1 00:00:09,876 --> 00:00:10,543 Welcome to 2 00:00:10,543 --> 00:00:14,214 User Friendly 2.0 with host Bill Sikkens, 3 00:00:14,280 --> 00:00:17,250 Technology architect. 4 00:00:21,988 --> 00:00:24,090 And this is User Friendly 2.0. 5 00:00:24,090 --> 00:00:24,557 Welcome. 6 00:00:24,557 --> 00:00:26,059 Welcome to this week's show. Bill. 7 00:00:26,059 --> 00:00:29,396 Gretchen. Welcome, blue. Hello there. 8 00:00:29,462 --> 00:00:31,865 So we sort of got to go to the Oregon Air Show. 9 00:00:31,865 --> 00:00:32,866 We're going to be talking about that 10 00:00:32,866 --> 00:00:35,902 a little bit in a news item that's coming up this week. 11 00:00:36,136 --> 00:00:37,070 And our second segment 12 00:00:37,070 --> 00:00:40,073 this week is some programing that you have been asking questions for. 13 00:00:40,106 --> 00:00:41,841 We're going to be covering 14 00:00:41,841 --> 00:00:46,146 video game consoles specifically some that have failed and why over the years. 15 00:00:46,146 --> 00:00:48,481 So that's coming up in our second segment. 16 00:00:48,481 --> 00:00:51,384 So with no further ado, let's jump into the news. 17 00:00:51,384 --> 00:00:53,019 What do we have this week? 18 00:00:53,019 --> 00:00:53,953 All right. 19 00:00:53,953 --> 00:00:56,956 Our graphic card rentals a thing. 20 00:00:57,190 --> 00:00:59,159 You know, this is a question that's been coming in. 21 00:00:59,159 --> 00:01:02,028 And the thing of it is is I don't know Bill. 22 00:01:02,028 --> 00:01:04,798 How much is a average graphic a good gaming graphics card. 23 00:01:04,798 --> 00:01:06,900 Now it's still a couple grand, right? 24 00:01:06,900 --> 00:01:09,502 Yeah, easily. 25 00:01:09,502 --> 00:01:13,873 So the idea of running graphic cards kind of makes sense. 26 00:01:14,541 --> 00:01:17,811 So if you're buying a computer, the graphics card can cost 27 00:01:17,811 --> 00:01:18,978 more than the system itself. 28 00:01:18,978 --> 00:01:21,981 So what we're talking about here, for anybody that's not into gaming 29 00:01:21,981 --> 00:01:23,349 or hasn't heard of this, is 30 00:01:23,349 --> 00:01:27,554 when you have a have a computer, modern computer, one of the components that's in 31 00:01:27,554 --> 00:01:31,357 it is a separate processor that does your video. 32 00:01:31,357 --> 00:01:32,892 And this has been done for a while. 33 00:01:32,892 --> 00:01:34,794 This is not new technology or anything like it, 34 00:01:34,794 --> 00:01:39,499 the idea being that it's taking the load of doing video off of the main processor 35 00:01:39,499 --> 00:01:43,303 and setting up in a way that you can get a lot more out of it 36 00:01:43,303 --> 00:01:44,971 because it's its own thing. 37 00:01:44,971 --> 00:01:49,943 So the quality of this additional device, this additional graphics processor, 38 00:01:50,110 --> 00:01:53,513 allows for the computer to do more or less, depending on what it is. 39 00:01:53,513 --> 00:01:54,314 So if you have a machine 40 00:01:54,314 --> 00:01:57,450 that you're just using what most people do or you're browsing the web, 41 00:01:57,450 --> 00:02:00,954 sending emails, writing word processing documents, that kind of thing, 42 00:02:01,254 --> 00:02:02,922 you have a situation 43 00:02:02,922 --> 00:02:06,159 where you don't really need that expensive of a graphic card to carry all that out. 44 00:02:06,192 --> 00:02:09,195 Most of the ones on the market now will handle your windows, 45 00:02:09,195 --> 00:02:11,097 whether it's a PC or Mac, 46 00:02:11,097 --> 00:02:14,200 drawing out the screens, doing all that kind of stuff in a fast, timely way. 47 00:02:14,234 --> 00:02:15,468 That's pretty normal. 48 00:02:15,468 --> 00:02:19,873 But gamers require additional hardware. 49 00:02:19,873 --> 00:02:21,941 And Bill, you know a little bit more about that. 50 00:02:21,941 --> 00:02:23,576 Can you talk polygons and a little bit 51 00:02:23,576 --> 00:02:27,714 of what a game graphic card does that differs from standard graphics? 52 00:02:28,715 --> 00:02:32,619 Well, it also does physics, so it does math. 53 00:02:33,119 --> 00:02:37,357 It also does, like you said, rendering for polygons, 54 00:02:37,357 --> 00:02:42,595 which by today's standards are huge numbers. 55 00:02:44,330 --> 00:02:47,000 And to some degree I understand that the new video cards 56 00:02:47,000 --> 00:02:50,003 also handle AI. 57 00:02:50,570 --> 00:02:52,539 Yeah, that's a that's an upcoming thing. 58 00:02:52,539 --> 00:02:54,340 That's that's been in there. 59 00:02:54,340 --> 00:02:56,943 And so what you're dealing with is powerful computer 60 00:02:56,943 --> 00:02:59,546 hardware and powerful computer hardware costs money. 61 00:02:59,546 --> 00:03:01,147 It's kind of what it comes down to. 62 00:03:01,147 --> 00:03:03,016 And Bill, you've touched upon AI. 63 00:03:03,016 --> 00:03:07,587 One of the other things is graphic cards in of themselves are repurposed. 64 00:03:07,587 --> 00:03:11,658 And sometimes the train AI models, and also for things like Bitcoin mining. 65 00:03:11,658 --> 00:03:15,161 So that's also been running prices up to because of supply and demand. 66 00:03:15,261 --> 00:03:18,431 So when you're talking about something that's two grand or more, 67 00:03:19,299 --> 00:03:21,868 the idea of renting, that kind of makes sense. 68 00:03:21,868 --> 00:03:25,171 But then I'm thinking is, well, if I rented a graphic card and paid, 69 00:03:25,238 --> 00:03:27,440 you know, for a certain amount of time on it, 70 00:03:28,441 --> 00:03:31,177 you know, and got this thing, and what happens if you don't send it back? 71 00:03:31,177 --> 00:03:32,312 You've got a huge thing. 72 00:03:32,312 --> 00:03:34,614 Well, that's not what this actually is. 73 00:03:34,614 --> 00:03:38,518 Companies are renting out GPO compute time, 74 00:03:38,785 --> 00:03:41,621 not sending you the card in the mail, 75 00:03:41,621 --> 00:03:45,158 which means you're renting time on a server somewhere to be able 76 00:03:45,158 --> 00:03:49,162 to use the graphic capability on that machine in a timeshare. 77 00:03:51,331 --> 00:03:53,299 Yeah. 78 00:03:53,299 --> 00:03:54,334 How does that work? 79 00:03:54,334 --> 00:03:57,337 Wouldn't you have some lag time from. 80 00:03:59,472 --> 00:04:00,907 Yes. Yeah. 81 00:04:00,907 --> 00:04:03,676 Okay. You understand what I'm getting at? Because you have. 82 00:04:03,676 --> 00:04:03,843 Yeah. 83 00:04:03,843 --> 00:04:05,078 No, that definitely is a claim 84 00:04:05,078 --> 00:04:07,680 because you'd be receiving the video feed remotely and stuff. 85 00:04:07,680 --> 00:04:10,750 However, with higher speed internet connections and things, that's 86 00:04:10,750 --> 00:04:11,451 becoming minimal. 87 00:04:11,451 --> 00:04:14,454 It's not gone by any stretch of the imagination, but 88 00:04:14,454 --> 00:04:17,457 it's suitable enough that in certain situations it's worth doing. 89 00:04:17,457 --> 00:04:19,058 So you connect the server over the internet 90 00:04:19,058 --> 00:04:21,160 and you pay for access by the second minute, or our, 91 00:04:21,160 --> 00:04:22,629 depending on what you're doing. 92 00:04:22,629 --> 00:04:26,065 Some of the companies that are doing this or companies like run, podcast, 93 00:04:26,332 --> 00:04:30,336 AI, code, weave and others that provide the service. 94 00:04:30,503 --> 00:04:34,540 And so you would go out and basically pay for this time share. 95 00:04:34,641 --> 00:04:39,212 And again, what's really pushing the price up of these things is AI, 96 00:04:39,612 --> 00:04:43,549 because it's taking the hardware that would normally be used in this way 97 00:04:43,549 --> 00:04:45,785 and using it for another purpose with companies that have 98 00:04:45,785 --> 00:04:48,855 sometimes unlimited budgets so they buy up the stock. 99 00:04:49,022 --> 00:04:53,059 Not that the graphic cards would be cheap anyway, but it just is a thing. 100 00:04:53,059 --> 00:04:56,162 And then the other place, Bill, you were talking about some of the applications. 101 00:04:56,296 --> 00:05:01,901 We're also seeing this in things like physics labs and those kind of areas 102 00:05:01,901 --> 00:05:05,038 where they have 3D rendering, computational computing 103 00:05:05,038 --> 00:05:08,541 of that nature, putting together designs. 104 00:05:08,708 --> 00:05:09,509 Gretchen and area 105 00:05:09,509 --> 00:05:12,779 you worked with AutoCAD that uses a lot of these hiring cards too. 106 00:05:12,812 --> 00:05:15,515 So you have a thing where you supply and demand. 107 00:05:15,515 --> 00:05:18,418 So that's what's going on here. 108 00:05:18,418 --> 00:05:24,023 So you know the highest in graphic cards by the way can run 20,000 plus. 109 00:05:24,023 --> 00:05:27,193 So it's not just yeah. And 110 00:05:28,294 --> 00:05:29,762 consumer oriented cards 111 00:05:29,762 --> 00:05:32,732 which are like your Raytheon RTX 3990. 112 00:05:32,799 --> 00:05:36,903 Those kind of numbers, those go for about $0.69 an hour. 113 00:05:38,171 --> 00:05:41,307 So it gives you an idea of what is going on with all of that 114 00:05:41,307 --> 00:05:42,275 and where this goes. 115 00:05:42,275 --> 00:05:48,147 So if you need a GPU for only 20 hours, it makes sense to maybe do it this way. 116 00:05:48,147 --> 00:05:50,983 And it's not necessarily for gaming, but it could be. 117 00:05:50,983 --> 00:05:55,355 So, you know, there's even an Airbnb ish version of this. 118 00:05:56,122 --> 00:05:59,092 This is vast AI's model. And 119 00:05:59,826 --> 00:06:02,662 you, they make the machines available so different 120 00:06:02,662 --> 00:06:05,798 operators can do it, and then customers can rent out the capacity. 121 00:06:05,798 --> 00:06:08,634 So in other words, it'd be like the three of us would put up a server 122 00:06:08,634 --> 00:06:10,403 with one of these monster cards and pay for it. 123 00:06:10,403 --> 00:06:13,172 And then we would go through this company where they would have customers 124 00:06:13,172 --> 00:06:16,776 that would rent time on our systems, kind of like an Airbnb. 125 00:06:17,310 --> 00:06:18,010 Okay. 126 00:06:19,212 --> 00:06:19,679 Weird. 127 00:06:19,679 --> 00:06:22,081 Okay. 128 00:06:22,081 --> 00:06:25,785 Used booksellers are racking up huge sales. 