cuts of hilariously dubbed Warner Bros extracts. I found th3e concept weirdly suitable for a tongue-in-cheek artistic experiment that will probably mostly be used to display extract of other people movies...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/La_Classe_am%C3%A9ricaine

Re: MacFlim: Full-motion video on B&W Macs

#16
post #7

Hi. I am the author of macflim. This is the old video, I am finishing the techdemo that have sound, there is a video on youtube ( https://youtu.be/YRe6I5AICJ0 ). I'll update the macflim.com website later today. And yes, diskspace is one of the reason why it is impractical, but with a SCSI2SD, one can get 4 2Gb partitions on you mac for around $100. And yes, it is bizarre and useles, hence absolutely necessary. If you…

Congrats. This is a massive technical feat. Are you going to publish the source, and/or give a technical talk on how all of this is achieved?

Re: MacFlim: Full-motion video on B&W Macs

#18
post #7

Hi. I am the author of macflim. This is the old video, I am finishing the techdemo that have sound, there is a video on youtube ( https://youtu.be/YRe6I5AICJ0 ). I'll update the macflim.com website later today. And yes, diskspace is one of the reason why it is impractical, but with a SCSI2SD, one can get 4 2Gb partitions on you mac for around $100. And yes, it is bizarre and useles, hence absolutely necessary. If you…

Congrats. This is a massive technical feat. Are you going to publish the source, and/or give a technical talk on how all of this is achieved?

Source code of the silent version is at https://github.com/fstark/macflim (Mac app source code, C++ encoder source code and instructions). The sound version (the new demo from yesterday's video https://youtu.be/YRe6I5AICJ0 is massively more complicated and I will release the binaries over the week-end and the source code later next week, probably).

I'd love to do a video with the explanations (or a talk), but I am still think about how to present this is a understandable and entertaining way.

Re: MacFlim: Full-motion video on B&W Macs

#19
post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

flim sounds like a strange way a French person would pronounce "film" for fun

It is an inside joke about a French movie made from barely legal cuts of hilariously dubbed Warner Bros extracts. I found th3e concept weirdly suitable for a tongue-in-cheek artistic experiment that will probably mostly be used to display extract of other people movies... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/La_Classe_am%C3%A9ricaine

George Abitbol, etc.

I thought it was!!

very nice job anyway

Re: MacFlim: Full-motion video on B&W Macs

#20
post #10

Old Apple II’s and Macs will never truly die, they’re just too much fun. Emulation and FPGA solutions exist and once gone over, the hardware is very robust. Replace the old caps with tantalum, align the screen, and you’re set.

Yep. Emulation is good, but using the real hardware is magical. Fun fact: the reason why macflim had no sound originally is that my SE30s have bad caps (like most), and no sound. So many people asked for sound that I had to recap those surface mount caps (ouch my eyes!) so I could actually hack a version with sound :-)

That is the good fight!

I love it too. Simple, fun, pretty robust hardware.

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