this post was submitted on 16 Jan 2025
66 points (98.5% liked)

Ask Lemmy

27470 readers
2335 users here now

A Fediverse community for open-ended, thought provoking questions


Rules: (interactive)


1) Be nice and; have funDoxxing, trolling, sealioning, racism, and toxicity are not welcomed in AskLemmy. Remember what your mother said: if you can't say something nice, don't say anything at all. In addition, the site-wide Lemmy.world terms of service also apply here. Please familiarize yourself with them


2) All posts must end with a '?'This is sort of like Jeopardy. Please phrase all post titles in the form of a proper question ending with ?


3) No spamPlease do not flood the community with nonsense. Actual suspected spammers will be banned on site. No astroturfing.


4) NSFW is okay, within reasonJust remember to tag posts with either a content warning or a [NSFW] tag. Overtly sexual posts are not allowed, please direct them to either !asklemmyafterdark@lemmy.world or !asklemmynsfw@lemmynsfw.com. NSFW comments should be restricted to posts tagged [NSFW].


5) This is not a support community.
It is not a place for 'how do I?', type questions. If you have any questions regarding the site itself or would like to report a community, please direct them to Lemmy.world Support or email info@lemmy.world. For other questions check our partnered communities list, or use the search function.


6) No US Politics.
Please don't post about current US Politics. If you need to do this, try !politicaldiscussion@lemmy.world or !askusa@discuss.online


Reminder: The terms of service apply here too.

Partnered Communities:

Tech Support

No Stupid Questions

You Should Know

Reddit

Jokes

Ask Ouija


Logo design credit goes to: tubbadu


founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
top 50 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[–] essell@lemmy.world 3 points 12 minutes ago

I can recite the names of the Books of the New Testament in the bible by heart. I'm not even Christian.

[–] Ozymandias1688@feddit.org 1 points 26 minutes ago

IDKFA & IDDQD and off you go. Lots of childhood memories.

[–] Wolf314159@startrek.website 10 points 2 hours ago (1 children)
[–] ouRKaoS@lemmy.today 1 points 1 hour ago

D U L L A R D

[–] Spesknight@lemmy.world 6 points 6 hours ago

If you put as your name grm3110 in NBA jam you can play as death

[–] ikidd@lemmy.world 9 points 7 hours ago (1 children)

Adjusting a carburetor.

I was never really good at it, I never actually went through with selling my soul to Satan to gain true knowledge of that black art.

[–] superkret@feddit.org 5 points 6 hours ago (1 children)

If that's your idea if fun, I can recommend the game My Summer Car. It's basically a simulator for Finnish country life in the 90's.
You spend most of your time drinking, going to the sauna, driving a crappy old Datsun hatchback (which you first have to rebuild in excruciating detail) down country roads, and adjusting your car's carburetor.

[–] neidu3@sh.itjust.works 4 points 5 hours ago

I looked up a gameplay series, and there is so much minutia remining me of Norwegian country life as well. The ticketing machine on the bus is exactly as I remember it from the 90's.

[–] Brkdncr@lemmy.world 2 points 5 hours ago
[–] m0darn@lemmy.ca 5 points 7 hours ago

Donkey kong country on SNES

B A R R A L on the save game selection menu

[–] 0x0@lemmy.dbzer0.com 8 points 8 hours ago (2 children)
[–] neidu3@sh.itjust.works 7 points 6 hours ago

Is this ~~loss~~ Lost?

[–] oozynozh@lemm.ee 1 points 6 hours ago

System FailureSystem FailureSystem FailureSystem FailureSystem FailureSystem FailureSystem FailureSystem FailureSystem FailureSystem FailureSystem FailureSystem FailureSystem FailureSystem FailureSystem FailureSystem FailureSystem FailureSystem FailureSystem FailureSystem FailureSystem FailureSystem FailureSystem Failure

[–] P00ptart@lemmy.world 15 points 10 hours ago (1 children)

Morse code. Did a science project back in middle school with wires, buzzers and tappers on a board. Then I taught it to my boy scout troop for a badge. Then lost some of it before joining the army in communications (as well as a ton of other outdated means of communication) and then in Iraq, me and another commo guy wired up our rooms for it so we could talk shit about our leadership even if they were in the room. Anyways, after working with it that many times over a stretched out time frame, I'll never forget that. Or the phonetic alphabet.

[–] pastermil@sh.itjust.works 1 points 6 hours ago

It's not exactly obsolete. The HAMs use it from time to time.

[–] mysticpickle@lemmy.ca 4 points 8 hours ago (1 children)
[–] neidu3@sh.itjust.works 3 points 6 hours ago

Is this ~~loss~~ IDE jumper settings?

