A typewriter!  Back in my day we heralded the invention of paper.

OK, my first PC was a TRS-80 model I with 4K of memory.  I bought it the day it was released, and had a text-based football game programmed 2 days later.  Later on, I went the Commodore route with a Commodore 64, then an Amiga 1000, 2000, 4000, etc.  Bought my first 3D software for that machine.  Been hooked ever since.

And I'm still working on my first novel.

Quote - A typewriter!  Back in my day we heralded the invention of paper.

OK, my first PC was a TRS-80 model I with 4K of memory.  I bought it the day it was released, and had a text-based football game programmed 2 days later.  Later on, I went the Commodore route with a Commodore 64, then an Amiga 1000, 2000, 4000, etc.  Bought my first 3D software for that machine.  Been hooked ever since.

LOL! You had a 'TRASH' 80! You do know that Amiga was formed by programmers who left Atari and took proprietary code with them to create the Amiga platform? They were sued by Atari and that's what ended up killing the Amiga.

Quote - P.S. Picture is from Ebay. My 600XL got traded in when I got an Atari 1040 STE.

I had the opportunity to play around with a Commodore 64, Apple IIe, and TRS-80 Model IV before settling on the Atari 1200XL as my first PC.  And I still have it (or technically, its replacement), more-or-less in working order.  I haven't fired it up in at least thirteen years.

The Atari ST was the logical progression of the Commodore 64, and the Amiga was the logical next Atari 800.

Whatever doomed the Amiga wasn't just Atari's suit, as the Amiga lasted a lot longer than Atari did in the PC business.  What I think really doomed the Amiga was bad business heads.  They didn't really know how to market what they had, or even realize what they had.  Oh well, I still run AmigaOS on my quad-core PC; just for kicks.

grinning at Little Dragon The last time I fired up my Atari was 2005 to copy some data from some disks that was back up information for my vampire novel. Now all my computers are in storage in Dallas until such time as I can get them up here to Canada. The friend I'm staying with owns an Atari 1040 also. Its in good condition but hasn't been fired up in years. I did, out of curiosity, go looking and found an emulator program that works on Windows XP. If I had a copy of my old word processor, I could emulate my 1040 and write on that. I still prefer that old word processing program to Microsoft's Word. However, as much as I love my Atari, none of those computers could have handled any version of Poser.

Early personal computers - all well and good, but which of you had one of these?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magnavox_Odyssey

I did.

I just noticed I'm talking OT in the Poser 8 thread. Oops.

Ah, well, what else is there to say about P8? LOL

Due to my Amiga, I have my Window's taskbar always at the top of the screen, just like Workbench used to be! :)

Quote - I just noticed I'm talking OT in the Poser 8 thread. Oops.

Topic drift is inevitable after 30-40 pages.

I think the first "pc" I used at school was a Research Machines 380z - amazing keyboard but that's about all you can say about 'em :)

Quote - > Quote - I just noticed I'm talking OT in the Poser 8 thread. Oops.

Topic drift is inevitable after 30-40 pages.

Needs some reference to cat pictures, obviously your meter is not properly calibrated.

I had a Timex that came with 2K. I purchased an additional 4K for $250.00. The Timex keys were printed on a plastic overlay. My first "Big" computer was a Commadore 64. 

This thread is starting to resemble Friday afternoon drinks at my work(*). Apparently, the topic got so out of hand that people decided to ban any talk of the history of computing on any other day.

(*) Well, except that no-one's mentioned punch cards or IBM mainframes yet.

Quote - This thread is starting to resemble Friday afternoon drinks at my work. Apparently, this topic got so out of hand that people decided to ban any talk of the history of computing on any other day.

:lol:  Funny and sad at the same time. 

I, too, had a Commodore 64, but I wasn't lucky enough to have one when they were new.  I got it 2nd hand from the school (my mom was a teacher) when they upgraded to the shiny new IBM PC. 

OK, my first computing experience was on a mainframe, with punch tape.  The punch tape was a precursor to punch cards.

Happy now?

punched tape ?? when I were a lad it was all flipping switches on a PDP11, uphill in the snow both ways ! :biggrin:

Quote - Early personal computers - all well and good, but which of you had one of these?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magnavox_Odyssey

I did.

Oh, Lord, does that take me back... taping those little papery-plasticky things to the TV, trying to see through the corners and get my head lined up just right 'cause the glass was so far from the tube...

Ah, memories.

Gosh, you people are old. :lol:

Quote - Gosh, you people are old. :lol:

Not to mention venerable. RHIP, and so does age. :biggrin:

I'm with odf, who let the old folks in?  :lol:  j/k

:-Þ

Quote - I'm with odf, who let the old folks in?  :lol:  j/k

Take care, whippersnapper, lest ya get whacked with somebody's cane...

:lol:

Hey, you! Get off my lawn!

Darn kids...

The first computer thing i ever touched was an Oric Atmos my father was so proud to own ;)

Quote - > Quote - > Quote - Sooo... Bill, can you give us any idea at all.. a hint... a teeny nudge... a cryptic clue... as to when Poser Pro 2 might be out??

That's the sort of thing that I'm not really in a position to say anything about for two reasons.

