Author Topic: Really Cute Computers? (Read 7615 times)

quadibloc · « **on:** Fri, 12 February 2010, 13:55:42 »

The original Macintosh - and its improved 512K successor - certainly was cute in appearance. And you could also say that about the Canon Cat.

I have a particular soft spot for the IBM 5100 Portable Computer. Wildly overpriced even at the time, and an unfortunate keyboard layout.

But the very clunkiness of its appearance appealed to me.

And the fact that within that exterior beat a furious mainframe heart - switching between BASIC and APL involved switching between microcode for a System/3 emulation and a (partial) System/370 emulation which then ran the BASIC or APL interpreters written for those respective architectures - despite the obvious performance issues in such an approach, cannot help but have an appeal.

And, learning here that it at least had a keyboard with high-quality keys doesn't hurt.

Back when computers were so expensive that quality parts could be used in them without making them uncompetitive... and when the whole industry hadn't standardized on just one architecture... what old computers do you remember as inspiring wistfulness... in that, even if you wouldn't buy one, it was at least seriously interestng?

itlnstln · « **Reply #1 on:** Fri, 12 February 2010, 13:57:52 »

The original iMac. Actually, that was a little too cute.

kishy · « **Reply #2 on:** Fri, 12 February 2010, 14:02:26 »

Cute? Computer?

Cuteputer!

I'll go with the original iMac. I hate the stupid things but they really did something to the PC industry.

There is, however, something to be said for clean, defined lines like an IBM PS/2.

microsoft windows · « **Reply #3 on:** Fri, 12 February 2010, 15:24:43 »

Those Imacs were pieces of trash in colorful plastic shells.

ch_123 · « **Reply #4 on:** Fri, 12 February 2010, 15:27:05 »

Just about anything made by SGI.

quadibloc · « **Reply #5 on:** Fri, 12 February 2010, 15:33:13 »

Hmm. Although looks were part of what I had in mind, maybe "cute" was the wrong word, and I should have gone with "funky". I was expecting to hear love for the LISP Machine and the Compucolor, for example.

ch_123 · « **Reply #6 on:** Fri, 12 February 2010, 15:35:31 »

I still would have went with SGI =P

InSanCen · « **Reply #7 on:** Fri, 12 February 2010, 16:21:34 »

Funky? Spectrum 48K. It certainly wasn't cute though, and is a contender for worst keyboard (In both feel and layout) ever.

I nearly didn't venture into this thread, fearing weaboo shenanigans in here. Computers, cute? No. Women can be cute, cats can be, kids? Yup. But Computers? Interesting, different, unusual certainly, but Cute? okaaaayyyy....

D-EJ915 · « **Reply #8 on:** Fri, 12 February 2010, 16:32:30 »

Quote from: microsoft windows;158042

Those Imacs were pieces of trash in colorful plastic shells.

nah they're cool for what they are (I have a 333 buried somewhere)

quadibloc · « **Reply #9 on:** Fri, 12 February 2010, 17:02:38 »

Quote from: ch_123;158047

I still would have went with SGI =P

Yes, I don't doubt that, it is a reasonable choice on other grounds. Workstations that approach the supercomputer class... who can argue with that?

ak_nala · « **Reply #10 on:** Sat, 13 February 2010, 00:31:09 »

The Lisa or the NeXT cube, I think, are definite contenders. Flawed, but we aren't talking practicalities here.

Hell, what was the brand/model of the computer they used for the workstations in the movie 2010? Those were pretty interesting, and IIRC they were from northern Europe somewhere - Sweden - Denmark?

ricercar · « **Reply #11 on:** Sat, 13 February 2010, 00:34:13 »

Cute means babylike. No computer is babylike.

ak_nala · « **Reply #12 on:** Sat, 13 February 2010, 00:44:26 »

cute |kyoōt|
adjective
1 attractive in a pretty or endearing way : a cute kitten.
• informal sexually attractive.
2 informal affectedly or superficially clever : I don't want to be cute with you.

ak_nala · « **Reply #13 on:** Sat, 13 February 2010, 00:45:43 »

The G4 "lampshade" iMacs were cute, too. In fact, if you've ever seen the commercials that featured them, they almost define cute.