[–] Postmortal_Pop@lemmy.world 12 points 11 hours ago

Morrowind on the original Xbox came with cheat codes. Put the cursor over the health, magicka, or fatigue bar, enter the codes with the black and white buttons then hold A until the bar fills. If you close the menu before you let go of A, it will continue to refill constantly until you open your menu again.

Health: B, W, B, B, B, A

Magicka: B, W, W, B, W, A

Fatigue: B, B, W, W, B, A

You could actually use the magicka code for all 3, but I liked that there were 3 different codes.

[–] tiredofsametab@fedia.io 9 points 11 hours ago

My ICQ number; various employee numbers and alarm codes long since changed from previous jobs; procedures and rules from those jobs; all kinds of cheat codes from games that I no longer play or own; various old computer protocols, port names/numbers, etc. that no longer matter; and I'm sure more stuff (and some other stuff that, living in Japan, isn't relevant to anyone here).

[–] AWittyUsername@lemmy.world 9 points 11 hours ago* (last edited 11 hours ago) (3 children)
load more comments (3 replies)
[–] Tehhund@lemmy.world 9 points 11 hours ago (1 children)

3.14159265359 (ok the last 9 is actually an 8 but it's followed by a 9 so I round up).

Not exactly obsolete, but there's no reason for anyone to memorize that many digits of Pi except for trivia. Number of times it has come up in trivia: 0.

load more comments (1 replies)
[–] PrimarilyPrimate@lemmy.world 33 points 15 hours ago (1 children)

To tell the age of any horse Inspect the lower jaw of course; The six front teeth the tale will tell, And every doubt and fear dispel.

Two middle nippers you behold Before the colt is two weeks old; Before eight weeks two more will come Eight months: the corners cut the gum.

At two the middle "Nippers" drop: At three the second pair can't stop; When four years old the third pair goes, At five a full new set he shows.

The deep black spots will pass from view At six years from the middle two; The second pair at seven years; At eight the spot each corner clears.

From the middle "Nippers" upper jaw At nine the black spots will withdraw. The second pair at ten are bright; Eleven finds the corners light.

As time goes on the horsemen know The oval teeth three-sided grow; Then longer get - project before - Till twenty, when they know no more."

[–] AFKBRBChocolate@lemmy.world 28 points 13 hours ago

The phrase "don't look a gift horse in the mouth" comes from this. If someone gives you a horse, you shouldn't look into its mouth to see how old it is because, hey, free horse.

[–] frezik@midwest.social 8 points 11 hours ago

Back when wr used parallel IDE, most motherboards only had two IDE connections. Each connection could support two devices, a master and a slave. If you had a hard drive and a CD-ROM, it was best to put them on separate channels. This is because only one device could talk at a time, and the slower CD-ROM would block the faster hard drive from operating. If you had to put them on the same channel, then the hard drive should be the master so it gets priority.

Then there's scsi. My family wasn't rich enough to have scsi shit when I was growing up, but I do know a few things. On paper, it's very simple; give each device a unique ID on the bus, and then attach terminator blocks at each end. I'm also aware that, in practice, this description is a cruel joke.

[–] lime@feddit.nu 21 points 14 hours ago (2 children)

in GTA 2, naming your player "GOURANGA" activates the cheat code mode. "IAMDAVEJ" gives you all guns.

in half-life 2, typing ent_fire !picker in the console makes the thing you are looking at catch fire. it's also the base command for a lot of other things; if you're looking at a door and add "unlock" to the command, the door will open.

when stacking firewood, always put the pieces with the bark facing up. that way, rain can't get the wood wet, and the logs dry quicker.

paper maps fold long side first.

the modern graphical interface of the personal computer was developed by Xerox and plagiarized by Steve jobs after he got a factory tour in 1972, but he missed the most important part of the computer that he saw: it was fully networked using what we today call Ethernet.

[–] Klear@lemmy.world 3 points 2 hours ago

BUCKFAST for GTA 1.

[–] Rogue@feddit.uk 22 points 14 hours ago

when stacking firewood, always put the pieces with the bark facing up. that way, rain can't get the wood wet, and the logs dry quicker.

I read this as being another feature of half life. I was very impressed by the level of detail the devs put into such an early game. Although slightly confused why log stacking would be part of a game

[–] superkret@feddit.org 21 points 14 hours ago (1 children)

The "Turbo" button on a 486 PC was actually a CPU clock speed limiter. It was necessary to play older games who had a hardcoded framerate that depended on clock cycles, because they would otherwise run too fast.
But for marketing reasons, IBM labelled the toggle as "turbo" instead of a speed limiter.

load more comments (1 replies)
[–] Mitsu@pawb.social 9 points 12 hours ago

ZAPHODBEEBLEBROX is the code for level select in the wonderful game “The 7th Guest”.

