Today, I put people off their McDonalds...

...by blasting Dead Kennedy's songs whilst playing Duke 3D and Terminal Velocity with the volume maxed out.

Retro activity may slow down shortly for this;

Which is not retro, but if I can pull off what I think I can here... Well... Stay tuned for that, I don't want to say anything.

If you know what that second photo is, all I'm going to say is don't get your hopes up, I have the worst luck of anyone I have ever met... Still, fingers crossed. If you know me well, this might give you a better idea of what I am attempting to do;

Which reminds me... NightCry... Can't wait!

HighTreason wrote:

Today, I put people off their McDonalds... http://s26.postimg.org/o61xlgwjd/PHTO00082.png ...by blasting Dead Kennedy's songs wh […]
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Today, I put people off their McDonalds...

...by blasting Dead Kennedy's songs whilst playing Duke 3D and Terminal Velocity with the volume maxed out.

Fantastic!!! 🤣 How were the looks?!

That Tecra's maximum volume isn't that high IIRC, and is even quieter under pure DOS

@foey; They were looks of disgust for the most part. It's not the first time I've done that and strangely, the staff do not seem bothered by it, in fact the last time I ended up talking to the cleaning lady for about half an hour as she seemed to find the whole thing rather amusing. One time I went in with my boombox (Sharp GF-575)and they started singing along to the 80's pop crap I was playing on it.

There was a family nearby who did not seem to like the alien gibs at all.

@leileilol; This is a Satellite Pro 410CDT, it has only one speaker, but when cranked up it goes high enough to actually distort the audio. It was certainly still drowning the radio and general chatter out from four tables away when I walked over to the cash registers to sort a problem with my order (my friend ordered the wrong type of McFlurry and I didn't fancy having anaphylaxis today).

Put it this way, it runs Windows 95 and when I booted it up I forgot that I had the volume maxed out from when I was home, the whole place looked around to figure out where the weird Brian Eno noise had come from. It uses the ESS ES688 chip. I think vwestlife has the 410CS which is basically the same, only with a passive matrix display - I think they came with some other small differences where optional stuff was concerned, but it should have the same sound system and I could swear he had a video on that.

Shipped out another item today. My collection has been reduced considerably. I will truck the remainder south once my house is sold. I am flying south on Sunday to start my new job. 😀 I may not have the ability to do anything retro for months probably.

HighTreason wrote:

They were looks of disgust for the most part.

To what end? Is ruining a kid's happy meal experience a good time for you?

badmojo wrote:

HighTreason wrote:

They were looks of disgust for the most part.

To what end? Is ruining a kid's happy meal experience a good time for you?

That's not ruining, that's enhancing.

I have to agree with badmojo. Next time, use headphones. Common courtesy in public places, even if it is for awesome retro gaming. Does the thing even have a headphone jack? 🤣

Awesome little laptop though.

Normally I wouldn't care. But I have to say deliberately turning it loud just to be obnoxious is just not something you should do.

Yeah although I think having a portable DOS gaming laptop would be super cool it's not right to step on other peoples toes in such a manner. When you do something like this you make the rest of us humble retro computer people look bad.
This is much akin to the millennial hipsters who try to get attention by acting like douches and taking typewriters into libraries and other inappropriately quiet places, I mean I use my typewriters all the time but always where other people that might be bothered are not (usually never outside my home, but yesterday I bought a typewriter at a thrift store while waiting for my clothes to finish washing at the laundromat and had to try it out before I got home. I thought I was pretty safe there but just as I was typing up a test page of just random thoughts people showed up and one lady asked me if I was being punished and had my laptop taken away. 🤣 Thankfully the overall reaction was that of amusement rather than annoyance.)

So what you're saying, is that it's OK for those same people to play their crappy dubstep on their smartphone but not for me to listen to my favorite punk rock albums?

People need to lighten up and be more accepting, in the grand scheme of things I'm not doing anything detrimental to them. I don't go around complaining about the skinny jean wearing smartphone users mentioned prior, usually I just laugh because they think they look cool whereas I know I look the total opposite. They could always have sat somewhere else, I made sure I was away from everyone when I went in, they chose to sit at the table next to mine, so it's their problem if they don't like it.

As a last note, hipsters are completely bollockless, they curl up into a ball if you confront them about something.

Whilst I am not bollockless, I am at least reasonable. It demonstrates that other people are the ones being antisocial and not me. I don't have a problem going up to people and asking them things yet they obviously do. If they wanted it to stop they needed only approach me and say something to the effect of "Excuse me, mate, but would you mind turning that down? It's putting us off our food." and I would have said yes, that's fine, no problem. If you don't tell me it's an issue directly, it's clearly not enough of one for them that I need to worry about it.

HighTreason wrote:

So what you're saying, is that it's OK for those same people to play their crappy dubstep on their smartphone but not for me to listen to my favorite punk rock albums?

Just because somebody else does something unpleasant doesn't mean it is fair game to do the same. It just continues the bad example

People need to lighten up and be more accepting, in the grand scheme of things I'm not doing anything detrimental to them. I don't go around complaining about the skinny jean wearing smartphone users mentioned prior, usually I just laugh because they think they look cool whereas I know I look the total opposite. They could always have sat somewhere else, I made sure I was away from everyone when I went in, they chose to sit at the table next to mine, so it's their problem if they don't like it.

You deliberately said you put the audio up to the point of distortion just to annoy people. Turning it up loud enough for you to hear yourself is fine. Deliberately cranking it up to be obnoxious is not.

As a last note, hipsters are completely bollockless, they curl up into a ball if you confront them about something.

