Groups | Search | Server Info | Login | Register


Groups > chi.internet > #3804

Re: Microcenter

From Chicago Paddling-Fishing <jwn@ripco.com>
Newsgroups chi.internet
Subject Re: Microcenter
Date 2018-08-13 06:48 +0000
Organization Ripco Communications Inc.
Message-ID <pkr9k0$3dc$1@remote5bge0.ripco.com> (permalink)
References (11 earlier) <otr8lt$n56$1@reader2.panix.com> <otrfhp$g3c$1@remote5bge0.ripco.com> <ovdl40$4jf$4@reader2.panix.com> <p3eddr$rec$1@remote5bge0.ripco.com> <p3mhvd$gub$5@reader2.panix.com>

Show all headers | View raw


Cydrome Leader <presence@mungepanix.com> wrote:
>Chicago Paddling-Fishing <jwn@ripco.com> wrote:
>> Cydrome Leader <presence@mungepanix.com> wrote:
>>>Chicago Paddling-Fishing <jwn@ripco.com> wrote:
>>>> Cydrome Leader <presence@mungepanix.com> wrote:
>>>>>Chicago Paddling-Fishing <jwn@ripco.com> wrote:
>>>>>> Cydrome Leader <presence@mungepanix.com> wrote:
>>>>>>>Kristian M Zoerhoff <kristian.zoerhoff@gmail.com> wrote:
>>>>>>>> On 2017-09-25, tert in seattle <tert@ftupet.com> wrote:
>>>>>>>>> Cydrome Leader wrote:
>>>>>>>>>> barbie gee <booger@nosespam.com> wrote:
>>>>>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>>>>>> On Thu, 3 Aug 2017, dye wrote:
>>>>>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>>>>>>> In article <ns7sgu$1th$2@remote5bge0.ripco.com>,
>>>>>>>>>>>> Chicago Paddling-Fishing  <jwn@ripco.com> wrote:
>>>>>>>>>>>>> Mark Anderson <mea@nospambradnylion.com> wrote:
>>>>>>>>>>>>>> In article bje@ripco.com says...
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> Yeah but at least they are trying, look where Radio Shack is today.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> Keep in mind when MC opened (1997/98?), the computer market was totally
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> different from today. They need to keep changing shit to get people in the
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> door.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>>>>>> Remember Handy Andy?  They tried to charge me $108 for a 12 pack of
>>>>>>>>>>>>>> fluorescent tube bulbs because the cashier thought it was $8/bulb
>>>>>>>>>>>>>> instead of $8/12 pack.  Had to get a manager to figure that out.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>>>>>> Microcenter hasn't changed much since they opened.  After a few years
>>>>>>>>>>>>>> opening they became a better deal for a lot of things than that monthly
>>>>>>>>>>>>>> COD computer fair.  Do they still do that?
>>>>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> I'm not a gamer but it's obvious from posts, news articles and feeds
>>>>>>>>>>>>>> that
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> the game market is mostly "online" these days. I don't quite get what Steam
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> is, but it's obvious it's some pay to play system. That and all the console
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> machines that only work over the net. With all that going on, I can't see
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> where carrying them in a store works anymore.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> Maybe MC is trying to take a stab at Fry's, although I haven't been out to
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> the one in Downers Grove (or wherever the hell it is) in a while, last time
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> I was there they had a couple aisles dedicated to loose "parts". Seems like
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> a waste of floor space but who knows.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>>>>>> I'm not a gamer either.  I was looking for PS2 games in some bargain bin
>>>>>>>>>>>>>> but now PS3 are the bargain platform.  Microcenter used to have those
>>>>>>>>>>>>>> bargain bins of random stuff that you could spend a lot of time looking
>>>>>>>>>>>>>> through for something you might need and get it cheap.  They don't do
>>>>>>>>>>>>>> that anymore.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>>>>> They still have bargan bins (well, more like tables).
>>>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>>>> My big MC bargin bin score was circa 1998...someone had returned a Palm
>>>>>>>>>>>> Pilot 7, which was better than the Palm 5 I went to buy, but also
>>>>>>>>>>>> *included wireless celluar*.  The people who returned it had
