Anyone remember?

[RodLightning]

1 hour ago, Keatah said:

Yes. There's flab buildup already. No. Fat. Chicks.

Meh. At 18, she's still a baby.  That's probably not flab, just baby fat.  It will be interesting to see how she fills out over the next two or three years.  I will of course, now follow her on Twitter for purely academic reasons.  Lets watch this retro collecting journey unfold.  Thanks OP for sharing.  Wow, I'm going to go pray now...  😇

[Keatah]

I recall buying an Apple //c for $3.63. I left the price they crayon'd on it. I asked how they derived that value. One clerk told me it rhymed with //c and sounded about right. She said it would have been marked a full $4 if they could've tested it. But they didn't have any paper or ribbon handy.

[zzip]

1 minute ago, Keatah said:

I recall buying an Apple //c for $3.63. I left the price they crayon'd on it. I asked how they derived that value. One clerk told me it rhymed with //c and sounded about right. She said it would have been marked a full $4 if they could've tested it. But they didn't have any paper or ribbon handy.

Please tell me this is a joke??

 

[Keatah]

I'll be interested to see how her collection fills out. My gosh! How does one buy so much stuff so quickly? And then have the time to enjoy it. Just one system even! I'm still discovering new things and double-blacklogged with Apple II stuffage! Have a pile of stuff a meter high waiting for the scanner.

[Keatah]

1 minute ago, zzip said:

Please tell me this is a joke??

Cannot oblige you on that. If it helps, this was a very late 2002'ish purchase. Just about anything Apple II was e-waste and going for fractions of pennies on the dollar. They thought it was a typewriter no doubt. And Apple was still still just another company. Certainly not in the public consciousness like present.

[Keatah]

Other ridiculous purchases I got back then.. Graphics tablets, about 7 of them, for $30-$40 each. NIB CIB MIB. Said they were selling them because schools were now teaching technical drawing with something more current - IBM PC based. Found in the storeroom of a no-longer-remembered technical college IIRC. The amazing part? Was from eBay. The days when it was fun to bid and not worry about sniping. When it fun to actually try and GET a bargain.

 

First, now, this past year or two I discovered another software package for it. Besides the one that came with it. And besides BlazingPaddles. That's what makes this hobby so fun. Seeming always something new old stock to discover!

 

Another screaming deal was from a local shoppe called Software Re-Runs. Ran by some old fart that had all kinds of mysterious problems and was never at the store. Could feel the vibes changing. But they had every possible big box PC game ever. And ones that weren't even made yet - so comprehensive was the selection..! But I was overwhelmed so I didn't buy much of that. The deal? For a handshake I got a couple of Platinum //e consoles, with minimal cardage like a Disk II controller, SuperSerial, 128k/80col, a small assortment of joysticks and cables, a few various other long-forgotten-what-it-was stuff. The catch? I had to take all of it before the store closed. And it was late. Guy was being an asshole seeing how my tiny shitbanger car was overloaded with hoarder stuff (other classic computer paraphernalia). Said he was gonna dumpster it all. Well that was ok I would just pluck it out later. But then thought shit it might not survive being thrown around like that. I mean they were pristine. I went to Bob's Marathon gas-a-station and asked if could empty some crap there for just a couple hours so I could have room. I swear the suspension was threatening to bottom out on even just an expansion joint so loaded the car was. Back in a jiffy and got all the Apple stuff. Dropped it off at home. Went back to Bob's and retrieved my four boxes. Yeh. Just 4 boxes. But it made necessary space!

 

Got a complete (and still useless) Alpha Syntauri + all accessories and all software for cheap on ebay. Couldn't have been more than $50 or $100. I don't know I don't remember. And then there were two spit-polished new old stock G7287 3.5" drives and 2 extra Sony mechanisms for them. Ebay price then? $30 range with shipping included.

 

Those were the days.

[Razzie.P]

3 hours ago, Stephen said:

Right - check out every item for sale by this ebay "store": https://www.ebay.com/sch/whozitsnwhatzitsvintagefinds/m.html

 

Tell me what you see in common.  Had to explain to the wife that there really was an item (or two) I was interested in!

 

Was scrolling down those listings, saw this, and was like c-c-c-combo breaker!

 

[Keatah]

But she does have a point about PDFs. Prefers real printed manuals, like spiral-bound, that lay flat on the desk, where you can spread them out and use them nicely.

 

As some of ya'll may recall I was recently saying that manuals are great nostalgic booster. We all obviously played with the real hardware and stuff. And read the manuals. I'm willing to wager the manuals are more nostalgic than you'd first guess. The manuals are what instructed us about the ins and outs of the brave new information age. The better written ones were like having an instructor right beside you.

