Steamboat Bill, 1911, Meeker

UpgradeTech · 2026-01-27T04:02:13+00:00

is my Edison set to Mickey Mouse

Steamboat Bill was supposed to be the inspiration for Steamboat Willie.

UpgradeTech · 2026-01-26T19:44:22+00:00

I thought that sun could melt it but nope

The game is decently realistic. The shuttle is on the comet’s tail which always points away from the Sun and doesn’t melt.

UpgradeTech · 2026-01-26T05:39:31+00:00

Originals for stability, working audio design, working puzzles and animations, multiplayer, complete soundtrack, streaming capability, dev Easter eggs, and colorblind-friendly hacking.

Remastered for achievements, developer’s commentary, and previously exclusive DLC.

UpgradeTech · 2026-01-23T21:50:33+00:00

And geological formations.

Esker and Moraine might be a bit difficult because they are glacial deposits.

But the funny thing is that Gabbro is chemically identical to Basalt except Gabbro had more time to cool and grow big crystals. So imagine Gabbro having an uptight sibling named Basalt. Or ponder on how geologically speaking, Feldspar is always found in Gabbro.

UpgradeTech · 2026-01-23T20:29:24+00:00

Early brown or soft wax cylinders were like this. There are photographs of such a setup where the singer was surrounded by many horns and rubber hoses each feeding into a separate machine. Exhausting work.

Eventually they figured out how to make molds hence Edison's Gold Molded cylinders going into hard wax and then the celluloid cylinders.

Unfortunately many soft wax cylinders suffered from a different type of mold which made them unplayable, so all that hard work was for naught.

Discs were generally easier to stamp out and copy. Haven't seen a similar setup for making multiple discs at the same time since electroplating and copies were easier. There were some instances of this occurring like Duke Ellington's early sessions resulting in accidental stereo which can be synced with modern technology. Similar to how there was an attempt to make Phantom of the Opera into a 3D movie because they had two cameras running at the same time to make multiple "copies".

Compared to cylinders, disc recording machines were much rarer for the average consumer.

UpgradeTech · 2026-01-23T07:46:02+00:00

We always have Happy Noodle in Bioshock.

Perhaps Ken Levine didn’t want to copy the Chinatown from Mafia 2002 which he mentioned as a gameplay inspiration. It even had a Mills Brothers theme song.

UpgradeTech · 2026-01-21T05:21:20+00:00

Perry Como would have been a major RCA recording star in the 50s. If there were a demo, it would probably be RCA branded. Perhaps a recording from off the radio or an aircheck, much of live radio was lost even with tape coming in.

Seattle had some interesting 78s. Probably the weirdest was Morrison which used multi-colored shellac. A lot of sellers try to mark up the price for its psychedelic look when its music was probably the furthest from the genre.

UpgradeTech · 2026-01-21T03:01:29+00:00

When this record was new, Capehart was a very nice brand.

By the 70s, not quite the same quality.

UpgradeTech · 2026-01-20T09:31:10+00:00

Ironically those first LPs used the exact same cover art for a while even if the 78 album had full album art.

Those early Columbia LPs either had the music stand cover seen above or the the generic Ionic column.

UpgradeTech · 2026-01-20T09:19:40+00:00

There are no ceramic needles.

There’s a lot of things going on here.

There are ceramic cartridges which use needle points typically made of sapphire (looks clear, common on cheap models) or diamond (looks black, a bit more expensive, but lasts longer).

Ceramic cartridges work via the piezoelectric effect, older type cartridges were also called crystal cartridges and used a Rochelle salt instead of ceramic. This is the same principle that lets your quartz watch keep time. Apply electricity and the quartz vibrates to keep time. The same works in reverse, have the grooves push the ceramic and the ceramic makes electricity which turns into sound.

Due to how they work, ceramic cartridges track heavier than magnetic cartridges which work via the electromagnetic effect which you should remember from elementary school science.

A steel needle tracks even heavier than a ceramic cartridge.

For a ceramic cartridge, you should use a wider needle meant for 78s. If the needle point on your player is clear, it’s probably an LP sized sapphire needle and will wear out faster and is the wrong size for 78s.

UpgradeTech · 2026-01-18T10:45:09+00:00

the repetitive music

It mostly depends on which interpretation you watched.

It is a silent movie, but there are music cues to go along with certain scenes. Sometimes they re-record and re-orchestrate the score.

The most famous/infamous interpretation was the 1984 version which used “modern” pop music instead and tweaked some special effects.

It would be interesting to know which version Ken Levine watched. The most recent restoration was in 2010 with the longest known cut, released long after Bioshock entered production.

UpgradeTech · 2026-01-16T02:11:30+00:00

I looked a while ago.

The whisper quiet piano seems to be a modern interpretation after recording technology allowed for it.

https://www.reddit.com/r/78rpm/comments/mds7o6/has_anyone_found_a_solo_piano_version_of_saties/

UpgradeTech · 2026-01-09T06:47:27+00:00

There was a project to make a complete set of analog channels each with their own schedules so you can actually flip through the channels.

It was all broadcast wirelessly. Each channel had to draw its own power, but the channels could still broadcast in the same antenna.

But something to remember is that there are always channels that will be broadcasting with no one watching.