>>>>>>>>>>>> activated a data plan and it worked wireless for free for about a
>>>>>>>>>>>> year and a half.
>>>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>>>> Not that it was fast or anything, probably an analog cellular connection,
>>>>>>>>>>>> but this was living large in 1998.
>>>>>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>>>>>> Hah!
>>>>>>>>>>> I'm surprised they didn't cancel the account, but good for you!
>>>>>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>>>>>> I had two different Palm devices, and while they were fun to have, and I 
>>>>>>>>>>> could read my email on them, but looking back at them, boy, were they 
>>>>>>>>>>> clunky compared to our smartphones.
>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>> Maybe somebody here can remind me about all of this.
>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>> What the hell was a palm even for? I don't recall anybody who ever had one 
>>>>>>>>>> being able to explain what it really did other than looks real stupid 
>>>>>>>>>> hanging off an belt next to a two way pager. I don't recall them even 
>>>>>>>>>> having "basic functionality" like being able to exchange "electronic 
>>>>>>>>>> business cards" or anything like that by pointing them at each other.
>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>> Even those silly watches you'd link to your computer by letting the screen 
>>>>>>>>>> flash made more sense.
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>> I got a Palm III from work in 1998 or thereabouts. It had some infrared way
>>>>>>>>> of communicating with other Palm III's but I don't remember ever using that
>>>>>>>>> feature. I used it for playing games and taking notes. The Palm script was
>>>>>>>>> easy to learn and note taking wasn't too cumbersome. It had a backlight so 
>>>>>>>>> you could see the LCD screen in the dark. It also had a flip cover that made 
>>>>>>>>> it great for pretending you were on the USS Enterprise.
>>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>>> Sheeeeeit.
>>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>>> My wife worked for 3Com back in the day (99-06?), so I cycled through a Palm
>>>>>>>> III, a IIIc (color screen!), a V, and a Sony Clie (their licensed clone of a 
>>>>>>>> Palm that, of course, used Memory Stick instead of SD). Man, fuck Sony sideways.
>>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>>> You could beam certain data between units via IR, but it was wonky as fuck.
>>>>>>>> Syncing it in a corporate environment was a challenge, but I do recall getting
>>>>>>>> it to work with Lotus Notes (yeesh) when I was at IBM. 
>>>>>> 
>>>>>>>Back to my old question. What the fuck were you (or anybody really) even 
>>>>>>>syncing? Buzzord bingo terms? Did those piece of shit even do some sort of 
>>>>>>>off-line POP mail? I stil have zero understanding of why nerds used those 
>>>>>>>things.
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> Data... the goal is to never type the same thing twice... which included
>>>>>> backing up your contacts so if you reset the device they weren't all lost
>>>>>> although even back when I had the Franklan eBookman, I recall using a USB
>>>>>> cable to sync contacts back and forth (it had contacts and note taking
>>>>>> apps on it too and was pretty cheap back in 99 or so).
>>>> 
>>>>>Still just not getting it.
>>>> 
>>>>>Why the hell would you backup a contact list on a device bigger than an 
>>>>>phone of the era?
>>>> 
>>>>>Here's what it comes down to.
>>>> 
>>>>>palm pilots were completely stupid devices for stupid people.
>>>> 
>>>> They weren't stupid... they were much better than little scraps of paper kept 
>>>> inside your pocket protector so you could move them easily from shirt to 
>>>> shirt each morning...
>> 
>>>Scraps of paper in pocket protectors? I think I've found the problem here.
>> 
>> 
>>>> Back then you just didn't have the digital bandwidth (actually I think it was 
>>>> still analog signals at that time... when I worked at Motorola cellular in the
>>>> 80's it was all analog).  Syncing with a USB cable in the 90's was a lot more
>>>> reliable than syncing with a watch flashing at a tube screen.
>> 
>>>USB at any point in the 1990s was far less reliable than aiming a watch at 
>>>a 14" CRT.
>> 
>> I would tend to disagree.  Perhaps you were syncing usb devices using a cable
>> that had been cut?

