A 3D mesh of the 1701-D from...1988?

[Maurice]

^^^Wouldn't he have to have a means to read the disks, as that's what the problem appears to be.

Correct. I had "cross-DOS" on my Amiga to bring all the still images (I think Corel read .IFF files to convert them to JPGs), and it let me convert the Caligari meshes because there was a version for PC (TrueSpace). But there was no conversion for .ANIM format to anything PC-readable.

The files on disk, and on a removeable drive, are up in the attic. I doubt the media is in very good shape.

So, the files are still on Amiga format discs, then?

I have 5.25" Atari floppies from 1985 that still read fine, so you might be pleasantly surprised.

 

[Santaman]

Forbin, I've got 360K disks from 1983 and those still have the original content fully intact, same with very old 3'5" stuff, I've got Windows 3.0 on original floppies which work fine.
Those old disks are tough.

 

[Psion]

That's true, but the Amiga squished 880KB of data onto a single disk. I can imagine that higher density might be more sensitive to time and entropy. It's worth a try, though.

And thanks for the links, Maurice! It occurred to me after posting that I might be able to get a TRS-80 emulator running and then I'd just need to find a way to get the software into the emulator. The floppy disks might still work, and if the show is on cassette (which is quite possible or even likely), I might be able to digitize the audio and then change it into data with a custom python script.

Hmmm ...

 

[Maurice]

That's true, but the Amiga squished 880KB of data onto a single disk. I can imagine that higher density might be more sensitive to time and entropy. It's worth a try, though.

And thanks for the links, Maurice! It occurred to me after posting that I might be able to get a TRS-80 emulator running and then I'd just need to find a way to get the software into the emulator. The floppy disks might still work, and if the show is on cassette (which is quite possible or even likely), I might be able to digitize the audio and then change it into data with a custom python script.

Hmmm ...

Worst case you could remove the audio trigger and just make it play sans audio, record it, and add the audio in post in a video editor.

 

[Psion]

That's true, but the Amiga squished 880KB of data onto a single disk. I can imagine that higher density might be more sensitive to time and entropy. It's worth a try, though.

And thanks for the links, Maurice! It occurred to me after posting that I might be able to get a TRS-80 emulator running and then I'd just need to find a way to get the software into the emulator. The floppy disks might still work, and if the show is on cassette (which is quite possible or even likely), I might be able to digitize the audio and then change it into data with a custom python script.

Hmmm ...

Worst case you could remove the audio trigger and just make it play sans audio, record it, and add the audio in post in a video editor.

You young whippersnappers! Come and sit on Grandpop's knee and let him tell you a story! Back in them days, not only did we have to walk to school in knee-deep snow, but most microcomputers didn't have floppy disks! For two years, I used a cassette recorder to load and save software.

While it's possible I copied the program over to a floppy disk, it more than likely stayed on a cassette. So to play the movie, I'd have to put the program cassette into the recorder, type "CLOAD" to load the program, then pop the tape out and put in the audio tape containing the movie's soundtrack. I'd type "RUN" to launch the program, then press the play button on the tape recorder and when the program heard a loud noise (the first note of the main titles), it would start the show.

This might be a good thing. If the program is on cassette tape, it should be a bit more robust than floppy disk. I should go through the basement and see if I can find my old tapes.

 

[Amaris]

I have two Atari ST machines in my scrap heap, they're wonderful machines, great renders, for that time those were quite amazing.
Makes me think of the art from the demo scene which was beyond awesome in those days, I've seen stuff run on old machines that boggles the mind..

Bit off topic but a show case of what one could do with some knowledge of assembly...
This demo ran on a 25Mhz machine without any 3D capability, music and graphics fit in a 2Mb zip file...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XtCW-axRJV8
Future crew's Second Reality from 1993
http://scene.org/file.php?id=91322 <-- original file.

*edit* One for Forbin, an Amiga demo.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iTZtbBWbGw4&feature=related

ZOMG! I loved Future Crew! I downloaded this demo (one of many) off of The H.O.L.E. BBS (an old Amiga cNet software) back in 1996. Oh, it brings back so many memories! Demos for the win! It also reminds me when I used to play around making .mods and .stms (the old screamtracker and Amiga Mods... and sucking at them), but it was so much fun! [/nostalgia punch to the face] [/passes out]

 

[Maurice]

Worst case you could remove the audio trigger and just make it play sans audio, record it, and add the audio in post in a video editor.

You young whippersnappers! Come and sit on Grandpop's knee and let him tell you a story! Back in them days, not only did we have to walk to school in knee-deep snow, but most microcomputers didn't have floppy disks! For two years, I used a cassette recorder to load and save software.

While it's possible I copied the program over to a floppy disk, it more than likely stayed on a cassette. So to play the movie, I'd have to put the program cassette into the recorder, type "CLOAD" to load the program, then pop the tape out and put in the audio tape containing the movie's soundtrack. I'd type "RUN" to launch the program, then press the play button on the tape recorder and when the program heard a loud noise (the first note of the main titles), it would start the show.

