Did you actually download them from Youtube? I'd recon it be easier and better quality from Archive.org

I've been watching select episodes of this for a while now.

I have always wondered about how.... Biased it could have been. The episode about how great the Pentium was being sponsored by Intel etc.

They're also pretty interesting as a non-US person seeing 80s and 90s US TV shows. Perhaps the last era of US optimism (when viewed from the outside through movies and whatnot). The 80s weren't great in the UK!

vetz wrote on 2020-11-13, 17:32:

Did you actually download them from Youtube? I'd recon it be easier and better quality from Archive.org

I did download them from YouTube. I used WinX YouTube Downloader. I did not find any quality difference between Archive.org and YouTube that I could see.

There's plenty of threads on VOGONS about Computer Chronicles here (may be worth merging?).

One guy even posted this: http://compchronicles.blogspot.com/

All episodes are free to watch or download from archive.org courtesy of the show's creator Stewart Cheifet.

jasa1063 wrote on 2020-11-13, 17:42:

vetz wrote on 2020-11-13, 17:32:

Did you actually download them from Youtube? I'd recon it be easier and better quality from Archive.org

I did download them from YouTube. I used WinX YouTube Downloader. I did not find any quality difference between Archive.org and YouTube that I could see.

Archive.org also has massive (800MB-2GB) MPEG-2 versions of each episode. To me, these look a tad sharper than the YouTube episodes, but the biggest difference is in the frame rate: the MPEG-2 files run at 60fps!

Almoststew1990 wrote on 2020-11-13, 17:35:

They're also pretty interesting as a non-US person seeing 80s and 90s US TV shows. Perhaps the last era of US optimism

indeed, it was a great time to be alive

I watched few episodes few days ago and I felt like the show should have been 5-10 minutes longer, they are moving over topics too fast.

That was a very popular TV program back in the 1980 that turn me onto computers.
It helped people make sense of the computer revolution and products.

The home computer has always been a device for teaching up until about 1993 when multimedia computers arrived.
With multimedia computers came music, video, photos, and entertainment.

Prior to Amazon.com and eBay Home computers where mainly used for teaching, office productivity software and games.
With the internet came online research , newsgroups and emails

It was not until YouTube that video content creation became popular with computer and mobile phone usage.

Prior to 2011 the computer industry was open to most reporters and news media.

Today Silicon Valley is a secret and corporate property classified material.

No one really knows what Silicon Valley is up to any more. Its all a secret.

.

Intel486dx33 wrote on 2020-11-14, 05:51:

Prior to Amazon.com and eBay Home computers where mainly used for teaching, office productivity software and games.
With the internet came online research , newsgroups and emails

USENET predates either of those so does IRC and email for communication. Plenty of BBSs about as well. Universities were using the Internet and other international networks before the "WWW" existed.

Caluser2000 wrote on 2020-11-14, 05:59:

Intel486dx33 wrote on 2020-11-14, 05:51:

Prior to Amazon.com and eBay Home computers where mainly used for teaching, office productivity software and games.
With the internet came online research , newsgroups and emails

USENET predates either of those so does IRC and email for communication. Plenty of BBSs about as well. Universities were using the Internet and other international networks before the "WWW" existed.

yes , but today computers are used to earn money. The exchange of money for goods and services was no popular until online banking was made available to te public back around 1998.

Intel486dx33 wrote on 2020-11-14, 06:30:

Caluser2000 wrote on 2020-11-14, 05:59:

Intel486dx33 wrote on 2020-11-14, 05:51:

Prior to Amazon.com and eBay Home computers where mainly used for teaching, office productivity software and games.
With the internet came online research , newsgroups and emails

USENET predates either of those so does IRC and email for communication. Plenty of BBSs about as well. Universities were using the Internet and other international networks before the "WWW" existed.

yes , but today computers are used to earn money. The exchange of money for goods and services was no popular until online banking was made available to te public back around 1998.

What a load of bull. Conputers are used for a LOT of things-entertainment, communucation creating music, the arts , controling production systems robots, trains, aeroplanes and a ton of other applications.

The Computer Chronicles is a treasure trove. Not only are the episodes a warm nostalgic treat to watch, they are of immense historic value as they document the development of widely available computer technology over multiple decades. Even in hindsight could they not have chosen a better name for the series. These are truly historic chronicles.

Each episode has its own theme that is explored in detail, and the Random Access segment provides some interesting detailed background information on that week's developments in the computer market. Also price developments are documented this way.

I'm so grateful that Stewart Cheifet wisely understood the historic relevance and value of these episodes and decided to preserve them on archive.org for the world and future generations to enjoy.

For those of you who still haven't watched any episodes of the Computer Chronicles yet, please watch a few. They are as entertaining as they are informative.

Standard Def Steve wrote on 2020-11-13, 18:22:

Archive.org also has massive (800MB-2GB) MPEG-2 versions of each episode. To me, these look a tad sharper than the YouTube episodes, but the biggest difference is in the frame rate: the MPEG-2 files run at 60fps!

Oh, wow! That's good to know. One could use those MPEG-2 files to make some real high quality remasters, using machine learning HD/4K upscalers.