>yeah, that was it. Every usb cable was cut. It had nothing to do with 
>every old implementation of USB chipsets being defective in addition to 
>none of the drivers working properly, and that's not even counting the 
>hardware on the peripheral side of things.

No doubt some intel USB chipsets were bad (ich5), but it depended on the 
device how problematic it became;

My ICH5 worked fine until my M-I-L gave one of the kids a cheap binnocular
camera... then it smoked the motherboard.

http://pages.ripco.net/~jwn/tmp/ich5smoking.jpg

http://pages.ripco.net/~jwn/tmp/ich5hole.jpg


>>>Is this a website you maintain?
>> 
>>>http://www.faughnan.com/palm.html
>> 
>> Not I (opted not to visit it)...  The sidekick was a neat device too in its
>> day, but these days I prefer android.

>Were you scared there were 8 bit virues on that site that might cause the 
>nicad cells in your palm to blow up or something?

I've always trusted my anti-virus software.

-- 
John Nelson
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
                      Chicago Area Paddling/Fishing Page
       http://www.chicagopaddling.org   http://www.chicagofishing.org
 (A Non-Commercial Web Site: No Sponsors, No Paid Ads and Nothing to Sell)

Back to chi.internet | Previous | NextPrevious in thread | Next in thread | Find similar


Thread

Re: Microcenter Chicago Paddling-Fishing <jwn@ripco.com> - 2016-09-25 06:57 +0000
  Re: Microcenter Crawford Sausage Company <mea@brandylion.com> - 2016-09-25 12:16 -0700
  Re: Microcenter dye@d118-75-174-144.try.wideopenwest.com (dye) - 2016-09-28 21:24 +0000
    Re: Microcenter Geoff Gass <glg@tanzenmb.com> - 2016-09-28 23:57 +0000
      Re: Microcenter Michele <eatshitanddie@spammers.com> - 2016-09-29 00:50 -0500
      Re: Microcenter dye@d118-75-174-144.try.wideopenwest.com (dye) - 2016-09-30 16:15 +0000
  Re: Microcenter dye@d118-75-174-144.try.wideopenwest.com (dye) - 2017-08-03 16:24 +0000
    Re: Microcenter barbie gee <booger@nosespam.com> - 2017-08-05 09:38 -0500
      Re: Microcenter Cydrome Leader <presence@MUNGEpanix.com> - 2017-08-23 13:15 +0000
        Re: Microcenter Geoff Gass <glg@tanzenmb.com> - 2017-08-23 14:23 +0000
          Re: Microcenter Chicago Paddling-Fishing <jwn@ripco.com> - 2017-11-05 09:08 +0000
        Re: Microcenter Don Seeley <see-sig@fakedomain.com> - 2017-08-30 16:24 +0000
          Re: Microcenter Cydrome Leader <presence@MUNGEpanix.com> - 2017-09-02 21:52 +0000
            Re: Microcenter Michele <goaway@noseytwats.com> - 2017-09-07 01:42 -0500
            Re: Microcenter dye@d118-75-174-144.try.wideopenwest.com (dye) - 2017-10-14 20:39 +0000
        Re: Microcenter tert in seattle <tert@ftupet.com> - 2017-09-25 00:52 +0000
          Re: Microcenter Kristian M Zoerhoff <kristian.zoerhoff@gmail.com> - 2017-10-04 01:39 +0000
            Re: Microcenter nobody@[127.0.0.1] (David W. Tamkin) - 2017-10-04 15:01 +0000
              Re: Microcenter Kristian M Zoerhoff <kristian.zoerhoff@gmail.com> - 2017-10-04 19:11 +0000
                Re: Microcenter Michele <goaway@noseytwats.com> - 2017-10-06 00:16 -0500
                Re: Microcenter Kristian M Zoerhoff <kristian.zoerhoff@gmail.com> - 2017-10-07 22:26 +0000
                Re: Microcenter Michele <goaway@noseytwats.com> - 2017-10-07 23:00 -0500
                Re: Microcenter Geoff Gass <glg@tanzenmb.com> - 2017-10-11 23:19 +0000
                Re: Microcenter Michele <goaway@noseytwats.com> - 2017-10-12 00:39 -0500
                Re: Microcenter Geoff Gass <glg@tanzenmb.com> - 2017-10-13 17:51 +0000
                Re: Microcenter Michele <goaway@noseytwats.com> - 2017-10-14 22:45 -0500
                Re: Microcenter barbie gee <booger@nosespam.com> - 2017-10-21 23:49 -0500
                Re: Microcenter barbie gee <booger@nosespam.com> - 2017-10-21 23:48 -0500
                Re: Microcenter nobody@[127.0.0.1] (David W. Tamkin) - 2017-10-07 02:56 +0000
            Re: Microcenter Cydrome Leader <presence@MUNGEpanix.com> - 2017-10-10 03:11 +0000
              Re: Microcenter Kristian M Zoerhoff <kristian.zoerhoff@gmail.com> - 2017-10-11 16:07 +0000
              Re: Microcenter dye@d118-75-174-144.try.wideopenwest.com (dye) - 2017-10-14 20:46 +0000
                Re: Microcenter barbie gee <booger@nosespam.com> - 2017-10-21 23:51 -0500
                Re: Microcenter dye@d118-75-174-144.try.wideopenwest.com (dye) - 2017-10-23 23:06 +0000
              Re: Microcenter Chicago Paddling-Fishing <jwn@ripco.com> - 2017-11-05 09:25 +0000
                Re: Microcenter Cydrome Leader <presence@MUNGEpanix.com> - 2017-11-07 03:18 +0000
                Re: Microcenter Chicago Paddling-Fishing <jwn@ripco.com> - 2017-11-07 05:15 +0000
                Re: Microcenter Cydrome Leader <presence@MUNGEpanix.com> - 2017-11-26 05:57 +0000
                Re: Microcenter Chicago Paddling-Fishing <jwn@ripco.com> - 2018-01-14 01:57 +0000
                Re: Microcenter Cydrome Leader <presence@MUNGEpanix.com> - 2018-01-17 04:03 +0000
                Re: Microcenter Chicago Paddling-Fishing <jwn@ripco.com> - 2018-08-13 06:48 +0000
                Re: Microcenter barbie gee <booger@nosespam.com> - 2018-08-17 19:24 -0500
    Re: Microcenter Max <betatron@gmail.com> - 2017-08-05 21:07 -0500

csiph-web