Audio, Video, and Computer Formats Through the Decades

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Hello and welcome to geek cast radio. This is

episode 81 the awards are over folks I'm of course

TFG on Mike joining me as always usually most

of the time is Steve Megatron. Hello Usually

always most of the time. I love that Well, you

know Between 75 and 80. I don't think you were

on any of the episodes. So I mean I played the

best We are here and Steve is going to take us

through a audio history of the various mediums

past, present, and we'll also talk about how

they all collide and combine and what will happen

in the future here in this episode. This is the

evolution of technology. Oh boy. Outside of an

actual television or cassette recorder, I think

those are the two earliest technologies I remember,

obviously. They obviously had stereos and stuff

like that back in the 80s, but I remember was

it 80s? I could be wrong on my dates here, folks.

I'm old. My memory isn't so good. I think it

was somewhere between 86 and 90 where I had went

over to my aunt's house and my cousin Bobby had

a really, really old ass Apple computer. Well,

it wasn't old at the time, but now it is. And

a modem and he was telling me about how he's

talking to people like halfway around the world.

And I'm like, wait, why? How do you do that?

Yeah, right. The 80s would be a completely different...

We wouldn't be in the world... You know, we always

watch things that... Your favorite franchise

did it. You always watch things where people

time travel and change something, and then it

creates a completely different alternate timeline.

If we had Skype back in the 80s, we wouldn't

be where we are today. It would have been literally

we're back to the future predicted it Yeah, speaking

of which none of that crap has come true Actually

the webcam on the TV thing. Okay. Well Yeah,

there's that video phone. Yeah the video phone

but but Star Trek did it first The shoes were

a lie even though they're supposed to be coming

the jacket was a lie The shark still looks fake.

So that's one thing that was true Yeah, I have

been making that joke constantly Anytime anyone

brings up the future this year, I just just say

randomly. Yeah, the shark still looks fake Most

people get the joke most some people don't So

where do you want to start with this well, I

was thinking we could start out with the the

earliest devices we remember owning and then

kind of going into the Kind of the history of

some of the or more or less the timeline that

as far as we can remember Starting with the audio

and then going video and then going computer

and of course by the end of it they all kind

of collide so For me as a kid I As far as audio

goes I remember record players I remember vinyl

I remember cuz so funny To this day. I remember

in 1983 or 84 I was three or four years old and

I can remember this is clear as day at any time

between those two years or maybe 85 or 86 I Would

constantly have my dad play put on his record

player Hall & Oates is 1982 release h2o because

I loved The album cover that came with it. I

don't know why don't ask me why Everybody knows

that this that the h2o album cover was a little

bit controversial Seeing as how it's the two

of them on the front face to face sweating bullets

on the back of it It's like somebody's skin with

sweat. I don't know why I like that that album

cover as a kid I have absolutely no clue, but

I just absolutely love that and I remember listening

to Maneater on vinyl After that you know cassettes

cassette deck um my mom had a sony walkman uh

i had you know your your average you know record

cassette deck and i and this is so funny it's

gonna tie into the visual stuff here in a moment

but uh so funny 1987 late i don't remember when

it came to vhs so i'm gonna say 1987 transformers

the movie was out wasn't in theaters anymore

it was out it was ready for you know public consumption

i remember constantly having my mom rent that

movie and making sure everybody was out of the

living room because i tried to sit there and

record the entire movie on audio on cassette

And I could never do it right because I could

never be quiet enough or something else was happening

in the background of the apartment or whatever

else. And I never got it until, you know, you

want to talk about something really strange here.

You fast forward. So let's say 87 to 2009, maybe.

So almost it took me 22 years. to get a full

audio formatted version of Transformers The Movie

and I did it with the DVD and my computer recording

device. Of course I had ulterior motives at the

time because I was putting clips into the TFG1

podcast episode 16 and all that stuff, but like

it took me 22 years to... to get a good high

quality audio version of that film. Don't ask

me why, folks, why I wanted audio only for Transformers

the movie. I don't know. I've always been one

of those people that anything that's on TV, I

either want to be able to hear it after I'm done

watching it, or I want to be able to see it after.

I want to be able to pull it out of the TV and

actually own a piece of it. I still have a scrapbook,

and I kid you not, I will take pictures and I

will put them in the post. I have a scrapbook

of various things that I had to do for a class

project of like what I used to do in my younger

years or whatever else. I actually had pictures

developed. They were kind of pretty bad pictures

since you're trying to take a picture of the

television set, but I actually have pictures

of the Captain N logo and the Super Mario World

logo. Actual physical pictures. That I took that

that my mom's ex at the time and now ex but you

know then boyfriend at the time took for me off

the TV and Look at nowadays I can sit here and

I can watch something on my computer and I can

screen cap and it's high quality You know, it's

this whole turnaround. I Do remember beta but

I don't remember it as well as some others might

I remember my uncle had a beta max player It

was right around the time where beta was going

out and VHS was like the new hotness You know

To quote Will Smith Beta was old and busted and

VHS was the new hotness But I mean VHS Everybody

into the Sun that grew up in the 80s always remembers

that slogan be kind rewind And I actually remember

getting a few additional fees for not rewinding

a few times. They used to charge you at video

stores if you didn't have your tape rewound.

