The Computer Chronicles - Web Radio (1998)

[@loganmacgyver2625]

that internet radio walkman is in our pockets today

[@TomiTapio]

Ach that mouse replacement at 25:00... "scribble M to maximize window"

[@maxwillson]

Computer Chronicles 2018 - In today's episode, we live stream 4K on KZbin!

[@yellowblanka6058]

One of the reasons they stopped doing the show, there was less new revolutionary things happening in the PC world, higher bit-rate video/streaming is just the natural evolution of early streaming tech and the product of better GPUs/CPUs etc. - nothing really amazing.

[@loganmacgyver2625]

@@yellowblanka6058 yeah thats understandable. I'd say computing became a bit boring because we already have everything that an everyday person might use (we already have almost everything written in concrete, just things changing sligltly in a way that doesnt matter to most people. the average person isnt gonna crap their pants about a new GPU, but back in the nineties if you told someone you could listen to radio online or make a video call online their mind would been blown)

[@exzisd]

Still not quite the norm in early 2025 to have 4k bc it takes longer to edit and many still aren’t watching on 4k devices. I like the fuzzy VHS and old digital TV cam quality of TCC.

[@veronicamars9515]

I remember in 1998 I streamed a Tina Turner Live Concert with Realplayer over a 56K Modem. (Fond memories of feeling that the world is at your grasp)

[@exzisd]

This is pretty much the same tech we have 30 years later. Very cool. I love *Stew Radio. 📻

[@jansolo69]

this is how Russ Hanneman made his billions. ROI = radio on the internet.

[@JaredConnell]

¡Tres comas!

[@jimmybuffet4970]

9:17 Love the Amazon ad! Wish I'd invested! 🤦🏼‍♂️

[@wallacelang1374]

I have wanted to do radio disc jockey type work since I was a teenager. Considering what was talked about on this episode of the Computer Chronicles if I had the money I could have begun doing it in the 1990s when I was in my thirties. I can just imagine it. 🤔

[@bmbpdk]

13:10 every second even today

[@yellowblanka6058]

Yeah, lol, goes to disprove that the early web was somehow more civilized. There's always been/likely always will be anti-social people who relish hiding behind anonymity.

[@ericwood3709]

@@yellowblanka6058 True, but the internet did not yet have the kind of influence that it does now. I mean, now it's taken over from all traditional media and even social interaction.

[@yellowblanka6058]

@@ericwood3709 Yeah, has to do with computers and Internet access becoming a commodity and ever easier to use. At the time a decent Multi-media computer was still pretty expensive, now every Joe Blow has a device with Internet access in his pocket and can spew vitriol across the Internet.

[@yellowblanka6058]

@@ericwood3709 Sadly, there's plenty of valid information out there, but people are always going to cite insane blogs/click-bait sites because of living in online echo chambers and heavy confirmation bias. Not everybody mind you, but enough people that it's nearly pointless to try to convince anybody who's "dug in" on an insane position to see reason.

[@J_Patterns]

Ha he thought it was white kids.

[@BBC600]

I wish I could find "Stew Radio"!

[@connorm955]

You go to spinner.com now, it says Yahoo! Will be right back... Thank you for your patience. Our engineers are working quickly to resolve the issue. It was hosted on a Yahoo nameserver created 1998-05-02 04:00:00 UTC, but expires 2021-12-23 19:41:59 UTC. Hmm...

[@Andres0071]

November 30th, 2023: the website still displays the same message

[@klamberext]

That geek radio intro brought the GTA2 vibes 😅

[@connorm955]

Too bad i was born in 1995. Would of loved to have listened to the radio on a computer, use a tv tuner card, etc. I remember my grandpa listening to internet radio in IE on Windows XP.

[@BBC600]

I remember using Windows Media player on Windows Millennium Edition to listen to the BBC World Service. The annoying thing is is I could only listen to it for short periods of time because of tying up the phone line with dial-up and the expense.

