Cathode Ray Dude [CRD]

This is a "quick" (it isn't) review (not really) of a weird object from an unexpected company. The device itself is probably not that remarkable, but the total mystery of its function and its origin from a company that most decidedly does not make this sort of thing adds a lot of flavor. People have noticed the LGBT tape in the background! I made that as a mockup and I'm currently trying to figure out how to get real sleeves manufactured. If you're interested in one whenever that happens, put your email here: https://forms.gle/G1vNU8T5dJDzqXh27

In this video essay, I explain a concept that I believe we all understand, but have never given voice to. Join me as we venture into the fascinating, yet unnecessary.

I found this weird piece of collaboration software history in a Computer Chronicles episode, bought the only extant one on eBay and tore it apart as best I could within reason. Enjoy, and maybe experiment with it yourself if you have any ideas! Disk images: https://archive.org/details/omnishare Computer Chronicles ep: https://archive.org/details/VirtualM

In which I review a shell replacement for Windows 3.x that I had always been curious about but never tried. I think it's pretty good. Enjoy! Support my channel: https://patreon.com/cathoderaydude https://ko-fi.com/cathoderaydude 00:00 History 01:56 Intro to Norton Desktop 03:14 Windows UI overview 08:15 Norton Desktop UI overview 10:35 Features 20:19 Dialog enhancements 22:55 Bundled software 25:53 Scriptmaker 27:32 Scope creep & issues 32:14 Conclusion 33:49 Outro

Almost every PC you've ever used was capable of sending and receiving faxes, it put the feature right in front of you, and you didn't look at it because fax is the most boring subject on this entire planet. This video was made at the beginning of February for what was going to be Fax February, but then February was a disaster for me and disrupted my life in many ways, so I've decided it's Fax February indefinitely. I consulted nobody on this and will accept no arguments to the contrary. A footnote: It seems that fax functionality disappeared between 95 and XP. I didn't realize this while shooting, so that's a misstatement; I checked in 98, ME and 2000 and could not find it. Still, that only covers five out of 25 years, and a lot of people watching this weren't around for any of those OSes.

I've seen at least ten thousand videos about videotape and a thousand about discs but I've never seen a single mention of disc-based video recording in my life. Here's all the mentioning you'll ever need on the subject. Chapters: 00:00 Intro 00:17 Problems with Videotape 07:14 The Digital Option 08:49 Into The Digital Millenium 12:43 Disc Camcorders: A New Hope 14:23 Form Factor Musical Chairs 15:56 Media Handling! (AKA Caddyshack) 27:29 DVD Functions 27:39 Video Test 29:01 Still Photography?? 30:23 Disc Friends With Disc Benefits 33:03 Watchin' Discs On The Teevee 35:16 The Finalization Countdown 42:13 Dreaded Simulacra (Power Cords) 43:36 Disc Camcorders: The Downsides 46:49 DVD Bitrates 48:04 DVD Codec Video Tests 50:00 DVD-RAM!!!!!!!!! 55:54 Apologies To Caddies 56:43 The Blu-Ray Factor 58:05 Blu-Ray Video Tests 1:03:27 2010 DVD Camera Reveal 1:05:46 2010 DVD Camera Video Tests 1:07:47 CD Camcorders / VideoCD 1:10:32 CD Mavica 1:13:13 Professional Discs? 1:15:28 Yes! Professional

I got this keyboard from a friend but I don't know what condition it was in when they got it. It's certainly had A Life, but that's just how it is with keyboards. Yes, I am aware I transposed the M and N. I have reassembled literally hundreds of keyboards in my life and never needed a reference; this is the first time I've swapped keys in at least a decade. I am shame. I shot this on a new camera, so there's a few weird things going on! I think I accidentally enabled the image stabilizer on my lens, which produced a continuous whirring noise I had to EQ out, and is also, I think, responsible for the slow lateral drift in a bunch of shots?? I have no idea how that works, but it's all I can think of. Also, because it has a much larger sensor, I'm still getting used to focusing correctly, so a lot of shots are soft.

I finally got one of my white whales, but before I can do much with it, it just needs some spit and polish. Here's that. By the way, I realize I forgot to answer the pending question "how did I finally get one of these": I bought it. On eBay. I waited until one showed up and placed a bid. I have my patrons to thank for throwing in the cash I needed to get this thing - thank you! The Dell drive is an FDDM-101. That model number might be used on several designs, so here are some other figures: P/N 7T761-A01 / 243-560390-101-0. If you find something that matches all of those you should be OK for sure, but any FDDM-101 is probably fine as long as it has the USB port.