What always used to piss me off is we had a VHS

player that would auto rewind once the movie

was over and once the tape got to the end. It

would auto rewind and eject. So if I was laying

there and I fell asleep in the middle of the

movie, I would then have to watch the whole movie

again to get back to where I was. I mean, yeah,

you could fast forward, but it wasn't it wasn't

very accurate at all. So, yeah, I mean, you know,

beta VHS vinyl cassette. I remember the births

of birth of Seatley. What I remember is each

time a new technology came out. It was like this

super luxury. It wasn't cheap Like CDs. I remember

my dad telling me that he spent 25 $30 on a Reba

McIntyre CD or something like that I could be

wrong but it just it felt like as a kid it felt

like oh my god, this is the new thing and this

is very expensive and oh my god, you better not

break this kind of thing and Yeah, I don't know.

What about you? What are the first technologies

you remember? I'm of the audio cassette and VHS

tape era. Unlike some other people. So yeah,

there's that. My mom had records and a record

player. So I was familiar with that, so she would

play some of those. We had the old Sony Walkman,

which had the cassettes. We had a boombox in

every room in the house with cassette player.

Only two of them had CD capability, which was

a big thing. Yeah Because it although it was

introduced Like I think it was late 80s it was

expensive as all hell so so there was that But

uh, yeah we had I I think I had I don't know

maybe 10 15 cassettes and the beauty of it was

is You could record off the radio If you had

a tape recorder you could record yourself Which

I did Early podcasting So yeah, I did that the

VHS I had more tapes and I knew what to do with

Which the the the fun thing about those are if

you didn't have the tab pulled you could record

over tapes That you already owned or if you put

tape over it you could fix that problem Which

I'd done on occasion So I mean there was there

was that it was kind of kind of fun I one of

my most played VHS tapes was probably It was

an animated he -man movie When he good when he

goes to the new adventures It's like the movie

one that goes to the new adventures like where

he's going from the old timeline to new timeline

So I had that I played the GI Joe 1987 movie

Over and over to the point that it killed the

tape I played Star Trek 6 and Discover Country

over and over and over I also had My dad had

showed me the art of attaching two VHS players

together And recording one to the other Yep to

duplicate cassettes Uh -huh Which we did with

transformers. Oh, yeah when we got into that

which was like mid 90s So yeah, there was that

As far as the the video and audio is concerned

So, I mean those were pretty much the earliest

I can remember yeah, and we had a ton of it all

but it was I mean it was all a big deal then

but I do remember the days of having to rewind

all your cassettes and it was a pain and some

people actually spent the money to have either

VCRs that did it for you or they had little boxes

that you had to pop it in and it would rewind

it kind of like the video store. Right, yeah.

Or the famous thing with cassette tapes where

the tape would constantly pop out and you had

to put a pencil in there to rewind it back up.

Right, yep. which was pain in the ass. I always

hated that. Or making things either go really

fast in a cassette and making them sound like

chipmunks or making them sound like they're in

slow motion. Those were always fun too. As far

as the compact disc, Sony and Philips were the

two companies that... We're pretty much the the

pioneers of they actually you know had according

to this they had eventually It compact disc is

a an evolution of laser disc and that's one thing

I don't remember I don't remember laser discs

at all Before we kind of get into that no, I

know I know but I'm just I'm trying to get this

out here uh... sony and phillips independently

in late seventies uh... uh... collaborated to

produce a standard compact disc format which

is made available in seventy nine so the cd actually

started in nineteen seventy nine it's crazy among

other things so yeah the the the entire uh...

i guess kind of going the route of the audio

timeline. Like vinyl was around back in the 40s.

Oh yeah. And then they kind of evolved it into

bigger sizes. Like they had the seven inch, you

know, the 45 RPM or 10 and 12 inch for the 33

and a half. 33 and a third RPM, which is actually

funny 33 and a third 57 they had the stereophonic

vinyl record or record which was 45 degree the

45s and then 58 they had the the tape cartridge

which kind of came out around that time and then

In the early 60s, they had the four track which

I had never heard of followed by the compact

cassette Followed by the eight track a couple

years later and then in the late 60s almost 70s

They had the micro cassette or mini cassette

And then of course in the 70s they go beta max

and then laser disc and then compact disc Which

to me like I knew about laser disc, but I never

knew what the hell it was Yeah, and I knew of

beta max, but I didn't I thought it was a video

format Yeah I didn't realize that it was also

an audio. Oh, yeah. And then and then, of course,

we go to the HD compact disc and then in the

80s and then they go digital audio tape, which

I didn't know was something or digital digital

compact cassette, which I didn't know was anything

either. Oh, God, I remember. I knew about MiniDisc.

Yeah, I remember hearing about the Dats. People

always used to. Talk about those all the time.

I'm like, what are you talking about? And then

of course we get into the The early 90s we have

like the wave like it we start getting into digital

computer formats. Mm -hmm, and We have waveform

digital or Dolby digital NPEG layer 3 which is

mp3 Digital theater system DTS because then we

ended up getting to DVD with DVD audio and Super

audio TD. Yeah And then a ton of other formats

were introduced like Windows Media The free lossless

audio Kodak advanced audio coding And then it

just you know of course it progressed to what

we're using now HD DVD blu -ray disc Yeah, I

didn't like blue rays have been around since

oh six they have I don't it just seems like it's

been a while, but Oh, they're pretty much phased

out. I mean for the most part I mean people still

use them, but for the most part. It's not as

relevant as it once was Oh no, and do you remember

the Blu -ray HD DVD Wars? Yeah. HD DVD actually

came out before and it's funny because it lost

because of the studio backing. Yep. What side

were you on when you were, or did you not care?

I didn't care, but I was more on Blu -ray because

the discs were more widely compatible with everything.

Yeah. And they had a lot bigger film selection.

