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Omega-TI

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54 minutes ago, mizapf said:

And this is our old Video 2000 machine. Interestingly, the button labels were all translated to German, while nowadays you rarely find translated button labels on such devices anymore; they are usually all in English.

Perhaps because it was only distributed in Europe, South Africa, and Argentina, and the partner company in the format was German.

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Yes, somehow ... you had something sturdy sitting before you. A machine of 17 kg again, with real buttons; when you press them, the machine does not move even a tiny bit. The cassette is lifted out of the machine when you eject it, with a noticeable sound of mechanics. On the left side (with the "VR 2024" label) there is a cover hinged at the bottom, behind it some more keys for programming the machine.

 

When I think of my Bluray player in contrast ... a feeble piece of plastic technology with a touch-sensitive pad on top that reacts already when you try to wipe the dust off and accidentally touch it with some part of your hand.

 

It's not that I wished that machines be that big in our times - if they don't have to. This is just an emotional thing.

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36 minutes ago, mizapf said:

It's not that I wished that machines be that big in our times - if they don't have to. This is just an emotional thing.

Why do so many prefer manual shift versus automatic?  Tactile feedback triggers something human.  Pushing a lever, flipping a switch, pushing a key.  These are events which induce a feeling of connection to the machine; it becomes an extension of you.  When you just lightly tap a touch-sensitive pad and it does something, like turn on a light or open a drawer, the result is much less intimate.

 

I certainly have no warm feelings about changing the fan speed on my humidifier's touch panel.  I have far more, and some fond, memories of pushing around a rotary dial on our old kitchen phone than I have of the multitude of push-button phones which followed.  Except for the one chunky blue one that would only produce one of the two DTMF tones if you pushed the button in ever so slightly.

 

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Cars are a good example of tactile feel and muscle memory tied to those feelings you describe along with a bit of nostalgia.  My brother has our dad's 64 Chevy truck with its pull-on buttons, cable-attached dampers, floor-depressed high beams, simple ignition, etc.  He used to have a 1965 truck with manual transmission and shifter on the column, a clutch that required almost-Herculean muscle strength, and manual steering that made for some interesting grocery store visits. Newer cars feel so detached by comparison. 

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40 minutes ago, InsaneMultitasker said:

Newer cars feel so detached by comparison.

Oh, I feel pretty attached to my car when, for no reason, it wants to run like a bat out of hell for just tapping the accelerator, then it decides it wants to run like Slowpoke Rodriguez when I need to merge into traffic.

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My 2014 car has a manual shifter, and I'm perfectly fine with that. On the contrary, I keep arguing with automatic shifters that this is not the time to change gears, and I feel right because it's me who watches the traffic and the street and who can well predict what is going to happen in the next 10 seconds.

 

Recently I did a full breaking with an automatic shifter car ... the reason was that I was driving my shifter for some time, and then my left foot felt around looking for the clutch. Luckily no one was behind me, and I was not going very fast.

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Lately, I've noticed that a lot more of the spike lug nut covers are finding their way on all sorts of vehicles, seemingly for cosmetic reasons.  Online they sell them in various lengths.   Maybe I notice them more because of installations with more exposed lug nuts and a rim that extends beyond the wheel wall, like the picture below?

 

I guess these things are legal but they still seem dangerous to me, especially in this configuration.

 

Spiked Lug Nuts On The Truck...Not My Truck - YouTube

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27 minutes ago, InsaneMultitasker said:

Lately, I've noticed that a lot more of the spike lug nut covers are finding their way on all sorts of vehicles, seemingly for cosmetic reasons.  Online they sell them in various lengths.   Maybe I notice them more because of installations with more exposed lug nuts and a rim that extends beyond the wheel wall, like the picture below?

 

I guess these things are legal but they still seem dangerous to me, especially in this configuration.

 

Spiked Lug Nuts On The Truck...Not My Truck - YouTube

Stay out of my lane, danger resolved.

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On 4/21/2023 at 2:32 PM, mizapf said:

Recently I did a full breaking with an automatic shifter car ... the reason was that I was driving my shifter for some time, and then my left foot felt around looking for the clutch. Luckily no one was behind me, and I was not going very fast.

Oh yes, same here.  It takes your brain a few hundred milliseconds to register what just happened as you get body slammed towards the steering wheel.

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I caught myself last night trying to hit the brights switch with my left foot.  I have not had a car with a floor switch for the brights in 25 years.  Not sure what was on my mind, or in the back of my mind, at the time.

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3 minutes ago, OLD CS1 said:

I caught myself last night trying to hit the brights switch with my left foot.  I have not had a car with a floor switch for the brights in 25 years.  Not sure what was on my mind, or in the back of my mind, at the time.

 

My last vehicle with that bright/dim switch was a 1975 Ford Chateau E350 van, with which I parted ways in the early 90s.

 

...lee

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12 minutes ago, Lee Stewart said:

My last vehicle with that bright/dim switch was a 1975 Ford Chateau E350 van, with which I parted ways in the early 90s.

1979 Chevy Monza (2.5L L4 "The Iron Duke" with cross-flow manifolds, manual shift, no California emissions,) I purchased in 1993 and left behind when I moved in 1998.  Really miss that car, sometimes.  It just hit me that I only drove that car for five a a-half years but I have an immense array of memories in it, including a few long road trips, several girlfriends, six jobs (some worked concurrently,) a lot of hands-on engine and body work, my first mobile "hacking station," LED lighting, my first mobile phone, my daughter, and about 53,000 miles.

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I think the great pleasure of a manual transmission is efficiently managing a vehicle's inertia.  Flicking down from third to neutral while coasting around a corner, pulling down into second and easing up the clutch at the instant engine rpms and vehicle speed make that optimal...all that anticipation and engagement is lost with an automatic. 

 

Paddle shifters, etc on an automatic are a poor substitute, because that sense of managing inertia remains absent. You're just selecting shift points, and most of the time the automatic is smarter then I am when it comes to that. 

 

Now I find myself swaddled in software and radars, lane-keeping, simulated rumble strips and someone nudging the wheel, the dash warning me to BRAKE!, stability control gently nudging the rear end around a sharp turn...All initially a little unnerving, but I've gotten used to it. In some ways I liked my '68 Beetle better. (Although I was probably high...)

 

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Might have to do some asking around for what version of Forth they used.

 

On the PC in the 80s there was MVP Forth by John Haydn (deceased just recently I believe) 

There was Fig-Forth, puiblic domain, and Poly-Forth by Forth inc. 

On the UK side there was Power Forth by MPE, but I don't when that actually was first available. 

 

And then of course the author could have made his own compiler and that's why the port was done so quickly.

He didn't have to read the manual. :) 

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