Post · Fedizen

Andrew (making toys)

@ajroach42@retro.social yesterday

Update on my #shareware #livestreaming project.

I have received confirmation from my friend that, as long as I back up whatever data is currently on his old computer, I can wipe it and press it into service as a retro gaming machine.

It's a turn of the century HP desktop, one generation newer than our family PC from when I was a kid/teen.

It has a 2.80GHz Intel Pentium 4, a 160.0 GB IDE HDD, Windows 😜 Home, an NVIDIA GeForce4 FX 5200 128 MB, 512MB of RAM, 2xDVD drives, Floppy drive, USB 2.0, firewire, and a multi-port card reader with CF, SD, smart media, and memorystick.

This one was designed for Windows XP, where mine ran ME, but otherwise they are pretty similar devices (I think ours had a 64MB graphics card, and 256MB of system RAM, but we're in the same ballpark.)

It's dirty, and will need to be cleaned and imaged and factory reset before we get started.

the aformentioned computer. It's blue and silver and pretty dirty.

#shareware #livestreaming

0 Boosts

0 Likes

Andrew (making toys)

@ajroach42@retro.social yesterday

opened it up, vacuumed it out. Got ready to pull the HDD and image it, only to discover that all the 3.5" HDD to USB adapters I have handy are SATA.

And all the 2.5" HDD to USB adapters I have handy are SATA.

I can't find any of my IDE gear.

I can't remember the last time I needed IDE gear.

Andrew (making toys)

@ajroach42@retro.social yesterday

LMAO, I have an IDE/ATAPI to Parallel interface for a CD drive.

Andrew (making toys)

@ajroach42@retro.social yesterday

This machine probably boots and definitely has a functional networking stack, and I don't actually need an image of the HDD, I just need the contents of the user folder.

I could boot it to windows XP, plug in an ethernet cable and slap the contents of the HDD into a samba share over the network.

Andrew (making toys)

@ajroach42@retro.social yesterday

Hell, I could boot BSD or a 32 bit linux distro over USB 2, and image the hdd to a remote network share over sshfs.

~29 more replies

Andrew (making toys)

@ajroach42@retro.social yesterday

But i don't want to do it that way. I want to do the imaging directly on a modern machine, to minimize the amount of potential wear I'm putting on the hardware of the older machine, which I know has a 26ish year old turn of the century power supply for which I do not currently have a replacement.

Andrew (making toys)

@ajroach42@retro.social 24 hr. ago

I might have found an IDE enclosure, but before I verify that it is an IDE enclosure, I need to back up the disk inside the enclosure.

yaks

Andrew (making toys)

@ajroach42@retro.social 24 hr. ago

I found another external HDD enclosure.

This one is allegedly a 2TB 3.5" HDD.

*But* it has a mini-USB 2.0 connector.

MiniUSB

Mini USB

2TB hiding behind a mini USB 2.0 port.

Why?

Andrew (making toys)

@ajroach42@retro.social 24 hr. ago

In light of that, I have decided to head home and get some rest before I embark on further yak shaving, so I'll be back at imaging these HDDs tomorrow, using whatever means are available.

I'll get good backups of all three. One of them has "important" things on it, which might not exist anywhere else, and I'll share some of those things directly.

And then I'll get this computer up and running.

Andrew (making toys)

@ajroach42@retro.social 4 hr. ago

Alright, I have one 12+ year old spinning rust disk baking up onto another newer spinning rust disk.

A 1TB drive backing up onto a 20TB drive.

Andrew (making toys)

@ajroach42@retro.social 4 hr. ago

ETA 3 hours

Andrew (making toys)

@ajroach42@retro.social 4 hr. ago

A lot of whats on the old drive is useless, but I was such a goddamn animal about file management that things are nested into folders layers deep in ways that make absolutely no sense to me or anyone else.

Even the sections that are well organized are misleading.

So I'm backing up the whole thing, and then syncing it to next cloud, and then I'll sort the surviving files by hand, one file at a time, ignoring the existing folder structure.

Andrew (making toys)

@ajroach42@retro.social 4 hr. ago

On the plus side, I think I found the original source files for every CD we released at Analog Revolution 1.0

Andrew (making toys)

@ajroach42@retro.social 4 hr. ago

There's also a huge amount of concert footage?

Like, at least 6 hours of shows. Not all of them have audio, but some do.

I could always pull a "blank generation" and just overdub the footage I have with the audio I have.

Andrew (making toys)

@ajroach42@retro.social 39 min. ago

Alright, transfer is finished and I'm listening to a CD comp we first put out in 2015.

It was called Kill The Scene.

I have heard a few songs from this release since then, but I probably haven't heard the whole thing since 2015.

I might have found a box of discs of this release as well, I'll have to see if they were ever burned or if they were just printed.

Andrew (making toys)

@ajroach42@retro.social 37 min. ago

It was called Kill The Scene after a song by a guy who performed under the name Ito Clash.

Ito ... was an unreliable person who I do not trust. He liked to boast. Some of his boasts were rooted in truth, many were not.

But he wrote a song that we felt was a good summation of the local music scene, which I believe was called Ya Got Jokes Kid.

It featured the following bridge/chorus:

The record skips
I'm sick of this
There's not a local scene for you to save
I feel shit
We sound like it
I'll call you out, you'll call me gay

Don't laugh, I'm not a goddamn comedian, I'm just some kid who's tired and alone.

Stand back, I'm swerving in the median, there's nowhere I can go that feels like home.