And I think the equipment was cheaper too. Yeah,

I mean they were all still expensive, but I think

it was more Yeah, like you had Sony back and

at Warner back and at Paramount like everybody

was back in it So it was kind of pointless to

get HD DVD at that point. Yep and then You know

then we got to the you know, the micro SD and

all that kind of format so it was kind of It's

funny seeing the evolution and then they what

is that one called? It's the Ultraviolet, yeah,

which as far as I know is pretty much blown over

Yeah, ultraviolet is not I mean I never cared

for that like I know that some Disks had the

ability where you could hook up to iTunes or

hook up to Amazon and download Yeah Download

the content through that, which I found to be

better than having to go through this method.

But either way, I didn't care enough to have

to mess with that. Yeah. I mean, for me, once

MP3s were here, like I, I'll say this now, I

used to love in the 90s to get on my computer

and, you know, I'd have gone out and bought a

CD or something late late 90s like 97 98 something

like that I'd go out buy a CD and I used to love

because at the time I didn't have the internet

I used to love being able to just go through

there and do all the coding myself for the tracks

once I imported it because at the time I was

using Windows Media Player and you had like because

I wasn't connected to the internet while they

can't search for what like right now I could

go I could go over to my shelf and I could pick

out the Planet of the Apes 2 CD television soundtrack

from La La Land Records pop one of the discs

in my computer and iTunes will automatically

find the tracks if they're listed anywhere online.

Back then Had to enter all I used to love doing

that and now with iTunes and with auto find and

everything else It's like oh my god. Why was

I wasting my time all these years ago? Well,

it's like back in the day when we all used to

rely on things like Napster and my wire and Kazaa

and BearShare and all those now pretty much defunct

downloading Morpheus and WinMX programs to rip

stuff. I mean, nowadays it's either you buy it

or you torrent it or you download it through

iTunes or you get Amazon or one of those methods.

I mean, there's a way to get it no matter what

way you're attempting. But I think it's easier

to get a hold of anything you want now. Oh absolutely.

Whether legally or not. But I think that also

it's nicer not having to... I mean I still think

it kind of sucks that you get to still spend

the same amount as buying the disc, but I understand

the reasoning for it because you're still supporting...

you're giving more of the money actually to the

artists instead of... even though they're still

getting kind of screwed. Well, not really I mean

a 70 -30 deal with Apple isn't bad But then after

your agent and then after the recordings, okay

Well, yeah, but you know and then okay, and I'm

just gonna use this as an example He takes a

band like theory of a dead man who will sell

a Hundred million albums or you know, you know

their album might go gold or platinum or whatever

else I mean in the long run once everybody takes

their cut they're still left with a somewhat

decent amount of money true I mean it's not like

you know you know I don't know it's just one

of those things where I would like to know this

is one of my questions for the listeners for

this episode and hopefully people comment on

this anybody that used to work in a record store

do you know the Actual percentage that the store

took from sales Versus what the artist would

have got That's what I'd like to know like you

like you're saying that it's so much easier now

and the artists For still, you know still are

getting paid, but I'd like to know What a Sam

Goody or a record town or an FYE? Well, yeah

record town is FYE now. Okay. Well They got bought

out in the late 90s. I'm just saying. What their

cut is compared to like a digital media standard.

Right. I'd like to know what the actual record

stores cut would have been for, let's say, oh

God. All right. Perfect example. Everybody's

going to love this. I want to know what the cut

was for whatever record store it was. FYE, Record

Town, Sam Goody, Music Land, which Sam Goody

eventually bought them too, but on Nirvana's

Nevermind. On the album Nirvana's Nevermind,

I want to know if anyone knows what a store's

cut would have been from selling one CD. Because

I want to compare it to... What if someone knows

what the cut of an iTunes well well we know 70

30 is the deal usually I think isn't it? So I

don't know I'm just curious to find out how much

stores actually used to make off the artists

Because the whole thing with Napster and everybody

else and Metallica speaking up and saying oh

well They're stealing our profits, and they're

stealing this and they're stealing that and that's

not denying that that did happen, but I mean

What's more of a steal? You not getting your

proper wage from being sold in a record store

or someone completely... I mean, I'm just curious

as to what the numbers would be. Because, you

know, I've been... I don't know if you'll love

this, but you watch Shark Tank, right? Yes. Recently,

in the past week, I think... As the time this

episode goes up on a Friday, the previous Sunday

I saw something on Food Network, a new series

called Food Fortunes. It's essentially Shark

Tank, but for the food industry. Where people

actually make like if they have a food that's

a product they'll they'll go into the little

mobile kitchen that they have there They'll prepare

it for everybody and then you either You know

if you're successful with the test audience Any

of the four negotiators can take you to the negotiate.

It's the same thing as friggin shark tank But

it's for food it's for the food industry oh my

god so i'm you know shows like that really have

my whole point and bring that up is shows like

that have me wondering what some of these numbers

were back in the day for a single cd sale what

the store gets compared to what the artist gets

i'd like to know what they got back then compared

to now no no no that's that's what i'm saying

i'm like Like I said, whatever, I don't think

it was 92, 92, 95, whenever Nirvana's album Nevermind

came out, I wanna know what a disc, what a CD

album, what the stores cut was in the 90s. Okay.

Jumping into... Little bit of the the VHS since

that was such a big part of history Unfortunately

those big clogging space hogs that they were

Now you can hold your entire video or VHS library

on a Fraction of the DVDs and then if you decide

to put them on an external hard drive, you don't

have no space taken up I I never knew really

what these labels meant, but the tape labels

that were on them, I just bought whatever was

going to hold the most TV when I recorded them.

