Computer Superstitions

[vic user]

I used it to fool my sister into thinking the movie was possible.

that reminds me of a program i wrote for my apple II after watching the movie 'prince of darkness', back in the 80's

in the movie, a translator gets possessed by evil, and is found in one scene with her eyes glazed over just typing 'i live' over and over again.

i recreated the look of it on my computer, so it looked like someone was typing, and then had it only show up at random times, then blank the screen etc..

i left it running on my computer all day, and when i got home my mom was super upset with me, as when she was dropping off some of my laundry on my bed, the 'i live' screen popped up and scared the hell out of her

[pitcalco]

Ah! Nostalgia just isn't what it used to be!

[Jeff-20]

I still call it the "runstop key". It makes sense. I've never used it to only RUN.

[eslapion]

I still call it the "runstop key". It makes sense. I've never used it to only RUN.

Type SHIFT-RUN STOP and it will load and run the first program found on tape.

If you type any letter then hit this combination, the load command will cause an error and it will run the program that's in memory (if there is one).

[Mike]

I still call it the "runstop key". It makes sense. I've never used it to only RUN.

With the keys [CLR HOME], [INST DEL], and [RUN STOP] the second line simply shows the un-shifted action, i.e. 'HOME', 'DEL', and 'STOP'.

If you press Shift, you get 'CLR', 'INST', and 'RUN'. The last action performs both LOAD and RUN from tape. I suppose you already knew that.


...

Topic: It was suggested to me never to leave a floppy disc in the drive, while switching the drive on or off. An uncontrolled magnetic pulse could destroy the data bits positioned right under the drive head.

While it sounded to me not that far-fetched, I cannot remember a single instance of data loss under these circumstances.

On the other hand the 1581 I once owned rendered two floppies unusable due to that infamous 'spurious IRQ while writing a track'-bug. In both cases it destroyed the directory track.

Greetings,

Michael

[Bacon]

Jeff, to be honest I still call it Runstop too.

Type SHIFT-RUN STOP and it will load and run the first program found on tape.

It wasn't until very recently (as in this year) that I realized that it's supposed to be the Stop key when unshifted and the Run key when shifted. I just thought the VIC designers figured the SHIFT and RUNSTOP keys were conveniently placed to use for the load and run functionality

[ral-clan]

Same with me....it just never dawned on me until a few years ago that the RUN represents the shifted function, and stop the Unshifted....although I used Shift-RUN to load stuff all the time.

...although in retrospect it is obvious. To a kid it wasn't, and since it was always the RUNSTOP key to me, I never bothered to think about it for twenty years .

[PaulQ]

So after learning a little BASIC, I wrote a simple program that scripted a predictable conversation based on the movie. I used it to fool my sister into thinking the movie was possible. Neither of us had seen the film, we were just familiar through pop culture references and commercials.

In BASIC programming class, we got a bunch of new computers. I had been really into making the icons on my Amiga look 3D by bordering buttons with a two-coloured frame, which would alternate the colours from one L-shaped section to the other. I used this effect in a BASIC program (albeit on a PC) to draw four big "Buttons" on the screen. Using for-to loops, I had set up a time delay between each button as it appeared "Pressed." Pressing any key on the keyboard would get things going.

The trick was to make it appear like a touch screen. I'd covertly bump a key on the keyboard with my elbow, then press each button on the screen timed to the exact same sequence that I programmed; it really looked like a touch screen! I demonstrated this to my teacher, telling him I discovered the "Touch Screen" command in BASIC, and told him how impressed I was that the school went all out and bought touch screen monitors with the new computers. When I saw that he was absolutely convinced that what I was telling him was true, I couldn't contain my laughter.

He was pretty hard on marking my assignments after that.

[pitcalco]

No good deed goes unpunished, Digi!

[gklinger]

that reminds me of a program i wrote for my apple II after watching the movie 'prince of darkness', back in the 80's

in the movie, a translator gets possessed by evil, and is found in one scene with her eyes glazed over just typing 'i live' over and over again.

I remember that movie/scene very well because she was typing on an Amiga A1000! It was the first time I had seen an Amiga used as a prop in a movie (they used on on Miami Vice on TV) and being an Amiga nut, I was really pleased.

[vic user]

wow, i had no idea it was an amiga!

[carlsson]

As regard to playing computer tapes on your stereo, that was a quick way to make a hard copy of one tape. Yes, it is illegal but oh so much more low tech than today when you can get ISO images etc from your nearest torrent.

[pitcalco]

As regard to playing computer tapes on your stereo, that was a quick way to make a hard copy of one tape. Yes, it is illegal but oh so much more low tech than today when you can get ISO images etc from your nearest torrent.

There was a children's TV program in Warsaw in the 1980's during which those viewers owning a home computer (I think the Spectrum ZX, but don't quote me) were invited to bring a tape recorder close up to the telly speaker, get everyone in the room to stay quiet and then the TV show would broadcast the sound of the computer program to be recorded so that later you could play some game on your own computer. Pretty neat, I think. If I had a radio station I might broadcast some VIC programs in this way, although someone tuning in by accident might get a bit freaked out.

[orion70]

There was something similar here in Italy IIRC - or was it a urban legend? Afternoon TV show with people sending programs through the TV speaker. The prob was getting the right "tune" and volume.
Italian forumists - can you confirm?

[ral-clan]

There was a children's TV program in Warsaw in the 1980's during which those viewers owning a home computer (I think the Spectrum ZX, but don't quote me) were invited to bring a tape recorder close up to the telly speaker, get everyone in the room to stay quiet and then the TV show would broadcast the sound of the computer program to be recorded so that later you could play some game on your own computer.

A buch of the guys (we were all 11 at the time) in my VIC 20 users club tried this once. We wanted to copy Centipod or Frogee. We got two mono tape recorders. Since we didn't know anything about using cables to hook up the two machines, we played once cassette while using a crappy microphone to record the sound onto another cassette.

This is a 16K game, so there was about 5 minutes of digital shrieking during which we all had to be quiet.

I remember we had to re-do it about five times, because everytime we were half way through, an irritated mother would yell from upstairs "What is that horrendous noise!". This would of course be recorded onto the tape, and so we would have to sigh and start over.

Although tape to tape copying should work, it never did for us because of the crappy speakers and microphones used, and also the slightly different speeds of the two tape decks.