I brought a camera to WAMP last year. The resulting pictures are very underwhelming. But because I was there and my brain has experiences and memories connected to them, I deem them worthy of being here. These are close-up shots of things lying around and stuff but not people. There is a separate entry with macro shots of things lying around and stuff but not people.
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I brought a camera to WAMP last year. The resulting pictures are very underwhelming. But because I was there and my brain has experiences and memories connected to them, I deem them worthy of being here. These are macro shots of things lying around and stuff but not people. There is a separate entry with close-up shots of things lying around and stuff but not people.
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As a child I used to play with old PCs, take them apart, assemble different parts to new PCs, etc. One day when I was 12 I was carrying a 486 Desktop PC to a friend's house, who lived in a different part of the town. On my way there a man stopped me and asked me if I'm interested in computers. He told me he has lots of computers and computer parts at home and I could look at them, pick anything I wanted and take it home to keep. I just had to come home with him and I'd get all the computer parts I wanted. Sadly I couldn't, because my freidn was waiting for me and expected me to bring the 486. So the man gave me his phone number and told me to definitely call because he would soon have to through away good comuter parts if I wouldn't take them.
Back at home I told my mother about the man. For some reason she thought that it was a strange thing to stop a child in the street for and that I shouldn't call him. I replied "He's liek 80 or 90 or something and he said he has to throw the stuff away if I don't take it." I'm not entirely sure whether it was more the age esitmation or my fear of good tech getting thrown away that let her give him a chance to explain himself. So, I called him, took a train to his house and you may guess what happened there, or continue reading, or both.
He lead me to his basement. It was huge. It seemed larger than the already large house. And every single room of it, including the hall in the center, was filled with PCBs, monitors, PCs, racks, more PCBs and cards, software packages (those thick ring binders with manual, diskettes and sometimes printed source code or other notes ticked in an even thicker cardboard box), ICs and other small parts in transparent boxes, empty boards and all the chemicals needed to make your own PCBs, some unfinished projects, home-grown microcomouters, printers, cables, and so on. A retro computer fan's paradise! He was in my home town because he visited a medical specialist. I'm guessing that he knew or suspected that he didn't have much time to get his hobby stuff into the hands of somebody who'd appreciate it. The latter was certainly his goal and did appreciate the tech, which seemed to make him very happy. But I only realised many years later how much more there would have been to appreciate. Back then I wasn't interested in ISA memory extension cards. They were slow and small compared to even SIMM modules. I didn't care for his software collection at all. And I didn't see what I couldn't have done with a custom build computer for which no software existed except what you write yourself. I had no use for his chemical laboratory, hard disks with less than 100 MB of space or electronic parts like logic gates. An 8086 PC was just a worthless piece of too slow hardware to get any fun out of it. I used an MFM drive solely to open it up and take it apart to see how they built these things.
Recently I was thinking, that old man met me too early. My interest in computers was not developed enough at the time. But he did die soon after I visited his house. So for getting some of his computer stuff to somebody who'll at least do something with it before it gets thrown out it was just the right time. I didn't know him, just met him once after his suspicious chat-up. But his wife actually thanked me after he had died. So maybe I didn't come across as greedy or too selfish.
To the extent possible under law,
steeph
has waived all copyright and related or neighboring rights to this work.
Just a photo of 3mm LEDS that I took a while a go. I like it for it's simple techness, rainbowness, high resolution and general look (glow).
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Some people say things like: Phones should have bigger batteries, I don't care how thick it is. Or: Why aren't there any smartphones with screens smaller than 5 inches anymore? Or: There used to be a wider variety of phones; I'm missing keyboard phones/rugged phones/phones without a bunch of bloatware/etc. I think it is a very small group of people who feel like this strongly enough to say it. But I keep stumbling over such comments and I notice them because I have sometimes felt the same. And there's some truth about some of it. The most popular phones are all large and thin with privacy-invading bloatware that you can't uninstall and often with other malware pre-installed. They don't have keys on the front and you can't simply switch out the battery. But there is a bigger variaty of phones than there has ever bean. If you're missing a certain feature in your phone and can't find one that has it, you probably haven't looked far or long enough. I'd just like to mention a few manufacturers of not entirely mainstream phones and then maybe I'll make individual entries about some of them later with more information.
Keyboard phones
Notable options are:
F(x)tec: Flips open, keyboard in the style of late Nokia keyboard smartphones, best for thumb-typing, currently the first version is only available used and the newer version is currently shipping to Indiegogo backers. So it should be available without a long wait from the web shop soon.
Planet Computers: Different variants available, older ones are clam-shell, the latest is trying a new mechanism that leaves the touchscreen on the outside and usable when the physical keyboard is closed. Keyboard in Psion Series 5 style, best for table typing.
Unihertz: Clones of late Blackberry keyboard phones, screen above keyboard, for thumb-typing.
A used phone. Because you can still get a blackberry if you like. A few weeks or months from now you probably wouldn't be able to tell the difference between you almost new one and a refurbished one anyway. It's cheaper, you have more devices to choose from and it's better for the environment (whatever your definition of that may be). Did I miss or forget an option?
Phones with small screens
Uniherts also has started to fill this gap. Or you can get an older phone, maybe a used one. A few weeks or months from now you probably wouldn't be able to tell the difference between you almost new one and a refurbished one anyway. It's cheaper, you have more devices to choose from and it's better for the environment (whatever your definition of that may be). Did I miss or forget an option?
Phones with large batteries
If that's your one important requirement, you have many cheap phones that claim to have batteries with around 10 Ah (yes, 10.000 mAh if you prefer to see read more zeros) to choose from. Some manufacturers that I don't know anything about are: Yess, Gionee, Blackview, Ulefone. Ulefone seems to have several current models to choose from and I know somebody who is happy with theirs, whatever that tells you. I'm sure there are more brands of phones with giant batteries. But I'm personally happy with the 2 to 3 days I get out of my regular phone. I only complained about this when phones would at most last for one day without getting charged. If you're content with a battery with a capacity of around 6 or 7 Ah, you have even more to choose from and that range has actually started to enter the mainstream phone market (Huawei, Samsung, Asus, ZTE, …). You'll easily find some if you look for them. But many still don't think of searching for one. I guess this has been more of an issue 10 years ago, where phones needed more power to come through a day while at the same time no smartphones with big batteries existed. Getting an external battery that clips to the back of your phone has been more of a thing back then. That's still an option if such a product exist for your phone or you really love duct tape.
Headphone jacks, removable batteries, hardware buttons below the screen, ...
How about getting a used phone. A few weeks or months from now you probably wouldn't be able to tell the difference between you almost new one and a refurbished one anyway. It's cheaper, you have more devices to choose from and it's better for the environment (whatever your definition of that may be). Or at least I read that somewhere a few minutes ago. There are new phones with current hardware that haven't given up on these concepts. But none that I care to mention and the choice of phones with current hardware and easily removable batteries or hardware more than one hardware button below the screen doesn't appear to be good. Did I miss one?
But what about software? Security updates, free software, Google-less Android, privacy-respecting operating systems
Well, it would certainly make choosing and setting up a phone easier if you don't care about those things. But the FOSS community is producing images for many phones that otherwise would only run an Android built by the manufacture or carrier with all the usual insults like bloatware, pre-installed malware and other privacy-invading components. Using an older smartphone (maybe not a Nokia Communicator/Nokia 9xxx, but like maybe 10 years old) with current free software is certainly an option.
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