This might be a good thing. If the program is on cassette tape, it should be a bit more robust than floppy disk. I should go through the basement and see if I can find my old tapes.

And what model computer was this, in which year, gramps?

The first computer I used was my friend's Apple ][+, which had floppy drives, playing Sierra's Wizard and the Princess. That was 1981 or 82. In 1983 or so I wrote my first program in BASIC on my brother's Atari 600XL and saved it to cassette (it drew a mercator projection of an alien planet). My first real job was as a data entry person wherein I used a 64K Kaypro II and uploaded data to a Univac brand mainframe via a blazing fast 1200 baud Hayes Smartmodem, when everyone else I knew who had a modem was puttering at 300 baud.

When I bought my 800XL at the end of 1984 the system and disk drives were cheap enough that I never owned a cassette for it.

 

[Santaman]

You young whippersnappers! Come and sit on Grandpop's knee and let him tell you a story! Back in them days, not only did we have to walk to school in knee-deep snow, but most microcomputers didn't have floppy disks! For two years, I used a cassette recorder to load and save software.

While it's possible I copied the program over to a floppy disk, it more than likely stayed on a cassette. So to play the movie, I'd have to put the program cassette into the recorder, type "CLOAD" to load the program, then pop the tape out and put in the audio tape containing the movie's soundtrack. I'd type "RUN" to launch the program, then press the play button on the tape recorder and when the program heard a loud noise (the first note of the main titles), it would start the show.

This might be a good thing. If the program is on cassette tape, it should be a bit more robust than floppy disk. I should go through the basement and see if I can find my old tapes.

Ah yeah, I remember that.. listening to the tape drive loading stuff and suddenly after 10 minutes quitting producing a cryptic error on the screen which meant you had to rewind and start all over again...
I've got Atari 8 bit machines, two Commodore 64's and two MSX-1's so I DO remember it..

Also, for some reason only cheap ass metal tapes worked reliably.. the more "advanced" the tape the worse it performed...

I have two Atari ST machines in my scrap heap, they're wonderful machines, great renders, for that time those were quite amazing.
Makes me think of the art from the demo scene which was beyond awesome in those days, I've seen stuff run on old machines that boggles the mind..

Bit off topic but a show case of what one could do with some knowledge of assembly...
This demo ran on a 25Mhz machine without any 3D capability, music and graphics fit in a 2Mb zip file...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XtCW-axRJV8
Future crew's Second Reality from 1993
http://scene.org/file.php?id=91322 <-- original file.

*edit* One for Forbin, an Amiga demo.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iTZtbBWbGw4&feature=related

ZOMG! I loved Future Crew! I downloaded this demo (one of many) off of The H.O.L.E. BBS (an old Amiga cNet software) back in 1996. Oh, it brings back so many memories! Demos for the win! It also reminds me when I used to play around making .mods and .stms (the old screamtracker and Amiga Mods... and sucking at them), but it was so much fun! [/nostalgia punch to the face] [/passes out]

There's plenty on youtube so enjoy
I am not too fond of the good old modem era though...

 

[Psion]

Worst case you could remove the audio trigger and just make it play sans audio, record it, and add the audio in post in a video editor.

You young whippersnappers! Come and sit on Grandpop's knee and let him tell you a story! Back in them days, not only did we have to walk to school in knee-deep snow, but most microcomputers didn't have floppy disks! For two years, I used a cassette recorder to load and save software.

While it's possible I copied the program over to a floppy disk, it more than likely stayed on a cassette. So to play the movie, I'd have to put the program cassette into the recorder, type "CLOAD" to load the program, then pop the tape out and put in the audio tape containing the movie's soundtrack. I'd type "RUN" to launch the program, then press the play button on the tape recorder and when the program heard a loud noise (the first note of the main titles), it would start the show.

This might be a good thing. If the program is on cassette tape, it should be a bit more robust than floppy disk. I should go through the basement and see if I can find my old tapes.

And what model computer was this, in which year, gramps?

The first computer I used was my friend's Apple ][+, which had floppy drives, playing Sierra's Wizard and the Princess. That was 1981 or 82. In 1983 or so I wrote my first program in BASIC on my brother's Atari 600XL and saved it to cassette (it drew a mercator projection of an alien planet). My first real job was as a data entry person wherein I used a 64K Kaypro II and uploaded data to a Univac brand mainframe via a blazing fast 1200 baud Hayes Smartmodem, when everyone else I knew who had a modem was puttering at 300 baud.

When I bought my 800XL at the end of 1984 the system and disk drives were cheap enough that I never owned a cassette for it.

Well, young'n , my folks bought me the TRS-80 Model I in October of 1978. I had somehow convinced them that it would be good for my schoolwork. It actually proved more of distraction, but it did teach me plenty of valuable skills and eventually got me excited about math. I wrote my Star Trek: The Motion Picture program in the last half of my junior year or the first half of my senior year in high school. I remember showing it off at our after-school computer club and the teacher commented that he was amazed he was watching a movie on a computer.