In this project (which you should not attempt unless you've learned from someone better than me how to do it safely) I take the gentlest practical approach to juicing up an old camcorder. As with all my workbench videos, "don't do it like this"

In which I snarkily assess an incredibly expensive camcorder of yore. I'll admit I might have been a bit harsh on it, but even if it's better than I give it credit for, I still think JVC's motives here were not what they should have been. Reuploaded with 40% less "unblurred Kennedy assassination"! Whoops on that first go-round. Special note! I bought a new camera and I am very much still getting used to it. It took me three days to color grade this into something resembling consistency, and it's still all over the place. I'll get better in the future, especially with new glass - I shot this on a Canon kit lens and an adapted off-brand F-mount that I just, you know, had around.

I asked my patrons for some questions and they delivered. In response, I talked pure nonsense for an hour. Enjoy!

Hello! Thank you for joining! Today I'm streaming for twelve hours, because I need some extra funds to finish setting up my new studio, and I'm hoping half a day of Live Content is a fair trade. My funding goal is $2500; that covers a new video editing workstation (M1 Mac Mini, this ain't a gaming rig), monitors and hard drives for it, a desk to put it on, and possibly a couple extra bits and pieces of production gear. If I should happen to pass that goal, anything else will go into paying down all the loans I took out. All of this will make it much easier to get back into the groove of Content Creation. If you don't have anything to contribute, that's no problem - I enjoy streaming for it's own sake, so feel free to hang out and watch. I'll mostly be playing and talking about games, although depending on how much I get and how fast, I may have some secret bonuses planned.

It's been So, So Long since I did one of these, but the stars lined up. Enjoy!

14 years before the first camcorder hit the market, Sony put out a machine that promised to be everything the camcorder would be. It wasn't.

AT&T made a modem 60 years ago that the market absolutely refused to stop buying to this day. It's incredibly simple, and there's a good chance you've actually heard it's data format before.

I watched a Charlie Sheen movie and accidentally rediscovered a three-year saga of failed products that I think nobody other than me is aware ever existed. Watch the whole video before you go to eBay, trust me.

I travel hither and yon to bring you the crunchiest images of the most in-between HD video format. I was so thrilled to actually get this working, you have no idea. Don't take the videos of the screen itself all that literally - CRTs are notoriously hard to record, and like I said, pixel peeping flies in the face of this whole format. To the naked eye the output looks simply outstanding, and I didn't find out how it "really" looked until I was editing the closeups. As I said in the video, if you have any WVHS tapes, I would love to borrow them to rip now that I have a working process. Metamorphosis: https://youtu.be/YW26YMe8iUQ Thanks to Techmoan for permission to use a bunch of clips from his videos!

I've been wanting to make a video about this camera for years. Now that I have one, I spent the entire time insulting it. Went to plan. VWestlife's video (used with permission): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PZbA0... The model number for the Hi8 version is a little unclear - in Japan it appears to be the VL-HX1, in the US I believe it was the VL-HX10, but I may be wrong. Info on these is thin.

Here's a piece of video history that is not well remembered for very good reasons. It's astounding how much effort Hitachi put into this for what they got out of it - but I speculate in this video as to why that was. If anyone has an M2, get in touch! Would love to compare it. (This video has audio issues due to air conditioning noise I couldn't fully eliminate, and several voiceovers I was forced into due to factual errors. Sorry!)

I stumbled on this mouse a while back and have been trying to figure out exactly how it works for a while. I think I worked it out, so here are my guesses, plus some elaboration about how conventional mice work

I hit a triple whammy on eBay two weeks ago: (1) I accidentally won an auction, (2) for an item I'd wanted for years, (3) with a remarkable life story and the credentials to prove it. This video is me being completely self-indulgent with my particular variety of nerdery, and I appreciate your understanding as we go on this journey together. The complete chopper tape: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9_vunI7SWSs

In 1999, Sony released a product that makes vaporwave look as 90s as a vinyl flowered couch: The DCM-M1, a camcorder that takes minidiscs. Not only is it a fever dream of 1990s consumer electronics, it was also really, really well designed, and nearly led us to a future where video cameras do far more than just shoot video - but of course, neither of us would be here, creating or watching this, if they had succeeded. Watch to find out what they did right, and where they went wrong. Before you comment: I realize that I asserted that the Minidisc was as common as the ipod in 2003. That's probably not accurate, but there are SO MANY of these things on the ground in the US that I *cannot* accept that they weren't standard-issue for the upper middle class in their day; so it was probably more like iPod ownership in 2001.

