DANCING NEBULA

DANCING NEBULA
When the gods dance...

Thursday, April 19, 2012

POWERCOMPUTING, RADIUS AND VIDEO EDITING

The hungry wolves of capitalism are circling my home:  the neighbor behind me (family home 60 years) and my next door neighbor (yuppie way under water) have been devoured.  I went to our safe deposit box today to make sure my Will and Power of Attorney are current should the bankers attack.  Last time I was in the deposit box, apparently, was 1995.  Along with Wills, insurance and the like were documents relating to the first high end video editing system I purchased -- in 1995.


These days any consumer can capture and edit video on a cell phone.  In the early nineties I had two prosumer Panasonic SuperVHS cameras and a stack of VCRs.  I used a primitive controller to do edits on tape and output to a final VHS tape.  The process did not involve a computer.


In 1995 I purchased a PowerComputing 100 computer.  PowerComputing, one of the largest and best known MacOS-Compatible manufacturers, sold Cold Fusion, Catalyst, Tsunami, and Alchemy-based MacOS systems worldwide from April 1995 to December 1997. When Steve returned to Apple he ended the cloning madness (?) and purchased PowerComputing for $100 million.


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The PowerComputing rig I bought had a 100MHz PowerPC 601 RISC microprocessor with 1MB Level 2 cache;  72MB RAM; 4GB SCSI hard drive;  A/V interface card with 2MB VRAM; and a quad speed CD-ROM drive.  $6,720.00.  I also purchased Radius' cool pivot monitor...$812.00...and Radius VideoVision Studio 2.0 capture card.  $3,699.99. I had a wild time installing and configuring the capture card, but it was a real thrill to see digitized video streaming into the computer for the first time.  But with a 4GB hard drive one had to purchase a high speed array to do meaningful work.  72MB RAM!:)


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I was never interested in the external trappings of success:  a luxury car;  mcmansion;  gold watch and the rest.  I frankly would be embarrassed driving around in a $80K car.  Ashamed.  I did spend money on technology and music.  Ah, well.  The PowerComputing rig is rusting in the attic along with the other technology collectables by now.  Neither me nor my tools seem to have any value. 

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