
Search, Mad Men style: A complete IBM 362 Google interface in the browser - brunooo
http://www.masswerk.at/google60/
======
revelation
Thats a proper skeuomorphic interface. I like how it discards the card if you
use backspace.

~~~
keithpeter
Yes, very well done. I shall use it this week in teaching for the giggle
factor. Seems to work perfectly in Opera 12.11 on Ubuntu Linux

------
hosh
It's interesting how a cultural artifact belonging to a museum is better
preserved in software. It is unlikely anyone will put the hardware in a
museum, let alone getting it operational and allowing someone to play with the
exhibit.

Many of the better museum exhibits tend to tie in things to people's daily
life in the present. I searched an anachronistic term, "game of thrones."

~~~
WalterGR
The Computer History Museum in Mountain View spent 2 years fully restoring a
DEC PDP-1. You can go see it - I don't even think you need to pay for
admission to the museum.

During the presentation, they load Spacewar! from paper tape, and two members
of the audience can battle it out.

It's pretty amazing to play one of the first graphical computer games ever, on
a computer first released 50 years ago.

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spacewar!#Spacewar.21_today>

~~~
microtherion
I saw that presentation last week. What I found even more awesome than the
presentation itself was that the presenters were Peter Samson and Steve
Russell, the two MIT hackers who had written the software originally.

~~~
jgw
Steve Russell, as in "I actually made Lisp a programming language rather than
just a mathematical notation" Steve Russell?

Also, I absolutely love this demo. It's really a work of art.

It really puts to shame my humble plan to finish my Osborne 1 emulator and put
it on the web.

~~~
microtherion
Yes, that would be the guy, although in the context of the PDP-1, he was only
talking about Spacewar.

Samson was demonstrating four part audio synthesis of Bach organ pieces. It
turns out that during the restoration project, they came across some of his
original data tapes encoding the music, but the software was long lost, so he
recreated his hack 50 years later, with the additional constraint that he had
to reconstruct his data format and remain compatible with it!

------
teh_klev
How nostalgic for me, reminds me of my days as a junior Data General field
engineer - Nova 3, Eclipse S/130, S/140, S/200'S + Phoenix and Gemini 10+10
and 5+5 toploaders.

Admittedly this was their Dasher D200 (current loop) and LP2 era, but we did
sometimes bootstrap DTOS (Diagnostic Tape Operating System) from paper tape if
all else failed. We even had a couple of ancient punched card readers in stock
for certain oddball customers, just in case.

I used to have a rig that looked like this in my parents dining room:

<http://www.chookfest.net/nova3/ebay.html>

They made me send it back after a couple of quarters of abnormal electricity
bills.

------
brunooo
What i love most about it is that's so annoyingly slow that it actually lets
you feel how computing must have been back then.

~~~
SoftwareMaven
The "reel to reel" was still faster than the old cassette player I had hooked
up to my old TRS-80.

~~~
tankbot
That was my first computer, with that awful beige Radioshack shoebox cassette
player. Oh, the fun days playing Artilery for hours and hours :o)

~~~
nobleach
CLOAD..... And you had to try it at least 3 times.

------
ComputerGuru
I was expecting this: <http://cl.ly/image/2g1Z3K143X34>

Quota exceeded :)

~~~
informatimago
It should be implemented in Javascript to run the searches from users'
browsers instead of a central point.

~~~
masswerk
That's what it does – there is no central access point. But Google is checking
the quota by the referrer.

------
danso
I've never watched "Mad Men" but this Google simulation was so entertaining
that I might just pop on the Netflix instant streaming this weekend.

The first "image" result for "Mad Men":

    
    
        +--------------------------------------------------------------------------+
        |                                                                          |
        |                            ***************                               |
        |                         ****           * *****                           |
        |                       ***                    ****                        |
        |                       *                    *   **                        |
        |                     **               ********    *                       |
        |                     *         *   ****           **                      |
        |                     *           ***         ***   *                      |
        |                     **        **              *   *                      |
        |                      *      *                 *   *                      |
        |                      *                        *   *                      |
        |                              *****   ******   *   *                      |
        |                    * *           **                *                     |
        |                 ****           ****           *    *                     |
        |                 *************  *  *     *     ** **                      |
        |                   ***           * * *** *   * *                          |
        |                          ***              * **  *                        |
        |                         ** ******           ** *                         |
        |                   *******   *********     ****     ********              |
        |             ****                      **                   ***           |
        +--------------------------------------------------------------------------+

------
ck2
Makes you realize in 1000 years there will be museums where people will go to
see the early ipad and android devices and wonder how anyone got anything done
with them, and stare at 3.5" and 2.5" hard drives with their ridiculously tiny
1TB capacities. Hmm, maybe even in just 100 years.

~~~
ilaksh
In 100 years people will be in zoos / wildlife refuges.

~~~
davidhollander
Unless a better word than "wildlife refuge" is discovered to specifically
denote human living areas. In which case people will be in towns.

~~~
rmc
Suburbia

------
CountHackulus
I work on the System 390 every day, this is surprisingly accurate.

------
ChuckMcM
Brilliant, of course the LP01 didn't have both upper and lower case :-) But
whose counting.

~~~
masswerk
And it's condensed too – I know. But it has to have lower case in order to
display URLs. And it provides legibility for the news reader mode:
<http://www.masswerk.at/google60?mode=news>

------
linhat
Just having _the_ most fun playing a round of "thermonuclear war" (well,
actually, it's mostly playing itself), better than any (AAA) title I have been
playing lately. This one is going to take _forever_. And I am glad that we
moved from printed output to graphical displays, the amount of forests we
would have had to cut down...

~~~
linhat
FWIW:

    
    
      SIMULATION ENDED. WINNER: NONE.                                               SIMULATION TIME: 02'00
                                     @@@@   @@@                                                         
                            @ @ @ @@@@@@@@@@@@@@@             @      %           @                      
              @@@        @   @ @@@@@  @@@@@@@@@@      @@@              %%%%%   %   %%%%%%%%%%%%%%       
           @@@@@@@@@@@@  @@@ @@@@@@    @@@@@@@@@                @     %%%%%%%%%%%@@%%%%%%%%%%%%%        
          @@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@ @@@@   @@@@@@@@                    %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%        
          @@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@  @@@  @@@@@@          @@@@@@ %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%% %%         
      @ @       %%%%%%%%%%%%    %%     @@@     @      @@@@%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%    %%         
                 %%%%%%%%%%%%   %%%%              @  @@@  %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%@             
                 %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%@             @@ @@@@@%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%              
                 %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%                @@@@@@@%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%   @           
                 %%%%%%%%%%%%%%                   @@    @@%%%%%%%@ @@@@@@%%%%%%%@@@@@@  @  @@           
                   %%%%%%%%%%                     @@@@@@  @   @@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@                 
                     %%%     %                  @@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@ @@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@                 
                      %%%%%                    @@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@     @@@   @@@@                    
                           @@ @@@@              @@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@        @     @ @    @               
                             @@@@@@@@@                 @@@@@@@@@@                @@  @@ @ @             
                            @@@@@@@@@@@@@@              @@@@@@@@                   @@  @     @@@        
                              @@@@@@@@@@@              @@@@@@@@@  @                      @@@@ @         
                               @@@@@@@@@                @@@@@@   @                    @@@@@@@@@@        
                               @@@@@@@                   @@@@                        @@@@@@@@@@@@       
                               @@@@@                      @@                         @@@  @@@@@         
                               @@@                                                           @        @ 
                                @@  @                                                                @
    

I almost believed it would take the full 48 hours...

------
guimarin
"List Games" -> Select #4. -> slow smile. :-)

~~~
SoftwareMaven
I might have obliterated the world (not totally sure, the print out is still
going).

------
viking4539
When I opened this, I happened to play Tron Legacy OST in the background. Made
the effect 100x. DAMN.

Try playing this the background: <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JLZGbJ5QE8M>

~~~
unimpressive
I thoroughly believe that doing just about anything with radiantx's _Space
Beacon_ in the background makes you feel like a l33t h4x0r.[0]

[0]: <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VFGFKL20kqA>

------
stretchwithme
Awesome. I remember doing things this way. With a 200 baud modem.

Having to throw a card away because of a typo was somewhat inhibiting.

Quite a contrast to discovering WordPerfect and realizing you can make all
kinds of mistakes without such waste.

~~~
brk
What used 200 baud? I remember 110, 300, and then 1200 was the next
progression. I don't ever recall even hearing about a 200 baud modem.

~~~
stretchwithme
Yeah, it was probably 300. 17 was a long time ago.

Some googling seems to indicate the V.21 modem could run at 200 or 300. But I
have no idea.

------
aramadia
Still faster than my city's library search.

------
napoleond
Is this using the Web Search API? Or is there a non-deprecated replacement?

~~~
d503
Given the error message I received I think yes to the first :)

RECEIVED MESSAGE "Quota Exceeded. Please see
<http://code.google.com/apis/websearch>.

HUMAN READABLE: "Mountainview, we have a problem."

ADVICE: A quota error indicates a temporary overload due to high demand.
Please retry later.

------
vavoida
btw. for those who enjoy ASCII & dialup-sound check
<http://www.masswerk.at/googleBBS/>

------
GnarfGnarf
I worked with cards in the 70's. It was possible to insert & delete columns
when copying, by pressing down on the source or target card respectively,
while duplicating.

We invented the "240-column" card to increase data storage (three 4-bit digits
per column). Our cards looked like lace doilies. ('7' = 0111)

A real programmer measures his worth by how much he can accomplish, with what
little he has. (Cue the penis jokes).

------
dutchbrit
CHANNEL ERROR (VERBOUS) RECEIVED MESSAGE "Quota Exceeded. Please see
<http://code.google.com/apis/websearch>. HUMAN READABLE: "Mountain View, we
have a problem." ADVICE: A quota error indicates a temporary overload due to
high demand. Please retry later.

Sadface :(

Great experience though, props to those who made it!

~~~
joeyhess
It's completely appropriate for an art piece about the limitations of the
1960's mainframe era to end with a demonstration of how little we have
actually progressed.

Brava!

------
maxharris
Watching the tape animation makes me think that these guys have never actually
seen a magnetic tape unit before. At several points, their animation shows the
reels spinning in opposite directions. An actual tape would snap if you could
somehow get the reels to do that.

~~~
masswerk
Having only a limited amount of RAM accessible, you simply had to rewind the
tape drive in order to process data. (E.g., for the UNIVAC I, the first
computer to rely on tape drives, there were the commands 1nm, 3nm to
read/write forward and 2nm and 4nm to read/write backward. That's also what
the seek-command in any file-API is for.) The vacuum columns provided the
extra amount of tape to control the tension and keep the tape from snapping.
In the animation, the exaggerated action of the tension rollers stands for
this functionality of the vacuum columns, which can't be shown in the limited
screen estate.

(In the ambient audio there's a "floop" like sound, probably produced by the
vacuum columns on occasion of a reversal of the direction.)

------
jacquesm
Finally an inside view of a Google DC that I can relate to!

Super stuff! I keep waiting for a red line to appear in the edge to warn me to
change the paper box...

So many little details like the occasionally uneven font. A lot of work went
into this.

------
7beersonthewall
At least you get the response faster than if you were on a 2400 Baud Modem...

------
andyjohnson0
Now on the front page on The Verge

[http://www.theverge.com/2012/12/11/3754042/google60-google-n...](http://www.theverge.com/2012/12/11/3754042/google60-google-
norbert-landsteiner-search-mad-men)

------
wyck
I searched "images" for a generic term and it listed 25,270,000,000 results
and started to print out each one in ascii, I'm going to be here a while.

------
unimpressive
Good on the authors spacewar demo for doing the graphics right. But it's still
missing that charming green phosphorous glow.

------
valisystem
The productivity increase is amazing !

------
tobyjsullivan
Google API quota exceeded (for now). Awesome job though, it's really well
done. Fun.

------
hsmyers
I would have preferred the Model 28 Keypunch if only because it was my first
one :)

------
xyzzyb
This would actually been even cooler to hook into DuckDuckGo's zero click
interface. The machine would be able to respond with actual information for
lots of queries.

Mathematics calculations, topic summaries, definitions, etc.

<https://duckduckgo.com/api.html>

------
andrewcooke
there's something odd about the way the tension rollers move, but i can't work
out what. the way it's shown seems logical, but it _looks_ wrong. anyone know
what's up?

------
65b
Lace card attempt failed

~~~
masswerk
Here you are: <http://www.masswerk.at/google60/?q=*lace>

------
archandele
Wow ! Beautiful !! :-)

------
wildranter
Very cool stuff. But it makes me want another computer with a few more
kilobytes of ram, a z80 inside, and a k7 tape recorder for permanent storage.
:)