I built an expansion interface (that gave the computer an RS-232 port, a parallel printer port, another 32 KB of RAM, and a port for floppy disks) in early 1982. So while I mentioned earlier that this program was on a floppy disk, it probably isn't unless I moved it over. I wrote a lot of software in those days, and when I got floppy disks, I was much more interested in writing databases than resurrecting silly old movies.

Just for kicks, I have in my hands a well-thumbed copy of the 1978 Tandy Computers catalog. Flipping through it, I find:

• A factory-assembled IMSAI 8080 for $931.00. This was one of those box computers so common in the 1970s. It used the S-100 bus for adding memory, graphics, etc. very much like the modern PCI bus, and had a row of switches and LEDs across the front. This computer was featured prominently in Wargames.
• The "Video Brain" home computer (which reminds me somewhat of the later Vic-20 and Atari 400 systems) for $495.95
• The Intecolor 8031, an 8 color computer with 8K of RAM, a floppy drive, and an integrated monitor for $4495.00
• The Sol 20 with 8K of RAM and solid walnut end panels for $1850.00 -- cassette recorder or floppy disks extra
• A 7-pin Centronics dot matrix printer for $2795.00
• A 16K dynamic RAM memory board for S-100 bus systems for $399.00
• And on the very last page after 50 pages for products from IMSAI, SWTPC, Vector, Xitan, there's a page for a complete TRS-80 system including 16K of RAM, a floppy drive, an expansion interface, a dot matrix printer, and a cassette recorder for $2995.00

The interesting thing is that top-of-the-line computers still cost about the same as they did 33 years ago. They just do a helluva lot more. I could probably throw together a computer with more power than the TRS-80 for around $50.

 

[sojourner]

^You can buy a $5 watch at a flea market with more power than a TRS-80.

 

[Santaman]

^^ Pfft come on, you can't hook those up to a floppy drive, they're useless!

 

[Klaus]

My high school math dept had a TRS-80 in 1978, I used it to write a BASIC program to solve the quadratic equation for extra credit.

 

[Amaris]

You young whippersnappers! Come and sit on Grandpop's knee and let him tell you a story! Back in them days, not only did we have to walk to school in knee-deep snow, but most microcomputers didn't have floppy disks! For two years, I used a cassette recorder to load and save software.

While it's possible I copied the program over to a floppy disk, it more than likely stayed on a cassette. So to play the movie, I'd have to put the program cassette into the recorder, type "CLOAD" to load the program, then pop the tape out and put in the audio tape containing the movie's soundtrack. I'd type "RUN" to launch the program, then press the play button on the tape recorder and when the program heard a loud noise (the first note of the main titles), it would start the show.

This might be a good thing. If the program is on cassette tape, it should be a bit more robust than floppy disk. I should go through the basement and see if I can find my old tapes.

Ah yeah, I remember that.. listening to the tape drive loading stuff and suddenly after 10 minutes quitting producing a cryptic error on the screen which meant you had to rewind and start all over again...
I've got Atari 8 bit machines, two Commodore 64's and two MSX-1's so I DO remember it..

Also, for some reason only cheap ass metal tapes worked reliably.. the more "advanced" the tape the worse it performed...

I have two Atari ST machines in my scrap heap, they're wonderful machines, great renders, for that time those were quite amazing.
Makes me think of the art from the demo scene which was beyond awesome in those days, I've seen stuff run on old machines that boggles the mind..

Bit off topic but a show case of what one could do with some knowledge of assembly...
This demo ran on a 25Mhz machine without any 3D capability, music and graphics fit in a 2Mb zip file...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XtCW-axRJV8
Future crew's Second Reality from 1993
http://scene.org/file.php?id=91322 <-- original file.

*edit* One for Forbin, an Amiga demo.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iTZtbBWbGw4&feature=related

ZOMG! I loved Future Crew! I downloaded this demo (one of many) off of The H.O.L.E. BBS (an old Amiga cNet software) back in 1996. Oh, it brings back so many memories! Demos for the win! It also reminds me when I used to play around making .mods and .stms (the old screamtracker and Amiga Mods... and sucking at them), but it was so much fun! [/nostalgia punch to the face] [/passes out]

There's plenty on youtube so enjoy
I am not too fond of the good old modem era though...

I had a Zenith 286 with a 1200 baud modem, later upgraded to a 2400 baud modem. I used to visit all the locals; The H.O.L.E., The Academy, Night Owl BBS, The Firehouse, Trader's Cove, The Edge, Wolverine's Lair, Call of the Mountain BBS, The Prophecy BBS, and Trident BBS. They were so much fun. I remember when I got my Laser 386, and managed to get a 14.4k modem (a Practical Peripherals) with money I'd saved up all month. w00t!

I miss the early 90s.

 

[Santaman]

I still have my external 56K6 modem lying around.. and a few 2400 baud internal modems, might try and get my 286 online someday...