| Date: | October 31, 2005 / year-entry #327 |
| Tags: | history |
| Orig Link: | https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/oldnewthing/20051031-03/?p=33553 |
| Comments: | 12 |
| Summary: | During the Windows 95 project, the window manager team stayed late one night and redecorated the lobby. They suspended a variety of Hallowe'en-themed objects from fishing lines: spiders, ghosts, witches, jack-o'-lanterns, that sort of thing. The fishing line went up and over pulleys, rigged so that the objects spookily rose and fell seemingly of their own... |
During the Windows 95 project, the window manager team stayed late one night and redecorated the lobby. They suspended a variety of Hallowe'en-themed objects from fishing lines: spiders, ghosts, witches, jack-o'-lanterns, that sort of thing. The fishing line went up and over pulleys, rigged so that the objects spookily rose and fell seemingly of their own volition. It was quite an impressive display. The fishing lines were anchored to various doors in the building. Since the doors they chose were highly-trafficked, this assured a random pattern of motion for the objects suspended from the fishing line. Of course, no spooky Hallowe'en display would be complete without a spider rigged to the front door, rapidly descending upon the poor victim coming in for a meeting. |
Comments (12)
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What? No pictures?
Pictures!!! We want pictures!!! q;-)
I don’t have any pictures. Consumer digital cameras hadn’t been invented yet, and even if they had, I wouldn’t have bought one (they cost over $1000!) and even if I bought one I wouldn’t have taken pictures (I don’t take pictures much).
And even when you would have taken pictures, you wouldn’t have posted ‘m :)
If only there had been some sort of image capture technology before the advent of digital cameras.
Imagine, if there had been such a thing, we would know what the Wright Flyer, the Hindenberg disaster, V-E Day, the surface of the moon, and even the spooky lobby looked like!
I got my first digicam in Feb 1998 to use on a trip to Vegas. They were still new enough that many people would stare at me as I used it, then ask how that contraption worked. What’s the screen for? No film? What?
I remember seeing reviews of early digital cameras in the early 90s. They seemed to be about as good as the first phone cameras – 640×480 resolution with horrible colour and poor contrast.
Maybe it would have been possible to take pictures without a digital camera. No ? It’s just an idea. But maybe one could take picture with a real (!) camera and scan them. Beg your pardon ? Scanners are not widely spread yet (especially color scanners) ? Right ! Maybe one could wait until october 2005 to scan a 10+ years old picture. I heard it’s considered a pretty cool hobby on the moment at Google (OK, they do it with old books but it’s only because they weren’t born yet when digital camera did not exist).
One of my favorite pictures I’ve ever taken was with my old camera: http://tinyurl.com/c4yq6 [ws]
When I had it as my wallpaper many years ago, everyone thought it was rendered due to the way the wheel looked and the lens flare.
+1 mph, what does "digital" have to do with it? Raymond, if you don’t have a photo you can scan, fine. But it is funny to see the author of THIS blog sounding like non-computer people who think you need a digital camera to put a picture on the Internet.
Even if I had a film picture (which I don’t), I’d have to find somebody with a scanner, drive over to their house, scan the picture, then register for a domain to host the picture (I’m not going use a free service because I’m concerned about the terms of service), then upload the picture and point to it, being careful to keep an eye on the bandwidth so I don’t go over my allotment. All that for one stupid picture. I have better things to do with my time.
That’s a better answer, Raymond.
But I’m sure one of your readers would volunteer to host that hypothetical/imaginary scan for you. I know I could probably offer you "better" terms than, say, Flickr.