Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

The Decline and Rise of IBM (1996)

sloanreview.mit.edu

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

41–46 of 46 posts

Re: The Decline and Rise of IBM (1996)

#41

Post by cmrdporcupine »

TX81Z wrote: post #36
cmrdporcupine wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Disturbingly, protobufs are seemingly used a whole boatload outside out of Google, despite me finding them personally meh :-) Golang seems bigger outside of Google than inside, too. (Like the nick, BTW. Wish i'd never sold off my TX81z)

Lately Bass is literally worth the $250 I spent for mine off eBay. It’s just flat out the beat techno bass like there is. It’s literally the only preset I’ll ever use because nothing can improve it, it’s just perfect. A nontrivial fraction of all living people have heard this song at least once, and it’s 100% TX81Z at the heart: https://youtu.be/9EcjWd-O4jI?si=XgkC5avENfdTmlQF (Also, yeah, to other replies, I now rea…

Lately Bass (and "Solid Bass") sound perfect because you grew up with them :-) It's like the 303 or 808, deeply imprinted into the GenX psyche. I'm not sure there's anything intrinsic about it other than that they did a pretty good job (trying emulate a bass guitar is my understanding) and then everyone used it.

A long time ago I wrote a little FM synth in C++ and I went through some painstaking effort to copy Lately Bass and actually got pretty close. It's all about the envelopes. That code is lost to time though.

I think I still have a Yamaha TQ5 downstairs, which is basically a 4 op in the same vein as the TX81Z but in a form factor that looks like a 1980s alarm clock or something. Very ... shoulder pads and avocado bathtub era: https://yamahablackboxes.com/collection/yamaha-tq5-synthesiz...

Re: The Decline and Rise of IBM (1996)

#42

Post by AlbertCory »

29athrowaway wrote: post #40
AlbertCory wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wrong. Lotus 1-2-3 was launched at the beginning of 1983. They spent a million dollars on their launch, which told all the VC's that software was going to be a big business. Ashton-Tate was large. Software Publishing (PFS: File) was large. Word Perfect was large.

Dbase

That's Ashton Tate.

Re: The Decline and Rise of IBM (1996)

#44

Post by TX81Z »

cmrdporcupine wrote: post #41
TX81Z wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lately Bass is literally worth the $250 I spent for mine off eBay. It’s just flat out the beat techno bass like there is. It’s literally the only preset I’ll ever use because nothing can improve it, it’s just perfect. A nontrivial fraction of all living people have heard this song at least once, and it’s 100% TX81Z at the heart: https://youtu.be/9EcjWd-O4jI?si=XgkC5avENfdTmlQF (Also, yeah, to other replies, I now rea…

Lately Bass (and "Solid Bass") sound perfect because you grew up with them :-) It's like the 303 or 808, deeply imprinted into the GenX psyche. I'm not sure there's anything intrinsic about it other than that they did a pretty good job (trying emulate a bass guitar is my understanding) and then everyone used it. A long time ago I wrote a little FM synth in C++ and I went through some painstaking effort to copy Lately…

It’s more how it sits in a mix so well, somehow it gives room for your bass drum, some pads, leads, and it doesn’t interfere with any of them. Usually that’s really hard to do perfectly and lately bass just magically stays in its own lane.

Also, if you can get your hands on Korg Opsix it is a lot of fun for FM. Does about as good a job at making FM closer to a subtractive synth in terms of ease of use. Of course, FM will always be way harder to deal with than subtractive, but it’s still the best attempt I’ve seen.

Re: The Decline and Rise of IBM (1996)

#45

Post by cmrdporcupine »

TX81Z wrote: post #44
cmrdporcupine wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lately Bass (and "Solid Bass") sound perfect because you grew up with them :-) It's like the 303 or 808, deeply imprinted into the GenX psyche. I'm not sure there's anything intrinsic about it other than that they did a pretty good job (trying emulate a bass guitar is my understanding) and then everyone used it. A long time ago I wrote a little FM synth in C++ and I went through some painstaking effort to copy Lately…

It’s more how it sits in a mix so well, somehow it gives room for your bass drum, some pads, leads, and it doesn’t interfere with any of them. Usually that’s really hard to do perfectly and lately bass just magically stays in its own lane. Also, if you can get your hands on Korg Opsix it is a lot of fun for FM. Does about as good a job at making FM closer to a subtractive synth in terms of ease of use. Of course, FM…

You might like this project that I have (but, uh, never finished): https://github.com/rdaum/sidebands_vst

Re: The Decline and Rise of IBM (1996)

#46

Post by Animats »

AlbertCory wrote: post #31
Animats wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes. There was a time in the early 1980s when a software-only company seemed unlikely to become big. Two examples I was close to: Interleaf. Interleaf was the first good commercial document processor.[1] Released in 1981. Ran on Sun workstations, quite well. Years ahead of Microsoft Word. The business model was that they would sell you four workstations, a server, and a laser printer for about $60,000. In my days at…

Wrong. Lotus 1-2-3 was launched at the beginning of 1983. They spent a million dollars on their launch, which told all the VC's that software was going to be a big business. Ashton-Tate was large. Software Publishing (PFS: File) was large. Word Perfect was large.

> They spent a million dollars on their launch, which told all the VC's that software was going to be a big business.

People didn't think like that back then. They wanted profits. The idea that a company's value can be measured by their burn rate is 21st century.

Sevin Rosen Funds, out of Dallas, is forgotten now, but they funded Lotus and some very early software startups.

Post reply on HN