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Canyon.mid

canyonmid.com

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Re: Canyon.mid

#81

Post by reconnecting »

brookst wrote: post #59
zkmon wrote: post #25

Why did we kill all that beautiful minimalism? Computers had enough gaming, entertainment and productivity back then. But the definition of "enough" kept changing. Like a carrot tied to stick attached to an animal.

This is more commentary on the nature of personality and taste than of computers. It’s human nature to think of familiar things from our youth as the height of achievement. That was the time of the best music, the best movies, the best culture, the best sports, the best everything. No matter if you were born in 1950 or 1990.

And what if this isn't nostalgia, but rather a feeling in people that correlates with external pressure?

U.S. debt in the 1950s was well below $1T, in the 1990s it was something around $3T, now it's $36T.

Re: Canyon.mid

#83

Post by reconnecting »

zkmon wrote: post #25

Why did we kill all that beautiful minimalism? Computers had enough gaming, entertainment and productivity back then. But the definition of "enough" kept changing. Like a carrot tied to stick attached to an animal.

Asceticism doesn't generate revenue. That's why striving capital needs a population that consumes more, and fat in technologies is not an exception.

Software in the '90s was mostly driven by altruism, software in '20s starts with an A-round.

Re: Canyon.mid

#84

Post by macintux »

reconnecting wrote: post #81
brookst wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is more commentary on the nature of personality and taste than of computers. It’s human nature to think of familiar things from our youth as the height of achievement. That was the time of the best music, the best movies, the best culture, the best sports, the best everything. No matter if you were born in 1950 or 1990.

And what if this isn't nostalgia, but rather a feeling in people that correlates with external pressure? U.S. debt in the 1950s was well below $1T, in the 1990s it was something around $3T, now it's $36T.

I seriously doubt nostalgia for old computers correlates to perceptions of U.S. debt.

Having said that, I wasn’t the only person deeply upset when Greenspan gave the green light for Bush’s tax cuts. Under Clinton we were on track to wipe out the debt in another 10 years.

Re: Canyon.mid

#86

Post by pacifika »

badc0ffee wrote: post #38
sotix wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What exactly was the difference between PC speakers and MIDI? Why do we no longer need a MIDI device today to play the “correct” sound?

The PC speaker could only play square waves, and had only one voice. There is no "correct" sound for a MIDI file as it's just note and tempo data. But many people probably associate them with the OPL2 synthesizer chip on AdLib and early SoundBlaster cards. [1] Now that we have high fidelity digital sound output on even the cheapest computers/devices, at least 44 kHz, at least two channels, and at least 16 bits per sa…

MIDI files like this depend of the General MIDI standardized specification for electronic musical instruments.

Re: Canyon.mid

#87

Post by reconnecting »

macintux wrote: post #84
reconnecting wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And what if this isn't nostalgia, but rather a feeling in people that correlates with external pressure? U.S. debt in the 1950s was well below $1T, in the 1990s it was something around $3T, now it's $36T.

I seriously doubt nostalgia for old computers correlates to perceptions of U.S. debt. Having said that, I wasn’t the only person deeply upset when Greenspan gave the green light for Bush’s tax cuts. Under Clinton we were on track to wipe out the debt in another 10 years.

I'm not talking about old computers themselves, but rather something that's mistakenly taken as nostalgia.

Things in the 90s were more straightforward because supply chains and business processes were much shorter and less complex. What people interpret as nostalgia might actually reflect a recognition that systems/products genuinely were more efficient before they became increasingly layered with intermediaries and dependencies.

An illustration of these dependencies and layers is debt - the mounting complexity parallels the mounting debt levels.

Re: Canyon.mid

#88

Post by reconnecting »

entropie wrote: post #54
zkmon wrote: post #25

Why did we kill all that beautiful minimalism? Computers had enough gaming, entertainment and productivity back then. But the definition of "enough" kept changing. Like a carrot tied to stick attached to an animal.

> Computers had enough gaming Had they? I gamed in the 90s and I game now. And boy, its not even remotely the same and iam thrilled to see what comes next (hello, gta6)

Simply because games these days are exactly designed to extract dopamine from people, and in the 90s they were mostly driven by pain.

Re: Canyon.mid

#89

Post by zkmon »

zkmon wrote: post #25

Why did we kill all that beautiful minimalism? Computers had enough gaming, entertainment and productivity back then. But the definition of "enough" kept changing. Like a carrot tied to stick attached to an animal.

I think business competition has killed the minimality. Because minimality doesn't sell as a quality. Competitor would throw more power and more features into the market. It is not driven by the need for such power or features. Consumer is forced to move to a bloated product as minimal products are removed or made extinct due to incompatible ecosystem.

Re: Canyon.mid

#90

Post by grishka »

zkmon wrote: post #25

Why did we kill all that beautiful minimalism? Computers had enough gaming, entertainment and productivity back then. But the definition of "enough" kept changing. Like a carrot tied to stick attached to an animal.

Because high-speed internet became omnipresent. The act of making a software release stopped having a cost associated with it, like having to print CDs and ship them to stores. Software transitioned from meaningful releases, each of which needed to be as bug-free as possible and had to be sold to users as a genuine meaningful upgrade, to this pathetic eternal beta we now have.

Also because everyone seems too scared to practice adversarial interoperability.

Also because SoCs are now a thing which allows unhackable secure boot and other DRM-like functionality that prevents people from modifying their own devices to act in their own interest, or, as is the case with Android devices, allows it but punishes the user for having gained full access to their own device.

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