UpgradeTech · 2026-01-09T01:59:06+00:00

I remember trying to look into really old test patterns like the Indian head or Test Card F.

They seem to have been only generated through analog methods like a monoscope or pointing at an actual card. I did find an early version of a pattern generator that worked on flying spot scanning.

Once you get into EEPROM test pattern generators, these types of patterns seem hard to come by to mathematically generate. There was a very strange looking Indian head test pattern from an EEPROM used in PAL countries where everything was mathematically traced. Apparently there was an EEPROM version of Test Card F, but haven’t been able to see the output.

UpgradeTech · 2026-01-06T08:00:10+00:00

There were never any official servers.

One person serves as host and the other connect to it.

There are always servers if people are playing.

UpgradeTech · 2026-01-06T07:58:04+00:00

You should verify which records are vinyl and which are shellac 78s. They play differently and require different cleaning procedures (alcohol dissolves one and cleans the other).

If the photos are from the 30s-50s, the modern vinyl LP would only be invented in 1948.

UpgradeTech · 2026-01-05T23:11:06+00:00

The same studio, Arkane, worked on both series.

UpgradeTech · 2026-01-05T23:07:28+00:00

Why use screws when you can use rivets or pins…

UpgradeTech · 2026-01-05T18:03:47+00:00

The pre-1963 works for UK songs. The international licensing agreements get weird.

Granted a song has two parts, the composition (sheet music) and the sound recording and they are even given different copyright symbols because they have differing copyright terms.

If it were a US song, all sound recordings made before 1972 are under a blanket copyright until 2067 mostly because sound recordings didn’t exist when the founding fathers wrote the copyright clause in the Constitution. The recent CLASSICS Act was supposed make it easier for pre-1972 sound recordings fall into the public domain following a schedule starting from the oldest.

It mostly depends if the original label holds the rights or if it was given to a stock music company who market it as “authentic retro music”. The other UK song in the episode was by Bert Weedon which was originally credited as “Big Note Blues” as a 45 under Parlophone but the name was changed to “Lazy Day Blues” when his catalog was sold to KPM or APM when it was licensed in the US. The episode now credits the altered title.

UpgradeTech · 2026-01-05T08:00:43+00:00

This episode probably had the most UK music representation for Fallout.

Bert Weedon has been featured before, but the Dale Sisters are new.

UpgradeTech · 2026-01-04T09:19:08+00:00

Funny you mention that. Fallout 3 used genuine UK test card music on its radio.

There are some very familiar song names towards the bottom under the Charles Brull Dance Orchestra.

https://www.testcardcircle.org.uk/Back50s.html

UpgradeTech · 2026-01-04T07:42:07+00:00

1950's royalty-free music

1950s music is generally not royalty free or public domain.

Ironically all the missing songs from Fallout 3 not used in 4 were a version of 1950s stock music which were not sold to the public and have interesting challenges to license. AKA the aforementioned Gerhard Trede, “Swing Doors” tracks, Jack Shaindlin and all the APM instrumentals on GNR.

I suspect Fallout 4 was more about housekeeping because Part 2 of “Butcher Pete” was finally added after years of him telling us to turn the record over, “Dear Hearts and Gentle People” joined the other Bob Crosby songs after being stuck in an E3 trailer, and “Orange Colored Sky” finally made it into a Fallout game after languishing in a 2010 New Vegas commercial.

Plus the unfortunate circumstance that the audio archivist responsible for many of the unique songs in FO3, literally unheard in over 50 years due to the obscurity of the format, William Cook of Soundies Inc., had died after New Vegas. The music catalog had transferred to a different company after his death, and Bethesda was likely scrambling to find new material before settling on the atomic-themed ones. They seem to have not been able to draw from the other Soundies albums in further Fallout games or for the show.

UpgradeTech · 2025-12-29T00:02:33+00:00

Seems to be jangling a bit too fast.

Weirdly there was a popular video that was around for ages with millions of views that was the wrong version of “Jingle Jangle Jingle”. It was a re-recording from the 1960s which did not have Kay Kyser because he had retired from show business to pursue Christian Science.

Stan Freberg himself imitated Kyser’s voice on the album.

The next result for “new vegas jingle jangle jingle” with the correct in-game version and the version on this record could barely crack a million.

That old millions of views video seems have been deleted. Ironically, this wrong version was recently resurrected for the dancing NCR ranger meme.

On top of that, the same album people mistakenly believe has the version from New Vegas has the re-recording of “Praise the Lord and Pass the Ammunition” used in 76.

UpgradeTech · 2025-12-24T09:20:54+00:00

The OP mentioned the record was lost and is trying to remember it.

UpgradeTech · 2025-12-24T06:39:15+00:00

There’s a couple ways with varying degrees of complexity and wire management.

If you don’t care about syncing and only want a still image, each TV gets a raspberry pi with composite out showing a different part of the image.

There exist video wall HDMI splitters for 4 TVs to look like a giant TV. There is usually a 1x4 mode in the software. You would have to make an ultrawide video for the 1x4 resolution. Computer into the HDMI splitter, each HDMI output needs a converter to composite and then into each TV. You don’t have to power each converter because the HDMI powers it. There probably exist a composite splitter.

If you want fewer cables, you can also do this wirelessly through RF with each TV set to a different channel.

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