So you're talking about like the 120 and the

160? T60, T90, T120, 160, 180, 200, 210. Then

they had the E120 through 480, which is insane

the amount of tape that it had to hold. But like

the like the e480 on SP mode you could hold five

and a half hours almost six hours of television

on LP you could hold almost 12 hours EPS LP hold

17 hours And it's that's on like NTSC which is

like the pretty much the main standard it's the

standard for the US yeah, but I think I used

to get like the The T120s, which were the ones

that if you did LP, you could do four hours,

which was sufficient for most people. I mean,

I used to record things such as like Beast Wars,

whenever Weird Al showed up on VH1, like any

of the Star Trek marathon things, or like when

they did the 30th anniversary of Trek. Stuff

like that See for me both audio and video cassettes

had that you had these labels had the 60 90 120

And I kind of knew That I just kind of figured

it was oh 60 that means it's an hour You have

an hour of storage space or 90 of an hour and

a half or 120 you have two hours. I remember

Having so many damn different movies recorded

on so many damn VHS tapes There was one tape

where it was three ninjas kick back TMNT 3 and

something else I can't remember there was one

tape that was Robin Hood Prince of Thieves and

and Robocop and something else that I can't remember

but I remember and I have no idea why when I

was a kid we recorded the movies we recorded

in the wait like We would record say Robocop

or say, because we actually had HBO. When I was

a kid, we had HBO. I don't know if we had it

legally, but we had it. And, you know, so I was

taping movies off of that left and right. And

my mom would always go back over and label them

and, you know, right at the top. you know you

list the first movie in the middle is the second

movie and the bottom is the third movie so i

remember vhs is at least holding three to four

movies total um and it was for me and and this

actually is actually happened a few years ago

too i remember as a kid looking at these vhs's

and like Okay, I'd like to watch that movie that's

in the middle, but I don't want to have to fast

forward through the whole first movie So I'm

like I'll just I'll find a cartoon on TV or something

and then you know a few years ago I had actually

a number of years ago now about seven or eight

years ago. I had a huge DVD collection and This

is right before I started podcasting You know

some weekends when there was nothing on I would

go over to the DVD shelf And I would look through

everything and I'm like I don't want to watch

that I don't want to watch that and I don't know

what it is with me it just It just a lot of things

that I had I just didn't care to watch again.

I don't know why I mean why I collected the things

Yeah, I There was a lot of stuff I recorded but

again, I didn't some of them We were so OCD.

We knew what was on each tape At what place in

what sequence like we just had it memorized.

So we knew exactly what we were looking for And

If we didn't either my brother or I remembered

it did it depend on the tape we each had our

own set So Kind of jumping gears a little bit.

Uh -huh. What's your earliest computer format

that you remember as far as? Disc wise and then

I'll run yeah, and then I'll run through the

the brief history of that Well, it was probably

five and a quarter and three and a half, okay

Mean, you know your standards. I'll say this

I didn't have a personal computer in my home

until 1990 91 maybe maybe 89. I don't remember

I remember my aunt had a computer and I used

to love going over there and playing on her computer

and all that stuff But yeah, pretty much five

and a quarter three and a half is what I remember

for the most part See I remember those as well

I Remember the the tape backup Yeah used to have

back in the day which my dad used to back up

his computer through and they were like there

looked like VHS or not VHS They looked like audio

cassette cartridges just you know encased in

like a plastic And you just pop these cartridges

in it almost is akin to like a Nintendo cartridge

just smaller and You didn't have to blow in them.

No And it would you know make a copy of your

system, and then you just put it in and then

But it took an obscene amount of them to copy

your system And then of course we had the They

actually had eight inch floppies believe it or

not in 71 And then they later and they only held

like 80 kilobytes Which ain't yet You know They

used it about five years and then marching forward

they used in Starting in 76 to 82. They started

using these high -density 1 .2 megabyte five

and a quarter floppy disks, which you started

seeing games pop up And it was kind of interesting

seeing that those things were actually truly

floppy disks Oh, yeah, because they actually

bent. Yeah They were like paper almost We had

a few games that were like that We had the you

know, the the five and a quarter floppy drive

and you had to bend this tab just so that it

would read Yeah So those were kind of ridiculous

and then Of course they come out in 82 to you

know, pretty much present day the three and a

quarter, you know, three and a half floppy disk

Which held one point four four megabytes? of

space on smaller and they had a tape that went

around inside them and then it had a metal sleeve

that covered it up and they had a tab that you

could prevent it from being written on after

you put something on it. Which was kind of nice.

Back before the days of flash memory or cloud

computing or burning CDs, I had an entire lunch

bag full of these. backing up, you know, because

at that time I had played around with Microsoft

Paint and or, you know, just paint at the time

on Windows 3 .1. And then when the Internet came

along around Windows 95 time, I started downloading

like Transformers, Star Trek, like just anything

that would fit on these things because I thought

it was cool. And of course, I still do that.

I just dump it in my documents folder because

Everything I can download now wouldn't even fit

on a floppy. It would take an obscene amount

to download the amount of stuff I have. But I

remember having hundreds and hundreds of these

things. I eventually started going through them

and it turns out that a lot of them went bad

over time. the few that did remain, I just didn't

care anymore. I think I made it through about

half my floppies and I just threw them away.

I was like, I'll start over. Do you remember,

well, have you ever seen a TV show, and I'm not

talking about like American Pickers or anything,

I'm not talking about reality, but I'm talking

about like a television show where they find

something that is from like the 1800s and it's

yellow paper and you can barely read it and that

kind of thing. That's the way the floppies went.

They kind of were like that yellowing aged paper

from 100 years ago. Well, the sad thing is they

still sell them in the store. I don't know why.

