When both the NES Classic Edition and now the SNES Classic Edition were announced, a common comment from many in the gaming scene were that these mini-consoles were pointless, or some kind of similar lack of understanding why people are fascinated by them. This stems from a misconception of the very target demographic these machines …
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Category:History
The GIF Format Turns 30 Today
In a little bit of news that has the geekier side of the internet smiling, the .gif file format turns 30 today, June 15th, 2017. Yep, the same file format that beings you all those horribly annoying 1 second long looping animations on every buzzfeed top 10 list, the file format that no one wants …
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Aerial Bombs: Method of Loading Bombs – 1941 US Army Air Corps Training Film
Considering today is June 6th, the 73rd Anniversary of the D-Day invasion of Nazi Occupied Europe, I think it would be a fine day to share a few World War 2 related informational videos; in this case, a film showing the process of how bombs are loaded onto a B-17 bomber. I never thought there …
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Bits And Bytes – Program 6: Computer Languages
Computers, explained in their most simplest form, perform tasks they are told to do – namely, calculations. Put enough calculations together, and you can do some interesting things. Telling the machine to do these various tasks one element at a time, though, would be an intense process. Instead, we use various programming languages to write …
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The Bird Watchers – 1966 USAF Film On Rocket Photography
Getting back to the grind, we might as well start with this video, uploaded today , which is a digital conversion of a 1966 film about the process of filming and photographing rocket launches at Vandernberg Air Force Base. Launches from VAFB were more common than launches from the Eastern Test Range and Cape Canaveral …
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48 Years Ago: The Launch of Apollo 10
On May 18th, 1969, John Young, Tom Stafford, and Gene Cernan began an 8 day mission that would act as a “dress rehearsal” for the planned manned landing on the Moon of Apollo 11. This flight was the 2nd of 4 that would be launched in 1969, and would serve to test the Lunar Module …
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Recording, ’50s Style
While browsing YouTube, I stumbled across another interesting little film worth sharing: In this case, a documentary on a music recording studio “Sugar Ray’s Vintage Recording Studio” which is designed to perfectly re-create the essence of recording in the 1950’s, using vintage equipment and ethos from that bygone decade. This film talks about the troubles …
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Space Shuttle Columbia: Second Flight – 1981 NASA Film on STS-2
On November 12th, 1981, the Space Shuttle Columbia was launched on the second flight of the Space Shuttle Program, a flight which also marks the first re-use of a crewed spacecraft – one of the key goals of the Shuttle Program. STS-2 marked the first use of the Remote Manipulator Arm (the “Canadarm”) , and …
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The Computer Chronicles – Computer Music (1983)
I would imagine when most people think of “computer music” these days they still think of the beeps, boops, and blips of the Atari and early computer systems of the late 70’s and early 80’s. Even by 1983, however, music from computers had come quite a long way, and we were just on the verge …
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The Strange Story Of Sonic The Hedgehog 3 And Michael Jackson
A decade ago, while browsing the then relatively new website called YouTube, I found a video that discussed something I never thought I would see: A theory that Michael Jackson was involved in the music for the 1994 video game “Sonic The Hedgehog 3.” “What? How? Why? Huh? How did I not learn about this?” …
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Apollo Digest: Testing Apollo – 1966 NASA Film
Here we have a quick, 5 minute film clip from 1966, produced by NASA to provide a status update on the Apollo Program. In 1966, as you may recall, we were finishing up the Gemini Program, and the Saturn V rocket was nearing testing completion for it’s first flight, in late 1967, as a test …
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Bits And Bytes – Program 5: Communication Between Computers
Alright, finally we’re getting to something that will feel familiar to everyone: networking! More correctly, the pre-internet computer networking methodology known as BBS’s, via literally dialing a number and putting a phone on the modulator-demodulator – a modem, if you are old enough to remember those kinds of things! This episode shows our friend Billy …
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“Nothing So Hidden” – 1972 Apollo 16 NASA Film
45 years ago this past month, from April 16th to April 27th of 1972, the Apollo 16 mission went to, and returned from, the Moon on our 5th successful lunar landing mission. This film goes over the mission in detail, going over key points of the mission and the unique events that happened during the …
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1977 U.S. Air Force Space Shuttle Overview
The Space Shuttle wasn’t just the NASA follow up to Apollo – oh no, it was intended to replace all expendable launch vehicles, both those in use by NASA for civilian payloads and military launches. The specifications of the payload bay and the overall design of the shuttle were driven by military payload requirements, namely …
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The Captain Midnight Broadcast Signal Intrusion
Early in the morning on April 27th, 1986, the East Coast broadcast feed for the television station HBO was interrupted by a mysterious message, consisting of a standard color test pattern and a somewhat politely worded warning message: GOODEVENING HBO FROM CAPTAIN MIDNIGHT $12.95/MONTH ? NO WAY ! [SHOWTIME/MOVIE CHANNEL BEWARE!] It’s quite the complex …
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