Hmm

Whilst I am not bollockless, I am at least reasonable. It demonstrates that other people are the ones being antisocial and not me. I don't have a problem going up to people and asking them things yet they obviously do. If they wanted it to stop they needed only approach me and say something to the effect of "Excuse me, mate, but would you mind turning that down? It's putting us off our food." and I would have said yes, that's fine, no problem. If you don't tell me it's an issue directly, it's clearly not enough of one for them that I need to worry about it.

[/quote]
That shouldn't be necessary in the first place. People are now starting to get conditioned not to approach others because you can never be sure what they will do.

Welcome to the real world kid.

Sure, I'll do things that are obnoxious to see what people's reactions are, but their options are there; grow a sense of humor or ask me to stop.

HighTreason wrote:

Welcome to the real world kid.

Sure, I'll do things that are obnoxious to see what people's reactions are, but their options are there; grow a sense of humor or ask me to stop.

True, there's a lot of annoying people out there. Maybe try not to add to the noisy people that society already produces? Common sense and awareness of decency when in public is a virtue. Besides, people learn by example. Wear headphones...keep your noise profile low. Otherwise you're just being selfish and rude.... 😎

So, I'm asking politely to stop before you do it again. 😀

HighTreason wrote:

So what you're saying, is that it's OK for those same people to play their crappy dubstep on their smartphone but not for me to […]
Show full quote

So what you're saying, is that it's OK for those same people to play their crappy dubstep on their smartphone but not for me to listen to my favorite punk rock albums?

People need to lighten up and be more accepting, in the grand scheme of things I'm not doing anything detrimental to them. I don't go around complaining about the skinny jean wearing smartphone users mentioned prior, usually I just laugh because they think they look cool whereas I know I look the total opposite. They could always have sat somewhere else, I made sure I was away from everyone when I went in, they chose to sit at the table next to mine, so it's their problem if they don't like it.

As a last note, hipsters are completely bollockless, they curl up into a ball if you confront them about something.

Whilst I am not bollockless, I am at least reasonable. It demonstrates that other people are the ones being antisocial and not me. I don't have a problem going up to people and asking them things yet they obviously do. If they wanted it to stop they needed only approach me and say something to the effect of "Excuse me, mate, but would you mind turning that down? It's putting us off our food." and I would have said yes, that's fine, no problem. If you don't tell me it's an issue directly, it's clearly not enough of one for them that I need to worry about it.

I think I am on your side 😀

After spending too much time on trains listening to other peoples noises I feel like bringing a "Boom Box" and playing music nobody else likes really really loud.

HighTreason wrote:

Sure, I'll do things that are obnoxious to see what people's reactions are...

I've often wondered why people are compelled to do this. Do you like the attention? Do you generally dislike people and want to piss them off? People shouldn't have to ask you to stop being an arse, particularly parents out with their kids. Just let them eat their shite burgers in peace already.

badmojo wrote:

HighTreason wrote:

Sure, I'll do things that are obnoxious to see what people's reactions are...

I've often wondered why people are compelled to do this. Do you like the attention? Do you generally dislike people and want to piss them off? People shouldn't have to ask you to stop being an arse, particularly parents out with their kids. Just let them eat their shite burgers in peace already.

I think it's a superiority thing, when I was a dumb teen that thought he knew everything I used to do things to "test reactions" like this too but when I got older I grew out of it because I realized it was stupid and inconsiderate and that in reality I was no better than anyone else. So it makes more sense to just be polite and use big words to make people with little minds run away rather than stoop to their level of childish bullshit. 🤣

(Then again I prefer to listen to 60's Psychedelic music so maybe it's a fundamental philosophy difference. 😜)

Today I chased mice. Have a reluctant p5tx-bPro. Testing shows I don't have 5v so next is a tear-down to look for the fuse...

A sidetrack along the way was Windows and Linux both detected the PS/2 port fine, so I spent a while confirming pinouts and swapping mice before digging out the tester.

Serial had also been a problem. It worked on Knoppix but not W95 and W98. Finally found Win doesn't like the old Logitech 3-button; fine with 2-button. Which probably means it's going to be be picky on PS/2 as well - so, "ugh": I haven't got a 2-button PS/2.

Bonus weirdness - dmesg on Knoppix showed it detected a Logitech USB mouse okay when inserted, but didn't react otherwise.

-
EDIT - removed the statement that the mouse worked in W3.11. I'm sure it did, but found older notes about how it didn't originally.

HighTreason wrote:

Today, I put people off their McDonalds... http://s26.postimg.org/o61xlgwjd/PHTO00082.png ...by blasting Dead Kennedy's songs wh […]
Show full quote

Today, I put people off their McDonalds...

...by blasting Dead Kennedy's songs whilst playing Duke 3D and Terminal Velocity with the volume maxed out.

I would have probably asked you to turn it down, followed by a "hey cool a Toshiba Tecra!" 😀
The problem with these dubsteppers is - asking them to turn their music down - can turn reeeeeally ugly. Especially if they are "bored" - Too many idiots in the world.

On the other hand I regret every bite, every fry that I ever had of McDonalds. In my book that stuff is not food, it's novelty merchandise....

Right now I am trying to max out my Slot A machines RAM, whilst preparing my Pentium 3-S for Win98SE and a Voodoo 5 5500 😀

Today I replaced "sleep" unlatched button on my case switch to latched and wired it to 3-pin header. I connected it to BF0 header for switching multiplier on my Pentium 200 MMX rig, just for slowdown purposes. Obviously it works 🤣