There you see it

Ever play with Lego?

fretz: Robotics had been around already then, but not 'robotics for home use' - we'll yet have to see this For example the book on robotics with the C64 I mentioned in the initial post covered these circuits which turn the light on when you clap your hands. Today, you can buy these in every normal shop - back then, it was freakish!

Sounds like a promising visit... Following your examples, I started to browse the online catalogue of my university for some keywords. It seems they've got some interesting old stuff as well. For example an issue of a magazine called "Supercomputer" from 1986. I'll get there and take a look sooner or later.

I see your point there however robotics had been around for a bit before the speccy came along, it would never make any commercial application. I suppose their is an educational benefit putting some sort of robot technology in front of the masses, but robotics?!?.....on the spectrum?!?!? Whatever next, attatching a 35mm camera to you telephone?

I still reckon the world went temporarily insane.

BTW, the author of the book is called A.A. Berk thats funny.

Sure, these books might look funny today at first, but they do have a very serious background. I don't think many people actually thought it would have much practical use with these machines, but the basics are the same, even today. It was clear sooner or later, 'better' machines would be produced, and then, it is always good if you've considered the possibility before and laid out the theory. It's the same with most scientific fields actually: long before it is actually used, there are theories about it. Only a lot later, these get really important. Take George Boole - that guy lived in the early to mid 19th century, but only in the last 20 years, his algebra really got important!

Reading Tuss's post has prompted me to take a look through my small colection of old books. 'Practical Robotics and Interfacing for the Spectrum' .. phew thats a classic, cant put it down!

I think old books are great. Very funny seeing what piontless crap people used to do with a spectrum, I mean, did these people think they could save BMW money by getting a spectrum to run their factories? Or high-tech surgery using speccy-powered robots perhaps?

heheh, it wasn't far from it! The library system where I used to live was in such bad shape... There was very little new books after the 1960s, and so the whole library was stocked with like this cold war atmosphere. When they finally got internet the only thing it was used for was porn...

I want to marry the library here.

That whole story sounds as if it was your first trip to a library in your whole life

After searching our library's database, not only did I find books on computers, but I found software titles as well. Mostly just the more educational software games, such as every sim game ever created except SimCity4 and The Sims, as well as others such as Hidden Agenda and Balance of Power. It just so happened today that I had to renew a couple of books so I could have them to work on a presentation I have to do, so I suited up for the mile walk and headed out to the library.

I got there and I went to a desk to renew the books. I told the girl there I needed to renew this and she got this weird smile on her face, and she chuckled, "You can renew books on our website, you don't have to walk here..." and she laughed again. It was a good start.

I walked up the 80 stairs to get to the Digital Media area. I wish I could say it was dark, damp, and cramped, but it wasn't. It was rather well lighted and in a large, kinda empty, room. Yes, the room was mostly empty and I was disheartend. I saw a counter, and tons of books behind it, and I found out you must bother the people at the counter for each book you want, and you need to know exactly what book you want, no browsing allowed. Bah. I saw a small setup accross the room that had a fair amount of books on it, and the area was called "Books about Software" I decided to check it out.

The first book I saw was called "The Law and Software". It sparked a mild interest in me and I decided to see what was in it. They explained how the legal system handled software by using American Football diagrams. I know many of you could care less about American Football, but I'll give a breif description. The software developer was the quarterback (Aptly named 'you'), Special Interest was a tight end, and the 'Pirates' were on the defensive team, playing the free safetys. Oh, and the special interest ran a post route into the Pirates, whom the Pirates covered. Seeing how the consumer and pirates were on the same team, this didn't make any sense. I decided this book couldn't be taken seriously. Next I spotted "Shareware Magazine" every issue from 1988 to 1993. I took a look at the 1993 and it had full color ads for Doom, Wolf3d, and Jill of the Jungle. JotJ was interesting because was more like art, using chalk to draw their ad. That felt a little 'newish' so I took the 1990 year. I found an article comparing various Tetris clones (called "Tetris options") as well as a section called best shareware of the year. In it were games like 'Jump Jet'. I took the 1988 and looked inside, and any mention of games were pretty non-existent.

After that I saw some pretty big folder type books the size of dictionarys. The were named "Full Software Review: 19xx" every 'issue' from 1985 to 2002. I didn't look at them, deciding to save them for another time, hoping they weren't just reviews of applications. The rest of the books were mostly how education should use computers ('hypermedia'), some Apple development books, and a couple shelves devoted to those 'Internet 101' books that were mostly from 1995 when that kinda thing was hot.

I then left, promising to return.

Hmm..... the big libraries here in Hamburg all have comprehensive online catalogues to search, that makes it a lot easier

I would go and have a look if it were not for the fact that our "Library" is divided amongst a dozen different buildings catagorised by faculty and I wouldn't have the faintest idea where the library for informatics and such is located...

I will look at our library when I get back from break. We have quite a large one, I'll keep ya updated.

Tuss

I'm always scouting eBay and other sources for old gaming magazines. I have a whole bunch of magazines where they actually have whole time graphs when rating a game. On the x-axis they have a time in months (0-6) of gameplay, and on the y-axis the level of enjoyment. The steeper it gets up first, the easier it is to learn the game, and the slower it falls back down, the bigger the replay value. Others have game rating in a dozen different categories, and yet others refused to rate games at all. It's so much fun to read them...

I bet they would even be happy to get rid off most of this 'useless' stuff It's not as if anyone ever borrows them, at least not in the last ten years or so

I tried to find that kind of books myself, and sadly failed. Which is one of the reasons I started with abandonware at all...

Try to steal them and archive them yourself

I had some free time at university today, so I went to the library and browsed their catalogue of 'archived' books, i.e. books which aren't available from the shelves, but they have put in their backrooms. To my surprise, I found many (several hundred) interesting titles about now classic computers published in their heydays: manuals how to control robots with a C64, scientific looks on the Atari ST, programming guides for the Amiga and even books like The 100 Best Games (published 1990)! I can only recommend to all the students here to check if you have access to similar treasures - it's really fascinating to read first-hand literature instead of smart-ass comments about the past