You are the end result of a “would you push the button” prompt where the prompt was “you have unlimited godlike powers but you appear to all and sundry to be an impetuous child” – Zero, 2022
I want to read in bed but I don't want to have the light on because it's hard to sleep with a 100W bulb over my head.
I think tomorrow I'm going to try to find a cheap reading light for my Kindle.
Interesting. Dell has been using their current logo (the word DELL in Futura Extra Bold with the E done up to look like a Sony floppy disk) for just about 20 years now -- they give the first use in commerce as 31 July 1992.
And now I have "End of the Road" in my head. DAMMIT. :P
You are the end result of a “would you push the button” prompt where the prompt was “you have unlimited godlike powers but you appear to all and sundry to be an impetuous child” – Zero, 2022
Funny, I see that logo literally every day and I never realized that the E is supposed to be a floppy disk.
In retrospect, I'm not sure why I thought it was angled like that.
From the time when Gateway still did goofy full-dress magazine ads: Their take on Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves(with a bit of Monty Python and the Holy Grail mixed in as well, I'm sure).
You are the end result of a “would you push the button” prompt where the prompt was “you have unlimited godlike powers but you appear to all and sundry to be an impetuous child” – Zero, 2022
My laptop (which I use at home and work) is an Inspiron 1545. It's about 3 years old but I can't really say I have any complaints about it, hardware-wise.
An action/adventure platformer for the Game Boy Advance released in 2001.
The titular character is a warrior princess who needs to defeat an invading force of anthropomorphs called the T'soas created by a warlock named Onimen.She travels through four areas, each with several levels as she retrieves her stolen sword and magic ring, reforms alliances with the leaders of the elemental realms of fire, air and water, and continues on to remove Onimen from her palace.
Also of note is Sia's shapeshifting abilities; in three out of four major boss battles, she transforms into a humanoid beast with claws, superhuman strength, and a mane of hair. Why? Rule of Cool , probably.
Not to be confused with Sia the musician.
This seems like one of those things that could've been good if more effort was put into it. Seems enjoyable enough on the surface but it's apparently very buggy and extremely hard, so I'mma have to pass.
You are the end result of a “would you push the button” prompt where the prompt was “you have unlimited godlike powers but you appear to all and sundry to be an impetuous child” – Zero, 2022
Heh, I remember when Gateway was "Gateway 2000". My parents bought a Gateway 2000-branded computer just a few months before they dropped "2000" from the name in 1998.
IIRC, they purchased it at Columbus's only "Gateway Country" store. I recall the place being done up with farm-themed decor, though this was long enough ago that I can't really remember much aside from the company's cow-spot motif being everywhere.
I'm supposed to rescue hostages right? Except I suck at this game so I accidentally killed them all, and it still gave me credit for completing the mission. With the "Rescue: #" replaced by "Rescue: DONE"
Wow, Gateway still uses the cow-spotted box in their logo, even though they haven't been an independent company in years (Acer bought them some time ago).
I always thought that the rotated E was supposed to be some playful quirk, not representative of anything.
Considering that floppy disks are literally obsoleter than obsolete, I'm guessing that's what the case is nowadays. They probably keep the mark around thanks to brand integrity, and the tilted E is just a nod to the floppy age rather than being representative of actual floppies.
You are the end result of a “would you push the button” prompt where the prompt was “you have unlimited godlike powers but you appear to all and sundry to be an impetuous child” – Zero, 2022
It's funny, because now that I see the floppy disk I can see Dell's logo one of two ways: a simple but modern-looking logo with a stylistically rotated E, or a product of the 1990s when inserting things like floppy disks into your logos was trendy.
...What is/was the significance of cow spots to Gateway anyway?
Gateway was originally from Sioux City, IA, and played up the "down on the farm" thing for all it was worth. They really did use cow-spotted boxes, too, back when they still sold direct.