I don't know why either. They do not sell a computer

nowadays that even comes with, they quit selling

them back in like 2008? They stopped putting

floppy drives in them. You might seem with SD

memory in them now like SD card slots up varying

degrees and USB slots But you will not see a

floppy drive and they're actually they cost as

much as buying a blu -ray burner Now because

they're so rare. Why are they why are floppy

still in stores? I don't know I used to have

a floppy drive in my computer until I upgraded

it this last time and granted I never used the

damn thing. I gave the thing to my brother because

he had He has varying, you know, he has a newer

machine and then he has various older machines.

You're talking about Brian. Yes We should have

had him on this because oh my god that kid actually

Just about everything we've talked about your

brother He goes to rummage sales or like flea

markets and he will pick this shit up and he

makes it work I'm not even joking like he's got

eight tracks. He's got four tracks. He's got

He's got, you know, a lot of that obscure weird

shit that nobody else cares about. I mean, but

there's some people that do care about it. Your

brother Brian is... He is a classic -era technophobe.

He is someone who loves classic technology and

will always... be buying it. He's that old man

who is like, you and your kids in your eye do

hickeys. He made his computer into a TV channel

on his UHF TV. He made it broadcast into a wireless

signal to be downloaded into his TV as a channel.

Don't know how he did it. I know he did it because

I've seen it But he has done that I don't understand

It's it's it's quite amazing like Every time

I see him post on Facebook about something he

found or something bottom like oh my god. That

is so old He will find it like if there's a will

there's a way. I mean, I know I'm teasing him,

but He does know all about this stuff and if

he doesn't he figures it out and he's pretty

talented with it. Everybody has their own things

that they collect, that's just what he collects.

But yeah, it's just nuts, the kind of stuff that

he'll find. He does have an entire audio cassette

collection, a VHS set collection, and as I've

gotten rid of things I just give him my old stuff

because he has used for it whereas I do not.

I am not Tied to old technology. I will dump

it in a heartbeat to get what's new. I want the

new hotness To the point that I drive my wife

nuts All right, so I'm talking about technology

and computers and I know you're not You are so

anti a certain fruit and we'll get to that in

a moment, but what I you are anti a certain piece

of fruit I'll get to it in a minute. Hang on.

I remember when I got my first personal computer

as a kid, like I said, it was 90 or 91. And I

actually went to this place. Somehow my mom's

then boyfriend was able to get me a grant because

I was born with cerebral palsy or whatever. Somehow

we were able to get a free computer worth $3

,000 at the time. Yeah, which is sick. um so

they gave me a choice between the apple 2gs or

some ibm machine um and i picked the apple 2gs

because we had apples in school to be fair the

ibm's were garbage well the reason why i didn't

pick the ibm is because At the time, everyone

thought that my vision, because I do have, without

correction, I have 2200 vision in both eyes.

In my left eye, I have 2400 vision. With correction,

if I wore my glasses, I'd have 2060 in my right,

2100 in my left, and 2060 in both. But for me,

because the way that the drunk doctor delivered

me, and I'm not kidding about that, I've heard

my mom say that the doctor was drunk that night.

Hence why I have cerebral palsy. Yes, I know

she should sue. I would have done more than sue.

I would have killed that son of a bitch. Because

I was delivered, I don't want to say incorrectly,

but not quite. The way I should have been and

I have cerebral palsy. I also have optic atrophy

with nystagmatism So I can never have LASIK I

can never have any kind of eye surgery to correct

my eye because they don't Currently have the

technique which is surprising. We live in 2015

technology for everything. They don't have technology

to repair Nerve damage to your eye. So I have

optic atrophy with nystigmatism. The funny thing

is with my eyes My right eye is my dominant eye

and my center eye, but I have like zero Peripheral

vision on my right eye. It's all center my left

eye I have pretty much zero center and I have

all peripheral so I can be sitting here looking

at my computer and also Looking at my front door

and looking back at the back of my apartment

where my kitchen is. My point in all of this

is when I was choosing this computer they thought

I needed voice modulation because they thought

I was as a kid I was classified as legally blind.

They thought that I was pretty much blind and

they thought I was going to need audio help like

you know audio readers and that kind of thing.

Just didn't care for the voice for the IBM computer.

It didn't sound right the Apple computer sounded

better So I had the Apple TGS I had an I think

it was an Epson dot matrix printer. Oh My god,

that thing was so slow So I got this computer

and I had it for a while and I had it pretty

much until I probably graduated high school,

I guess When Mac came out when the Mac and like

when Apple moved away from the two line and they

moved to Macintosh For me, I don't know what

it was. I had switched to PC I had switched to

Windows by then and going back to an Apple product

just oh When it came when it came to a computer

was like, oh my god, this is all ass backwards

to me So Steve is not a fan of Apple My first

experience with Apple was in high school and

it's because one of the teachers in a science

lab had it and they got a virus on it. And I

was like, oh, not so bulletproof now, are we?

And because I was like the guy that fixed shit

that I didn't understand. So I had to mess with

that. I managed to also crash Mac at the same

time in removing that virus. Again, I didn't

understand the operating system. The next time

I would touch an Apple was going back to college

in 2013. Mind you, when I touched the last one,

it was 2002. And then before that, I'd never

touched one. I owned a 486DX4100. I owned a 286,

a Pentium 133, a Pentium 300, Pentium 500, Pentium...