129 00:06:26,719 --> 00:06:29,222 Yeah. And, you know, 130 00:06:29,222 --> 00:06:31,591 I was looking at this too, and it's kind of interesting. 131 00:06:31,591 --> 00:06:32,425 And it wasn't because I 132 00:06:32,425 --> 00:06:34,227 somehow knew about this, but I've been going through 133 00:06:34,227 --> 00:06:38,598 and cleaning out some things and put a box of used books up on eBay, 134 00:06:38,598 --> 00:06:43,803 which normally take a while to sell, and it was gone within two hours, 135 00:06:43,836 --> 00:06:47,306 and it was just random books, and I didn't even think about it. 136 00:06:47,306 --> 00:06:48,975 I was just like, oh great, I don't need these anymore. 137 00:06:48,975 --> 00:06:50,710 And they sold and they sold for a decent amount. 138 00:06:50,710 --> 00:06:53,880 It wasn't like it was $0.10 on the dollar or something. 139 00:06:53,946 --> 00:06:59,185 And then I got this article, Gretchen, that I think you found. Yes. 140 00:06:59,218 --> 00:07:01,921 And being reported by Gizmodo. 141 00:07:02,989 --> 00:07:05,391 Mike Peril is the writer of this. 142 00:07:05,391 --> 00:07:07,293 And basically what's going on here 143 00:07:07,293 --> 00:07:11,330 is you have a situation and I can only speak to this as a layman, 144 00:07:11,330 --> 00:07:14,867 not as like a legal thing, but from my understanding of this, 145 00:07:14,901 --> 00:07:19,038 what's going on here is companies that are training 146 00:07:19,071 --> 00:07:24,343 large language models or AI models were using copyrighted material, 147 00:07:24,343 --> 00:07:28,815 and there's been some kind of a court decision saying, well, you can't do that 148 00:07:28,881 --> 00:07:30,716 illegally unless you have a right to do that. 149 00:07:30,716 --> 00:07:33,719 However, if you own the work, 150 00:07:34,187 --> 00:07:37,557 the fair use doctrine allows you to use it for this purpose. 151 00:07:37,557 --> 00:07:41,227 So what's happening is used books are being bought all over the world. 152 00:07:41,227 --> 00:07:45,331 They're slicing the spines off, scanning the men, destroying the original copy 153 00:07:45,331 --> 00:07:49,836 because you can only have one copy legally and then using that to train the model. 154 00:07:50,470 --> 00:07:54,373 So if somebody that's a bit of a book lover, that makes me shudder a little bit, 155 00:07:54,907 --> 00:07:56,709 and it also makes me worried that 156 00:07:56,709 --> 00:08:00,379 what if these are historical things that they've grabbed 157 00:08:00,413 --> 00:08:04,617 that are extremely rare and they're destroying it? 158 00:08:04,650 --> 00:08:06,052 Yeah. And that's what's happening. 159 00:08:08,054 --> 00:08:08,321 Yeah. 160 00:08:08,321 --> 00:08:10,423 I've seen a few other things about this. 161 00:08:10,423 --> 00:08:12,959 It's it's quite bad. 162 00:08:12,959 --> 00:08:15,995 But what have you seen Bill, that's beyond kind of the headline here 163 00:08:17,029 --> 00:08:20,433 basically that I believe it was one of the bigger ones. 164 00:08:20,433 --> 00:08:23,669 I'm not going to say which one because I can't remember completely, 165 00:08:23,669 --> 00:08:28,107 but it was in one of their rows about what did they call it, 166 00:08:28,307 --> 00:08:31,944 destructive cultivation or something like that. 167 00:08:31,978 --> 00:08:35,781 Yeah, yeah, I haven't heard that term, but that makes sense. 168 00:08:36,115 --> 00:08:39,118 But it was basically that it was they were destroying books 169 00:08:39,318 --> 00:08:43,956 to feed their machines and it was disgusting. 170 00:08:44,857 --> 00:08:48,294 And there was an interview on this carried by the BBC, 171 00:08:48,361 --> 00:08:50,997 this little outside of the initial article we're talking on here, 172 00:08:50,997 --> 00:08:54,000 where there was a bookseller, I believe, in London 173 00:08:54,100 --> 00:08:57,703 that was talking about this, and he's saying, you know, he's trying to 174 00:08:58,538 --> 00:09:01,874 look at this from a standpoint that if it's books these people are buying, 175 00:09:01,908 --> 00:09:03,676 that there's a lot of copies of them, you know, 176 00:09:03,676 --> 00:09:05,912 like The Da Vinci Code or something that's been mass produced. 177 00:09:05,912 --> 00:09:06,946 That's one thing, you know. 178 00:09:06,946 --> 00:09:08,414 Yeah, one copy of that. 179 00:09:08,414 --> 00:09:09,882 It's not going to be a big deal 180 00:09:09,882 --> 00:09:12,818 for even some of the rare books, like, say, you have a textbook 181 00:09:12,818 --> 00:09:15,354 where only 100 were made and 75 are in libraries. 182 00:09:15,354 --> 00:09:17,056 That's still not such a big deal. 183 00:09:17,056 --> 00:09:21,994 But some other things where there have been destruction of very, 184 00:09:21,994 --> 00:09:24,997 very rare books and that kind of a thing is a problem. 185 00:09:24,997 --> 00:09:28,000 And how do you can refuse to sell them, 186 00:09:28,034 --> 00:09:30,436 you know, in that case, but then do you refuse to sell it? 187 00:09:30,436 --> 00:09:33,439 And if you're a bookstore, it's a problem. 188 00:09:33,706 --> 00:09:34,707 It's a problem. 189 00:09:37,043 --> 00:09:37,810 All right. 190 00:09:37,810 --> 00:09:39,178 This is a little happier. 191 00:09:39,178 --> 00:09:42,315 Guess what? NASA has a YouTube channel. 192 00:09:42,348 --> 00:09:44,650 I'm shocked. 193 00:09:44,650 --> 00:09:46,786 I'm absolutely I couldn't I can't believe it. 194 00:09:46,786 --> 00:09:47,853 They have a YouTube channel. 195 00:09:47,853 --> 00:09:50,856 What's YouTube anyway? 196 00:09:51,190 --> 00:09:52,625 All right, stop being stupid. 197 00:09:52,625 --> 00:09:55,595 No, not 60,000 subscribers. 198 00:09:55,595 --> 00:09:58,397 They've got a little over 390 videos online. 199 00:09:58,397 --> 00:10:01,200 And the YouTube channel has learned with NASA. 200 00:10:01,200 --> 00:10:03,035 And it's something kind of fun. 201 00:10:03,035 --> 00:10:04,103 We talk about NASA 202 00:10:04,103 --> 00:10:07,106 and some of their Stem projects and other things that are going on. 203 00:10:07,106 --> 00:10:09,375 And it's cool to actually think about this. 204 00:10:09,375 --> 00:10:12,111 And I think it's interesting because obviously 205 00:10:12,111 --> 00:10:14,480 they would have a YouTube channel, but it's not something that I would 206 00:10:14,480 --> 00:10:16,916 necessarily have thought of right off the bat. 207 00:10:16,916 --> 00:10:18,117 No. Me neither. 208 00:10:18,117 --> 00:10:19,018 It makes sense. 209 00:10:19,018 --> 00:10:22,121 But you know, so there's all kinds of stuff out there. 210 00:10:22,154 --> 00:10:23,022 Yeah. Check it out. 211 00:10:23,022 --> 00:10:27,293 YouTube learn with NASA is the channel name, and it looks like 212 00:10:27,293 --> 00:10:31,230 they've got like little kid oriented stuff 213 00:10:31,230 --> 00:10:34,667 along with adult grown up, 214 00:10:34,700 --> 00:10:40,239 like a documentary type of of, you know, films and stuff. 215 00:10:40,239 --> 00:10:43,442 So there's quite a variety. So. 216 00:10:45,745 --> 00:10:47,179 All right. 217 00:10:47,179 --> 00:10:48,681 Back on video cards. 218 00:10:48,681 --> 00:10:52,018 Nvidia to invest 1.5 billion 219 00:10:52,051 --> 00:10:55,921 in SB energy under OpenAI data center deal. 220 00:10:56,656 --> 00:10:56,989 Yeah. 221 00:10:56,989 --> 00:10:59,425 So basically that's kind of what the headline says. 222 00:10:59,425 --> 00:11:03,663 It's another investment for more data centers. 223 00:11:03,663 --> 00:11:07,433 This has been somewhat controversial as time goes by. 224 00:11:07,433 --> 00:11:10,503 In fact, a lot of pauses have been put on data center development just because 225 00:11:10,503 --> 00:11:13,572 the electrical and water use that's coming out of them. 226 00:11:13,572 --> 00:11:15,741 Not that a data center is a bad thing, but what's happening 227 00:11:15,741 --> 00:11:18,210 is, is the impact was not being considered. 228 00:11:18,210 --> 00:11:21,280 What was being considered by a lot of places is the tax revenue 229 00:11:21,280 --> 00:11:24,283 that was going to come in from building these places, 230 00:11:24,517 --> 00:11:28,554 and all of a sudden we've seen stuff where power grids are failing, 231 00:11:28,587 --> 00:11:29,855 that kind of thing. 232 00:11:29,855 --> 00:11:33,459 But it makes sense in vedere like Bill, like you were just saying 233 00:11:33,459 --> 00:11:38,064 as a maker of video cards, in fact, the maker these days, pretty much 234 00:11:38,664 --> 00:11:42,234 of these chipsets, and of course they're going to invest in something, 235 00:11:42,268 --> 00:11:43,936 they're selling their product. 236 00:11:43,936 --> 00:11:46,138 I mean, that just, you know, follow the money. Right. 237 00:11:46,138 --> 00:11:51,310 So anyway, just another announcement of what's going on here and. 238 00:11:51,343 --> 00:11:52,111 Yeah. 239 00:11:53,579 --> 00:11:54,914 All right. 240 00:11:54,914 --> 00:11:58,384 Errant drone delays, blue angels demonstration 241 00:11:58,384 --> 00:12:00,853 at Oregon International air show. 242 00:12:00,853 --> 00:12:01,053 Yeah. 243 00:12:01,053 --> 00:12:04,256 So you and I had a chance to kind of go see this this last week. 244 00:12:04,623 --> 00:12:06,058 Yeah. 245 00:12:06,058 --> 00:12:07,393 Evergreen Air and Space Museum, 246 00:12:07,393 --> 00:12:09,695 which is across the street from the airport where this is held in 247 00:12:09,695 --> 00:12:13,599 Oregon, was holding a watch party and were members of the museum. 248 00:12:13,599 --> 00:12:14,633 So it was a lot of fun to go 249 00:12:14,633 --> 00:12:18,504 there and check it out and also be able to check out the museum 250 00:12:18,504 --> 00:12:19,472 and stuff at the same time. 251 00:12:19,472 --> 00:12:21,073 Great day, great family day. 252 00:12:21,073 --> 00:12:24,243 But yeah, the apparently 253 00:12:24,243 --> 00:12:27,680 somebody was flying a drone in the path of the Blue Angels. 254 00:12:27,680 --> 00:12:30,683 White. And this is a bad thing. Yeah. 255 00:12:30,983 --> 00:12:33,786 If you, you're, you're supposed to go 256 00:12:33,786 --> 00:12:37,256 and have like a training class in order to fly a drone. 