 

But back to PDFs. PDFs are invaluable for quick immediate reference, searching, and preservation. But not always conducive to an evening of light reading unless you have a nice e-reader setup - whatever that entails. Any classic computer collection should have a complete set of both original printed material and scanned material. For the printed stuff, the original mfg published material is required as are a few (but certainly not all) 3rd party books. Like from Tab, Sams, or Addison Wesley. For scanned stuff, there's little to no excuse not to have it all!

 

Shit! Some of the manuals that came with peripherals or software packages like ProTerm, Copy II+, Epson MX-80 Printer, Hayes MicroModem II, or even the Disk II subsystem, or any other early 1st examples of new technology, were practically miniature classes in and of themselves - so well-written were they. And it was their job to introduce you to the new tech and to explain how to get real-world usage out of it all.

[Leonard Smith]

1 hour ago, Keatah said:

I'll be interested to see how her collection fills out. My gosh! How does one buy so much stuff so quickly? And then have the time to enjoy it. Just one system even! I'm still discovering new things and double-blacklogged with Apple II stuffage! Have a pile of stuff a meter high waiting for the scanner.

How you ask?
Through her Youtube monetary gains, that's how lol!    

Most likely she's just a trust fund baby...rich parents are giving her the means to buy these mildewed electronics and tacky outfits.  They must be so proud of their daughter, lol!

 

 

 

[Keatah]

3 hours ago, Stephen said:

Tell me what you see in common.  Had to explain to the wife that there really was an item (or two) I was interested in!

Oh bullshit I don't do no explaining to the wife. I do what I do! I'm interested in what I'm interested in.

 

3 hours ago, Stephen said:

Right - check out every item for sale by this ebay "store": https://www.ebay.com/sch/whozitsnwhatzitsvintagefinds/m.html

Some of those items really bring back the memories. Like the Honda Kick-n-Go red scooter. Pretty sure I had one of those or something similar. I always wanted to ride it backwards with the single wheel pointing forward. Or lay on top of it somehow. Felt rather awkward and too maneuverable with the front wheels set up like so. But backward it seemed more like a trike. Or a BigWheel! Remember those?

[Shredder11]

3 hours ago, Allan said:

When I see this type of thing in eBay auctions I report it as inappropriate. I find it annoying.

 

It's great that we have all types of people in the retro computer hobby. But sometimes you have people who pretend to have an interest but really have ulterior motives. It usually is pretty obvious. For example, resellers who just only see people interested in retro computers has a means to make money. And no I am not talking about somebody who creates something like hardware, software, etc. or people who just get tired of their retro hardware/software and want to sell it to buy something else. Hopefully you get what I am saying.

Some potential buyer is bound to ask if everything in the photo is included...

[+Stephen]

29 minutes ago, Keatah said:

Or a BigWheel! Remember those?

Yeah - that's where I learned to spin out.  Had the one with the big hand brake on it!

[Keatah]

And those things were loud! The hollow frame and tires amp'd every grain of sand to 11.

[Tillek]

On 8/21/2022 at 1:34 PM, DarkLord said:

Hahaha, this is funny. My younger brother sent me an e-mail asking me to talk

him out of trying to find this girl, so he won't be accused of stalking. He swears

she's in her 20's but she looks very young to me.

 

(I'm thinking no one is going to remember what she's even asking!)     

 

 

Look w-t-f you started....

 

[TheNameOfTheGame]

3 hours ago, Keatah said:

I'll be interested to see how her collection fills out.

"Collection", right got it. Reading through this very entertaining thread am I awful for lol'ing at that? 😄

[Keatah]

2 hours ago, Leonard Smith said:

Most likely she's just a trust fund baby...rich parents are giving her the means to buy these mildewed electronics and tacky outfits.  They must be so proud of their daughter, lol!

Maybe.. Maybe it's youtube funding and a touch of social media disease. She did get a brand new Mercedes. And lower-class people love to hate on that kinda thing in a weird can't-help-themselves kinda way. Snob brands like BMW, Audi, Mercedes. Even Teslas to a point. Just tweaks them the wrong way. Brews up this weird unease. Somehow. Yet the lower class aspires to be like that and gives stuff they can't really afford to make the rich richer. A widespread thing to be sure. Gotta love it! Woot..

 

It be like a celeb giving a speech on climate change, telling you to do your part. Then gets a standing ovation and awards and makes you feel good for your hard effort (like cleaning up after yourself). Then you find out they piss all over the ozone layer with the private jets you gladly pay for. Ha!

 

C'mon peeps! Smarten up! Sort that recycling bin! Carpool even if it costs you extra time to make it work. Do. Your. Part.