1) I don't know
2) If I did know and told you I'd have to kill you. It's in my contract.
:)

Aww rats! Couldn't you just "kill me a little bit"???

Did someone call me?

How is this for killing a little bit....

The next version of Poser Pro will be released in the future.

How is that for killing you a little!

My first computer was a Mainframe.. I use to go to work with my dad on the weekends and the System staff would let me work on a terminal on the MainFrame after I debugged a Game they installed. My dad started bringing home a Terminal and at night I debugged other programs, not games.

I then got a Computer I built as a kit (I want to say it was a Tandy, but I seem to recall it had a different name on the box), hooked to an old TV Set we had (Black and White) and used a Tape Deck to store the data. I was keen on creating a Random Dungeon Creator using the DMG from Advanced D&D on Computer. We created images for all the types of halls and programmed the Random Generator. It worked great for about 75 to 100 generations, then ran out of resources and froze up. We changed the program so it did not save where you had been, which created a neat affect... if you turned around the hall you just left may not be the same.

I first programmed computers in high school using jumpers (wires), gates, and Boolean logic. This was about the time that integrated circuits became available. My first computer was a Timex Sinclair 1000 with 2K of memory. I bought a 16K memory-pack for it, and the salesman laughed at me. He said no one would ever write a program for a home computer that would need 16K of memory.

Now I have a 64-bit computer with Vista 64-bit OS, and 4Gigs of memory. I bought Poser Pro entirely for the 64-bit rendering engine (which was not what made it a "Pro" program). The Firefly renderer of Poser 7 on this machine would terminate (often crashing Poser) at about 1.75Gigs of memory usage. Firefly 64-bit does not even slow down when it reaches 2.5Gigs of memory usage.

Poser 8 with only a 32-bit version of Firefly would be like going back to a 2K T/S 1000 without the 16K memory-pack. The features and content not withstanding, this is less than Smith Micro can offer its users, seeing that the code for 64-bit rendering (including the ability to render on legacy 32-bit machines) has already been written. Unless there is a ridiculously cheap side-grade price from Poser Pro, I will have to join the growing number of Poser users who will not buy Poser 8.

LMK

Mine was a bit newer than the C64 ... a C128D!
Yay.
It came with a disk drive!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commodore_128#Commodore_128D

Quote - > Quote - I just noticed I'm talking OT in the Poser 8 thread. Oops.

Topic drift is inevitable after 30-40 pages.

Ooh I wonder how old Legume is these days & where he hides out?

Quote - I first programmed computers in high school using jumpers (wires), gates, and Boolean logic. This was about the time that integrated circuits became available. My first computer was a Timex Sinclair 1000 with 2K of memory. I bought a 16K memory-pack for it, and the salesman laughed at me. He said no one would ever write a program for a home computer that would need 16K of memory.

Now I have a 64-bit computer with Vista 64-bit OS, and 4Gigs of memory. I bought Poser Pro entirely for the 64-bit rendering engine (which was not what made it a "Pro" program). The Firefly renderer of Poser 7 on this machine would terminate (often crashing Poser) at about 1.75Gigs of memory usage. Firefly 64-bit does not even slow down when it reaches 2.5Gigs of memory usage.

Poser 8 with only a 32-bit version of Firefly would be like going back to a 2K T/S 1000 without the 16K memory-pack. The features and content not withstanding, this is less than Smith Micro can offer its users, seeing that the code for 64-bit rendering (including the ability to render on legacy 32-bit machines) has already been written. Unless there is a ridiculously cheap side-grade price from Poser Pro, I will have to join the growing number of Poser users who will not buy Poser 8.

LMK

EXACTLY!

But we are going round and round in circles. All we can do is lobby DS to release Poser Pro 2 as soon as possible. What would help would be a Statement of Intention, but they don't seem to do those. I don't know why they don't, it doesn't need to include a date, just an indication of approximate time, like "4th quarter 2009" or whatever.

Quote -

But we are going round and round in circles. All we can do is lobby DS to release Poser Pro 2 as soon as possible. What would help would be a Statement of Intention, but they don't seem to do those. I don't know why they don't, it doesn't need to include a date, just an indication of approximate time, like "4th quarter 2009" or whatever.

Why would we lobby Daz Studio to release Poser Pro 2?

The first computer I ever used was actually the original Mac with no SCSI port. So I had to have everything on my 400K diskette, including the system. I'd be on it all night long swapping out diskettes.

My brother's first computer though was actually a TRS-80, which I believe is still in my closet. His more powerful PCjr. is in the shed out back.

Quote - > Quote -

But we are going round and round in circles. All we can do is lobby DS to release Poser Pro 2 as soon as possible. What would help would be a Statement of Intention, but they don't seem to do those. I don't know why they don't, it doesn't need to include a date, just an indication of approximate time, like "4th quarter 2009" or whatever.

Why would we lobby Daz Studio to release Poser Pro 2?

oops, I meant SM!

Could you imagine what would happen if Daz bought Poser?

Quote - Could you imagine what would happen if Daz bought Poser?

Poser 8 would be released "soon". :laugh:

Quote - Ooh I wonder how old Legume is these days & where he hides out?