257 00:12:37,323 --> 00:12:40,292 I did it. You had me do one. Yeah, yeah. 258 00:12:40,359 --> 00:12:44,196 And it's so, so what you're supposed to do from 259 00:12:44,196 --> 00:12:47,433 what Gretchen was just talking about here, is a standpoint 260 00:12:47,466 --> 00:12:49,401 that there are places where you can just fly a drone 261 00:12:49,401 --> 00:12:51,570 without a license, that they do exist, and you can look online. 262 00:12:51,570 --> 00:12:53,773 There's an app shows you where all this stuff is. 263 00:12:53,773 --> 00:12:56,242 But generally speaking, you go through this process 264 00:12:56,242 --> 00:13:00,079 to get a recreational drone license, and it's a pretty straightforward thing. 265 00:13:00,079 --> 00:13:02,114 You take an online class, answer questions, 266 00:13:02,114 --> 00:13:04,383 and if you pass the test, you get the license. 267 00:13:04,383 --> 00:13:06,986 And that's what Gretchen's talking about. I did mine recently too. 268 00:13:06,986 --> 00:13:11,791 And one of the things is, is that you are not supposed to fly drones near airports. 269 00:13:12,258 --> 00:13:16,395 And in the case of McMinnville, which is where the organs 270 00:13:16,395 --> 00:13:19,398 where the show is held, the municipal airport, 271 00:13:19,465 --> 00:13:23,469 the no fly zone for drones is a five mile radius. 272 00:13:23,836 --> 00:13:28,507 And these create safety problems and is somebody myself 273 00:13:28,507 --> 00:13:32,878 that likes to fly in the air, you know, in the jet suits and things. 274 00:13:32,878 --> 00:13:33,913 You have to be careful because 275 00:13:33,913 --> 00:13:37,616 if you hit one of these things in a plane or even your jetpack or whatever, 276 00:13:37,716 --> 00:13:41,453 you're in a situation where it can cause a lot of damage, it can kill you. 277 00:13:41,453 --> 00:13:44,824 And it's because these people are being in, 278 00:13:44,857 --> 00:13:47,860 you know, indiscriminate, not following the law. 279 00:13:48,027 --> 00:13:48,394 Yeah. 280 00:13:48,394 --> 00:13:51,997 And in this particular case, the Blue Angels were doing demonstration 281 00:13:51,997 --> 00:13:55,234 flights at all three days of the show Friday, Saturday, Sunday we saw them on. 282 00:13:55,234 --> 00:13:57,469 What was it, Gretchen? Sunday, I think. Yeah. 283 00:13:57,469 --> 00:14:01,841 And when we were there and yeah, they had to pause everything 284 00:14:02,141 --> 00:14:05,110 to get this individual and his drone 285 00:14:05,110 --> 00:14:10,015 out of the airspace from the airport and be able to continue the air show. 286 00:14:10,015 --> 00:14:13,819 And by the way, this isn't just a situation where it's 287 00:14:13,819 --> 00:14:15,721 causing inconvenience or this type of a thing. 288 00:14:15,721 --> 00:14:18,457 The FAA, there's fines and all kinds of other stuff for doing this. 289 00:14:18,457 --> 00:14:20,459 Your drone will be confiscated. 290 00:14:20,459 --> 00:14:22,795 You could be detained. 291 00:14:22,795 --> 00:14:25,598 Just don't do it in the app. 292 00:14:25,598 --> 00:14:26,899 You know, to be where it is. 293 00:14:26,899 --> 00:14:29,902 And if you want to fly around, you know, jets 294 00:14:30,002 --> 00:14:34,306 and all kinds of other things in the air, then get a jet pack and do it safely. 295 00:14:34,540 --> 00:14:37,543 You know, they're also the test. It's free. 296 00:14:37,643 --> 00:14:39,979 Yeah. I didn't have to pay anything to do the test. 297 00:14:39,979 --> 00:14:42,982 And the test teaches you 298 00:14:43,015 --> 00:14:46,218 what you need to know as you're taking the test. 299 00:14:46,252 --> 00:14:46,518 Yeah. 300 00:14:46,518 --> 00:14:48,587 So it's a no brainer. 301 00:14:48,587 --> 00:14:50,189 You know, it's very easy. 302 00:14:50,189 --> 00:14:51,757 And then you understand. 303 00:14:51,757 --> 00:14:56,262 Hey, I'm supposed to, you know, be very careful about where I fly this thing. 304 00:14:56,295 --> 00:14:56,495 Yeah. 305 00:14:56,495 --> 00:15:00,466 And and just a footnote on that, because this has come up, is like Gretchen 306 00:15:00,466 --> 00:15:03,736 just said it is to get a recreational drone license 307 00:15:03,736 --> 00:15:08,040 is something that doesn't cost any money to register your drone afterwards. 308 00:15:08,040 --> 00:15:10,175 It's like five bucks through the appropriate website. 309 00:15:10,175 --> 00:15:11,677 So if you go on and somebody's 310 00:15:11,677 --> 00:15:14,713 going to charge you to take this test or the class or something like that, 311 00:15:14,747 --> 00:15:17,283 it's a scam. It is free. 312 00:15:17,283 --> 00:15:19,118 Now, if you're doing it for commercial purposes, 313 00:15:19,118 --> 00:15:21,186 like you're going to photograph houses for a realtor 314 00:15:21,186 --> 00:15:24,189 or wedding or something like that, that's a completely different scenario. 315 00:15:24,189 --> 00:15:26,992 Yeah, recreational drone flying is free. 316 00:15:26,992 --> 00:15:29,762 Registering your drone, I think in my case was $5. 317 00:15:29,762 --> 00:15:31,630 So it's just be careful. 318 00:15:34,266 --> 00:15:36,302 Rock raises 350 319 00:15:36,302 --> 00:15:40,539 million to fuel its pivot from AI chips to neo cloud. 320 00:15:40,706 --> 00:15:43,709 So first question that came up about this was 321 00:15:44,476 --> 00:15:49,148 are we talking grok or grok in the sense of, yeah, that's what I was wondering. 322 00:15:49,348 --> 00:15:52,117 Rock. And no, these are two entirely different things. 323 00:15:52,117 --> 00:15:57,656 Oh, so this isn't this isn't the weird AI that that was on X. No. 324 00:15:57,890 --> 00:16:00,225 That's correct. That's correct. Okay. Yeah. 325 00:16:00,225 --> 00:16:01,593 There are two different things. 326 00:16:01,593 --> 00:16:04,897 So what you're dealing with is one grok 327 00:16:06,265 --> 00:16:10,235 is a company and that's grok, which is what we're talking about here. 328 00:16:10,803 --> 00:16:15,240 The grok from X is grok. 329 00:16:17,076 --> 00:16:20,279 Oh that's confusing or anything like that. 330 00:16:20,312 --> 00:16:22,348 Oh no not at all. 331 00:16:22,348 --> 00:16:25,351 But I thought maybe one of the, 332 00:16:25,351 --> 00:16:30,556 the grass had escaped from X and decided to start its own business. 333 00:16:30,789 --> 00:16:31,256 Yeah. 334 00:16:31,256 --> 00:16:33,092 Yes and no. 335 00:16:33,092 --> 00:16:35,561 That's a that's a that's coming. 336 00:16:35,561 --> 00:16:36,462 That's a Skynet thing. 337 00:16:36,462 --> 00:16:39,498 And we'll talk about that later when the A's allow us to do. 338 00:16:39,531 --> 00:16:41,533 I mean, that's not the case here. 339 00:16:41,533 --> 00:16:46,372 So so what is what is grok with a Q okay. 340 00:16:46,438 --> 00:16:49,675 Grok with a Q is a company okay. 341 00:16:49,708 --> 00:16:55,147 And they were doing some work that Nvidia effectively absorbed. 342 00:16:55,180 --> 00:16:57,616 So they're reinventing themselves. 343 00:16:57,616 --> 00:17:00,452 And the investment firm was called disruptive. 344 00:17:00,452 --> 00:17:04,256 That put this money up 350 million in new funding puts 345 00:17:04,256 --> 00:17:07,659 a market valuation of grok at about 3.5 billion. 346 00:17:08,060 --> 00:17:09,828 That's a lot of money. And 347 00:17:11,030 --> 00:17:11,630 the one thing 348 00:17:11,630 --> 00:17:15,467 about it is is a year ago that company was valued at $6.9 billion. 349 00:17:15,467 --> 00:17:17,970 So you can see where something like this decreases things. 350 00:17:17,970 --> 00:17:20,873 So a lot of money, but it's almost half. 351 00:17:20,873 --> 00:17:24,443 And so originally 352 00:17:24,443 --> 00:17:28,147 grok developed what it called an LP or language processing unit. 353 00:17:28,280 --> 00:17:31,283 And it was specifically designed to run AI. 354 00:17:32,951 --> 00:17:35,954 Quickly, you know, the interface. 355 00:17:35,954 --> 00:17:40,059 And it was being used as a teaching model, training model and that kind of a thing. 356 00:17:40,092 --> 00:17:43,595 And then Nvidia came in and kind of stole their lunch 357 00:17:43,629 --> 00:17:46,932 a little bit on that. So. 358 00:17:48,000 --> 00:17:51,970 So what's a neo cloud a neo cloud. 359 00:17:52,137 --> 00:17:53,672 Yeah. What's that. 360 00:17:53,672 --> 00:17:54,239 Well, okay. 361 00:17:54,239 --> 00:17:57,342 According to their press release, instead of primarily making the AI 362 00:17:57,376 --> 00:17:58,977 chips, we'll provide the infrastructure 363 00:17:58,977 --> 00:18:02,181 that lets companies use AI computing that's in the cloud. 364 00:18:02,915 --> 00:18:03,682 Oh, okay. 365 00:18:03,682 --> 00:18:05,150 Think about renting graphic cards. 366 00:18:05,150 --> 00:18:07,286 Now we're running AI space. 367 00:18:07,286 --> 00:18:09,955 Okay okay okay. So 368 00:18:11,457 --> 00:18:12,791 yeah. 369 00:18:12,791 --> 00:18:15,761 So they're building data centers filled with AI accelerators 370 00:18:15,761 --> 00:18:17,029 and rent that computing capacity. 371 00:18:17,029 --> 00:18:18,130 The companies that don't want to spend 372 00:18:18,130 --> 00:18:19,932 the buildings on building their own AI infrastructure. 373 00:18:19,932 --> 00:18:21,500 So that's what that is. 374 00:18:21,500 --> 00:18:25,104 They're operating 13 data centers across North America, Europe and the Middle East, 375 00:18:25,104 --> 00:18:26,438 as well as Asia. 376 00:18:26,438 --> 00:18:29,775 And it says it serves more than 6 million developers, 377 00:18:29,775 --> 00:18:33,145 enterprises with AI native companies. 378 00:18:33,345 --> 00:18:35,280 So there you are. 379 00:18:35,280 --> 00:18:36,348 All right. 380 00:18:36,348 --> 00:18:39,051 Investigators say unprecedented 381 00:18:39,051 --> 00:18:43,222 number of Apple users received Spyware Alert. 382 00:18:43,555 --> 00:18:45,891 Now this is being reported by TechCrunch. 383 00:18:45,891 --> 00:18:48,894 And yeah, 384 00:18:49,795 --> 00:18:54,500 the Apple users are just getting bombarded with spyware alerts. 