Tre: Yeah, the 1.44 MB floppy was still very much a thing in 1992. CDs were expensive and strictly read-only (CD-Rs existed, but were very hard to get), and even the Zip drive was still about two years away at that point.
Now that I think about it, since HP bought Compaq and Acer bought Gateway, both of those brands have kinda faded into obscurity even though everyone knows about Acer and HP.
They more or less replaced them in terms of brands (HP more so than Acer).
A lot of the Compaq people are still at HP, though, especially when you look at their higher-end workstations and servers. They still use Compaq BIOS (and not Phoenix or AMI like everyone else), and the screws are those funny flat/T-15 Torx combination heads like old Compaqs. Some of the ProLiant rack-mount servers even give you a little IKEA wrench inside the chassis just for turning the screws! :lol:
On the other hand, my old Gateway and my Mom's old Acer were not built by either, but by Quanta Computer in China.
I remember having a Compaq family computer back in the early 2000s. We switched to a Sony Vaio after that, then we got a Dell.
After that I think my mom had her Acer laptop, then my Mac, then my dad's Mac, then my Acer laptop, and most recently my sister's laptop, which (rather interestingly) was made by Toshiba.
Yeah, Toshiba was making clamshell portables when most people couldn't even spell "laptop". Their machines date back to the mid-1980s—no joke.
That said, all their manufacturing is farmed out now, just like everyone else's. The last Toshiba machine I had was a hand-me-down from one of my brother's friends that was built for them by Compal (another Taiwanese contract builder that has plants on the mainland as well).
I have a Compaq in my basement. Thing runs Windows XP and is mostly completely blank, but it's virus-riddled (somehow) and we can't figure out how to fix it.
Lazuli: The easiest thing to do in that case is to take the hard drive out, put it in a USB case (they do make cases that work with the old ribbon-cable IDE drives), and hook it up to a machine with a known good antivirus. It's way easier than trying to do surgery on Windows.
You are the end result of a “would you push the button” prompt where the prompt was “you have unlimited godlike powers but you appear to all and sundry to be an impetuous child” – Zero, 2022
Wait, HP killed off the Compaq name in 2010? That's bizarre; my brother got a Presario-branded laptop last Christmas from Wal-Mart. Was it over a year old when he got it?
@Lazuli: If it's "mostly completely blank", why not just back up the few files from it you want to keep and then wipe the whole thing?
Packard Bell sucked so bad that they left the US market years ago. NEC owned them for a while, but they were selling off pieces of the company a while back (their once very popular monitor division was spun off to a joint venture with Mitsubishi Electric, and they sold their chip division to Renesas), and I guess that was one of the first to go.
CA: As far as I know, they haven't killed it as much as de-emphasized it. It's positioned as a value brand now.
In other news, eMachines somehow still exists, and Walmart sells them (shocker).
You are the end result of a “would you push the button” prompt where the prompt was “you have unlimited godlike powers but you appear to all and sundry to be an impetuous child” – Zero, 2022
As a kid I always wondered if Packard Bell and Hewlett-Packard were named for the same Packard, or if it was just a coincidence.
Yeah, name's very familiar. Also Packard Bell doesn't seem to have very much originality now (their only listed product looks like just a rebranded Aspire One with a fancy case mod).
CA: Nope, it was just a coincidence; both companies were named for their founders, and as far as I know, the two Packards aren't related. Even worse, the Packard Bell that sold computers was a in-name-only revival by an entrepreneur; the original Packard-Bell (note the hyphen) made radios and had long since been integrated into Teledyne by the mid-1980s.
As for NEC, I spoke too soon: They do indeed still make monitors. I guess they bought out Mitsubishi's share instead of the other way around.
You are the end result of a “would you push the button” prompt where the prompt was “you have unlimited godlike powers but you appear to all and sundry to be an impetuous child” – Zero, 2022
In my life I've owned only one piece of Packard Bell hardware: a monitor given to me by my grandmother when I was 13. Even then it was hideously obsolete--640x480 maximum resolution in 2003--but I was using it with an equally obsolete hand-me-down Windows 98 box so I didn't care much.