three 667 and then I ended up getting my core

2 duo then core 2 quad and then I have my i3

now and I also had an AMD somewhere in there

but I think my system now the one on the tower

I've had since too late 2009 early 2010 I'm biased

I like Intel just like I like Nvidia Yeah. It's

funny. Have you seen the Intel commercials with

Sheldon? Yeah. Oh God, he is the perfect person

to do those commercials. I agree. But yeah, getting

into some of the other formats, then, you know,

of course, the CD, you know, campaign disc came

along for the computer and We had a quad speed,

4X CD drive in our 486 DX4 -100, which it was

kind of hit or miss if it was going to work or

not. We weren't sure. It did work successfully

with that system. And actually, that computer

was actually faster than a Pentium at the time,

which was incredible. We had the hard drive in

it. It had a 404 Megabyte hard drive and an 800

megabyte hard drive and then combined you have

like over a gig You know 32 megabytes of memory

in it. I think that one had 16 and then the next

machine had 32 but And then you had to have a

sound card back then Like you actually had to

have a sound card. Yeah. Yeah, you pretty much

still have to have a video card to have anything

good, but most of it comes built into the chip

or into the motherboard nowadays. The audio has

been built into the motherboards for like the

durations of the 2000s. You can still buy one

external if you want, but really there's no point.

And then a lot of your devices, like if you have

a blue microphone, it has the microphone technology

built into it and it's just USB. You have a USB

Logitech headset. It's all built into that too.

I mean, so it really, if you're looking for any

of that, a lot of it's kind of built into the

equipment. But anyways, then there was the burnable

CD in 97, which I'm still sorting through some

of those. Because when I used to go to my dad's,

I used to work on my various transformer sites

and Dragon Ball Z and my emulator site and I

had some other ones in there here or there that

were ideas that never went anywhere and I Would

burn a new CD every time I went over Anytime

something changed anytime I've downloaded something

so I had About two two or three spindles of CDs

that I was going through And those are like a

50 yeah, I've still got 25 left to go through

Because periodically I go through them and I

download what I may need and then I throw the

disk away and then I It's one of those things

I do when I'm bored so I still have a spindle

or like that half a spindle sitting on my Desk

area in my office for that time that I'm bored

and I feel like going through some discs. So

yeah. And then of course we have a drive that

I've never heard of called a Magneto optical

drive. A mod drive. They considered it a mutant

drive. Well it is named Magneto so... Which I

think is kind of fitting. So the Size could range

anywhere in the capacity of 128 megabytes to

9 .2 gigabytes It's I guess it's something extremely

rare that most people don't really even know

about It was 1990 to president but there to president

It says it's not prominent in the US though,

so it says maximum capacity is about 2 .6 gigabytes

now. But MiniDisc was something that was around

for a little bit, and I do remember that. It

could go up to 1 gigabyte, but it looked like

a mini CD stuck inside of a floppy. Yeah, that's

the thing though. Every time like okay, I'm trying

to think there was some sort of free promotion

where they would give you a mini disc and I'm

like Okay, what am I supposed to do with this

because it didn't fit in the tower? The disc

itself not not any outer shell or just the the

actual physical disc itself. I'm like How is

this supposed to fit in my CD tray? Yeah, like

micro cassette Micro cassettes I got because

you actually would have to have a micro cassette

recorder to go with them. I understood that Well,

like the funny thing is is there they did have

a thing they had it wasn't a mini disc, but it

was a Was like a micro CD And they they were

you know that inner rim of your CD Drive, right?

Like that little tiny part of the rim that's

in the bottom. Mm -hmm. They fit in that perfectly

And they could hold up to, I think, 256 megabytes

on them. And I did get a few of those for a little

bit. I think I bought like 10 of them. And then

it just wasn't cost efficient. But I ended up

ditching those later for flash memory. But Colorado

Backup, I don't know if you remember that. My

dad had that. That was 1990s to 2001. It was

the Colorado T1000 by HP, which my dad had in

the computer. You can hold up to about 14 gigabytes,

it says, but I think at the time it didn't hold

nearly that much. But it did back up quite a

bit. And then we get into Compact Flash. Sandisk

And then you had you had the various flash chips

and then you get the zip drive Which was basically

like an ultra fix Floppy that came out around

94 It was kind of replacing the floppy at that

time you get an external or an internal drive

and it could hold up to Some drives could hold

100 megabytes of storage. Some of them could

hold 250, and some of them could hold 750. And

it was iOmega, which was the brand or the company.

Those kind of went away too. They had this other

drive called a Jazz Drive, which... The zip drive

my brother I believe had the jazz drive my dad

and I had And these were like one gigabyte discs

that you could pop in and out and some were two

gigabytes, but I had the one We basically would

load all of our games and all of our Stuff on

the drive and then run everything off of it And

then as somebody would swap to a different person

on the machine, we would just pop the drive out

Oh, yeah, kind of nice. I mean it was it was

cool. I I remember those then we get to the CD

or DVD Yeah DVD was great DVD still is like it's

it's more cost -efficient than a blu -ray though.