385 00:18:54,500 --> 00:18:56,235 And that's something I haven't experienced personally, 386 00:18:56,235 --> 00:18:59,371 because I do not have Apple products that would be under 387 00:18:59,371 --> 00:19:03,308 this kind of a thing, but they're having some problems with that. 388 00:19:03,308 --> 00:19:06,311 And is hacking continues to get worse. 389 00:19:06,311 --> 00:19:09,815 Over the weekend, Apple sent out a new wave of notifications, 390 00:19:09,815 --> 00:19:14,586 and this went to customers in 110 different countries 391 00:19:15,120 --> 00:19:19,091 and said that they had been targeted with powerful spyware. So 392 00:19:20,459 --> 00:19:21,693 Apple sends these kind of 393 00:19:21,693 --> 00:19:25,063 alerts in batches to customers they believe has been targeted. 394 00:19:25,464 --> 00:19:29,835 And this thing called mercenary spyware, at least that's what they're dubbing. 395 00:19:29,835 --> 00:19:33,539 It is something where governments are involved 396 00:19:33,539 --> 00:19:37,543 in the creation of the spyware that's targeting their customers. 397 00:19:37,576 --> 00:19:41,413 And in the last few years, not to this last event, but overall, 398 00:19:41,413 --> 00:19:42,781 Apple says it has learned people 399 00:19:42,781 --> 00:19:47,252 in more than 150 countries, but 110 countries in this last batch. 400 00:19:47,419 --> 00:19:52,491 And that being the case, it's something where I think 401 00:19:52,591 --> 00:19:55,594 definitely raising the 402 00:19:56,395 --> 00:19:59,264 you know, I don't know, people need to be aware 403 00:19:59,264 --> 00:20:01,633 that this kind of thing is happening. I can understand why they're doing. 404 00:20:01,633 --> 00:20:05,370 And it would be a tough decision to make because it has the idea of, well, 405 00:20:05,370 --> 00:20:06,772 your equipment's not secure. 406 00:20:06,772 --> 00:20:09,308 I mean, that's certainly would be coming up with a notification 407 00:20:09,308 --> 00:20:13,145 like this, but educating everybody as much as they can. 408 00:20:13,212 --> 00:20:16,348 On the idea of these things existing and also giving 409 00:20:16,348 --> 00:20:20,252 a rundown of how to protect yourselves does make a lot of sense. 410 00:20:20,252 --> 00:20:24,256 So I do give kudos to Apple on at least doing it and making it 411 00:20:24,256 --> 00:20:28,860 something to where they're trying to help people deal with this. 412 00:20:28,894 --> 00:20:33,432 You know, one of the places that's been targeted with This is Ukraine. 413 00:20:33,599 --> 00:20:36,468 Not a shock that that would be happening. And 414 00:20:37,469 --> 00:20:39,705 they use a lot of Apple devices there. 415 00:20:39,705 --> 00:20:42,474 But it's not just limited to that. 416 00:20:42,474 --> 00:20:44,042 It's limited to 417 00:20:44,042 --> 00:20:46,612 or not limited much at all to a lot of different parts of the world. 418 00:20:46,612 --> 00:20:51,383 So yeah, if you get one of these alerts look at it and you can go online. 419 00:20:51,383 --> 00:20:54,519 There's a lot of places to go to get common sense steps 420 00:20:54,519 --> 00:20:56,588 to help secure yourself. 421 00:20:56,588 --> 00:21:00,492 But a lot of this is still being targeted in the way it has for many years, 422 00:21:00,492 --> 00:21:03,262 and that you get an email or a text message or something 423 00:21:03,262 --> 00:21:08,000 where they want you to respond, or click a link or something of that nature go. 424 00:21:08,033 --> 00:21:10,869 And when you do, go to the website or download the link or whatever 425 00:21:10,869 --> 00:21:13,705 the case may be, it installs malicious software on your phone. 426 00:21:13,705 --> 00:21:17,476 So if you get an unknown link in an email, certainly 427 00:21:17,476 --> 00:21:19,278 in a text message, don't open it. 428 00:21:19,278 --> 00:21:22,381 And if you're worried about it, it's claiming to be some company 429 00:21:22,381 --> 00:21:25,550 like your bank or whatever and your accounts been compromised. 430 00:21:25,550 --> 00:21:27,919 Don't do anything that's in the email. 431 00:21:27,919 --> 00:21:31,556 Call your bank with a known good phone number that's like on your credit card 432 00:21:31,556 --> 00:21:35,260 or on the bank's website, but not one that's linked from within that email. 433 00:21:35,260 --> 00:21:36,795 And then check it out there, 434 00:21:36,795 --> 00:21:39,798 and you'll probably find that there's nothing wrong at all. 435 00:21:40,132 --> 00:21:43,135 So all right, well, 436 00:21:43,735 --> 00:21:48,373 we've got a few things to talk about here, and I think it's going to be kind of 437 00:21:48,440 --> 00:21:51,677 interesting to see where you've gotten to if your Lego project. 438 00:21:51,677 --> 00:21:51,977 Gretchen. 439 00:21:51,977 --> 00:21:55,080 We might be doing that at the beginning of the next segment because beforehand. 440 00:21:55,113 --> 00:21:58,150 I want to talk about Stuart Fails to Save the universe, 441 00:21:58,150 --> 00:22:01,119 which you finally got me to watch. And I have to say, I really enjoyed. 442 00:22:01,119 --> 00:22:01,453 Tell me. 443 00:22:01,453 --> 00:22:03,255 Tell us a little bit about this. 444 00:22:03,255 --> 00:22:05,490 Okay. Well, apparently 445 00:22:06,625 --> 00:22:09,628 the characters from The Big Bang Theory 446 00:22:10,195 --> 00:22:11,596 how are Leonard? 447 00:22:11,596 --> 00:22:15,400 And of course, Sheldon creates some kind of crazy device, 448 00:22:15,534 --> 00:22:20,105 and it appears that Stuart may have bumped it or did something 449 00:22:20,105 --> 00:22:25,977 and created an apocalyptic reality. Yes. 450 00:22:26,011 --> 00:22:31,216 And he's he's assisted by, like, Burt, 451 00:22:32,217 --> 00:22:33,051 his girlfriend. 452 00:22:33,051 --> 00:22:36,054 I can't remember Stuart's girlfriend's name, 453 00:22:36,822 --> 00:22:39,224 but she's helping. 454 00:22:39,224 --> 00:22:42,227 And the guy with a lisp. 455 00:22:42,227 --> 00:22:47,065 Kripke and Kripke's helping, which everybody's. 456 00:22:47,799 --> 00:22:51,536 Yeah, he's kind of a pain in the butt, but that's his character, you know? 457 00:22:51,703 --> 00:22:52,738 Yeah. 458 00:22:52,738 --> 00:22:58,510 And so we have an unlikely group of people 459 00:22:58,677 --> 00:23:01,713 put together trying to set things right, 460 00:23:01,713 --> 00:23:04,716 and we get a chance to see 461 00:23:04,750 --> 00:23:08,120 what kind of weirdness that the writers have come up with. 462 00:23:08,120 --> 00:23:11,456 And you also need to pay attention that every time 463 00:23:11,456 --> 00:23:14,860 we see the beginning of the show, the intro, it's different. 464 00:23:14,893 --> 00:23:16,762 Yeah. The opening, the opening is different. 465 00:23:16,762 --> 00:23:20,532 For those that remember the series, think sort of a version of sliders. 466 00:23:20,532 --> 00:23:24,302 It's kind of like a play on that, and it was a lot of fun to see what they 467 00:23:24,336 --> 00:23:26,171 what they are coming up with, and I'm looking forward 468 00:23:26,171 --> 00:23:27,572 to see what they come up with in the future. 469 00:23:27,572 --> 00:23:30,542 And by the way, it's called a quantum entanglement machine. 470 00:23:30,575 --> 00:23:34,312 Pretty much the issue for any, you know, physicist that's out there, 471 00:23:34,346 --> 00:23:36,014 or at least theoretical. 472 00:23:36,014 --> 00:23:36,415 Maybe not. 473 00:23:36,415 --> 00:23:39,418 I'm glad you can't get these on Amazon, but yeah, check it out. 474 00:23:40,018 --> 00:23:40,919 We love the episode. 475 00:23:40,919 --> 00:23:43,722 Oh yeah. Go ahead, go ahead. 476 00:23:43,722 --> 00:23:44,456 I was just going to say 477 00:23:44,456 --> 00:23:47,692 I really love the episode with Will Wheaton and Burt battling. 478 00:23:47,759 --> 00:23:49,261 Yeah, that was that was fun. 479 00:23:49,261 --> 00:23:51,396 Check it out. This is user friendly 2.0. 480 00:23:51,396 --> 00:23:52,631 We'll be back after the break. 481 00:23:53,865 --> 00:23:55,834 He's from the future. 482 00:23:55,834 --> 00:23:59,137 He's got a really big computer 483 00:23:59,504 --> 00:24:02,707 and uses it uses it every day. 484 00:24:03,074 --> 00:24:06,178 And he uses it uses it in every way. 485 00:24:06,411 --> 00:24:08,079 What do you use for. 486 00:24:08,079 --> 00:24:11,783 You know I'm not sure because it uses here. 487 00:24:12,617 --> 00:24:14,920 Welcome back. This is user friendly 2.0. 488 00:24:14,920 --> 00:24:16,021 Check out our website. 489 00:24:16,021 --> 00:24:19,691 User friendly dot show is your one stop for everything user friendly. 490 00:24:19,758 --> 00:24:20,859 Send us your questions. 491 00:24:20,859 --> 00:24:22,794 Send us your comments. We'd love to hear from you. 492 00:24:22,794 --> 00:24:24,629 And in fact, 493 00:24:24,629 --> 00:24:27,933 that is where we got the idea for what we're going to be talking about. 494 00:24:27,933 --> 00:24:31,069 Here was your questions, and there were lots of them that came in on this. 495 00:24:31,069 --> 00:24:34,072 So talking a little bit about historic tech 496 00:24:34,272 --> 00:24:37,742 this week, we're going to be going over video game consoles and specifically 497 00:24:37,742 --> 00:24:41,580 some of the ones that didn't quite make it for a variety of reasons. 498 00:24:41,580 --> 00:24:45,417 And we're going to go through these and see what ended up happening 499 00:24:45,417 --> 00:24:46,651 or didn't happen. 500 00:24:46,651 --> 00:24:52,190 And the list, the order that this was put into is somewhat random. 501 00:24:52,190 --> 00:24:54,459 So it may be that our number one on the list 502 00:24:54,459 --> 00:24:56,795 would not be what you would be considered to be number one on the list. 503 00:24:56,795 --> 00:24:58,530 But afterwards, let's meet in the comments. 504 00:24:58,530 --> 00:25:01,633 Go to User Friendly show and give us your feedback on this. 505 00:25:01,633 --> 00:25:02,901 Let us know what you think. 506 00:25:02,901 --> 00:25:07,539 So the number one on our list was the Atari Jaguar came out in 1993. 507 00:25:07,572 --> 00:25:10,575 First 64 bit gaming system. 