Caluser2000 wrote on 2020-11-14, 06:44:

Intel486dx33 wrote on 2020-11-14, 06:30:

yes , but today computers are used to earn money. The exchange of money for goods and services was no popular until online banking was made available to te public back around 1998.

What a load of bull. Conputers are used for a LOT of things-entertainment, communucation creating music, the arts , controling production systems robots, trains, aeroplanes and a ton of other applications.

I am talking about the home computer back in 1980 and 90’s
That’s what computer chronicles was geared towards the home computer user.
The average home computer consumer in trying to help users with home computer questions, trends, innovations and products.

Intel486dx33 wrote on 2020-11-14, 13:33:

I am talking about the home computer back in 1980 and 90’s That’s what computer chronicles was geared towards the home computer […]
Show full quote

Caluser2000 wrote on 2020-11-14, 06:44:

Intel486dx33 wrote on 2020-11-14, 06:30:

yes , but today computers are used to earn money. The exchange of money for goods and services was no popular until online banking was made available to te public back around 1998.

What a load of bull. Conputers are used for a LOT of things-entertainment, communucation creating music, the arts , controling production systems robots, trains, aeroplanes and a ton of other applications.

I am talking about the home computer back in 1980 and 90’s
That’s what computer chronicles was geared towards the home computer user.
The average home computer consumer in trying to help users with home computer questions, trends, innovations and products.

80-90s comnputers were still use for a LOT of purposes-games. porn. word processing and MORE. You seem to be totally clueless considering you were in the IT field.

If you whached the Computer Cronicles in its entirity it covered more than just home computers.

Caluser2000 wrote on 2020-11-14, 17:09:

Intel486dx33 wrote on 2020-11-14, 13:33:

I am talking about the home computer back in 1980 and 90’s That’s what computer chronicles was geared towards the home computer […]
Show full quote

Caluser2000 wrote on 2020-11-14, 06:44:

What a load of bull. Conputers are used for a LOT of things-entertainment, communucation creating music, the arts , controling production systems robots, trains, aeroplanes and a ton of other applications.

I am talking about the home computer back in 1980 and 90’s
That’s what computer chronicles was geared towards the home computer user.
The average home computer consumer in trying to help users with home computer questions, trends, innovations and products.

80-90s comnputers were still use for a LOT of purposes-games. porn. word processing and MORE. You seem to be totally clueless considering you were in the IT field.

If you whached the Computer Cronicles in its entirity it covered more than just home computers.

In America back in 1980 and 90's people where not going to waist there time to buy a $2500 computer with dial up modems to get porn when they could go to a local video store rental and rent porn movies for $1

I dialed into bbs in 1990. Yes there was porn. Was it a massive thing compared to vhs? No.

Porn from the "internet" had the appearance of anonymity vs going to a store and buying or renting it

Intel486dx33 wrote on 2020-11-14, 17:29:

Caluser2000 wrote on 2020-11-14, 17:09:

Intel486dx33 wrote on 2020-11-14, 13:33:

I am talking about the home computer back in 1980 and 90’s
That’s what computer chronicles was geared towards the home computer user.
The average home computer consumer in trying to help users with home computer questions, trends, innovations and products.

80-90s comnputers were still use for a LOT of purposes-games. porn. word processing and MORE. You seem to be totally clueless considering you were in the IT field.

If you whached the Computer Cronicles in its entirity it covered more than just home computers.

In America back in 1980 and 90's people where not going to waist there time to buy a $2500 computer with dial up modems to get porn when they could go to a local video store rental and rent porn movies for $1

You are absolutely clueless. Computers were a world wide phenominon and not just US centric. Acorn risc systems is one example. Late 80s early 90s. You could buy internal or external modems then and coul; be bought as part of the whole computer package. My first x86 ,indeed my own first computer, was a $nz2500 in 90/91. VGA, IDE HDD, 3.5 and 5.25" floppies,mouse, keyboard, dot matrix printer etc. . Even had a multimedia encylipedia on 3.5" with video before multimedia was a big thing. Here in New Zealand we had access to a whole host of non US systems.

Can I be a mitigator between you guys ? Computers in the 80s were used for playing games, making music and also the UK in some ways started a whole revolution in (starting with the ZX line of computers) of "bedroom" programmers. When it came to the year of 1982, the C64 came about, then another revolution was rolling, there music, programming and in small ways a bit porn(ish) came with the games such as Strip Poker, to mention just one title, or another one on the C64 Sexgames. (yes I am aware that the Atari 2600 had some seriously messed up XXX games). Then in 1987, came the Amiga 500(yes I am aware that the Amiga 1000 came out in 1985 And so did the Atari ST). But what I am getting at is this. The first digital porn movie, was probably one that came out on VCD, which is actually an old format. And I must agree with Caluser2000, porn on computers has been around for longer than just a digital pornographic movie in VCD format.

But during the 80s and 90s computers were used for "bedroom" programming, entertainment. games, music creation, from anything from mod files (tracker format) to midi (on the Atari ST), heck if we take the whole C64 "scene" of demos and what not, there was a ton of music in SID files, demos as in graphical demonstrations to , you name it. Hell some brilliant C64 games musicians are even famous today, thanks to the SID chip. Chris Hülsbeck, Rob Hubbard and Ben Daglish to mention three. And yes I am aware of other micros of the time, other than those I have mentioned.