Olds go nostalgic for the good old days of tech

Thank you! Also, for the word “teletype”, which escaped me.

But I fibbed - I didn’t personally actually play it - I watched someone else play it. I wasn’t up to handling it then, and I’m probably not now, lol.

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It is a good day to type.

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I’m getting increasingly painful rsi.

I think it’s from writing an an e-ink tablet. I had set up a usb keyboard and a stand, but I still had to reach for the @#%%^ touchscreen to add footnotes, add and edit tables, save, etc.

I am still trying to figure out my options.

Anyway, there’s a series of fancy writing devices called the “Freewrite,” but they’re oriented around the designers’ ideal of “distraction-free writing,” and positively hostile to note-taking and revision. The original version doesn’t let people go back to add or edit anything. The next version has a deliberately difficult 2-handed workaround.

So a lot of reviewers are recommending the AlphaSmart series from the 1990s as a better alternative for note-taking. Or even Tandy and TRS devices.

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https://imgur.com/gallery/k4zvjge

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https://www.apartmenttherapy.com/fisher-price-toy-telephone-calls-36993295?fbclid=IwAR027vREP0KXqI_7A-H38QwL_Pql2gfXFzRCqFKMODcb1bKhALoEK9WPSGg

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3 posts were split to a new topic: Options for SMS/texting without a Smartphone?

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Oh. my. sheesh. My son shared this very thing w/me earlier this afternoon.

It’s like a heavy-metal Teddy Ruxpin, IMNSHO.

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No, Google, my mistake… I meant edlin.

:smiling_imp:

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I’ve tried installing current versions of MacOS on my computer. All of them trigger my migraines. It’s hard to pin down, but they’re optimized for ultra-high-resolution monitors, and they make text unreadably faint on standard-high-resolution monitors. The recurring advice is to get a “modern” monitor with “better” resolution.

I’d been looking for a new monitor, actually, with a lower minimum brightness. E-ink devices don’t usually trigger my migraines, but expensive, and only grayscale, and not the ultra-high-resolution Apple wants. Rlcd might not, but again, expensive, and not the ulra-high-resolution. I went with an lcd monitor with a lower minimum brightness for cost reasons, and it does feel much easier to write on and doesn’t usually trigger my migraines until animation hits, and again, not the ultra-high-resolution.

to be continued.

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I’ve tried again with the current versions of MacOS, but no luck.

I’ve started trying out Linux again. Accessible Coconut is oriented toards screen readers. Linux Mint Cinnamon looks to be customizable, but the installer doesn’t handle dual boot at all well. Ubuntu is supposed to be easier to dual-boot, but it still has the scrollbar issues that drove me away years ago. It’s currently optimized for scrollwheels and swipe gestures, which tear up my tendons. Ubuntu Cinnamon might work, haven’t tried it yet.

Meanwhile neither MacOS nor Linux can use the other’s preferred file systems without expensive 3rd-party apps, I’ve got fragments of failed systems, and I get compatibility warnings each time I boot this thing.

At this point, newer manuals advise against dual-booting, and it’s hard to find up-to-date instructions for it. I’m supposed to use Parallels, or other Virtual Machines. I tried VirtualBox for testing, but most full-featured versions didn’t work in it, and anyway, that doesn’t address any issues with using an older unsupported system. I can’t use Parallels because it requires a newer system which isn’t compatible with either the old or new monitor.

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Old Liverpudlian weighs in on AI:

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So, I’m looking for a stock photo, golden sunrise which will allow me to overlay copy, and use the search term “wheat field sunrise”

In the old days, someone would have said “isn’t that an accidental goatse?” without having to explain what that was and thereby do a harassment.

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I wonder how much confusion, etc. are because it’s harder to read on computer screens than on paper, and easier to skip over sections.

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I’m trying to use Termux on my smartphone, and it works, but I’m having to say goodbye to vi after 40 years because it’s no good for a touchscreen

vi has no tolerance for fat-fingered wrong-keying at all, it just piles up into a mass of “that was not what I was trying to do in any way”

So I’m having to learn nano and the default readline editing keys like a n0000b

I guess both at once is not the way to do it, better do nano first — fancy-editing the command line is not that important :thinking:

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I’m having to get used to nano at work too. We evicted vi from our systems for reasons I didn’t really pay attention to (bigger install with more dependencies and more potential for bugs/flaws?). I’m not really great in vi, but the things I did use it for, I had committed to muscle memory for years. And of course they don’t work in nano and it doesn’t handle pasting properly. So it’s just annoying.

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… there’s a lot of “what’s the nano key for 𝑥” and then it’s just “nano doesn’t do that” :disappointed:

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I’ve gotta be honest, I’ve never actually used vi (or similar) for anything more than basic text editing. But it’s always been the one editor that was available on any linux system I used. Just the basics, which are pretty easily learned once:

  • move the cursor around (ok, occasionally I have to look up what I have to put in the config file to get compatibility mode, but…)
  • basic editing mode
  • save a file and quit
  • quit without saving a file
  • search for text

Pretty much the only “advanced” thing I occasionally do in vi is use a regex for text replacement. I’ve accidentally used some of the other features occasionally, but that’s a one-off.

The few times I’ve had to use nano… well, it’s prettier, but it doesn’t really make things easier.

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