508 00:25:11,076 --> 00:25:15,046 This was something that was interesting when it came out game that came out on 509 00:25:15,080 --> 00:25:18,383 Tempest 2000, which is something that I actually really like. 510 00:25:19,251 --> 00:25:24,256 So it had its place, but it had some other weird things to. 511 00:25:24,322 --> 00:25:24,990 One of them is, 512 00:25:24,990 --> 00:25:28,593 is that Atari never seemed to get too good at designing controllers. 513 00:25:28,793 --> 00:25:32,831 And if you look back at some of their older systems, like the Atari 5200, 514 00:25:32,864 --> 00:25:34,266 which has what is considered to be 515 00:25:34,266 --> 00:25:37,269 the worst controller ever made on a video game system, 516 00:25:37,502 --> 00:25:38,837 you can see where this comes from. 517 00:25:38,837 --> 00:25:41,940 The Jaguar controller seemed to take that idea, 518 00:25:41,940 --> 00:25:45,277 and while it was an analog stick and did work a little bit better, 519 00:25:45,277 --> 00:25:49,814 it had telephone keypad on it, which I'm not one. 520 00:25:49,948 --> 00:25:50,582 Yeah. 521 00:25:52,918 --> 00:25:55,253 Interestingly enough, at the time there was no standard on 522 00:25:55,253 --> 00:25:57,756 what a game console controller was really supposed to be. 523 00:25:57,756 --> 00:26:01,793 So there is that at other systems also had stuff like this, 524 00:26:01,793 --> 00:26:04,296 but it was a situation 525 00:26:04,296 --> 00:26:08,733 where they came out with this, and you looked at it in the store 526 00:26:08,733 --> 00:26:12,837 and gave you the idea of a telephone, and that was a marketing problem for them. 527 00:26:12,837 --> 00:26:17,175 And then on top of that, the game library was relatively small compared to others, 528 00:26:17,676 --> 00:26:20,312 as well as the resources that Atari had at the time, 529 00:26:20,312 --> 00:26:22,280 because they were having all kinds of financial problems 530 00:26:22,280 --> 00:26:26,551 with the company and competing against Nintendo, Sega and later Sony, 531 00:26:26,585 --> 00:26:28,119 they just didn't have the budget to do it, 532 00:26:28,119 --> 00:26:31,323 and those other systems made them feel obsolete. 533 00:26:31,323 --> 00:26:35,193 And this is a system I'd love to get someday just in my retro collection, 534 00:26:35,193 --> 00:26:39,497 but they are somewhat expensive to find a working example of it. 535 00:26:39,664 --> 00:26:41,600 So if you happen to have one in the garage, 536 00:26:41,600 --> 00:26:42,801 they really aren't worth anything. 537 00:26:42,801 --> 00:26:46,571 Go ahead and send them to our address on the website and I'll let you know. 538 00:26:48,673 --> 00:26:51,509 All right. 539 00:26:51,509 --> 00:26:53,311 Our next one, also from 1993 540 00:26:53,311 --> 00:26:56,314 was the 3D Interactive Multiplayer. 541 00:26:56,314 --> 00:26:59,718 So 3D technologies licensed this to companies 542 00:26:59,718 --> 00:27:03,989 such as Panasonic Gold Star, and instead of making a system 543 00:27:03,989 --> 00:27:07,359 themselves, debuted it in the USA at roughly $700, 544 00:27:07,359 --> 00:27:10,362 which in 1993 was a lot for a game console. 545 00:27:10,528 --> 00:27:11,463 Oh yeah. Yeah. 546 00:27:11,463 --> 00:27:14,466 You know, in 2020, I remember this one, 547 00:27:15,433 --> 00:27:18,403 the Jaguar, the Jaguar I'd heard of. 548 00:27:18,403 --> 00:27:21,306 And I remember the weird telephone thing. 549 00:27:21,306 --> 00:27:22,974 This one. 550 00:27:22,974 --> 00:27:23,908 No clue. 551 00:27:23,908 --> 00:27:25,143 Don't even call it. 552 00:27:25,143 --> 00:27:27,812 It's one that didn't last very long I know. 553 00:27:27,812 --> 00:27:31,016 And again the price made it out of range for most people. 554 00:27:31,216 --> 00:27:34,619 And again, what they were doing here is they had this technology 555 00:27:34,619 --> 00:27:38,556 that was a video game console, and third party manufacturers were making this. 556 00:27:38,556 --> 00:27:44,095 And the reason why it was so expensive is even to this day, most of the money, 557 00:27:45,030 --> 00:27:48,233 the way they monetize these things is through the software. 558 00:27:48,400 --> 00:27:51,536 So you buy a game console or a computer or whatever 559 00:27:51,536 --> 00:27:55,874 the case may be, at a reduced price, sometimes even cost, making it lower. 560 00:27:55,874 --> 00:27:58,877 But then you pay a premium for the games that run on it. 561 00:27:58,943 --> 00:28:03,415 And that was not the case here since it was third party hardware manufacturers. 562 00:28:03,415 --> 00:28:07,018 They couldn't do it that way, so they actually had to sell it 563 00:28:07,018 --> 00:28:08,553 and make a markup. 564 00:28:08,553 --> 00:28:14,025 The system itself was pretty decent, but not a lot of exclusive games, 565 00:28:14,025 --> 00:28:17,195 which is something that drives, you know, console sales and that type of a thing. 566 00:28:17,195 --> 00:28:20,598 And the PlayStation arrived and it was cheaper 567 00:28:20,598 --> 00:28:24,469 and had more of a library almost out the gate than this did. 568 00:28:24,469 --> 00:28:28,339 And kind of the rest is history from that standpoint. 569 00:28:28,339 --> 00:28:32,777 So games such as Road Rash, the need for Speed and Star Control 570 00:28:32,811 --> 00:28:37,215 two were good on this system and again, it was pretty impressive. 571 00:28:37,482 --> 00:28:40,719 Our next one is the Sega 32 came out a year later in 94. 572 00:28:40,752 --> 00:28:44,756 This is one that I'd like to get as an add on for my Sega Genesis, 573 00:28:44,756 --> 00:28:47,425 or actually my Sega mega drive. I am in North America. 574 00:28:47,425 --> 00:28:48,593 I have a working mega drive. 575 00:28:48,593 --> 00:28:49,761 It's a little unusual, 576 00:28:49,761 --> 00:28:53,631 and it took a little bit of engineering to get it to work, but it's there. 577 00:28:53,798 --> 00:28:55,700 Please note he's bragging. 578 00:28:55,700 --> 00:28:58,069 Yes, because it was it was a challenge. 579 00:28:58,069 --> 00:29:01,673 Believe me, we had to change the frequency that it was putting out at. 580 00:29:01,673 --> 00:29:04,509 So in set a palette was in TSC defeat the region lock. 581 00:29:04,509 --> 00:29:05,243 Which of course I did 582 00:29:05,243 --> 00:29:09,280 not do because that would be bad and get the thing to just work in general. 583 00:29:09,280 --> 00:29:10,715 But it's cool. 584 00:29:10,715 --> 00:29:14,352 And anybody else would have spent the 80 bucks on eBay to buy a Genesis 585 00:29:14,352 --> 00:29:16,354 if they had wanted one and plug it in and made it work. 586 00:29:16,354 --> 00:29:20,391 This cost almost $1,000 to do, but hey, it says Mega Drive. 587 00:29:20,425 --> 00:29:25,263 Now that being said, this was the Sega Genesis or Sega mega drive. 588 00:29:25,530 --> 00:29:26,598 Just a footnote on that. 589 00:29:26,598 --> 00:29:27,432 They were called Mega 590 00:29:27,432 --> 00:29:31,269 Drive in Europe, Genesis in North America, but it is the same system. 591 00:29:31,336 --> 00:29:34,472 And Genesis was a very popular system by Sega. 592 00:29:34,506 --> 00:29:35,440 16 bit. 593 00:29:35,440 --> 00:29:40,011 I had one when I was growing up, so this was a system that was out there 594 00:29:40,011 --> 00:29:43,748 very much a competitor to Nintendo and some of the other things out at the time, 595 00:29:43,782 --> 00:29:47,452 and they wanted to upgrade. 596 00:29:47,585 --> 00:29:51,523 And this is where Sega started to get themselves into trouble. 597 00:29:51,523 --> 00:29:54,759 And they created this thing called the Tower of Power, which is basically 598 00:29:54,759 --> 00:29:58,463 all these add ons for the Genesis or Mega Drive, including the Sega 599 00:29:58,496 --> 00:30:02,433 CD, the 32 bit upgrade that we're talking about here. 600 00:30:02,534 --> 00:30:04,402 Or you waited and bought a Sega Saturn. 601 00:30:04,402 --> 00:30:08,139 And this was one of the problems because you could buy all this stuff, 602 00:30:08,306 --> 00:30:11,776 or they're coming out with a system that does it all called the Saturn, 603 00:30:11,776 --> 00:30:13,211 which is going to be out next. 604 00:30:13,211 --> 00:30:17,782 So a lot of people waited, and we've seen this happen in the past 605 00:30:17,782 --> 00:30:19,717 where a company will announce their product 606 00:30:19,717 --> 00:30:21,586 while the current one is still making money, 607 00:30:21,586 --> 00:30:24,856 and then the current one stops selling because everybody's 608 00:30:24,856 --> 00:30:26,457 like, well, we're just going to wait and upgrade later. 609 00:30:26,457 --> 00:30:28,293 And that's kind of what you had here. 610 00:30:28,293 --> 00:30:30,628 So I want to put one of these things together. 611 00:30:30,628 --> 00:30:34,199 The Sega CD modules do command a premium, so I'm trying to find one 612 00:30:34,199 --> 00:30:35,233 that's within budget. 613 00:30:35,233 --> 00:30:39,571 And then I wonder if the North American Sega CD will work with a mega drive. 614 00:30:39,637 --> 00:30:41,039 I'll let you know when I know. 615 00:30:42,874 --> 00:30:43,741 But yeah. 616 00:30:43,741 --> 00:30:45,310 So this it was short lived. 617 00:30:45,310 --> 00:30:46,377 These components weren't 618 00:30:46,377 --> 00:30:48,680 made for a long time because of the Sega Saturn, 619 00:30:48,680 --> 00:30:50,281 which just happens to be the next one on the list, 620 00:30:50,281 --> 00:30:54,018 which came out about two years later, successor to the Genesis. 621 00:30:54,018 --> 00:30:59,490 And they launched it early, which is a little bit unusual, 622 00:30:59,791 --> 00:31:03,094 but because usually these things come out late. 623 00:31:03,094 --> 00:31:07,098 But the problem that this created is, again, software libraries, 624 00:31:07,098 --> 00:31:09,334 it comes down to ecosystem. And the programmers 625 00:31:09,334 --> 00:31:12,337 didn't have their stuff ready when the console launched. 626 00:31:13,304 --> 00:31:14,639 So that was probably number one. 627 00:31:14,639 --> 00:31:16,941 Problem number two was Sega seemed to at that point 628 00:31:16,941 --> 00:31:19,944 have lost the ability to do business in any kind of a meaningful way, 629 00:31:19,944 --> 00:31:21,946 because there were a lot of other problems, too, 630 00:31:22,914 --> 00:31:24,816 that happened at the time. 631 00:31:24,816 --> 00:31:27,552 Original at E3 in 1995, when it was announced 632 00:31:27,552 --> 00:31:32,290 the retail price was going to be 3.99, and Sony came out 633 00:31:32,357 --> 00:31:36,394 and released their system at $100 less, which was also a problem. 