That's the thing. It's nice about it because

I burn when When I have to burn something for

somebody else. Mm -hmm File wise I dump it to

a DVD Because it holds four point seven gigabytes

on a single layer disk Which is for most people

and for most applications. It's Sufficient that

way it's sufficient. It's it's better because

of CD you only burn. It's 700 megabytes four

point seven giga gigabytes is better on a DVD

if you get a dual layer, it's like eight point

five, but Blu -ray burnables are actually getting

cost -efficient now I still did not have a blu

-ray drive on my computer. I have a light scribe

DVD burnable In my system and it burns CDs too

yeah, and the theory with the light scribe is

it's supposed to be able to like imprint a picture

in certain types of disks on the top with lasers,

but See I have a blu -ray drive on my tower But

apparently I need some sort of cable for it to

show up like for blu -ray like I sat here And

I went out and bought and I only did this this

is a few years ago when Batman under the Red

Hood came out They were specifically putting

a special feature on the blu -ray only about

the history of Robin or the history of the Robins

and bought the blu -ray and I'm thinking okay

well it says blu -ray drive put the thing in

would not play at all and apparently I need some

sort of cable or cord or something or other between

the monitor and the tower for the blu -ray to

actually be active I guess I I don't friggin

I it doesn't make any sense there's something

yeah I don't know I just don't know I mean I

have our good buddy and friend and fellow podcaster

that's on the network, Jeremy Fine, he sent me

his, because he's in the process of moving, he

had a secondary PS3, he sent me that, and I still

have that. And that's a, you know, it's a Blu

-ray player and whatever else, but I wanted to

use that for streaming, since I have Wi -Fi in

my place. But apparently the PS3 can't hold a

connection to save friggin' crap. So I'll watch

my DVDs on it and that'll be fine, but I'm not

gonna, just because I have a Blu -ray player,

not that I could financially afford it anyway,

just because I have one doesn't mean I'm gonna

go out and buy Blu -rays. Yeah, I mean, it depends

on the movie for me, whether I buy a Blu -ray.

If it's an action movie, then it warrants a Blu

-ray. If it's not and it's just a regular movie,

I'll buy the cheaper DVD or I'll just... Watch

it on Netflix or whatever. So For me, I'm more

into the and I know you're gonna go this way

here in a second But for me, honestly, I'm more

into the digital media now than physical That's

just the way it is Well speaking of digital media

We get into the portable hard drive era, you

know which is USB. Oh yeah. My first one of that

was 250 gigabytes. I have a two terabyte one

out in my living room now. I actually want to

get a smaller one, like a one terabyte one that's

small enough to fit in my pocket like the size

of my phone. Right. So that I can get away with

not having to have all of my flash drives anymore.

USB flash drives. Yeah, because I have six of

them that I carry on me All the time all the

time. Oh my god One being 64 gigs two of them

being 32 gigs one's like an 8 gig one's a 4 gig

for work and Another one's a 16 gig which is

a backup for my wife's computer. So Because Windows

does not give you disks anymore You have to actually

make your own Restore disk with a flash drive

so So yeah, I did that but yeah the You know

you get the SD memory which is Pretty much replaced

film Like in in The film industry as well as

like photography because when I was learning

in my media class shooting video, they made us

buy these SDHC, which are the SD high quality

SD cards. And then it had to be like class 10,

which has to do with the speed. And we recorded

everything onto those, which again, it's SD memory

because it's flash memory. and that's the same

thing with a USB flash drive. It's all the same.

These two formats right there are pretty much

killing everything else, but you can hold so

much on them and they're so small. A couple of

the USB flash drives I have that we plug into

our Blu -ray and everything are actually as thin

It basically disappears. There's enough of a

nub on it. I don't even know where the hell they

put the 32 gigs that's on it. Because it's like

a nub that's on it enough to pull it back out.

But I plug it into my Blu -ray player with the

files that we have on it. And it disappears when

you plug it in. But it holds somehow 32 gigs

of data on it. And then they got the ones that

stick out like a thumb. That you hope that nobody

runs into you right and then of course we have

cloud media which again like everything is pretty

much moved from all these various formats to

USB or SD or flash memory or the cloud and Your

your videos are either blu -ray or they're they're

streamed or they're mp4s Among various other

video formats And your audios either Streamed

as well, or it's a mp3 file or some other high

quality format Yeah, I mean yeah, it's one of

those things where we're to the point now in

technology where everything has to be like super

high quality Garbage in garbage out So the higher

quality you have it to begin with the The the

better quality it is when you downgrade it to

a different format. Yep Because mp3 is actually

a lower farm format There's a lot higher quality

audio formats, but they're huge Yeah, but mp3

is the universal format at this point for the

last part Well, it's always it's been the universal

format. The thing is is it just it's not as high

a quality as some of the other aspects but yeah

again where do you see the media going in the

future like as a new format or as a new way of

holding it or I really think that the tablets

the eye devices that they have now iPads and

iPhones and iPod touches and whatever else and

all that stuff whether it's them or whether it's

any other companies that are doing smartphones

or I really think it's I mean I see commercials

all the time for various tab not not just Apple

but like I see commercials for Samsung where

it's like hey you can now you know start this

on your tablet and then shoot it to your TV and

there you go it's on your TV and you don't have

to worry about anything else and whatever else

so i really think it's going to continue down

the path of super high quality cell phone like

you know cell phone multimedia really i don't

even think you can call cell phone cell phones

anymore because you know back in the eighties

the first cell phone was like a super heavy large

almost like one of those um one of those army

walkie talkies that you they used to see um And

now they're so thin and small, but they pack

such a big wallop. They should be called PPCs.

Portable Personal Computer. Okay. I would just

say media devices, but alright. Because they're

basically like carrying around a PC in your pocket.

Pretty much, yeah. Oh, pocket PC, that's another

term that's phased out. It's not good marketing

anymore. Maybe we can bring it back. No, I mean,

I see things continuing on the same methodology

that they have going, which is the cloud, because

everything's about instant gratification. It's

about beaming the information from device to

device without having to worry about it. Like

I have a new router. And these new routers, they

have a USB port in the back of them where you

can plug in an external hard drive. And basically

from any of your devices in the house, you can

stream information from the external hard drive.

Absolutely. So if I had a media library of audio

that I wanted to play across it, I could do that.

But I don't really care. Most of what I want

is already on my PC. And if it's not, I go download

it to my MP3 player or my flash drive or something.

So I mean, there's that. Of course you have things

like Dropbox or OneDrive, which I use to upload

content to so that I can get to it from anywhere.

