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Posts with tag retro tech

'Poladroid' Adds Vintage Polaroid Look to Your Photos

by Thomas Houston, posted Oct 24th 2008 at 6:16PM

Shake it like a... well, you know. Since switching to digital, we've often missed the look and feel of prints from our old Polaroid cameras. Sure, you can boot up Photoshop and employ a set of filters and level adjustments to achieve the Polaroid look with the washed out colors and white borders, or you can check out the new Poladroid software.

Once you open the app, drag your photos onto the Polaroid camera icon, and you'll hear that familiar Polaroid click sound. A mini print will pop up on your screen that will lack a recognizable image, just like the real thing. Over time, the picture bleeds into the frame -- it takes about a minute or two to see a fully developed image (an x appears on the bottom of the image once it's ready). Double click on the prints at any time to save the Poladroidized images to your desktop.

It's a great concept, but the execution still needs some work. The software is slow (yes, the original Polaroid took time to develop, which is part of the charm, but the software seemed to cause our computer to hang several times), and the novelty of the interface wears off after the first few picture developments. Looking to apply the effect to a lot of your photos? It's going to take awhile.

We threw a couple of photos we had sitting around onto the app, and added the results below -- check out flickr to see more results from around the Web. For now, the software is Mac only, but a Windows app is apparently in development. Still, despite the sluggish feel, the pictures often turn out sufficiently vintage, and the app is definitely worth the free download. [From: TUAW]

Top 10 Educational Games of the '80s

by Terrence O'Brien, posted Oct 18th 2008 at 10:35AM

Top 10 Educational Games of the 80's
There is no denying that the '80s were the hey day of educational video games. We can't even count the number of hours we spent sitting in front of our IBM PCs, Apple IIs, and TRS-80s playing 'Oregon Trail,' 'Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego,' and 'Mavis Beacon Teaches Typing.'

The Educational Games Research Blog has compiled a list of its top 10 educational games from the '80s, and we're not ashamed to say that we got severely distracted while writing this post by breaking out some of these throw-backs. The list covers the aforementioned classics, as well as other timeless games like 'Sim City' and 'Reader Rabbit.'

The list probably would have been much better served if it expanded to include classic early '90s entries like the 'Dr. Brain' series (a personal favorite) and 'Mario is Missing,' instead of questionably educational entries like 'Solitaire' and 'Zork.' [From: Educational Games Research, Via: Unplugged]

New Online Cookbook Lets You Eat Like 14th-Century Royalty

by Peter Mychalcewycz, posted Sep 24th 2008 at 4:10PM

King Richard II's recipe book to go online

Have you ever wondered what royalty eats? We have. We also sometimes think about what rich people eat... We bet its really, really yummy. Sigh...

Jan Wilkinson, the director of the University of Manchester's John Rylands Library, has plans to put the cookbook created by the chefs of King Henry II online. The 14th-century book is one of 40 rare manuscripts photographed and placed online by the library -- a special high-definition camera was used to photograph the delicate relics.

'Forme of Cury' (the title of the book) was written in Middle English in 1390, and among the 200 recipes on display are blank mang (a dish consisting of meat, milk, sugar and almonds) and mortrews (a ground/spiced pork dish). Mortrews... Rolls nicely off the tongue, don't you think?

Sure, none of that sounds that incredible, but you have to remember that King Henry II was dining on these Dark Age delicacies on a massive throne, or at the very least, a seat made of gold. That instantly makes these recipes more awesome than your mother's beef stew... unless your mother is a Queen, in which case, we apologize.

Please refrain from beheading us. [From: Telegraph.co.uk]








Old-School Kodachrome Film on the Way Out?

by Lee Bains, posted Sep 24th 2008 at 10:35AM



Eastman Kodak Co. may be ceasing production of its pioneering color film Kodachrome, devotees worriedly told the AP.

For decades, Kodachrome's uniquely vibrant colors made it the favorite medium of multitudinous still and video photographers, including amateur snapshot takers and National Geographic contributors alike. Since the '80s, the film's popularity has taken severe hits, one with the advent of affordable camcorders and another more recent hit with the explosive rise of digital photography. Still, many professional and art photographers hang on.

The most recently produced runs of Kodachrome film will expire in 2009, leaving Kodak little time to decide whether or not they will continue to produce it. As of yet, the company has not made public any decision.

While Kodachrome fans worry that their beloved will go the way of Polaroid, they will just have wait, cherishing the iconic images that made the film famous. [From: AP via Yahoo!]

Victorian-Era Gadgets on Display at London Museum

by Terrence O'Brien, posted Aug 16th 2008 at 6:07PM

Victorian Era Gadgets on Display
It's always fun to look back to see the "cutting edge" of technology from eras past. If you're in London, you'll have to stop by the British Library Business and Intellectual Property Centre, where a collection of Victorian era gadgets has gone on display.

Some of the gadgets are terribly unsophisticated precursors to modern must-haves, such as the wrist-watch-styled GPS ancestor with scrolling mini-maps. Some are ingenious Mouse Trap style doodads, like the alarm clock and steam-powered tea brewer. Others -- we're thinking of the eye-ball massager -- are just plain frightening.