634 00:31:37,028 --> 00:31:40,431 And PlayStation kind of took their lunch after that. 635 00:31:40,465 --> 00:31:45,236 Nintendo remained powerful, but I don't know. 636 00:31:45,270 --> 00:31:47,238 And, you know, there's a note on this article here 637 00:31:47,238 --> 00:31:49,941 that the Saturn wasn't a failure everywhere. 638 00:31:49,941 --> 00:31:53,211 Can did better in Japan, you know, had a better 639 00:31:53,211 --> 00:31:56,681 library there and was good for two games in arcade conversions. 640 00:31:56,681 --> 00:31:58,516 And it wasn't a bad console. 641 00:31:58,516 --> 00:31:59,784 The controllers were a little weird. 642 00:31:59,784 --> 00:32:03,054 They had these plug in screen things in the console controller 643 00:32:03,421 --> 00:32:08,293 a little bit better than the Wii U did it later, and I like the hardware, 644 00:32:08,293 --> 00:32:13,298 but again, in North America it just wasn't that, well, you know, done. 645 00:32:13,464 --> 00:32:16,434 Now I'm I'm seeing a pattern here. 646 00:32:16,434 --> 00:32:17,335 This is all 647 00:32:17,335 --> 00:32:21,739 it's like all these failures are happening within a short period of time. 648 00:32:21,873 --> 00:32:27,211 It was there like the big video game failure era or something like that. 649 00:32:27,278 --> 00:32:31,950 Well, okay, the video game crash was 84 and that took out like the legal vision 650 00:32:31,950 --> 00:32:37,221 and in television and yeah, but these are all happening in early 90s, early 90s. 651 00:32:37,255 --> 00:32:40,758 And in that time period you had something else going on. 652 00:32:40,792 --> 00:32:43,861 You had the Nintendo and the Super Nintendo at that point. 653 00:32:43,895 --> 00:32:44,562 Right. 654 00:32:44,562 --> 00:32:47,932 And you had a situation where Nintendo wanted to come out 655 00:32:47,932 --> 00:32:50,535 with a product called the Nintendo PlayStation. 656 00:32:50,535 --> 00:32:54,539 Now, if you think about that a little bit, say, has the PlayStation, right? 657 00:32:54,572 --> 00:32:59,077 And what happened was this Nintendo had an agreement with Sony 658 00:32:59,110 --> 00:33:02,814 that they were going to manufacture the CD component, and Nintendo 659 00:33:02,814 --> 00:33:05,216 was going to make a cartridge component, and there are prototypes, 660 00:33:05,216 --> 00:33:09,153 and if you have one, you can retire kind of thing, because these are really 661 00:33:09,187 --> 00:33:10,521 a lot of money to buy. 662 00:33:10,521 --> 00:33:13,891 But there are a few prototypes out in the wild of these combined systems. 663 00:33:13,891 --> 00:33:17,495 And then Nintendo went behind the scenes 664 00:33:17,495 --> 00:33:21,265 with, I believe, Philips to also get them to make CD drives. 665 00:33:21,265 --> 00:33:23,234 So it's kind of they went around the contract with Sony. 666 00:33:23,234 --> 00:33:25,069 It upsets Sony, obviously. 667 00:33:25,069 --> 00:33:27,271 So Sony said, well, the heck with you. 668 00:33:27,271 --> 00:33:28,706 We're just going to produce our own system 669 00:33:28,706 --> 00:33:32,477 and we're going to call it a PlayStation, and we'll look at where we are today. 670 00:33:32,477 --> 00:33:34,612 Obviously, that didn't go over too well for Nintendo. 671 00:33:34,612 --> 00:33:37,749 In fact, it took him out as the market leader because Sony came out 672 00:33:37,749 --> 00:33:42,820 with this product, you know, half on superior capability but half on spite. 673 00:33:42,820 --> 00:33:43,821 It costs less. 674 00:33:43,821 --> 00:33:47,992 And it really did not only compete with Nintendo, but it knocked 675 00:33:47,992 --> 00:33:52,497 Atari and Sega out of the marketplace completely eventually. 676 00:33:52,797 --> 00:33:55,233 That's what was happening in that era. 677 00:33:55,233 --> 00:34:00,438 Something to remember, too, is the Super Nintendo was a 32 bit system. 678 00:34:00,738 --> 00:34:02,974 The PlayStation was a 32 bit system. 679 00:34:02,974 --> 00:34:03,741 Right 680 00:34:03,741 --> 00:34:07,678 now, of course, we talk about the Jaguar being a 64 bit, but at the time, people 681 00:34:07,678 --> 00:34:13,351 didn't really understand that difference between bits and consoles. So 682 00:34:14,786 --> 00:34:16,921 Sega and stuff was still running on 16. 683 00:34:16,921 --> 00:34:19,891 They boosted it to a 32 bit with the CD and the 684 00:34:19,891 --> 00:34:22,894 and Saturn. 685 00:34:23,628 --> 00:34:25,730 But people didn't really understand that problem. 686 00:34:25,730 --> 00:34:29,267 And where Nintendo was stuck with cartridges. 687 00:34:29,500 --> 00:34:32,637 Sony went with CDs and massively was able to increase 688 00:34:32,637 --> 00:34:35,973 their ability to produce massive games. 689 00:34:36,040 --> 00:34:38,242 Yeah, yeah, huge games. 690 00:34:38,242 --> 00:34:40,378 And Nintendo has done some weird things like that along the way, 691 00:34:40,378 --> 00:34:43,314 because even the Nintendo 64 still held on the cartridges. 692 00:34:43,314 --> 00:34:46,717 And it's interesting because that particular system in Japan 693 00:34:46,717 --> 00:34:49,754 had a floppy drive attachment that was never released here. 694 00:34:49,921 --> 00:34:53,658 But you're thinking of another thing that's happening 695 00:34:53,658 --> 00:34:55,460 in these periods that you want to be able to save games 696 00:34:55,460 --> 00:34:57,295 and do other things and update and whatnot, right? 697 00:34:57,295 --> 00:35:01,099 So all of that kind of thing requires storage on the local system. 698 00:35:01,332 --> 00:35:03,668 So again, like Bill, what you're talking about is number one, 699 00:35:03,668 --> 00:35:08,473 people even understanding what the bit thing was an Atari Jaguar 64 bit. 700 00:35:08,506 --> 00:35:10,741 Well, the other problem they had is a lot of their game library 701 00:35:10,741 --> 00:35:13,411 that did exist were simply ports of their 16 bit games, 702 00:35:13,411 --> 00:35:16,581 so it didn't use the capacity of the hardware. 703 00:35:17,415 --> 00:35:19,317 Yeah. You know, so that was the thing. 704 00:35:19,317 --> 00:35:23,521 So yeah, the general population of people buying these things are going well. 705 00:35:23,521 --> 00:35:25,389 What's the difference. Doesn't look different. 706 00:35:25,389 --> 00:35:27,558 Yeah. The capability of a Jaguar is amazing. 707 00:35:27,558 --> 00:35:31,429 And some of the homebrew that's coming out on that parallel, some of the, you know, 708 00:35:31,462 --> 00:35:35,533 Triple-A games you see on the PC today because it had that capability. 709 00:35:35,600 --> 00:35:38,536 It's just Atari never marketed it. Right. 710 00:35:38,536 --> 00:35:39,971 And I think in some cases 711 00:35:39,971 --> 00:35:43,975 you saw the same thing with Sega and dealing with some of this kind of stuff. 712 00:35:43,975 --> 00:35:47,812 And you look at today the average computer is 64 713 00:35:47,879 --> 00:35:51,582 bit 2026 because it's all kinds of other things. 714 00:35:51,582 --> 00:35:52,350 It's not just 715 00:35:52,350 --> 00:35:56,220 the bit capacity of a processor that determine what you can and cannot do. 716 00:35:56,254 --> 00:35:58,523 There's all kinds of things that work around that, 717 00:35:58,523 --> 00:36:02,226 where you can have a 16 bit console that's superior to a 32 718 00:36:02,260 --> 00:36:05,263 bit console because of the engineering and other stuff like that. 719 00:36:05,263 --> 00:36:05,796 But yeah, 720 00:36:05,796 --> 00:36:08,733 Bill, exactly like what you're saying there is you're talking about something 721 00:36:08,733 --> 00:36:12,303 where it wasn't marketed properly, people didn't know the difference. 722 00:36:12,303 --> 00:36:15,306 And frankly, the product you got on a PlayStation was better than 723 00:36:15,306 --> 00:36:19,544 some of these other things that had maybe better capacity at a raw level. 724 00:36:19,777 --> 00:36:20,912 And I'm not going to say 725 00:36:20,912 --> 00:36:24,148 that the first PlayStations didn't have some serious problems. 726 00:36:24,148 --> 00:36:25,416 They were had performance. 727 00:36:25,416 --> 00:36:29,954 They were very slow to load, they were underpowered. 728 00:36:29,954 --> 00:36:32,957 But by the time PlayStation one phased out, 729 00:36:32,990 --> 00:36:35,993 they were a superior console to anything else. 730 00:36:36,227 --> 00:36:39,096 Yeah. And it's just optical media is slower. 731 00:36:39,096 --> 00:36:40,498 It doesn't matter what you're dealing with 732 00:36:40,498 --> 00:36:43,501 even in 2026, if you look at something like a switch 733 00:36:43,534 --> 00:36:47,505 that takes a form of a cartridge, it's basically kind of an SD card, 734 00:36:47,505 --> 00:36:51,542 but it's still a physical, solid state thing versus any system 735 00:36:51,542 --> 00:36:55,313 that uses either physical media or where you have to download. 736 00:36:55,313 --> 00:36:56,380 There is a huge difference. 737 00:36:56,380 --> 00:36:59,417 I mean, it is definitely still notable to today. 738 00:36:59,417 --> 00:37:03,387 I know I picked up a PlayStation two system at a garage sale recently, 739 00:37:03,387 --> 00:37:05,590 and I kind of like it because it's got some of the arcade games 740 00:37:05,590 --> 00:37:08,593 that I like on it, like Paper Boy and some of those that are done 741 00:37:08,626 --> 00:37:12,296 where you actually do have the true arcade version on the local machine, 742 00:37:12,363 --> 00:37:18,069 that thing runs off DVDs, but even loading a disc up in it is 10 to 15 seconds. 743 00:37:18,603 --> 00:37:21,239 And, you know, so you definitely see it from there. 744 00:37:21,239 --> 00:37:24,542 And the PlayStation two didn't have things like a hard drive or anything. 