So I don't necessarily have to use my flash drives,

even though I would like to have physical copy

backups of some things. I just don't have the

space on them. I'm surprised that they have not

made a 1, 2, or 3 terabyte flash drive. You know,

you say that, but they've been working on getting

them bigger and bigger. I think that they're

already at 256 gigs on a flash drive now, which

is kind of interesting. I remember buying back

when 128 megabytes was a big thing on a USB flash

drive. Right. I used to have Predacon Empire,

my original Transformer site. Well, my basically

second one because I had a copy of somebody else's

site that I made. I used to have that housed

on a floppy when I started it to outgrowing the

floppy to getting into the 128 megabyte flash

drive. To a 256 megabyte flash drive to a 512

flash drive to a gig flash drive, and then I

killed the site Geek cast radio if I were to

put it on a flash drive You would need the one

two or three terabytes no, I would need the hundred

mech. I'd need the hundred gigabyte I'd need

Need like a hundred twenty eight gigabyte flash

drive to hold it sufficiently I Remember when

it fit on the 64 gigabyte flash That wasn't that

long ago. No It's been six long years So with

that we're canceling no That'd be horrible if

that happened weekends are canceled reviews are

canceled beyond is canceled We're done. Good

night, everybody. But no, I mean, I definitely

see things going along the cloud still. Be it

good or bad, I still see it being on that route.

Whether it's the Microsoft cloud or the iCloud

from Apple or... Well, you can't trust the iCloud.

They give away your information. Celebrities

can't trust the iCloud. No, nobody can trust

the iCloud. It hands out your credit card. It's

like, hey, you want to buy something? And then

the other one's like, you have nude pics? You

have nude pics? You have nude pics? So I don't

trust the cloud entirely. That's why you don't

put shit on it that you don't want getting captured.

See, the only thing I use the cloud for for iCloud

is... All as I know is they allow backups for

whatever you buy from iTunes and lately these

days I don't buy a lot from iTunes at all. I

think in the past two years I've bought a couple

of albums. I've bought a couple of movies I've

rented a few, you know, two or three four five

I find that's what I like better about Apple

at this point is when they allow the 299 rental

of a movie where you just You don't have to worry

about it. You download it, obviously, but once

you start playing it, you only have 24 hours

to watch the damn thing. Your rental, once it's

finished downloading, it's a 30 -day rental,

but once you hit play, you've got one day to

watch the film. So it's like, if I need something

for Movie Week in Review, or if I need something

for Tooncast Beyond, or if I need something for

whatever... it's a rentable thing fine sure I

don't have a problem with that at all but the

only thing I use iTunes's or Apple's iCloud for

is if somehow and this has happened a lot in

the past six months I don't know how the hell

this happens sometimes Stuff that is in that

I thought was in my library isn't and it doesn't

even show up in the cloud and makes no damn sense

It's like I knew I had that entire album or it'll

show up saying that I have it But it doesn't

show where I can download it again Perfect example

of this is the album best of Bill Cosby From

1969 it shows that I have it I can play the files

But it doesn't show me where it doesn't have

a download click button at all. It is weird.

I got to contact iTunes about that. Stupid. But

anyway. But yeah, I mean, I think that takes

us through our entire journey. Yep. So, guys,

like us guys and gals listeners, like I said

before, I'd like to know what the actual record.

Store cut was of something like nirvana's nevermind

in 1990 whatever. I don't remember the year off

top my head when that album came out I know it

was an idea so and we'd also like you to comment

and Let us know your history with technology.

Where did you start? Where do you see it going

all that good stuff? Coming up on geek cast radio.

Hopefully we're gonna be doing something once

a month that we have never done before It's going

to involve tables, ladders, and chairs, and hells

and cells, and surviving series, and manias of

wrestling, and all that other stuff. Mike Dodd

is gonna be on with me hopefully once a month,

where we're going to focus on WWE content specifically,

since that's all we really watch. As far as wrestling

go like I don't watch TNA. I don't watch Ring

of Honor I don't watch any other stuff just WWE

at this point for me Also coming up on GCR. We're

gonna have a bunch of other ideas and topics

coming out There will be consistent content from

GCR. It might be a monthly thing. It might be

a bi -weekly thing. It just depends on What else

I have going on or Steve has going on or anybody

else is going on? I will say that the top 100

favorites the gcns top 100 favorite video games

is coming I can actively say at this point right

now it looks like it's going to run from episode

90 to 96 I believe or either it's either gonna

be episode 90 to 96 or 90 to 97 I don't have

the actual details in front of me so that's gonna

be coming this summer what else you got going

on Working on some new projects with altered

geek Still working on some other websites and

Still deciding what I'm going to do for class

As far as the the audio I think I've narrowed

it down. I told you I can't it's not gonna fit

the time You can't drag that out now Unfortunately

not. He is the most comical character in that

series. You seriously cannot drag Waspinator

out. It's 44 seconds. I can't drag it out. Oh,

damn it. And he'll time it, so I can't. Well,

yeah. I can stand there for two minutes. But

no, I tried a couple different voices. It's going

to end up being Joker, I have a feeling. Yeah.

Because he goes over a minute both times. Yeah.

And it's hilarious. I'm just not sure which one

of his I'm going to use. I think I've got it

narrowed down to one of two, but I'll reveal

that on alternate kind of future date. So that

would be bad timing. Never mind. Alright, that's

going to do it for this episode of GCR. Join

us next time for another great topic. Like I

said, I'm pretty sure the next one is going to

be this new experiment Mike Dodd and I are going

to do with the whole wrestling thing. I could

be wrong though, I don't know just yet. Unleash

the geek in you and we will catch you next time.

You've just listened to Geekcast Radio on the

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