Incidentally, the old Compaq I mentioned earlier was the first platform I made music on, back when it worked. I cut up pieces of electronic music I liked and put them together in mixes with names like Yotsuba's Almighty Sugar Rush Super Extreme Funtime Yes Awesome Go!!!!!
It was also the host of the first actual album I ever made, Skull Beats, which was a bit more subdued.
I still have "A Digital Waterfall" on this computer, but the rest of the album is forever lost.
CA: Wow, that must have been a VGA-only monitor, since that logo was in use in the late 1980s and early 1990s. It almost certainly had a date of manufacture on the back, if you still have it and feel like looking.
Incidentally, our first real PC was a second-hand Packard Bell 286-12, from the days when PB was still OEMing their computers from Samsung. TI TACT chipset, a shocking 1 MB RAM, Seagate 251 40 MB MFM hard drive, Hercules-compatible mono video using a Tamarack (you've never heard of them) chipset, and DOS...5, I think? I don't remember. The computer itself was form 1988; the hard drive and controller were from 1990. Even in early 1993, it was kind of low-end; all the cool kids had 386s at minimum. But before Windows 95, plain DOS was still plenty viable, and we got a lot of use out of that machine.
Also, Ally linked me to something called "Awful Library Books". BRB staying up another 12 hours! :o
Comments
So I just found out that there was a Dungeons & Dragons licensed game called Eye of the Beholder released for the GBA some time ago.
Playing it, as I'm betting it'll be either legitimately good or good in an "oh god this is amazingly horrible" way.
that's an....interesting art style for a GBA game.
huh,
This seems like one of those things that could've been good if more effort was put into it. Seems enjoyable enough on the surface but it's apparently very buggy and extremely hard, so I'mma have to pass.
ho.
ly.
shit.
I think we can stop now, guys. We made the best possible video game.
Also, I had no idea Herculanum (the typeface used at large sizes in the Gateway 2000 ad Lee linked) was around back then, nor that it dated to 1990.
NINJA COP
A BANK IS BEING ROBBED DOWN TOWN
RUSH ONTO THE SCENE
HYA
NINJA SWORD
NINJA STARS
NINJA PURPLE OUTFIT
NINJA FIREBALLS
NINJA ARREST
NINJA KILLING OF INNOCENT HOSTAGES
NINJAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA
oh my god this is seriously the greatest thing.
I'm supposed to rescue hostages right? Except I suck at this game so I accidentally killed them all, and it still gave me credit for completing the mission. With the "Rescue: #" replaced by "Rescue: DONE"
I think too hard about this stuff.
They more or less replaced them in terms of brands (HP more so than Acer).
I don't know what was in this post.
Blah.
:(
I remember having a Compaq family computer back in the early 2000s. We switched to a Sony Vaio after that, then we got a Dell.
After that I think my mom had her Acer laptop, then my Mac, then my dad's Mac, then my Acer laptop, and most recently my sister's laptop, which (rather interestingly) was made by Toshiba.
Huh. Interesting that they got bought, I heard their computers sucked.
Yeah, name's very familiar. Also Packard Bell doesn't seem to have very much originality now (their only listed product looks like just a rebranded Aspire One with a fancy case mod).
You don't understand what I mean when I say "virus-riddled" like it's..broken. It doesn't even boot up properly.
I think my parents have kind of forgotten about it, to be honest.
can't sleep
playing Ninja Cop
greatest game in existence
Incidentally, the old Compaq I mentioned earlier was the first platform I made music on, back when it worked. I cut up pieces of electronic music I liked and put them together in mixes with names like Yotsuba's Almighty Sugar Rush Super Extreme Funtime Yes Awesome Go!!!!!
It was also the host of the first actual album I ever made, Skull Beats, which was a bit more subdued.
I still have "A Digital Waterfall" on this computer, but the rest of the album is forever lost.