745 00:37:24,542 --> 00:37:26,978 Yet you have these little storage module things that go in it 746 00:37:26,978 --> 00:37:30,014 for saving your games, but it's not like now we're after you do 747 00:37:30,014 --> 00:37:30,881 the initial install, 748 00:37:30,881 --> 00:37:35,519 it is installed to a local storage drive and then it runs faster because of that. 749 00:37:35,519 --> 00:37:37,922 But it's still slower than cartridge. 750 00:37:37,922 --> 00:37:39,423 Yeah. 751 00:37:39,423 --> 00:37:42,560 So all right, next on the list is one that we just got. 752 00:37:42,560 --> 00:37:44,295 And we're going to review here later in the year. 753 00:37:44,295 --> 00:37:46,197 And that is the Nintendo Virtual Boy. 754 00:37:48,466 --> 00:37:49,700 Oh boy. 755 00:37:49,700 --> 00:37:52,570 It's been joked that this should have come with a bottle 756 00:37:52,570 --> 00:37:55,706 of Etcetera and Migraine trying it out. 757 00:37:55,706 --> 00:37:57,475 I kind of agree with that assessment Bill. 758 00:37:57,475 --> 00:37:58,476 You know what. 759 00:37:58,476 --> 00:38:01,178 Tell us a little bit about what this was. 760 00:38:01,178 --> 00:38:04,315 Well, it was an attempt at virtualized 761 00:38:04,348 --> 00:38:08,019 3D effects using a red and black screen 762 00:38:08,619 --> 00:38:12,223 inside of a headset that weighed about a ton. And. 763 00:38:15,159 --> 00:38:18,296 As you as it said, you had the stationary and you had to basically 764 00:38:18,296 --> 00:38:22,533 put it on a tripod and stick your face into it, play it with this controller. 765 00:38:22,600 --> 00:38:26,771 That was a little bit more complicated than the 64, I believe. 766 00:38:26,904 --> 00:38:31,075 Yeah, and had a small library. 767 00:38:31,275 --> 00:38:32,476 But the problem was, 768 00:38:32,476 --> 00:38:36,881 is that the vector graphics and all of that that was inside of it 769 00:38:37,081 --> 00:38:41,619 hurt your eyes so much that it was cause headaches after about 20 minutes. 770 00:38:41,852 --> 00:38:42,953 Yeah, yeah. 771 00:38:42,953 --> 00:38:45,389 You're lucky if you got to 20 minutes 772 00:38:45,389 --> 00:38:48,859 and looking at this, remember hearing about this stuff? 773 00:38:48,893 --> 00:38:50,661 Yeah. Just when you think of today. 774 00:38:50,661 --> 00:38:55,132 Okay, so you do a VR headset like the Oculus or a system like that. 775 00:38:55,132 --> 00:38:56,667 There's a couple of them out there, 776 00:38:56,667 --> 00:38:58,736 and it's this lightweight thing that you strapped your head 777 00:38:58,736 --> 00:39:01,539 and you can wear it, and it's pretty easy to use. 778 00:39:01,539 --> 00:39:02,773 Well this thing was so heavy 779 00:39:02,773 --> 00:39:05,509 that you couldn't strap it to your head, so it's on a stand. 780 00:39:05,509 --> 00:39:07,278 So you're sitting at a table or something. 781 00:39:07,278 --> 00:39:09,914 And for some reason the stands not adjustable a little bit, 782 00:39:09,914 --> 00:39:12,149 but not like in a way that would be meaningful. 783 00:39:12,149 --> 00:39:13,718 So you're having a hunch down or 784 00:39:13,718 --> 00:39:16,387 put it on books or something to get it at a height. 785 00:39:16,387 --> 00:39:17,722 And then like you said, Bill, 786 00:39:17,722 --> 00:39:20,991 you lean into it and you've got the controller and yeah, 787 00:39:20,991 --> 00:39:22,693 it's black and red, 788 00:39:22,693 --> 00:39:25,596 and there are certain people on this planet that will know who they are 789 00:39:25,596 --> 00:39:28,632 that may have worked with red grid things in the military. 790 00:39:28,632 --> 00:39:32,670 It's very similar to that, except the red grid military one was easier to use. 791 00:39:32,970 --> 00:39:37,541 It's pretty intense, and it's too bad because the concepts kind of cool. 792 00:39:37,575 --> 00:39:43,414 But the implementation of this is definitely if you sell your hardware 793 00:39:43,414 --> 00:39:47,351 and it creates headaches, that might not be the best marketing technique. 794 00:39:47,351 --> 00:39:51,589 Yeah, well, red is such a weird color to use because of how often 795 00:39:52,256 --> 00:39:55,192 you have red color blindness. Yeah, 796 00:39:56,360 --> 00:39:59,296 yeah, it's a weird color to use anyway. 797 00:39:59,296 --> 00:40:03,134 It's very hard as far as things go. Go. 798 00:40:03,200 --> 00:40:05,269 We're not going to dive into the psychology here of it, 799 00:40:05,269 --> 00:40:08,072 but there is psychology on the call of red versus other things. 800 00:40:08,072 --> 00:40:12,076 If they'd gone monochrome with blue or green or white monochrome, 801 00:40:12,109 --> 00:40:16,714 which might have made more sense, you know, it gave it a more Tron 802 00:40:16,747 --> 00:40:19,750 look by using black and white and gray. 803 00:40:19,817 --> 00:40:22,186 That probably would have worked better. 804 00:40:22,186 --> 00:40:25,322 There were a few red monochrome monitors 805 00:40:25,322 --> 00:40:28,726 out over the years, and there were the amber ones too. 806 00:40:28,793 --> 00:40:30,828 The amber was okay. Red. 807 00:40:30,828 --> 00:40:33,097 There was a reason why not a lot of those were made. 808 00:40:33,097 --> 00:40:34,465 Oh, there was green too. 809 00:40:34,465 --> 00:40:35,232 Yeah, green. 810 00:40:35,232 --> 00:40:37,034 Green were popular. 811 00:40:37,034 --> 00:40:38,903 Green was the most popular, I think. Yeah. 812 00:40:38,903 --> 00:40:41,038 Anyway. All right, next one on the list. 813 00:40:41,038 --> 00:40:43,774 And this was one that I really didn't know that much about. 814 00:40:43,774 --> 00:40:46,043 Is Apple actually ventured into video game 815 00:40:46,043 --> 00:40:49,213 consoles for a little while, 1996, with a thing called the Pippin. 816 00:40:49,880 --> 00:40:52,917 And again, it's Apple, so it has to cost 817 00:40:52,917 --> 00:40:56,153 more $599 and $1,996. 818 00:40:56,153 --> 00:41:01,425 So is is this Bandai the reference to the people who make the toys? 819 00:41:01,459 --> 00:41:02,693 Bandai was the company. 820 00:41:02,693 --> 00:41:05,229 Yes, Bandai is a toy company. So they were involved. 821 00:41:05,229 --> 00:41:07,264 Yeah, okay. 822 00:41:07,264 --> 00:41:07,998 That kind of stuff. 823 00:41:07,998 --> 00:41:11,802 It competed against PlayStation, then 10 to 64 in the Sega Saturn. 824 00:41:11,902 --> 00:41:13,904 There were a few good games on it, 825 00:41:13,904 --> 00:41:16,474 but again, people weren't sure what it was supposed to be. 826 00:41:16,474 --> 00:41:19,376 Computer console, internet appliance, multimedia machine. 827 00:41:19,376 --> 00:41:22,279 And it came from Apple, which knew how to market computers, 828 00:41:22,279 --> 00:41:25,115 although remember Apple and that period was almost bankrupt, 829 00:41:25,115 --> 00:41:27,251 so they were having some problems with their company too. 830 00:41:27,251 --> 00:41:28,152 You don't think of it now. 831 00:41:28,152 --> 00:41:31,755 Apple today is very different from the Apple in those days. And 832 00:41:33,557 --> 00:41:35,092 sales were low 833 00:41:35,092 --> 00:41:37,561 on the retro market, very collectible these days. 834 00:41:37,561 --> 00:41:38,229 This will command 835 00:41:38,229 --> 00:41:41,432 more than it originally sold for in a lot of cases for a good one. 836 00:41:41,632 --> 00:41:45,636 But yeah, your Apple video game console, 837 00:41:45,636 --> 00:41:48,639 I can only imagine. 838 00:41:49,907 --> 00:41:51,442 Yeah, yeah. 839 00:41:51,442 --> 00:41:55,513 And Bandai made beautiful, beautiful toys. 840 00:41:55,513 --> 00:42:01,752 I have some Bandai toys and yeah, those are those are cool. 841 00:42:01,752 --> 00:42:04,388 I was surprised to see their name linked to a video, 842 00:42:04,388 --> 00:42:07,391 I guess a lot of things, and they're a good company in my opinion. 843 00:42:07,424 --> 00:42:10,427 I mean, you know, they're they're out there, but they're not 844 00:42:11,228 --> 00:42:15,399 definitely with this whole situation, there's a big story that goes on this 845 00:42:15,399 --> 00:42:17,201 that could be an entire episode on its own. 846 00:42:17,201 --> 00:42:18,502 And if you're interested 847 00:42:18,502 --> 00:42:21,539 in deep diving on more of this, let us know on user Friendly show, 848 00:42:21,539 --> 00:42:25,676 because I'd be happy to do it, depending on what everybody would like to hear. 849 00:42:25,709 --> 00:42:28,913 The next step on our list is the Atari Lynx 1989. 850 00:42:28,913 --> 00:42:31,415 So we're going back a few years, and this one I think is a bummer. 851 00:42:31,415 --> 00:42:33,417 I have one of these. I had it in the time. 852 00:42:33,417 --> 00:42:34,585 I really like it. 853 00:42:34,585 --> 00:42:36,754 It competed with a Game Boy. 854 00:42:36,754 --> 00:42:38,923 It was more expensive, 855 00:42:38,923 --> 00:42:42,059 you know, and they complain about things like the battery life and stuff, 856 00:42:42,059 --> 00:42:47,631 but it was a definite improvement over what the capability of it was. 857 00:42:47,631 --> 00:42:50,134 The screen at a bare minimum. 858 00:42:50,134 --> 00:42:52,836 One of the things that Atari didn't have that Nintendo did at 859 00:42:52,836 --> 00:42:58,409 that time was franchises like Super Mario Brothers, Legend of Zelda, and so on. 860 00:42:58,442 --> 00:43:00,911 Tetris was another one they had licensed, interestingly enough, 861 00:43:00,911 --> 00:43:04,815 because Atari had had the license for Tetris in the arcade, but 862 00:43:04,815 --> 00:43:07,851 failed to get the license to do it on home video game consoles. 863 00:43:07,851 --> 00:43:08,986 Nintendo picked that up. 864 00:43:08,986 --> 00:43:11,589 So very popular game at the time. 865 00:43:11,589 --> 00:43:15,859 And if you're going to sell your video game system, especially if it's one 866 00:43:15,859 --> 00:43:17,695 that costs more money, you have to have games 867 00:43:17,695 --> 00:43:20,631 that people want to buy it for that are exclusive. 868 00:43:20,631 --> 00:43:24,802 That ecosystem is very important, which didn't have the case here. 869 00:43:24,802 --> 00:43:27,838 But one of the biggest things I like about the Lynx over the Game Boy 870 00:43:27,838 --> 00:43:31,141 was the Lynx was backlit and it was color. 