[–] shinigamiookamiryuu@lemm.ee 16 points 14 hours ago (3 children)

The password for the final level of Crazy Castle on the Gameboy is GIFT.

(I have a friend with hyperthymesia and this was the last thing we spoke about)

load more comments (3 replies)
[–] toiletobserver@lemmy.world 27 points 16 hours ago (7 children)

doom cheat codes:
IDDQD, god mode
IDKFA, ammo
IDSPISPOPD, no clip i think

[–] Tippon@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 points 2 hours ago

I don't ever remember using the last one, but I'm sure I knew a code for no clip.

[–] Hasherm0n@lemmy.world 5 points 10 hours ago (1 children)

You could use the IDKFA code in MechWarrior 2 as well.

If you did, it would immediately eject you from the mech and display a message something along the lines of "this isn't doom you idiot".

[–] Klear@lemmy.world 1 points 2 hours ago* (last edited 2 hours ago)

Same in Heretic - IDKFA takes all your weapons and ammo, IDDQD kills you.

And I think both codes do a similar thing in Earthworm Jim.

[–] Pronell@lemmy.world 11 points 14 hours ago

SPISPOPD stands for 'Smashing pumpkins into small piles of putrid debris'.

Back in the usenet days I remember someone making a crappy freeware game with that title.

That's right, a cheat code in a game inspired the creation of another game.

load more comments (4 replies)
[–] Zombiepirate@lemmy.world 28 points 17 hours ago* (last edited 17 hours ago) (3 children)

Loading a program from disk on the Commodore 64

LOAD"*",8,1

I haven't loaded a game on that system since I was probably 10 or so, but I'll never forget the command.

I memorized it as L-O-A-D shift-2 star shift-2 comma eight comma one.

[–] palordrolap@fedia.io 30 points 16 hours ago (1 children)

Fun fact: There's a common misconception that this would load the first program on a disk, but it actually loads the most recently loaded program from the disk. If the disk is detected as being freshly inserted (as determined by the 2-character identifier in the disk's directory header), that defaulted to the first program in the disk's directory.

Admittedly, most of the time that makes it a distinction without a difference, but if you'd loaded something else from the same disk first, and you then wanted to load the first in the directory, you would need to use LOAD":*",8,1 instead.

That extra colon is vaguely related to the colon in C:\ on Windows computers. A lone colon was taken as an abbreviation of 0:, because in Commodore DOS(es) the drive "letters" were numbers. Dual slot drives were possible and then the two slots were 0: and 1:.

"So what's the 8 for in the LOAD command?" you might ask; "Isn't that the drive "letter" "? No, that's the device number. Note that drives on the 8-bit Commodores were always external. The 8 was more like the drive's "IP address" on the serial bus.

"What about the ,1?" That meant to LOAD the program at the memory address specified by the program's header on the disk. Without that, the computer would ignore the header and try to load into BASIC memory.

The neat part about loading at any address meant that it could overwrite parts of zero-page where the computer kept pointers to important internal functions. Overwrite the right one of those and the computer could be convinced to jump to a routine in the program that had just loaded without the user needing to type RUN.

So, if you wanted to be i) certain of loading the first program in the directory of ii) the disk in the second slot of iii) a dual-slot drive on the serial bus identifying as device/address 9, and then iv) have the program load at its preferred memory location, you'd need to use LOAD"1:*",9,1

The number of people who found the need to type that command in earnest, even back in the heyday of Commodore, probably numbers in the low tens, but there it is.

How's that for an obscure info dump?

[–] littlewonder@lemmy.world 5 points 7 hours ago (1 children)

You're the person I enjoy talking with at parties.

[–] oozynozh@lemm.ee 1 points 5 hours ago

you little wonder, you

load more comments (2 replies)
[–] DigDoug@lemmy.world 12 points 14 hours ago* (last edited 14 hours ago)

down, right, left, right, square, circle, square, triangle, circle, square, right, left

The level select code for Abe's Oddysee on the PSX. The last time I actually used this code was probably some time around 2002, maybe even earlier.

[–] wheeldawg@sh.itjust.works 3 points 11 hours ago* (last edited 11 hours ago)

The idqdd for the game ChexQuest (which ran on that engine) was "charlesjacobi". I assume this was a dev's name.

load more comments
view more: next ›