
A scholar of video technology reflects on the death of an analog medium - JumpCrisscross
http://www.slate.com/articles/technology/future_tense/2016/07/caetlin_benson_allott_explores_the_legacy_of_vhs_and_vcr.html
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32bitkid
I feel a similar conflict between nostalgia and pragmatism when I think about
my experience with computer games. The constrast between the 1980s and the
2010s is pretty stark.

I remember lusting over old infocom game "feelies", like the ones that came
with Deadlock and Infadel, which one could argue that due to the limitations
of the textual medium were required, but they really did help me set the mood
and made that world seem more alive.

Fast forward a decade, consider buying a Sierra game and pulling out a stack
of 3.5 floppy disks for Kings Quest 5, or the QfG 1, remake had a very
visceral excitement and feeling of heft.

I also remember studying a brick of a manual that came with falcon 3.0 like it
was a school textbook or a great American novel.

I can't really imagine playing some of those games again, without some of
those physical aspects, even in emulation they don't feel "right". And I
wonder about the steam generation of gamers, that while convenient, doesn't
really represent the same experience.

But now that I'm 40 and time is precious, im not saying I want to go back. But
it's not quite the same.

~~~
davidgerard
I was most pleased the day I had a direct lesson that nostalgia = brain rot.

I remember using a Mac LC 475 all the time in 1995 and 1996, working on a
student newspaper. I remembered it as having been just a startling joy to use;
haunting in its ease of use.

Then I used Windows 95 with Office 97 for much of 1997.

Then in early 1998 I got in front of an LC 475 again. _Holy crap, what is this
clunky piece of shit_.

Remember: human memory is provably awful, and history is therefore bunk. And
you can't go back again because you're a different person now.

~~~
tomjen3
Yeah nostalgia isn't what it used to be.

Incidentally i am watching star gate for the first time and man are those
computers clunky. Worse there is scene where you see an early website and it
just looks horrific, but back then getting online with a 56 modem was magic.

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adamnemecek
Somewhat OT but look into simpsonswave
([http://reddit.com/r/simpsonswave](http://reddit.com/r/simpsonswave)). It's a
somewhat new microgenre which mixes vaporwave with clips of Simpsons. It's
interesting because the visuals evoke a very VCR feel.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simpsonwave](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simpsonwave)

This is the video that kicked it off
[https://youtu.be/rTfa-9aCTYg](https://youtu.be/rTfa-9aCTYg)

[https://youtu.be/FCb3rblTEds](https://youtu.be/FCb3rblTEds)

[https://youtu.be/qvmbL99ErUo](https://youtu.be/qvmbL99ErUo)

It's double interesting because I can't think of a single music genre that
would extend the stylistic criteria to visuals. I think that that's a first,
and it says something about the future of music.

~~~
glenda
Well punk music has an iconic visual style associated with it. That goes back
to the 70s. I'm sure there was something before that too... this is definitely
not a first.

~~~
adamnemecek
I misspoke, I meant like "video visual". But you are right.

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Animats
The loss of physical media is a bigger deal. Cloud services die within a few
years. Even ones from big companies. Remember PlaysForSure? Zune? WalMart
Music? If you don't have your own copy, you're just renting.

We're losing a lot of film history as the Netflix back catalog shrinks and
YouTube gets better at removing uploads of old movies.

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WalterBright
I don't miss anything about VHS. Balky machines, smeary, fuzzy, cropped video,
the top of the image bending to the right because of a weak sync signal,
rewinding, large storage volume, taking cassettes apart to fix them, cleaning
the heads, taking the VCRs apart to fix them, etc.

