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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

#114

Post by reitanqild »

Joeboy wrote: post #64
Fifer82 wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Up to a point. It's an analogue process so each copy degrades the signal. At some point games started having custom file loaders which made them load faster but also served as a kind of copy protection as copies were more likely to fail. Of course it also meant the original was more likely to fail.

We also used something we called turbotape to load our games. We would first load turbotape, forward to where the game was on the tape and then either type L or SYS to load the game.

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

#115

Post by mocko »

boondaburrah wrote: post #104
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.

Why do all my programs end it .PRG then? :P (currently struggling to get data off of an old ST - good old RS232 strikes again)

Fellow ST user here! .prg was the most common extension but .app was certainly used in some cases. I think it denoted a different format.

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

#118

Post by thought_alarm »

collyw wrote: post #28

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

https://groups.google.com/d/msg/net.micro.mac/1CVsNTbXA6g/tS...

    From: t-jacobs@utah-cs.UUCP (Tony Jacobs)
    Newsgroups: net.micro.mac
    Subject: MultiMac MULTITASKING!
    Date: Thu, 21-Nov-85 12:12:47 EST

    ...

    It doesn't work with some programs (like MacPaint)
    and some apps need to be the first app loaded to work 
    (like MacDraw.)  When you run multiple sound apps the 
    first one run is the one that works, the rest will 
    run but you don't hear a them.

    ...

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

#119

Post by Govindae »

thanatropism wrote: post #110
alasdair_ wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lotus 1-2-3 was commonly described as the "killer app" for the IBM PC as early as 1987.

Yes, but "application" didn't mean "program", it meant "application". Lotus 1-2-3 was an application of PCs, it made PCs useful.

I thought the etymology was from function application.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apply

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

#120

Post by d_k_f »

mocko wrote: post #115
boondaburrah wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why do all my programs end it .PRG then? :P (currently struggling to get data off of an old ST - good old RS232 strikes again)

Fellow ST user here! .prg was the most common extension but .app was certainly used in some cases. I think it denoted a different format.

Weren't .prgs the actual "foreground"-programs while .apps were the small helper tools that ran in the background and stayed resident even if not in focus? I distantly remember some apps getting a spot in the menu bar...

(It's been ages since I touched that system, good times, though.)

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