Edited August 22, 2022 by Keatah

[Leonard Smith]

The issue is that she hasn't worked for any of this stuff.  Apart from brandishing her t*ts all over Youtube.  

That's what 'tweaks' us the wrong way.

 

And then someone posts a 'oh but she's such an accomplished girl' link.  Lol yeah right.

[Dopy25]

4 hours ago, Leonard Smith said:

The issue is that she hasn't worked for any of this stuff.  Apart from brandishing her t*ts all over Youtube.  

That's what 'tweaks' us the wrong way.

 

And then someone posts a 'oh but she's such an accomplished girl' link.  Lol yeah right.

Haha what are you talking about? She basically owns a business that educates less fortunate on coding. 

 

It's really easy to look this stuff up. Her name is Kari Lawler. She's apparently brilliant. She coded some AI stuff when she was 13. What were you doing at 13? I know what I was doing. It sure wasn't anything spectacular. 

 

I'm not trying to start a flame war here, just saying that she is literally far more accomplished than most of us here. It also looks like the YouTube came much later than awards. 

 

Who knows, maybe one day she'll get into coding in basic and write some good games for any Atari console. 

[CapitanClassic]

1 hour ago, Dopy25 said:

 It's really easy to look this stuff up. Her name is Kari Lawler. She's apparently brilliant. She coded some AI stuff when she was 13. What were you doing at 13? I know what I was doing. It sure wasn't anything spectacular. 

 

I'm not trying to start a flame war here, just saying that she is literally far more accomplished than most of us here.

Uh no, she’s not anything spectacular, she is a trust fund baby looking for clout. She didn’t “code some AI” stuff. She clearly is a trust-fund baby looking for a political purpose to push, because she isn’t talented. She is promoting girls in STEM and I guess improving AI understanding in young people. 

 

Quote

An autistic 13-year-old girl who has had to be educated at home for a year has stunned the science world – by creating her own artificial intelligence.

What’s more, child genius Kari Lawler took only A WEEK to build her own virtual assistant, which operates on the same lines as Apple’s Siri and Amazon’s Alexa.

Yet efforts to return her to mainstream education have proved in vain, leaving her parents proud but frustrated.

“When Kari started, I don’t think even she thought she could do it,” says dad Brett, who is an IT consultant. “It’s incredible when you consider what the large technology companies have spent on producing something not very different to what Kari has managed to achieve in such a short space of time.

Either her dad is an idiot, or a liar (or it’s fake.news). her INFINITY program isn’t incredible. No, she didn’t create her own AI in a week and it is very different than tech companies like what Google/Apple is doing with Siri. What she built was a web interface to public APIs that allow you to send text in a box to Siri, and then get the response back via audio. Her consulting business appears to be to give talks about investing in AI teaching for youth (surprising, she runs such a business, Youth4AI.

So she was able to write 80-lines of JavaScript in a week. Sorry, you aren’t special.

 

Edited August 23, 2022 by CapitanClassic

[Dopy25]

6 minutes ago, CapitanClassic said:

Uh no, she’s not anything spectacular, she is a trust fund baby looking for clout. She didn’t “code some AI” stuff. She clearly is a trust-fund baby looking for a political purpose to push, because she isn’t talented. She is promoting girls in STEM and I guess improving AI understanding in young people. 

 

Either her dad is an idiot, or a liar (or it’s fake.news). her INFINITY program isn’t incredible. No, she didn’t create her own AI in a week and it is very different than tech companies like what Google/Apple is doing with Siri. What she built was a web interface to public APIs that allow you to send text in a box to Siri, and then get the response back via audio. Her consulting business appears to be to give talks about inventing in AI teaching for youth (surprising, she runs such a business, Youth4AI.

So she was able to write 80-lines of JavaScript in a week. Sorry, you aren’t special.

 

Again, I was doing nothing close to this at 13. 

 

Also the article you linked is old as hell, comparatively. She has since given herself a bigger name. 

 

I'm not sure where all the negativity is coming from with all of you guys. 

 

There surely aren't pages and pages of results for my name on Google. How about you?

[Dopy25]

Am I being trolled? I feel like I'm being trolled. There's no way this entire thread is that butt hurt over someone sharing a hobby. 

[CapitanClassic]

11 minutes ago, Dopy25 said:

Again, I was doing nothing close to this at 13. 

 

Also the article you linked is old as hell, comparatively. She has since given herself a bigger name. 

 

I'm not sure where all the negativity is coming from with all of you guys. 

 

There surely aren't pages and pages of results for my name on Google. How about you?

Agreed, I wasnt lying about my accomplishments at 13, because I was an idiot. Luckily,  I was smart enough to know that at the time, she apparently does not.

 

Do you think the oldness of the article is an arguement against any of my claims. She has given herself a bigger name (clout)...Yeah, that's what I said. If you're just going to agree with me, were going to have an issue. You'll find I am very agreeable. 

 

I am a very positive person, and I am positive she is an idiot. I wouldn't expect anyone at age 13 to be anything other than a. Idiot. They haven't lived long enough to accumulate much wisdom.

 

Yeah, she is a trust fund baby with a political cause, looking for clout, with a message that supports the current thing. Would you expect something different?  Am I supposed to be impressed? 

 

Edited August 23, 2022 by CapitanClassic

[Dopy25]

4 minutes ago, CapitanClassic said:

Agreed, I wasnt lying about my accomplishments at 13, because I was an idiot. Luckily,  I was smart enough to know that at the time, she apparently does not.

 

Do you think the oldness of the article is an arguement against any of my claims. She has given herself a bigger name (clout)...Yeah, that's what I said. If you're just going to agree with me, were going to have an issue. You'll find I am very agreeable. 

 

I am a very positive person, and I am positive she is an idiot. I wouldn't expect anyone at age 13 to be anything other than a. Idiot. They haven't lived long enough to accumulate much wisdom.

 

Yeah, she is a trust fund baby with a political cause, looking for clout, with a message that supports the current thing. Would you expect something different?  Am I supposed to be impressed? 

 

What am I missing here? 

 

Yes the age of the article is relevant. She's no longer some "school dropout who didn't fit the mold". She now has a legitimate business that makes money that is not YouTube.

 

I'm still confused about how she was lying. 

 

From what I can tell, multiple awards were given to her. Awards. I'm sure the people that hand those out don't just give them to anyone. I've never won a tech award but I'm sure if I did, it wouldn't be given out by Big Bird. 🤷🏼‍♂️. 

 

 

Current thing? I thought the whole argument of this thread was because she's into retro computers and everyone wanted to remind her who the real elite was and she should stay out of their hobby. 

 

Stop being such a grump. Other people can enjoy some of the things you do even if they haven't done it for as long. 

[Muzz73]

Did everyone miss that she's wearing an ENCOM hat in one of the pics? She could be an evil genius in disguise! LOL

[CapitanClassic]

24 minutes ago, Dopy25 said:

What am I missing here? 

 

Yes the age of the article is relevant. She's no longer some "school dropout who didn't fit the mold". She now has a legitimate business that makes money that is not YouTube.

Apparently,  you dont understand how conversation works. Why do you think I was linking to and quoting the article? Do you think I disagree with your two points above? (School Dropout, legitimate business not YouTube). I was linking to the article, because you said, "She is brilliant. She coded some AI stuff [...] she is literally far more accomplished than most of us here." Speak for yourself. If a 13-15 year old is more accomplished than you, you need to reevaluate your goals in life.

 

24 minutes ago, Dopy25 said:

I'm still confused about how she was lying. 

I thought it was clear, but this is what I was responding to above. The article directly refutes those points, because she didn't code an AI. She was able to make a web interface to Siri, that anyone can do following a few simple tutorials. 

Quote

It's really easy to look this stuff up. Her name is Kari Lawler. She's apparently brilliant. She coded some AI stuff when she was 13. What were you doing at 13? I know what I was doing. It sure wasn't anything spectacular. 

 

I'm not trying to start a flame war here, just saying that she is literally far more accomplished than most of us here.

 

 

24 minutes ago, Dopy25 said:

From what I can tell, multiple awards were given to her. Awards. I'm sure the people that hand those out don't just give them to anyone. I've never won a tech award but I'm sure if I did, it wouldn't be given out by Big Bird. 🤷🏼‍♂️. 

Actually,  the kind of do. Many awards are pay-for-play. You give some organization money,  and they hand you some made up award.

24 minutes ago, Dopy25 said:

Current thing? I thought the whole argument of this thread was because she's into retro computers and everyone wanted to remind her who the real elite was and she should stay out of their hobby. 

The current thing, is a reference to Women/Girls in STEM.

 

24 minutes ago, Dopy25 said:

Stop being such a grump. Other people can enjoy some of the things you do even if they haven't done it for as long. 

I don't care if she enjoys retro computers. How did you ever come to that conclusion from what I wrote. Are you Kari Lawler's dad or publicist? (Cause your kind of f*ing this up) maybe your that AI assistant that Kari wrote, INFINITY, quick say "exploding sheep,," to prove you're not a bot.

Edited August 23, 2022 by CapitanClassic