871 00:43:32,543 --> 00:43:35,546 Oh yeah, color during that time was a big deal. 872 00:43:35,579 --> 00:43:36,513 Yeah. 873 00:43:36,513 --> 00:43:39,516 And when backlight was a big deal, I don't know why they didn't do that. 874 00:43:39,583 --> 00:43:43,654 I remember you had to have these special things that would light up the screen. 875 00:43:43,721 --> 00:43:44,521 Of course I wouldn't know. 876 00:43:44,521 --> 00:43:47,157 I didn't have a Game Boy, but 877 00:43:47,157 --> 00:43:49,026 friends of mine did. Did you? 878 00:43:49,026 --> 00:43:50,361 Do you remember what? 879 00:43:50,361 --> 00:43:52,463 You had to have a battery? 880 00:43:52,463 --> 00:43:53,297 Yeah. 881 00:43:53,297 --> 00:43:54,798 Well, you had to have it in light 882 00:43:54,798 --> 00:43:57,801 because otherwise it was just it was one of those, 883 00:43:57,801 --> 00:43:59,970 like, calculator screens where it was just black 884 00:43:59,970 --> 00:44:02,973 on that metallic 885 00:44:04,041 --> 00:44:06,477 brass color. Yes. 886 00:44:06,477 --> 00:44:08,946 But you couldn't see, like you're driving in a car. 887 00:44:08,946 --> 00:44:10,981 And if the light's not right, you can't see the screen. 888 00:44:10,981 --> 00:44:13,951 And certainly if you're trying to play it in the dark, you can't see the screen. 889 00:44:13,951 --> 00:44:15,452 Right? So yeah. 890 00:44:17,221 --> 00:44:20,290 Yeah, I remember Jeremy had like a, like a portable 891 00:44:20,357 --> 00:44:26,530 like it was almost like a little headlamp that would shine down on on his games. 892 00:44:26,597 --> 00:44:30,834 He had all these weird little things and he had a little bag 893 00:44:30,834 --> 00:44:33,637 with all the games in it and the Game Boy player 894 00:44:33,637 --> 00:44:36,940 and all these little things that went with it. 895 00:44:36,940 --> 00:44:38,175 It was kind of cool. 896 00:44:38,175 --> 00:44:39,043 That would have been fun. 897 00:44:39,043 --> 00:44:42,012 But yeah, at the time it just didn't. 898 00:44:43,313 --> 00:44:43,947 I don't know. 899 00:44:43,947 --> 00:44:45,382 And that was one of the reasons I didn't have a Game 900 00:44:45,382 --> 00:44:47,418 Boy was because it was so hard to see the screen. 901 00:44:47,418 --> 00:44:51,121 And, you know, again, it probably would have been fun to have. 902 00:44:51,121 --> 00:44:54,858 And for those that did, I think, enjoy it, let me know, because maybe I'll try 903 00:44:54,858 --> 00:44:57,995 to find a retro version of one of these if I can find one that works. 904 00:44:57,995 --> 00:44:58,829 Part of the problem is 905 00:44:58,829 --> 00:45:01,732 these were handheld systems, which means they were dropped and stuff. 906 00:45:01,732 --> 00:45:05,836 So finding a working model of them I think could be somewhat challenging. 907 00:45:05,836 --> 00:45:07,271 I don't know how to check it out. 908 00:45:07,271 --> 00:45:12,443 So now another one that I have in my library is Neo-Geo is 1994. 909 00:45:12,643 --> 00:45:13,510 We're back to that era. 910 00:45:13,510 --> 00:45:15,112 Gretchen, you're talking about where it seemed like 911 00:45:15,112 --> 00:45:18,882 there were a lot of failures and oh, no, it was. 912 00:45:18,916 --> 00:45:21,151 Yeah. 94 yeah. So 913 00:45:22,352 --> 00:45:25,155 I how do I explain this? 914 00:45:25,155 --> 00:45:28,158 It was incredibly expensive game console. 915 00:45:28,559 --> 00:45:30,961 Yeah. There's no other way to put it. 916 00:45:30,961 --> 00:45:35,899 I mean, you'd get into this $1,000 plus and the games themselves were no cheaper. 917 00:45:36,300 --> 00:45:39,636 It used a cartridge. 918 00:45:39,636 --> 00:45:42,973 So Neo-Geo made and continues to make arcade stuff. 919 00:45:42,973 --> 00:45:45,142 And one of the things about the Nintendo arcade 920 00:45:45,142 --> 00:45:49,379 or the Neo Geo arcade cabinet is it was basically a cartridge based video system. 921 00:45:49,379 --> 00:45:54,051 So when your game in the arcade got old, you could simply switch the cartridge. 922 00:45:54,051 --> 00:45:54,918 They'd send out a kit 923 00:45:54,918 --> 00:45:58,021 that was a cartridge, a new banner for it, Marquis 924 00:45:58,021 --> 00:46:01,358 and Side Art, and it would set it up and then you'd use the same machine again. 925 00:46:01,391 --> 00:46:05,195 So what the Geo wanted to do was bring home this experience 926 00:46:05,195 --> 00:46:09,700 where you could play the arcade versions of their stuff on a home game console, 927 00:46:09,700 --> 00:46:13,237 but in order to do that, you needed incredibly powerful hardware. 928 00:46:13,237 --> 00:46:16,774 And this was like the rich person's game system. 929 00:46:16,774 --> 00:46:18,175 And at the time, it was 930 00:46:19,343 --> 00:46:20,477 a luxury. 931 00:46:20,477 --> 00:46:23,914 And it was interesting to see because where they made some of these two, 932 00:46:23,947 --> 00:46:26,083 you could see that they were targeting that market. 933 00:46:26,083 --> 00:46:29,052 Like there's a special Neo-Geo that was meant to go in the car. 934 00:46:29,753 --> 00:46:33,056 So it was designed to be installed in your vehicle in 1994? 935 00:46:33,056 --> 00:46:37,427 Well, in 1994, you didn't have screens and all the rest of that in your car. 936 00:46:37,427 --> 00:46:41,999 So this was something that was kind of very unique, you know, and, well, 937 00:46:42,266 --> 00:46:45,803 what person would need to have a video game in their car? 938 00:46:46,537 --> 00:46:48,472 Rich people 20, 26. 939 00:46:48,472 --> 00:46:49,673 That's actually standard. 940 00:46:49,673 --> 00:46:51,575 What was that? Bill? I didn't hear you. 941 00:46:51,575 --> 00:46:52,743 Rich people. 942 00:46:52,743 --> 00:46:54,011 Rich people. Yes, yes. 943 00:46:54,011 --> 00:46:56,814 You know, I yeah. 944 00:46:56,814 --> 00:46:57,815 I mean really 945 00:46:57,815 --> 00:47:01,585 I mean, you're supposed to be driving and paying attention to driving. 946 00:47:01,585 --> 00:47:04,588 So was it supposed to be in the back of the car for the kids? 947 00:47:04,721 --> 00:47:05,455 Was in the back of the car? 948 00:47:05,455 --> 00:47:07,191 I do not believe even in those period, 949 00:47:07,191 --> 00:47:09,259 it was safe to play video games while you drove your car. 950 00:47:09,259 --> 00:47:13,597 Although I'm sure some people tried, so you know. 951 00:47:13,997 --> 00:47:19,036 But because yeah, safety is definitely one of those things you don't have to ask. 952 00:47:19,036 --> 00:47:22,339 Travelers will be back on this fall for when we start doing the safety 953 00:47:22,339 --> 00:47:26,510 awareness, and always a very good interview we get every year. 954 00:47:26,510 --> 00:47:28,812 I'm going to have to ask them about video games in the cars. 955 00:47:28,812 --> 00:47:30,414 I'm sure that they've had some stories 956 00:47:30,414 --> 00:47:34,818 on their end with that, but yeah, it definitely was a system. 957 00:47:34,818 --> 00:47:36,653 And then it also used CDs, 958 00:47:36,653 --> 00:47:38,856 which brought the price down a little bit from 959 00:47:38,856 --> 00:47:40,290 if they had actually used cartridges. 960 00:47:40,290 --> 00:47:43,460 But then you also had the loading time problem like we were talking about 961 00:47:43,627 --> 00:47:44,628 earlier. 962 00:47:44,628 --> 00:47:47,064 So anyway, so that gets us through some of the lists. 963 00:47:47,064 --> 00:47:49,867 We might do a part two follow up on this depending on if you want us to or not. 964 00:47:49,867 --> 00:47:52,236 So let us know what user friendly dot show. 965 00:47:52,236 --> 00:47:56,573 And before we end for the day, I would like Gretchen to kind of let's 966 00:47:56,673 --> 00:47:59,376 do something a little bit different because we've had some questions about it. 967 00:47:59,376 --> 00:48:02,713 How are things going with your Saturn V Lego project? 968 00:48:02,980 --> 00:48:05,749 Oh gosh, it's really weird. 969 00:48:05,749 --> 00:48:11,989 I'm really questioning the instructions because it'll look like it's 970 00:48:11,989 --> 00:48:15,459 telling me to do one thing and I go ahead and do it, 971 00:48:15,459 --> 00:48:19,897 and then later on it's like, no, no, you know, the pictures are different. 972 00:48:19,897 --> 00:48:25,602 So I've been I, I'm now building it with the expectation 973 00:48:25,602 --> 00:48:31,074 I'm going to have to rip it apart again to make it go correctly. 974 00:48:31,742 --> 00:48:35,479 It's, it's it's been frustrating but I am making progress. 975 00:48:35,479 --> 00:48:40,050 I'm on I think bag seven now on my Saturn five. 976 00:48:40,050 --> 00:48:41,852 So I am making progress. 977 00:48:41,852 --> 00:48:47,291 And I'm hoping that what I've built isn't going to have to be ripped apart again. 978 00:48:47,357 --> 00:48:48,058 When you finish it, 979 00:48:48,058 --> 00:48:51,395 we'll have to put a picture up on our website because there's a lot of 980 00:48:52,362 --> 00:48:54,131 encouragement from our listeners. 981 00:48:54,131 --> 00:48:54,998 Good. 982 00:48:54,998 --> 00:48:56,533 And and a lot of people. 983 00:48:56,533 --> 00:48:58,268 And it looks really cool. 984 00:48:58,268 --> 00:48:59,269 Yeah. 985 00:48:59,269 --> 00:49:01,271 Well, when it's done, by the way, you're not the only person 986 00:49:01,271 --> 00:49:03,540 that's had some difficulties putting this one together either. 987 00:49:03,540 --> 00:49:05,042 So that's the other thing we've got. 988 00:49:05,042 --> 00:49:07,210 So yeah, keep us up to date on that. 989 00:49:07,210 --> 00:49:11,148 And until next week this is User Friendly 2.0, keeping you safe on the cutting edge. 990 00:49:11,748 --> 00:49:13,216 User Friendly 2.0. 991 00:49:13,216 --> 00:49:16,553 Copyright 2013 to 2026. 992 00:49:16,553 --> 00:49:20,023 By User Friendly Media Group, Incorporated. 993 00:49:20,223 --> 00:49:21,858 All rights reserved. 994 00:49:21,858 --> 00:49:26,063 The content is the opinion of the show's participants and does 995 00:49:26,063 --> 00:49:29,866 not necessarily reflect this station or platform. 996 00:49:30,233 --> 00:49:34,071 Requests for material use, interviews, disclosures, 997 00:49:34,071 --> 00:49:37,074 and other correspondence may be viewed 998 00:49:37,074 --> 00:49:40,577 and submitted at UserFriendly.Show