If you can't make it to London for the exhibit, head on over to the Daily Mail for some highlights from the collection. [From: Daily Mail]

Cassettes Still a Big Seller in Prisons

by Terrence O'Brien, posted Jul 24th 2008 at 11:24AM



One music retailer in California has cornered the music cassette sales market. Big deal, you say? Well, it is when you consider that, in jail, digital music players are useless and CDs are dangerous contraband. But, for some reason, cassette tapes and players are allowed, which means that millions of people in this country are forced to use an outdated method of music distribution that many labels no longer cater to. That's why Bob Paris of Pack Central started stocking up on cassettes a number of years ago and has developed a burgeoning business that caters specifically to the incarcerated.

While the rest of the music industry struggles to stay afloat, Paris's business has remained flat with more than a million dollars in sales for the last five years straight. "I have dodged every conventional bullet that has hit most music retailers," Paris told the New York Times. "I don't have to worry about downloading, legal or illegally." [Source: NY Times]

Rampant Fungus Destroying Old VHS Video Tapes

by Christine Whitney, posted Jul 23rd 2008 at 4:43PM


Oh, gross! This story sounds like it came from The Onion, but be afraid: The UK Guardian's Observer newspaper said it, and so it must be true. Turns out a devastating virus, or "Tape Mould" as the Brits are calling it, is ravaging VHS tapes from the '80s and '90s all over the United Kingdom. ('Girls Just Wanna Have Fun'! 'Desperately Seeking Susan'! 'Degrassi Jr. High'! -- all gone!)

More troublesome than the destruction of our fave '80s hits, which are mostly available on DVD anyway, is the mold's desecration of families' precious memories and historical footage. Families with infected tapes may sit down with their popcorn to watch a recording of little Stevie's bar mitzvah or the funny one where Fluffy falls in the bathtub, only to find them unwatchable.

Unusually high humidity has meant that the mold has already scourged thousands of miles of AV tape throughout the UK, not counting tons of tape that are probably rotting in storage. And it's spreading, says the Observer,"at an alarming rate."

If you have the mold, which looks like " a fine white dust," then quarantine the infected tape ASAP. Spores will spread like the bubonic plague, and one moldy tape can ruin your whole archive.

So far, the problem doesn't seem to be too epidemic here in the States, but in case you're worried, you should take a look at this bit of advice from the British Library Sound Archive, which advises that tapes should be kept in the dark, away from heat sources. Moisture is also an enemy of tapes and breeds mold, so keeping tapes in a dry place is advised. [Source: The Guardian]

Researchers Play Tune Recorded 17 Years Before Edison

by Peter Mychalcewycz, posted Mar 27th 2008 at 1:04PM


Researchers have uncovered an old recording of the human voice. Not impressed? You should be. The recording predates Thomas Edison's 1877 recording of "Mary Had a Little Lamb" by nearly two decades.

The 10-second clip of a unknown person singing the folk song "Au Clair de la Lune" was recorded by Edouard-Leon Scott de Martinville in 1860. According to an article in today's New York Times, Scott, a typesetter and tinkerer from Paris, created a "barrel shaped horn attached to a stylus, which etched sound waves onto sheets of paper blackened by smoke from an oil lamp."

These etched pieces of paper -- called "phonautgrams" -- were not meant for audio playback, at least not at the outset. They were created to provide a paper visual record of human speech that could hopefully be deciphered later (by someone like Edison!). It took a while for de Martinville's "recordings" to actually produced audio, but according to the Times article, "Lawrence Berkeley Scientists utilized optical imaging and a 'virtual stylus' on high-resolution scans of the phonautogram, deploying modern technology to extract sound from patterns inscribed on the soot-blackened paper almost a century and a half ago."

Historians have known about Scott's work for quite some time. It was David Giavannoni, an audio historian, and a group of his peers, however, that first attempted to actually find Scott's recordings and try to play them back. They began their search in earnest this fall.

This is the earliest recording of sound ever discovered. It is however, not the first playable recording. Is one discovery more important than the other? Did Edison get credit for merely tweaking an idea that had already been established? Or does the primitive nature of Scott's etched papers render them inferior? Let the debate begin.

From New York Times


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New-in-box Apple II Sold on eBay

by Evan Shamoon, posted Feb 28th 2008 at 9:44AM



In a bit of major interstellar concurrence, New York-based Web developer Dan Budiac just paid $2,600 on eBay to buy the same model Apple II he grew up with two decades ago. Which, oddly enough, is about $200 less than he'd pay for a brand new MacPro that came out less than two months ago.

The Apple IIc was still in the original packaging and had never been opened.

"When this auction came along, I knew I had to have it," Budiac said in an interview. "The prospect of unboxing a mint, 20-year-old computer was simply too good to pass up."

While collectors let out a collective gasp when Budiac opened the box not long after receiving it, you've got to give the man props for breaking the seal without regret. "Ultimately, I decided that I didn't buy it as a financial investment," he said. "I bought it so I could stay up until 4 o'clock in the morning playing Oregon Trail."

Please, for his sake, nobody tell this guy about emulators.

From Computerworld

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