Andrew (making toys)

@ajroach42@retro.social 37 min. ago

"There's not a local scene for you to save"

Andrew (making toys)

@ajroach42@retro.social 36 min. ago

So we released a comp of local musicians called "Kill The Scene"

And we opened it with that track.

Andrew (making toys)

@ajroach42@retro.social 33 min. ago

The second track was by a band called Sea Ghost. I don't know exactly what horrible thing went on with that band, but I know they were marred by tragedy, someone died, and none of the remaining members talk about it (or to me)

Andrew (making toys)

@ajroach42@retro.social 32 min. ago

The third track was by John Thefruitman, AKA Nelson Crawford, the producer and sometimes host of Working Class Music and producer of most New Ellijay Television material.

Andrew (making toys)

@ajroach42@retro.social 30 min. ago

Then we have a track by The Sheapherde's.

I haven't spoken to Cameron, the only member of this band, since 2015.

I don't know why.

I think I owed him some money? I'm not really sure what happened, though. He just went no contact one day.

The song is really good.

Andrew (making toys)

@ajroach42@retro.social 29 min. ago

Then we have the demo version of Get Out of my Head by The Scraps.

The album version is here: https://thescrapsmusic.bandcamp.com/track/get-out-of-my-head

The demo version was better.

Get Out Of My Head

Andrew (making toys)

@ajroach42@retro.social 28 min. ago

Oh this disc image has CD text.

The first track was in fact called Kill The Scene.

Ya Got Jokes Kid! is another Ito Clash song on the back half of the disc.

Andrew (making toys)

@ajroach42@retro.social 28 min. ago

Goddamn, this thing is 20 tracks long!

Andrew (making toys)

@ajroach42@retro.social 27 min. ago

I don't remember some of these.

I'm sure I will when I hear them, but I don't recognize them by name.

Andrew (making toys)

@ajroach42@retro.social 25 min. ago

This was the poster for the record, which was taped to the wall next to the CDs, which were pinned to the wall.

Kill The Scene
20 Tracks
13 local artists
Fuckin’ Sick
$3 — Kill The Scene 20 Tracks 13 local artists Fuckin’ Sick $3

Andrew (making toys)

@ajroach42@retro.social 20 min. ago

Back Cover

Kill The Scene: Local music you should know

Kill The Scene - ito clash
spokes - sea ghost
mixing signals - John Thefruitman
Thorn in your side - The shepherde's
Get out of my head - The scraps
Thank you for making a mess - Thegoodnews
Teenage Monster - Femignome
Ya got Jokes Kid! - Ito Clash
Bad Plastic - The Mumzees
The War Machine - Honesty Again
The Pale - Back There
Return Address - Dog Years
Knuckles Deep - LIKE MIKE
I don't want to be alone - The Shepherde's
After Party - The Scraps
Laura&The Whale - John Thefruitman
Gold Teeth - sea ghost
An Appointment - The Shepherde's
Lord lemme know - Japanese meat fetish. — Kill The Scene: Local music you should know Kill The Scene - ito clash spokes - sea ghost mixing signals - John Thefruitman Thorn in your side - The shepherde's Get out of my head - The scraps Thank you for making a mess - Thegoodnews Teenage Monster - Femignome Ya got Jokes Kid! - Ito Clash Bad Plastic - The Mumzees The War Machine - Honesty Again The Pale - Back There Return Address - Dog Years Knuckles Deep - LIKE MIKE I don't want to be alone - The Shepherde's After Party - The Scraps Laura&The Whale - John Thefruitman Gold Teeth - sea ghost An Appointment - The Shepherde's Lord lemme know - Japanese meat fetish.

Andrew (making toys)

@ajroach42@retro.social 18 min. ago

The front cover:

Kill The Scene
Local Music You Should KNow

A Product of Analog Revolution
Record Store
2543 Bells Ferry Rd
Inside Swayze's Venue

Under the words is a scene from a comic book in which people in a boat confront a corpse in the snow. — Kill The Scene Local Music You Should KNow A Product of Analog Revolution Record Store 2543 Bells Ferry Rd Inside Swayze's Venue Under the words is a scene from a comic book in which people in a boat confront a corpse in the snow.

Andrew (making toys)

@ajroach42@retro.social 6 min. ago

There's a copy of the print files for issue 7 of the AR magazine on here.

Likely there are copies of the print files for every issue on here, but Issue 7 is the one that I found when I searched "issue" and/or "pdf" so it's the only one I have right now.

This thing is so fucking weird, even by my standards.

It's supposed to be a music magazine. There are some album reviews and things, but then it ends with a 10 page explainer on Nietzsche, followed by a picture of one of our friends with the caption "probably not the ubermensch"

Then a blank page.

Then one that says "buy stuff from us so we can keep making things"

Then the back cover is a picture of a woman on an electric scooter in classic Victorian clothes captioned "probably the ubermensch"

... what?

Andrew (making toys)

@ajroach42@retro.social 6 min. ago

I copied some of the video files and now I'm going home.

@jblackwood@mas.to yesterday

I think this is the same model my friend had.

My parents impulse bought a Gateway that ran Windows ME. That thing would crash if you looked at it wrong.

Andrew (making toys)

@ajroach42@retro.social yesterday

@jblackwood ours too.

✨phred🧙🏼‍♂️

@phred@weirder.earth yesterday

@ajroach42 great retro battlestation! I remember this generation of curvy case design

Andrew (making toys)

@ajroach42@retro.social yesterday

@phred It feels like exactly the right machine to do 90s and 00s shareware on, because it should be able to run *everything* I throw at it, while also having the full port complement.