Does anyone recall any superstitions about computers back in the day of the VIC 20 and a bit later?
My father believed that connecting a computer to the telly was "hard on the TV, son", but never really specified what that meant. He did say someting about wrecking the TV's reception or other such arrant nonsense. So for years I only got to hook up my computers to an old 10 inch black and white telly which was a piece of junk that noone really cared about anyway.
My Atari 2600, 800XL and Commodores could only be hooked up to that damn stupid piece of junk and I thought I might as well have had a PET if I couldn't see the colour.
Any other superstitions from the past, either happening to you personally or heard about from someone else. (Urban myths are fine too. Never let the truth get in the way of a good story)
There are only three kinds of people in the world: those who can count and those who can't.
I think reception was the greatest myth. My mom always blamed switch boxes for poor tv signal reception. Even long after the switch box was removed, I could expect a week of complaints that having the device connected somehow lowered the reception.
When I purchased a vic for my younger brother My mother (a teacher) always said he played it too much and won't get his school work done. As far as I know he did and completed college a few years back so I guess it didn't hurt him too bad.
It is not really strange that our parents were worried about connecting unknown equipment to the one TV set the family typically owned. Back then, VCRs were a luxury item only few had heard about, and no other household applications were connected to a TV other than your antenna. If the TV had broken down, it would have been costly to repair or replace it, and it would be a shame if it was due to the home computer or video game outputting a too strong or badly filtered signal.
When it comes to switch boxes, I know there is a difference in terminology between the USA and Europe. To me, I'm thinking about a game/TV switch which has two antenna inputs, a mechanical or electrical switch and one antenna output. You may think of something with a built-in RF modulator and switch in one, something that is required to use the computer on a TV. At least over here, the RF modulator is a separate box from the highly optional game/TV switch and from personal experience, the mechanical switch does degrade antenna input quite a bit. I tried it only a few months ago and the results while routing the signal through a switch compared to directly to the TV's antenna input were remarkable. It may have to do with age and build quality of the switch though.
That using a computer would ruin your eyes, because you usually sat much closer to the TV than you normally would. This went back to the "Sitting too close to the TV will ruin your eyes" myth. Good for me the Vic had a 22 column display; I could sit pretty far back. Not so good with the C64's 40 column display.
My mom thought all this computer and video game business was a fad, back in 1981 or so. Eventually I went to school for Computer Science, then got a job in the IT field, and now I'm even making video games (partly) for a living... silly mom.
And, when I was finally allowed to buy a computer (a Timex/Sinclair 1000) in 1983, I got very sick within a few days, and had to stay home from school for a full week or so. Of course, I kept using the computer constantly. Mom decided I had to see the doctor, and she did her best to convince him that the computer was making me sick, and that he should tell me to stop using it until I got better. He didn't agree
Sounds like MacbthPSW caught an early computer virus. (bad joke)
As for superstitions, I remember a lot of my friends (and myself included) thought that if you dropped a floppy disk on the floor, it was a very bad thing, as the data could be 'knocked' or 'bumped' off in some way.
Also, with the VIC-20, I remember a friend told me it was bad to turn off the TV while the VIC-20 was still powered up (i.e. if you wanted to leave a long adventure game on while going to eat supper). He said that the computer would continue sending an electrical signal to the TV that would get 'backed up' (having no output) and the TV (or the VIC) would get very warm as a result, possibly damaging it.
Last edited by ral-clan on Fri Oct 05, 2007 10:16 am, edited 1 time in total.
ral-clan wrote:Sounds like MacbthPSW caught an early computer virus. (bad joke)
As for superstitions, I remember a lot of my friends (and myself included) thought that if you dropped a floppy disk on the floor, it was a very bad thing, as the data could be 'knocked' or 'bumped' off in some way.
Also, with the VIC-20, I remember a friend told me it was bad to turn off the TV while the VIC-20 was still powered up (i.e. if you wanted to leave a long adventure game on while going to eat supper). He said that the computer would continue sending an electrical signal to the TV that would get 'backed up' (having no output) and the TV would get very warm as a result, possibly damaging it.
Well that does ring a bell! Although a slightly different one.
At school we had Commodore 64 set-ups: computer, disk drive and monitor. We were told that is was very important in which order they were turned on and off: It was disk drive first, then computer, then monitor. If we did it wrong we would lose our computer privilegdes for a week!
This order of course meant that by the time the monitor warmed up, the "Commodore 64 Basic 38343 Bytes Free" was waiting for me. I was so curious to see what the monitor would look like without any signal, then one day at the end of my session I made no sure to teacher was watching and switched the computer off but left the monitor on. ....a blank screen ...WOW!
There are only three kinds of people in the world: those who can count and those who can't.
carlsson wrote:All the official manuals suggest this order of power-on as well. The disk drive first, computer second is obvious. Monitor should not matter as much.
Really? What was the practical reason for this? It sounds like one for Mythbusters.
There are only three kinds of people in the world: those who can count and those who can't.
The computer initializes the disk drive. If the computer is powered on first, it may not know a disk drive is attached and in worst case you have to issue an I0 command to access it.
pitcalco wrote:Interesting. I guess that makes sense. That said, I never had a problem when turning them on in the reverse order.
That's because, at least as far as the Vic, C64, and C128 go, the DOS is built into the disk drives; so it really doesn't matter. This was a rather unique approach by Commodore, and one I'm glad they took. In computers that load their DOS or have their DOS built into the system, this order needs to be observed so that DOS can register the devices and know how to handle them. It's my understanding that early Apples were like this.
That said, if you have a C128 and want it to autoboot CP/M (which it will do with a CP/M boot disk in the disk drive), you do need to turn on the disk drive first.
(please don't cross-post this to the World of Spectrum forums)