Superfluous Parentheses · « **Reply #14 on:** Sat, 13 February 2010, 18:50:24 »

Quote from: quadibloc;158044

Hmm. Although looks were part of what I had in mind, maybe "cute" was the wrong word, and I should have gone with "funky". I was expecting to hear love for the LISP Machine and the Compucolor, for example.

Funky is a good word for the symbolics lisp machine keyboard at least: http://www.asciilifeform.com/bolix/bolix.png

As an emacs user I still feel that my Model-M is lacking at least 4 modifier keys.

Hell, even the C64 can look funky with the right lighting: http://makehiphop.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/10/a8f21c95eed45c66.jpg.jpg

edit though the kind of FUNK should be the Commodore PET 2001

elservo · « **Reply #15 on:** Sun, 14 February 2010, 01:02:30 »

I love the design of that site, webby.

cchan · « **Reply #16 on:** Tue, 16 February 2010, 22:57:48 »

I'd have to nominate the iMac G3 and G4, and the original toilet seat iBook, for cute computers. Not anything I'd use today, but they were certainly cute.

megarat · « **Reply #17 on:** Tue, 23 February 2010, 23:42:09 »

I had a Powerbook 100 for a looong time that was quite adorable. Plus my Mac SE/30 ... those old toaster-style Macs really had a lot of charm.

I'm also in the SGI camp ... I was drawn to them primarily because of the Indigo's funky-cool case; that the computers were also a blast was just a nice bonus. The NeXT almost qualifies, but I thought the NeXT was more "cool" than "cute".

When I was an undergrad I spent a lot of time on an old Stardent Titan 3000, programming some image-display libraries for a NASA satellite. The Titan was an old graphical supercomputer ... Stardent lost out to SGI in the early 90s, and this project was a couple years beyond the tail end of their market presence. While not "cute", per se, I have a lot of nostalgia for that computer, and just seeing it next to my workspace would warm my heart. The project was terrifically fun, I was the only one who ever used that old beast so it really felt like mine, and regardless of its misfit status in the supercomputer market and being past its prime, it was still a pretty sweet hunk of iron (totally sweet graphics and a completely beautiful monitor, and how many other computers do you know of that have three (!) CPUs?).

I really bonded with that thing. I might have even bonded with it because of its misfit status. Alas, now the Stardent is long-gone, and totally obscure, and I'm left feeling like I had a fond dalliance with a ghost.

quadibloc · « **Reply #18 on:** Sat, 27 February 2010, 13:56:08 »

What I liked most about the NeXT was that it originally came with a copy of Mathematica.

ricercar · « **Reply #19 on:** Sun, 28 February 2010, 16:33:15 »

My SE/30 came with a coupon for $50 Mathematica 1.2. I had more fun with that software than any $50 game.

Course my dad paid $4004 for my SE/30 4/80 (MB) education price back in '89. I guess there was a premium. But that machine lasted me 7 years as my primary computer. Baby was MAXXED! 128MB RAM, 2 internal SCSI drives, color video card, LEDs for everything you could imagine, Tenkeyless AEK with matching Abaton trackball, Kurta graphics tablet, NuBus expansion chassis. man, I miss the relative functionality of the SE/30 lots.

kishy · « **Reply #20 on:** Sun, 28 February 2010, 16:39:27 »

SE/30 with 128MB RAM? I think not...

ricercar · « **Reply #21 on:** Sun, 28 February 2010, 17:24:11 »

Think again. 8 slots ×16MB = 128. Helped that I worked at a Fabless semiconductor company that gave me free RAMs. in 1994 RAM was $100/mb.

