Well lately iv been thinking abut the portrayal of technology in gaming and the way it can affect the feel of the universe in question.
Which lead to the idea of using outdated tech concepts to add flavor,so I'm wondering has any one actuly done this ?
Now i do under stand this is likely more applicable to some groups more then others.
Examples include but not limited to.
Bernoulli Box
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TpqiahBKX7w
WORM Disk Drives
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zdwI4l34AFM
Zip Drives
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iAHv5GUE9-s
Jaz Drive
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rsk4c6xdgJU

Sorry if my geek is showing.

Good idea! I know I once saw a picture of a 5 Mb hard drive being wheeled onto a truck in 1956. Here it is:



Then there's this IBM model 350 from 1956. It weighed two tons and held a whopping... 3.75 Mb...



You can find more on the evolution of hard drives here - including some pretty interesting pics of the tech.

There's also this design project that was floating around the web a few years ago - Alt1977. Basically takes a lot of the modern tech we take for granted today and merges it with the retro style of the mid to late 70s.

I still laugh at something one of my mass comm professors griped about in the early and mid 1990s - he always had this terrible hatred of fax machines, which he claimed were an unholy anachronism in communications tech in light of the popularity of the Internet and fledgling Netscape web browser.

Another idea that sticks in the back of my head is a light-based telegraph that appeared in the old Disney Gummi Bears cartoon. It was operated kind of like a telegraph and the message output was handled by a mechanical arm and hand which wrote on paper. There's really a lot you can come up with if you throw out conventional Earth thinking and try to look at it from another species' (or human offshoot's) point of view.

Later!

Harl

I thought the thread was about adding a huge clocks to the settings.

Quote from: Harl Quinn;923775Good idea! I know I once saw a picture of a 5 Mb hard drive being wheeled onto a truck in 1956. Here it is:



Then there's this IBM model 350 from 1956. It weighed two tons and held a whopping... 3.75 Mb...



You can find more on the evolution of hard drives here - including some pretty interesting pics of the tech.

There's also this design project that was floating around the web a few years ago - Alt1977. Basically takes a lot of the modern tech we take for granted today and merges it with the retro style of the mid to late 70s.

I still laugh at something one of my mass comm professors griped about in the early and mid 1990s - he always had this terrible hatred of fax machines, which he claimed were an unholy anachronism in communications tech in light of the popularity of the Internet and fledgling Netscape web browser.

Another idea that sticks in the back of my head is a light-based telegraph that appeared in the old Disney Gummi Bears cartoon. It was operated kind of like a telegraph and the message output was handled by a mechanical arm and hand which wrote on paper. There's really a lot you can come up with if you throw out conventional Earth thinking and try to look at it from another species' (or human offshoot's) point of view.

Later!

Harl

Cool post reminds me of a show (i cant remember the name of) where they never developed the video screen for computers save for 1 ship they all use the old print read outs.
Ill need to look at that link of yours in more detail when i have time looks cool.

Quote from: kosmos1214;923765Well lately iv been thinking abut the portrayal of technology in gaming and the way it can affect the feel of the universe in question.
Which lead to the idea of using outdated tech concepts to add flavor,so I'm wondering has any one actuly done this ?

I play Traveller. So, Yes. All the time.

Quote from: kosmos1214;923765Which lead to the idea of using outdated tech concepts to add flavor,so I'm wondering has any one actuly done this ?

Every game ever that isn't set in the modern day. Most fantasy games feature ancient, medieval, and renaissance technology extensively.

Quote from: Shawn Driscoll;924140I play Traveller. So, Yes. All the time.

Low tech planets right?

Quote from: Xúc xắc;924146Every game ever that isn't set in the modern day. Most fantasy games feature ancient, medieval, and renaissance technology extensively.

True though that's not fully what i mean. Take for example Harl Quinn's post with the retro design link, as they are a good example of what I'm getting at.
Another example comes from the original star trek where all the external data storage was on tape.
What if ideas are also part of what I'm getting at here. For example what if we had never developed processors with more then an 8 bit data path? Think of how much that would affect the development of computers,and there use.
Another one that comes to mind is what if we had never gotten the size of hard drives down so they where still all closet sized.
Even little changes can have a big impact over a few decades.

Quote from: kosmos1214;924390Low tech planets right?

More like all the tech. Classic Traveller is inherently retro because it reflects a vision of the future seen through funky 70's shades. Silent Running meets Dark Star meets Space 1999.

I'd recommend all of those, btw, for their cool, clunky tech designs alone.

Oh cool kinda like how 90% of 80s sci-fi runs on super 8bit computers.
Ill need  to pick up a copy if only fr the info to steal.

Those things weren't retro at the time. That was cutting edge in the 70s. In the future, prior will probably look at the touchscreens in our current sci-fi and think it's quaint that we thought people in the future would be constantly fondling computers with their hands.

Quote from: Xúc xắc;924405Those things weren't retro at the time. That was cutting edge in the 70s. In the future, prior will probably look at the touchscreens in our current sci-fi and think it's quaint that we thought people in the future would be constantly fondling computers with their hands.

Yes but that doesn't change the fact they are now. Nor does it change the ability to use them in gaming today.

In the future, people will think it's funny we needed screens.