He lives under the bridge leading to Renderotica and appears when there's a f**kwit to be dealt with.

Quote - He lives under the bridge leading to Renderotica and appears when there's a f**kwit to be dealt with.

If that's true why haven't I had a visit from him? hehehe

 Wrong bridge......?

And since we are talking very early computing goodness.....the -Very- first box I ever laid hand on was the venerable Altair 8008, owned by a close friend. Wanna break someone's reality? Sit them down in front of an Altair class computer and inform them that those 8 switches are the data bus, those 16 are the address bus, and that small group is the command control switches for things like read/write to system memory, program execution, and interrupt. First mainframe I got to manhandle was a PDP-11 in tech school.....and I got to laugh my geekish ass off at the nimrods trying to bring a donated Altair to life. They bought a 3 card add on to the 2 slot off the shelf board, and actually connected the two with 4" long pieces of 22 ga bell wire. And could never figure out why things didn't work. The school spent over $5k on dual 5.25's, honest to Ghod 64 meg DRAM S-100 cards, TTY interface, and that hideously expensive video card that could actually display 80 characters per line.

Naturally they didn't listen to the 1st quarter weenie who told them about capacitance and inductive effects and their effects on backplanes......and nearly 3 years after that they still hadn't figured it out.........  >:)

Quote - I just noticed I'm talking OT in the Poser 8 thread. Oops.

Ah, well, what else is there to say about P8? LOL

I have noticed in other forums, people have been asking about "Favorites"
Could you possibly give some information of just what can be added to Favorites??

TKS

I set up Andrea's Head as the Control for P8 Alyson's Head and P8 Ryan's Head. Note: I could have made it Alyson and Ryan's Hip or any other body parts.

Just to make it simple, I made two DPs

1. Twist Andrea's Head - Will simultaneously Twist Alyson's and Ryan's Head
2. Bend Andrea's Head - will simultaneously Bend Alyson's and Ryan's Head
3. Side-Side Andrea's Head - will simultaneously Side-Side  Alyson's and Ryan's Head

So far I haven't experimented with just how many figures I can control and hou many body parts. I have controlled 4 or more body parts on two figures before.

I could take the segments of a tail and control them all by one body part. Turn the dogs head and have his tail curl leftRidght UpDown

Sounds like you can have a ballet of synchronous moving figures easily.

So hungry for more screenshots.

Quote - Sounds like you can have a ballet of synchronous moving figures easily.

:0)) - I can also use a Prop to control various Figure Body Parts or I could use a Figure Bodt Part to control a Props' Transitions.

jawdrop  Really?  That's freakin' awesome!! :)

Quote - I can also use a Prop to control various Figure Body Parts or I could use a Figure Bodt Part to control a Props' Transitions.

Or pretty much any parm can control any other parm. I'm hoping to find the time to try out displacement map strength driven by bends - could make great muscles and wrinkles.

Sounds like Poser 8 is going to have some major improvements.  Smith Micro should do well on upgraders as a result of all the improvements and additions.

Which list would be shorter, things it can control or things it can't control?

More to the point can a prop/figure/part movement control colour or texture change?

Quote - Which list would be shorter, things it can control or things it can't control?

More to the point can a prop/figure/part movement control colour or texture change?

You can control almost any node in the material room from a prop/figure/part at least since Poser 5...
A little easier using dependend parameters in Poser 7...
I don't think you can control across props/figures... Maybe it's possible with Poser 8... 

Quote - I'm hoping to find the time to try out displacement map strength driven by bends - could make great muscles and wrinkles.

I'd like to link displacement-map and bump-map strength to the scale dial, myself.

Well, I think more usefull for biceps and triceps with arm movement.
leg shape with leg bending.
gravity for the breasts with chest movement;

gravity morphs could be made, to simutale and combine gravity with movement.

I see problems using bump/displacement maps with dependent parameters because of material zones. Firstly, if one uses dependant parameters to simulate the flexing of the biceps on the right arm, the left arm is in the same material zone with the same maps. Therefore, the left biceps will also "flex." Unless one has different material zones for each side of the body, using this as an option will cause the maps to be applied to both sides of the body simultaneously.

Secondly, there are four material zones that make up the arm (hand, forearm, shoulder, and collar). If one changes the parameters of the bump/displacement on the shoulders, there will be a line between the material zones of the collar, the forearm, and the shoulder. To show what I mean, attach a good displacement map to a figure, and use very different values for different material zones, and you should see some lines.

It might be possible to get around this second problem with specially made displacement maps merged with a base displacement map using blender nodes. I am not good at making displacement maps so I cannot try this out, but if one made maps that only effected the biceps or triceps, and blended them with a base displacement map, dependent parameters could control the amount of blending.

With a very sophisticated blender set up, it might be possible to use dependent parameters to flex only the biceps of one arm. This would solve the first problem. Of course, one might also make figures with right and left material zones.

Hmmm, I suppose one could also use magnets to flex muscle groups. Do magnets work across material zones? considering other new features, could the falloff zones or the shape of the joint capsule distort the mesh to simulate muscle flexing/relaxing?

LMK