AUX even used 128 without a patch.

kishy · « **Reply #22 on:** Sun, 28 February 2010, 17:29:23 »

Quote from: ricercar;161285

Think again. 8 slots ×16MB = 128. Helped that I worked at a Fabless semiconductor company that gave me free RAMs. in 1994 RAM was $100/mb.

AUX even used 128 without a patch.

Wow, that's awesome.

I thought those had a limitation of something...substantially less (maybe 8MB?)

Probably one of very few SE/30s to ever hit that amount before being trashed.

ricercar · « **Reply #23 on:** Sun, 28 February 2010, 17:41:45 »

There was a thing called 32-bit cleanliness,

Apple and other programmers sloppily and cleverly used the top 8 bits of the 32-bit bus for their own evil purposes, since Macintosh System 6 used only the first 24 bits of the address bus, This was non-problematic until the first 32-bit Mac System Software, 7.0.0.

Suddenly all code needed to use those bits for addressing. If some programmers had put this sloppy clever code into a ROM, say for example, the ROM in a SE/30, IIcx, and MacIIx, the hardware would need a ROM patch to use the full 32-bit bus on that hardware. The brilliant folks at Connectix came out with a patch called Mode32, which was payware until Apple released their own patch a year or two later. Mode32 became free, which is good, since it was more stable than the Apple 32-bit enabler. Without a patch, the SE/30 hardware could address only 8 MB RAM.

Some adventurous hackers like me also or instead replaced their removable bad SE/30 ROM SIMMs with the removable good ROMs SIMM from a IIsi, IIci, or IIfx. which were scarcer than virgins after a Bacchanal even before Apple clamped down on them and soldered all ROMs to the motherboard evermore.

Since AUX didn't use the SE/30 toolbox ROM, it was never affected by the 32-bit dirty issue.

MoB · « **Reply #24 on:** Wed, 03 March 2010, 02:51:42 »

http://www.old-computers.com/museum/computer.asp?c=79&st=1 - nice to look at but not much fun
http://www.old-computers.com/museum/computer.asp?st=1&c=61 - nice design. I've never seen one in person or even knew such thing existed

http://www.old-computers.com/museum/computer.asp?c=73&st=1 - I own one of these. Crappy rubber keyboard and only 1.7KB room for BASIC. It looks quite good however.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computer_Space - it's not computer, but it's sexy as hell

itlnstln · « **Reply #25 on:** Wed, 03 March 2010, 07:00:48 »

Quote from: MoB;161617

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computer_Space - it's not computer, but it's sexy as hell

Nutting Associates, huh? I bet.

quadibloc · « **Reply #26 on:** Sun, 07 March 2010, 10:29:37 »

Quote from: ricercar;161292

Apple and other programmers sloppily and cleverly used the top 8 bits of the 32-bit bus for their own evil purposes, since Macintosh System 6 used only the first 24 bits of the address bus,

Doesn't this take me back. The IBM 360 used 32-bit registers as base registers, but the architecture was originally defined with only a 24-bit address space - so IBM merrily used the first 8 bits of addresses as a marker in subroutines.

So when the address space was increased later on within the 370 series, they had to increase it only to 31 bits, with circuitry detecting the first bit and using it to invert the rest of the first byte, in order to be compatible. Of course, Apple didn't have options like that, since they didn't design the Motorola 68000, and it didn't have a 24-bit address space at the start.

didjamatic · « **Reply #27 on:** Sat, 13 March 2010, 21:50:14 »

3com Ergo Audrey

D-EJ915 · « **Reply #28 on:** Sat, 13 March 2010, 22:31:08 »

I've never used one of those before but I wanted one the last time I saw it haha.

microsoft windows · « **Reply #29 on:** Mon, 15 March 2010, 18:34:49 »

I've never ever seen one of those things before. What do they do?

News:

Author Topic: Really Cute Computers? (Read 7615 times)