Was at a friend's place a few years ago. He had an original c64, tape drive, disk drive, okidata printer, and a trove of disks. We'd been friends since high school, but I think he'd stopped using his by then, and I was more of the computer guy (we bonded over guitars, not code).
This was just sitting in his garage. "Take it - take it all" he said. Then... was sort of forceful with it, and started putting it in my car. :)
I took it back home, and... realized I can't connect it to anything. And I'm not a hardware guy. I hate hacking on that sort of stuff. So I ended up giving it all to a friend who was getting in to retro stuff with his son. I think they got it working and connected up to something. I also gave him my C128.
I still have the original Commodore 'Prolog' and (IIRC) 'Forth' packaging somewhere in the office here. :)
Looking at these (and probably some other incarnations) I'm tempted to get one only because of the built in HDMI.
I've poked around with some emulators online and it's fun, but the combination of the original keyboard and shape plus HDMI might be enough to get me to commit. Probably just the original beige though.
If it is all original, you'll want to be careful with the power supply. It's known to fail in a way that over voltages. Replacement ones can be made or bought relatively inexpensively.
That was also in the back of my mind. Even back in the 80s, I remember those bricks being a source of heat and... shock sometimes. I'm just not a hardware guy, so gave it to someone who I think loves tinkering with that sort of stuff... :)
Its so funny you mention the color. Looking at the image on the website, I was struck by the fact that beige could strike a visceral exciting nostalgia reaction in me. I mean, its beige FFS, the ultimate "boring" color :) I went from a totally disengaged / disinterested teen in school to paying out of my own pocket (I think $50 at the time) to take a course taught be Steve Punter in the basement of a library on the other side of Toronto on 6502 assembler -- in the summer!
My inlaws ran a rural UK post office for a time (70s, maybe early 80s?). I'm not sure how they got in to it, but seemed to enjoy it while they did it. Small village, low volume of foot traffic, etc. I got a sense it almost felt like a civic duty, but I may be reading too much in to the earlier conversations.
> You can't find me a single example of two competing services, one with click to cancel and the other without, in the same industry.
It's not click to cancel, but... airlines will charge extra for the right to cancel with a refund. Cheapest ticket is non-refundable, higher priced in refundable. But these are finite resources - seats, dates/times, etc. Not infinite capacity SaaS platforms.
I've seen it too - not uncommon. A frustrating angle is vendor lockin. You are required to only use the internal IT team for everything, even if they're far more expensive and less skilled. They can 'charge' whatever they want, and you're stuck with their skills, prices and timeline. Going outside of that requires many levels of signoffs/approvals, and untold amounts of time making your case. There's value in having some central purchasing process, but when you limit your vendors to one (internal or external) you'll creating a lot more problems that you don't need to have.
> they mindlessly decided to use Kubernetes for tasks and purposes that made no sense...
Or... were instructed that they had to use it, regardless of the appropriateness of it, because a company was 'standardizing' all their infrastructure on k8s.
Carl and Dennis both grew in to good songwriters, in different ways, but neither were close to being able to work with Brian in those early years. By the time they could, Brian seemed to be largely gone. Had they had all that combined talent together functioning at the same time, things would have turned out different (and ideally better).
I’ll take a shot. Even the worst accounts of the events between him and the various other members over the years seem to me to demonstrate that he was the most involved in keeping the “Beach Boys” (in whatever form) alive and relevant. My reading on things is he was largely responsible for booking and pushing the touring they did, for keeping them in the public eye and doing what he could to keep their catalog in rotation. Without Mike, my guess is The Beach Boys would be another in a line of brilliant but burned out groups, scattered and broken by Brian’s mental illness and related issues from what the other Wilson’s were also dealing with. We will probably never know the full story but it’s notable to me that all of the members at various points remained involved with him and the work he was doing under The Beach Boys name. There are a lot of groups that have split and never worked together again for true bad blood, and that didn’t happen here, whatever else has.
I do think Mike contributed over the years, possibly more in the early days just through enthusiasm and perhaps helping to focus. I think he was probably more willing to go along with some corny showbiz stuff than Brian was, and being older than the others, that probably carried enough weight to get the others to go along (again, in the early days).
I think being family was probably helpful. He could sympathize enough and support the others dealing with Murray in the early days, but was enough of an 'outsider' that he wasn't going to be bullied by Murray like the sons were.
Lyrically, I think he tries, and has had some moments of good or great lyrics. His push towards the spiritual led us to songs like 'All This Is That', for example (based on readings stemming from time with Maharishi). I wonder how much of the initial push towards the Maharishi was maybe riding the Beatles' coattails, but he seems to have stuck with it more than many over the years. As with many folks who get a lot of sudden fame/success, he was probably searching for deeper answers, and seems to have found some.
Personality wise, based on enough interviews, he does seem to come across as a bit of an arrogant know-it-all, and that rubs me the wrong way. But... he contributed a lot to early success, has had some of his own good songs, and has kept the music alive touring longer than many expected.
Interesting comparison about production/songcraft. Listen to his solo version of 'daybreak over the ocean', then listen to the 'Beach Boys' production version from That's Why God Made the Radio album. Assuming Brian had some production hand in the latter (along with others in the studio), but the BB one is simply a better listening experience, even though it's basically the same song. So even when Mike did something good, the "group" made it better.
I've always been intrigued with him - had hoped to meet him at a concert years ago, but didn't happen. To be complete, I guess David Marks was an outsider too, although living across the street(?) he was probably 'closer' to the family for a time than Al was.
He's always struck me as just a basic down to earth guy. That may be in comparison to the rest of the group members and their antics.
His voice has remained remarkably strong and good. He was by far the best voice when I saw him on Brian's tour in 2016, and was good (on the couple songs he got?) on the 2012 tour. I don't think his solo songwriting is all that great, but he focuses on what he does and does it well.
I suspect he's got some good behind the scenes stories that would break a lot of myths, and I also suspect he'll never tell all.
Even when you know it's coming, it's hard to process. Met Mikeal at oscon in ... 2007 I think, where he was presenting windmill as a testing tool for js/ajax. We kept in touch for a few years, and he was kind enough to meet up with me during some travel time in California the following year. He took great joy in introducing me to some tapas place I can't remember now, but I do remember the excitement he had just... telling me about it. That low key passion (tech, food, anything else) is one of the things I still remember about the few times we met in person.
Reading about his cancer last year was difficult, not so much for him directly; he seemed to have made peace with it (that's the impression I got anyway). But it's a reminder of my own mortality, and I know I would not react or continue on the way he did. That's difficult to acknowledge.
