Tuesday, December 15, 2009 at 7:41AM Ok, so maybe there's not much tech in this week's post. It's more of a retro tv moment, rather than a tech moment, but who doesn't enjoy some retro kid's TV fun. And it has Star Trek thrown in for good measure. Without further ado, hop in the time machine as we head for a Saturday morning from long ago:
Tuesday, December 8, 2009 at 9:03AM What would we do without YouTube? Today, we learn there's a sensation spreading across the globe at an alarming rate: Internet! This report from the CBC makes the internet seem, well, you can draw your own conclusions:
Tip of the hat to Gammasquad for finding this one.
Tuesday, December 1, 2009 at 6:47AM "And it even had an encyclopedia!"
That's really the message that's driven home in today's retro find. It's a 30-second commercial for the Prodigy service. For those who weren't around, there was a time when the internet was actually called CompuServe, America Online, and Prodigy. (Ok, that's an exxageration, but for most people going "online" referred to one of those three services.)
It's hard to believe in this age of Wikipedia, we were supposed to be blown away by the fact that Prodigy's encyclopedia was updated quarterly, "so it's never out of date!"
Ah, how young and naive we were:
Tuesday, November 24, 2009 at 8:56AM Long before Safari or Firefox. Before Internet Explorer was the world's most-used browser. Heck, in a time when there were hardly any browsers at all, there was Apple's e-World. The history of e-World is a long and crazy one, but in short, you have Apple to thank (or blame) for AOL. Apple was ahead of the curve, and ahead of the price point most people felt comfortable paying for access to what was for the time, quite an interesting little online community.
Unfortunately, there's very little left to document this long-gone relic of Apple history, but thankfully through the miracle of YouTube, we're able to dig up this tiny glimpse into the welcome screen, unusual looking icons, and town map that served as a hub for the community:
If you were an e-person, or even helped develop the community, we'd love to hear from you, or share your experience in the comments. And hey, if it's a slow week at work, then take a few minutes to learn more about e-World from this Wikipedia entry.
Tuesday, November 17, 2009 at 6:44AM We couldn't have John Sculley as last week's RTT without running into an old friend: The Pippin! Yes, the gaming system that could've been, the second great platform for PowerPC chips! Only things didn't quite work out that way.
Of note from this video: It's really something to see an Apple promotional video that lacks the slick graphics and video we see today when Jon Ive figures out how to make the iMac thinner. Quite the opposite. It seems the people in this video aren't quite sure why they're there, or what they're supposed to say.
Sadly, at the end, there's really no cohesive concept of just what the Pippin was supposed to be. Maybe that's telling given its ultimate demise: