How old are you?

[danny_galaga]

... Xbox Media Center.

In short....you are crazy.

[c64rulez]

13,949

[danny_galaga]

I'm 18 and I wish I was born in the 70's so I could have experienced the arcade glory days.

It's not just the arcade days.

[Harpal]

Hi,

i am 22 at the moment

[danny_galaga]

i cant believe i posted on this thread when i was only 34! how time flies...

Even though I was already 35 at the time, time is flying yes. Whats even worse, I still don't have a cab.

waddaya mean, ya dont have a cab?

http://arcade.laweb.nl/PocketGalaga/

       

[saint]

Roomba doesn't count. Have you owned a Roomba? I own a Roomba. It's cute. It spins around and whirls around the rug. It makes noise and scares the cat.

Then I get out a vacuum cleaner and clean the rug.

--- saint

  Today however it seems like we don't develop new things.  We just keep improving the old things. 

Cell phones (to say that cell phones are just an improvement on the telephone is like saying the telephone wasn't new, but was just an improvement on the telegraph), MP3 players, TIVO, Nano particles, E-ink, Pain rays, DVD, fuel cells, highbrid engines, OLED, LCD, Plasma displays, cloning, viagra, propecia, CCD (digital camera sensor), flash memory, super bright LEDs, artificial limbs that are interfaced to and manipulated by the human brain, Laser eye surgury, WORLD WIDE WEB!!!, search engines, blog, Mars Rover, RFID, Hepititis A & B vaccines (HIV is around the corner),  sequenced the human genome, Roomba, Xbox Media Center.

In short....you are crazy.  I'm just a regular guy.  I'm no chemist or physicist.  If I were I could give you a hundred more amazing examples.

[pointdablame]

Roomba doesn't count. Have you owned a Roomba? I own a Roomba. It's cute. It spins around and whirls around the rug. It makes noise and scares the cat.

Then I get out a vacuum cleaner and clean the rug.

--- saint

 

I'm laughing pretty hard right now... but only because I'm thinking about the roomba sitting in the hall closet... crying its little robotic heart out.

You couldn't be more right Saint.

[shmokes]

Neither of you own a roomba that makes its own way back to the charging station and docks itself when its batteries get low.  I just hit the button on my way out the door and when I get home Roomba's back on the docking station, fully charged.  And when it gets run daily the floors stay perfectly clean.  My upright vacuum gets almost no use whatsoever anymore.

[pointdablame]

Neither of you own a roomba that makes its own way back to the charging station and docks itself when its batteries get low.  I just hit the button on my way out the door and when I get home Roomba's back on the docking station, fully charged.  And when it gets run daily the floors stay perfectly clean.  My upright vacuum gets almost no use whatsoever anymore.

I don't have a problem charging it.  I don't see how a docking station will make it a better vacuum.  Mine is alwasy plugged in or charged, but its still not a good vacuum.  Do you really think a little robot running around your floors for probably HOURS every day is a tech improvement?  I can vacuum my house in 20 mins and I don't need to do it everyday.  Plus the tray on the roomba is so tiny it's next to worthless

Its a great idea... and I actually like the thing. But it isn't a vacuum.

[MikeQ]

I'm 18 and I wish I was born in the 70's so I could have experienced the arcade glory days.

It's not just the arcade days.

[MikeQ]

[shmokes]

They're still inventions.  Of course they were enabled by technological evolution.  The telephone wouldn't have been invented if we hadn't figured out how to conduct electricity on a wire; the car wouldn't have been invented without the internal combustion engine that was small enough to mount in the thing.  But you woudn't say that the car is just an extention of the wheel.

On Roomba, y'all just don't understand the difference having a docking station makes.  It's not that the thing isn't plugged in and charged, but the whole process is more of an ordeal for you.  When run daily Roomba keeps your floors completely clean.  Every day when I get home my floors look like they have just been vacuumed.  I know that I wouldn't run it every day if I had to find Roomba and take it to it's plug and plug it in whenever it was finished.  It's not that I wouldn't go plug it in when I saw it, I just wouldn't unplug it and turn it on every day.  With the docking station I just hit the button on my way out the door; Roomba backs off the docking station, goes to work and when finished drives back onto the docking station.  And I don't see any of it happen.

[M3talhead]

My true age cannot be expressed in your simple human tongue.......

[MikeQ]

They're still inventions.

[saint]

I suspect there's a difference between Roomba revisions as well, mine's an early model, and had to contend with Husky hair until last month....

On Roomba, y'all just don't understand the difference having a docking station makes.  It's not that the thing isn't plugged in and charged, but the whole process is more of an ordeal for you.  When run daily Roomba keeps your floors completely clean.  Every day when I get home my floors look like they have just been vacuumed.  I know that I wouldn't run it every day if I had to find Roomba and take it to it's plug and plug it in whenever it was finished.  It's not that I wouldn't go plug it in when I saw it, I just wouldn't unplug it and turn it on every day.  With the docking station I just hit the button on my way out the door; Roomba backs off the docking station, goes to work and when finished drives back onto the docking station.  And I don't see any of it happen.

[saint]

Yes, but household robotics will, and Roomba is a step down that path. Just as the World Wide Web was an extension of technology developed in the 1940's or so, but didn't come about as we know it today until the 1990's.

I never said they weren't inventions.  They just aren't revolutionary innovations.  They are the same thing rehashed.  Sure the cell phone is just the next step for the telephone but suddenly having the world connected whereever they are without the encumbrance of wires is what makes it revolutionary.  It is the way the devices impact society that make them important and special.  Freekin Roomba isn't going to change the way people work, play, think and enjoy the world.

When I can come home and say.... Roomba, clean the floors, cut the grass, clean the leaves out of the gutter, do my laundry, go to the store and get groceries, walk the dog, do the dishes and wash my car; then Roomba will be a technological innovation because it will free the human race from the menial chores that keep us from spending time with our children, going outside, enjoying life and so on. 

[shmokes]

You're not applying your standards equally across the board.  If the CCD is able to be used as a sensor for digital cameras it's merely a shrunken version of technology already available that allows it to be integrated into a consumer product.  When the fabrication process improved and allowed more complex circuits to be placed in a smaller space the PC was born. But when it's the PC, which is nothing more than a product that was made possible by the shrinkage of existing semiconductor technology, you (rightly) consider it a revolutionary invention.

When talking about impact on society, you've got to be insane to suggest that the cell phone is just an evolution of the telephone.  The cell phone is an evolution of the telephone like a TI-89 calculator is an evolution of the abacus. 

And you may not think Roomba is revolutionary, but that's because you're thinking small.  The first PC's were little more than calculators.  There was no Photoshop, DIVX, MP3, WWW, Google, Nero, Word, Excel, Powerpoint, Oracle, iTunes, Mouse, 3D or even any kind of GUI, Flash, clock speeds measured in megahertz, let alone gigahertz, hard drives (of any size), etc., etc., etc..  It took thirty years for the PC to become the essential do-everything tools in nearly every home in America that they are today.  The first PCs didn't do much and hardly anyone had one.  What you mistakingly dismiss about Roomba is it is the first useful consumer robot ever made.  And if you consider the exponentially increasing pace at which technology physically shrinks but expands capability, it shouldn't take too much imagination to see where Roomba will lead us, just as the PC has.  Consider this:  If the Xbox 360 had been around in 1998, seven years ago, it would have been the fastest super computer on the planet.  Think of that.  The most powerful supercomputer on the planet today that costs tens or hundreds of millions of dollars will literally be a toy in seven years.

I think you've got it backwards.  Revolutionary new inventions are coming at a faster rate than ever before simply because semiconductors are becoming the foundation of our society.  The only time in history that has seen a jump in technology that even comes close to what we're seeing right now is when the world moved into the industrial revolution.  And the industrial age will barely be a blip on the radar compared to the information age.

[MikeQ]

Yes, but household robotics will, and Roomba is a step down that path. Just as the World Wide Web was an extension of technology developed in the 1940's or so, but didn't come about as we know it today until the 1990's.

I never said they weren't inventions.

[finsailor]

I'll be 42 in May. -- DID I WIN -- did I, did I ??

I just finished my cab. I feel like a teenager again.

Where I come from (the northern part of the "old" continent), Arcades first had mechanical pinball machines, then came Asteroids, Space Invaders, Missile command, Pac Man, and others 

Then I got a Commodore 64, with a 5" floppy drive. Waaauu. Had as lot of fun with my brother playing Summer Olympics. Dogfight was awesome. with Pong  it's one of the all time best 2 player vs. games

I have never played Streetfighter style games. I think I was out of the arcades (in a disco probably), when they came around.

[MikeQ]

You're not applying your standards equally across the board.

[Sephroth57]

umm, riiiiight

[saint]

I suppose that's possible, but as far as I know Roomba was the first mass produced, economically feasible to the average consumer, task-oriented robot to be made. Anything else was a non-productive toy (as in, didn't do anything to make the consumer's life easier like cook or clean), or was not reachable to the masses due to economic reasons (too pricey, low availability, etc...). 

And for what it's worth regarding the calculator's vs computers discussion -- if I'm not mistaken, the 6502 series processor used in the C=64 was descended from a chip designed for thermostat control.

Which reminds me of something I found funny - one day while at the Smithsonian, in the computer exhibit, I saw a display on the C= 64 computer that said it was the first computer to use the Intel 8080 chip. I was stunned, but without camera and unfortunately could not find anyone to whom I could point out the error. I had to settle for showing my wife, who was not terribly impressed.

--- saint

Yes, but household robotics will, and Roomba is a step down that path. Just as the World Wide Web was an extension of technology developed in the 1940's or so, but didn't come about as we know it today until the 1990's.

I don't think in 30 years anyone will look back and say Roomba was the birth of home robotics.  I think Asimo will take those honors. 

[mccoy178]

Don't mean to get off topic here, did I mention I was 27?

[Jabba]

So what about bio and nano technology. Little (micro) robots that will be able to navigate your blood stream and fix up problems automaticaly? I think we will see these in our lifetime, and I think they will extend the health of the weathly people. This is simply hyper minuturaization and uses all the same technology available today, but in a totally different way. I think this can be considered technology breakthrough and will definately impact the human species as a whole

[MikeQ]

I suppose that's possible, but as far as I know Roomba was the first mass produced, economically feasible to the average consumer, task-oriented robot to be made. Anything else was a non-productive toy (as in, didn't do anything to make the consumer's life easier like cook or clean), or was not reachable to the masses due to economic reasons (too pricey, low availability, etc...).

[MikeQ]

So what about bio and nano technology. Little (micro) robots that will be able to navigate your blood stream and fix up problems automaticaly? I think we will see these in our lifetime, and I think they will extend the health of the weathly people. This is simply hyper minuturaization and uses all the same technology available today, but in a totally different way. I think this can be considered technology breakthrough and will definately impact the human species as a whole

Did no one see the Star Trek episode on this!!!!!!

[mccoy178]

Hey, don't mean to ruin the thread, but did I mention I was 27?  

I know I'm straying away from the topic of a great thread that has been around awhile and it sucks that I'm really taking it down a road it shouldn't go, but I thought it was important to mention how old I was.  Of course, this is a common theme in the EE forum, so it's okay to continue to ruin this thread.

[saint]

I'm 30...something

[Spaz Monkey]

Turning 35 this year.  First video game system that I owned was the Sears version of the 2600.  Among the first games I got were "Math" and "Spelling".  I was so excited when I found a local KayBee toy store selling Adventure.

I could just spend time just watching guys play video games (still do).  One of the favorite games I played was Tokio (clone of Scramble Formation).  I think that I dropped $5 at once to play it.  Loved Gauntlet (hated that you health went down even when you weren't moving). 

Less than a month ago got an arcade cabinet to play the real MvSF, MvC, and Super Puzzle Fighter.  I will make it so that I can play MAME on it.

[markrvp]

I used to love going to Sears so I could play on the Atari.  I finally got one after begging for it for a year.  Pitfall was my all-time favorite game followed by Yar's Revenge.

[Ed_McCarron]

33.

Old enough to have gotten to the point that stuff that was cool once is cool again.

My wife just picked me up a pair of courderoy pants.  Apparently they are back 'in'.

I immediately had a 5th grade flashback of walking down the hall going 'zwip-zwip-zwip'.

[MikeQ]

No lie.  I dug out my commodore Vic-20 and hooked it up to an old T.V. today.  I had a cartridge game of Pac-Man that I did the graphics for when I was 14.   It was cool.  The game is so bad but it brought back the memories.  I couldn't believe the thing still works.  The plastic on the case is getting yellowed it is so old.  One the that really struck me as funny.  The keyboard on that thing feels awesome compared to a PC keyboard of today.

 I worked (well, mostly hung out) at a commodore dealer  in Ft. Pierce, FL.  I made all the graphics for the maze, ghosts and pac-man by drawing them on graph paper and then converting the drawings to data statements and poking them into memory from basic.  I gave the graphics to the guys and the store and they coded up the game and burned it on an eprom.  They sold the cartridges out of the store.

I was also amazed to turn the thing over and see a "made in U.S.A." sticker on it.  Can't remember the last time I saw one of those.

I

[MajorHavoc]

45

Survivor of academe's attempt to reinvent the wheel.
they called it "New Math".

Remember when cartoons ran on Saturday morning?
Remember the gratuitous violence?

[MikeQ]

Ya, Bugs Bunny and the gang would be jail today with some of the raciest slant of their cartoons.

Has anyone seen the New Bugs Bunny characters.  WB should be shot!

[Buddabing]

Today is my 40th birthday. (1-23-06)

[Bones]

Today is my 40th birthday. (1-23-06)

Wow. The big one.

All the best man.

[markrvp]

Happy Birthday Budda.

[More Cowbell]

Good job growing older, Budda!

[Otraotaku]

17, far back as i cn remember (in terms of videogames), was left over arcades in the early 90's pacman etc, then atari NES and so forth...

[PCtech]

OK, not that I think about it, I feel Old.....I'm 35.

I remember my 1st games, Space Invaders, Pong, and Combat (I feel so Old)

I also remember when Pac-Man 1st came out...at the time it was the rage.

Spent / wasted so many quarters/hours in arcades, but was good times!