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Raw Bytes Computer News KPBX FM 91.1 Radio National Public Radio Network Frank Delaney Producer Broadcast on Wednesday Morning 7:35 AM During Morning Edition Support Public Radio ! The Theater Of the Mind |
In computer news this week 07/08/2009 The Michael Jackson memorial
ceremony reminded me of the evolution of the PC ... I watched
the Michael Jackson memorial ceremony on 2 different entertainment devices. The first
was my cable tv, on a regular tv set, no fancy big screen or fancy sound
speakers. The other was on a big screen device with a fancy sound system, but
this ceremony came through the internet, and I watched it on my Vista
computer with its big screen and fancy speakers. In fact, the audio/visual
signal was several seconds in advance on the regular tv signal, so if I
missed something on my computer I could run into my tv room and hear it
again. When I
saw my first microcomputer in the window of a Radio Shack store in Pullman in
1977, ( Frank Delaney's
History of the Microcomputer Revolution ) I had no idea that it would
evolve into the device that it is today; a combination computer/communications/entertainment
device all in one. Most people
today use their personal computers for their business computing or
accounting; for communications which is email, for their interpersonal
relationships thru social networking sites like Facebook, and more and more
lately as their entertainment device instead of watching television. One of
the most exciting parts of the pc’s evolution into an entertainment
device was the advance of computer graphics capability. The first
pc’s I used had monochrome graphics, which meant you could see crude
blocky pictures on a monochrome screen. Then early color came along, known as
the CGA Color Graphics Adaptor, but this was just several onscreen colors,
again with crude block pictures. The first IBM pc in 1982 gave you a choice
of either. The next
generation around 1984 was EGA, the enhanced graphics adapter, which for the
first time showed pictures in a decent resolution in 64 colors, which made them looked pretty good but not real. The next
generation around 1987 was VGA, the video graphics array, and one of the first pictures I
remember seeing was one of the model Cheryl Tiegs, and she actually looked onscreen
almost as good as she did in real
life.
This was
the start of true high resolution full color graphics on a pc monitor, and
they’ve gotten incredibly better. When I
started my business back in 1987 one of the first things I bought was a
digital camcorder so that I could take pictures and move them over to my
computer, provided I bought all the required graphics cards and converters
and software that was required. And
watching the Michael Jackson memorial ceremony jogged my memory that my
daughters at the time were wild about him, and that I had digitized a picture
of him, by hooking up a VCR of Michael doing Smooth Criminal to my camera, digitizing a single
frame, and then bringing it into my computer. So I dug
through my computer files and found that digitization I had done 20 years
ago, which is included in the transcript of this show on my website and which
I’ll share with any Michael Jackson fans.
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For Raw Bytes This is Frank Delaney (C) 2009 MTA Micro
Technology Associates http://www.mtamicro.com/kpbx.html PO Box 31522 Spokane, Wa 99223-1522 (509)624-7230 |
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