When I made my video about the Q500 mouse, I thought it was basically the only one of its type in the world - until I saw the one LGR had. And then he sent me a picture of the inside, and suddenly the Q500 looked unique again. And then he sent me the one he had, and I opened it up, and... well, maybe my mouse isn't so unique after all. Here's my best shot at a technical analysis of the LMOX2, and also a few corrections.

This is a PC you're going to see in future videos, and since my studio is in pieces right now, here's a look at it that I shot a week ago. In re the "intel propaganda" bit: I initially read an article that seemed to state that DDR was not yet available in 2000, and wrote my script around that. The actual truth seems to be that DDR was available two years earlier and AMD used it on their contemporary CPUs with no problems, but Intel claimed it wasn't ready for primetime as justification for sticking with rambus. The truth is anyone's guess.

Q: Where was season 2, then? A: Season 2 began when I started putting in actual effort, in about December 2019. Q: When will season 3 end? A: Never.

How did a company in the mid 2000s figure out how to cut the cost of computing six times over, and why haven't any of us heard of it? How did they work around Microsoft's legal limitations? Can it run Crysis? I found this product for $4.95 at the local junk store and, as usual, it caused me to discover an entire universe of capabilities I'd always wanted but believed were impossible. As a result, I spent three weeks figuring out how to demo it in a way that would communicate the scale of the whole thing, hence the extreme length of this video. One style comment I would like to make: I realize that during a couple sequences you can't make out the details on the monitor unless you're on a full desktop screen. I could not find a graceful way to solve this problem, and I felt that my narration was sufficient to fill the gap. Chapters: 00:00 The Plateau 05:05 The Problem 09:45 The Solution 14:17 The Demo (Apps) 20:36 The Demo (Games) 25:11 The Jank 33:35 The Hardware 40:19 The Software /

For over 20 years I've been walking around thinking about these two game demos that freaked me out as a kid. Neither made sense; it turns out that's because they were incomplete. This is just some ruminations on the subject.

Remember ball mice? Remember how much they sucked? Yeah, me neither. Remarkably reliable, they were - but see, that's 'cause none of us tried to use the coolant basin on our mill as a mousepad. For the few and proud who like their mousing sloppy, there's a solution from the forgotten depths of the 80s. Read on to find out what that could mean.

How long has it been since my last "Weird Stuff Exhibition"? Two years, three? Anyway, I have a lot of weird stuff, here's some of it. This was originally gonna be a patron only video but I liked it too much to not make it public. I posted a short after I shot this video which I just called "the cold heat never worked" and have since said in another unpublished video that the thing isn't worth buying, but that doesn't really contradict my point in this one that I'd rather have it than nothing. Sorry about the shake, as well as the downward camera drift - my gopro mount (as you'll see) was literally a rolled over piece of gaff tape stuck to a hunk of cardboard and it started losing tack partway through. Fortunately I'm wearing a great Jeff Rosenstock shirt, and you can still see the subject matter. Just drag the window halfway down off your monitor, problem solved.

The last year of growth for my channel has been unbelievable, and I wanted to do something to commemorate hitting 50,000 subscribers... which I totally missed, so here we are months late! In addition to responding to many of your Thought Prompts, I also did a quick tour of my new studio space that everyone on Patreon made possible. Please refer to the chapter list to find that. Thank you all so much for continuing to watch my stuff. I hope that in the coming year I will push my output above and beyond anything I've done before, but it's been reassuring to know that I don't have to maintain perfect consistency and keep running on the treadmill as fast as I can just to keep from losing what I've built. I think I wish now that I had written out my answers ahead of time, since a number of them I had to cut when I played them back later and heard just gibberish coming out of my mouth, and a number of the remaining ones I feel I could have served better. For the record, my dream car does

I have opened up a fair number of Objects before and almost never found another Whole Object inside like this. Ryobi! What are you doing! The title of this video describes the primary punchline, but it's also just an overview of the whole tool's build quality, which I think is worth your time! Ryobi did some wild stuff here! If you just wanna see the Big Reveal it's at 29:17. Since posting this to Patreon I've been informed that the iron body is made of PBT (don't see that too often in tools) and the part I thought was fiber reinforced nylon is actually something called "liquid crystal polymer," a high-spec engineering plastic that I think I recognize from some little SCSI connector bodies. I'm sure neither of these materials are THAT special, but in a consumer tool they seem pretty exotic. Additionally, I thought it was interesting that the lamp chassis is PC+ABS+FR(40), so it contains flame retardant. It feels weird that the iron, which is meant to get very hot, does not have this