[@parkmallbaby]

Shoutcast is still around and still free to listen.

[@sontodosnarcos]

6:05 Spotify before there was even Spotify.

[@SomeDudeInBaltimore]

Imagine this show lasted until the modern era and they covered NFTs and AI. With the same early 80s title music.

[@ABizzyBYT]

19:49 David H. Lawrence before he was the puppet master from Heros

[@mornnb]

Wouldn't it be cool that instead of a radio like experience you could just search for a song and listen. Like a aearch engine that streams music...

[@SillyReviews]

old tech is cool

[@dymondsystems]

Did you put radio on the internet? Did you put radio on the internet? No? Does your cars doors go like this? Or like this?

[@Breffix]

3:30 pretty sure she meant great question

[@SirClerihew]

She suuurre did

[@sittingduhk]

Imagine Radio was spotify before spotify...and it was free

[@kisspeteristvan]

radio is still a thing ....

[@kaitlyn__L]

@@kisspeteristvan that’s why they capitalised “Imagine Radio”, as it’s the proper name of one of these companies

[@chaoticsystem2211]

the choice of font is disturbing

[@s8wc3]

17:53 "I love urethra!"

[@therealhardrock]

13:02 ignorance

[@StoneGreninja]

Can you say Spotify? Personally I don't use it.

[@HikikomoriDev]

It sucks how they are not using the realplayer thing anymore... now pages embed players which takes a huge load or resources from the CPU... it`s inefficient.

[@HikikomoriDev]

***** Or which ever, Windows Media Player or QuickTime. Din`t have to be a RP pluggin.

[@HikikomoriDev]

The functions of plugins where that the computer would not have to work as hard to display media. Even if HTML5 is there, it`s still takes a lot of resources to render a video as opposed to a mini app being embedded onto the browser and doing some of the heavy lifting. I can not talk about great things about flash, but QuickTime was great in this aspect.

[@oldtwinsna8347]

These days there are ASICs on even the cheapest of budget tablets and phones to play HD video very smoothly, so no longer an issue at all.

[@yellowblanka6058]

@@HikikomoriDev Which was useful in the days of 300 Mhz CPUs and no GPU codec support etc. - even a $300 modern laptop is powerful enough to handle any video, so there's no need for proprietary players/formats.

[@kaitlyn__L]

@@HikikomoriDev all the plug-in did was it allowed the website to call upon the local player program, instead of having to code their own (which is what was done with Flash on early KZbin, to have their own UI). HTML5 actually does just host the raw video file just the same as when an RP or QT video was embedded back in the day. Back then, if you didn’t have the plug-in you could still download the video to watch in the program. (Of course installing the program usually installed the plug-in.) But whichever way you watched it, it used the same resources to play the video. And an HTML5 player gives the video file raw as well, it’s just that the browsers have the playback capability built in now. But it’s still the same resources as playing it in VLC standalone would be today. HTML5 video was created to save computer resources over plug-ins , in fact. (But of course RP and QT were pretty efficient plug-ins like you say)

[@jimmybuffet4970]

13:02 WHITEST PERSON EVER. TOOPACK SHAKOORE lolol

[@infinitecanadian]

A hip-hop radio show? That would be boring - and not worth 50 cents an hour.

[@J_Patterns]

I like this show but there is no way I could be a guest on it because of how rude the host is. He constantly cuts off and talks over his guests, and had a bad hair piece.

[@medes5597]

People were queueing up to be on the show. Stew wasn't rude, it was understood that he had a very limited time and very strict PBS guidelines on pitching products. As a compromise his newsletter used to have full, long form interviews with the same people from the show.

[@oldtwinsna8347]

Stewart wasn't about to let these marketing managers turn his show into an infomercial. He just wanted short statements on what the product did. Didn't want to hear how the product would revolutionize your life or allow you infinite freedom from saving all the time in the world.