4 ms·

The cursed universes of Dana Sibera

128 points by sohkamyung 4y ago

EamonnMR 4y ago
Interesting to see a Mastodon link given as a primary source here.
- dmix 4y ago
  All the source links still go to her twitter
- tambourine_man 4y ago
  Twitter is truly dead in some niches. Mac dev is one.
pram 4y ago
The description for the "Performa 110" is perplexing considering the Apple II was a "keyboard computer"
- devaler 4y ago
  That one jumped out at me, too, but I was thinking the Apple IIc.
- YurgenJurgensen 4y ago
  It also looks weirdly flat compared to contemporary all-in-ones. The Pizza Box Performas were pretty chonk. This stands out because most of their 'cursed' qualities come from being something that could have been but really shouldn't have been.
eternityforest 4y ago
I love it! All those grey and beige machines still feel like someone is about to do something amazing on them, even though modern stuff is better in basically every way. It's like seeing the alternate possibilities for how tech could have developed, and invites you to ask "What if we had tech just like now but used it differently". Is the fact that all tech has mostly the same look related to the fact that it's mostly all just used for consuming the same content? Smartwatches have greatly changed how I use tech, what other possibilities are we still ignoring? I wonder why we don't have tablet cases that look like old laptops. Even thought form and function are more separate than ever, we have way more boring aesthetics, just ever thinner phones I'll immediately put a rubber case on as soon as I take them out of the box, and cases that all kinda look the same. It's a good thing partly, because stuff is thin and light and cheap, but I'd think there'd be some serious products that keep the old 2000s look, or at least accessories that have it.
- YurgenJurgensen 4y ago
  There's a lot of niche communities out there (cyberdecks, console miniaturisation, case mods, new-old-retrocomputing, custom mechanical keyboards, custom arcade cabinets) that basically do what these mock-ups do, but for real. It is however an expensive and difficult hobby to get into (and I would bet that 90% of the people doing it happened to pick up the skills in their day jobs), and when it goes wrong you're typically out hundreds of dollars in components. Tooling and prototyping-as-a-service have gotten a lot better in the last decade, but it's still something that requires a lot of trial and error. The AI revolution I want isn't chatbots and anime girls with mutilated fingers, it's one where it's as easy to make a real novelty piece of hardware as it is to make a mock-up in Photoshop.
- dfxm12 4y ago
  Is the fact that all tech has mostly the same look related to the fact that it's mostly all just used for consuming the same content? I think this is part of it (but then again, we're consuming mostly the same content we always have), but I think there are bigger reasons. It's more about how fewer companies are designing/producing tech. Add that to the fact that each company's design is branding, and we're unlikely to see such radical changes to the designs of popular tech, like a ThinkPad, and many companies want to copy the successful look of say, a MacBook, rather than risk creating something new (all these look-a-likes are probably all using the same off the shelf parts, so that lends itself to having a similar design as well). The next is the advance of touchscreens. A flat panel can be the UI for anything, and it's probably so much cheaper than developing purpose built UIs. For this reason, all UIs are the same flat panel touchscreen with different graphics on them instead of a unique-looking array of physical buttons, switches, dials, etc., let alone any custom parts. It's like seeing the alternate possibilities for how tech could have developed, and invites you to ask "What if we had tech just like now but used it differently". I just watched the Running Man over the weekend. Even though it was set in a dystopian 2019, the tech that the film imagined for 2019 looked so much more playful and interesting than what we have today. Compared to some more recent film's guesses about future tech which usually involve graphics on a touch screen that may or may not be invisible. Is this just nostalgia for physical buttons or is do we all get excited to play with physical objects? That, I really don't know...
dmix 4y ago
The authors post about attempts to innovate with screens sizes for lower end up 1980s computers is also really interesting: https://twitter.com/mwichary/status/1173829224026628101 https://twitter.com/mwichary/status/1173829224026628101
rob74 4y ago
Of all these almost-perfect-looking mockups, the "ZIP drive" (which unfortunately has a very prominent position in the article) stands out because it 's just a 2D image of a zipper slapped on a 3D ZIP drive. But hey, everybody is allowed to be lazy once in a while ;) Or maybe there was some deeper reason for doing it this way that eludes me?
- nanoraptor 4y ago
  Sometimes I'll go down the rabbit hole, pixel away for half an hour or so and realise it's just not what I was hoping for, or I couldn't fix it how I wanted, or yes, often laziness. But then I'll post it anyway because what the hell. Perfect being the enemy of the good-enough-for-a-laugh, and all.
turnsout 4y ago
Dana is truly a treasure. I hope she makes a $200 coffee table book someday. I’ll be first in line!
bee_rider 4y ago
I want that PowerBook 190p.
- selimthegrim 4y ago
  I’m waiting for the video where someone plays Macintosh Plus on that Macintosh Plus
nine_k 4y ago
I think this is a bit how ChatGPT works with texts, ported to hardware / UX designs.
johnklos 4y ago
Dana long championed the perfection that is the Quadra 605, and even got a PowerPC emulator running on it, then booted Mac OS X! It was a fraction of the size of its contemporaries, could have an FPU with a simple m68040 swap, could run at 33 MHz with a trivial overclock or 40 MHz with an overclock that's a little more work, its VRAM could be extended to a full megabyte, and it could take a 128 meg SIMM, giving it 132 megs. http://www.danamania.com/605/ http://www.danamania.com/605/ I have a Quadra 605 which compiles NetBSD pkgsrc binaries named after her :) * edit * I think she may've gotten Mac OS X running on a Centris 650, not a Quadra 605: https://www.applefritter.com/node/5103 https://www.applefritter.com/node/5103
nsxwolf 4y ago
She always posts these with their descriptions on Twitter totally dead-pan. If you scroll through the replies, it becomes obvious that thousands of people now believe her creations are real. Not sure if that's her intent, but she's done it nonetheless.
- dfxm12 4y ago
  Not sure if this is entirely the case. Most of her images top out at dozens of replies, not thousands. Even still, a lot of these replies (I'd even venture nearly all of them) are people playing along with the parody, not believing it.
ilyt 4y ago
The cursed M keyboard mac could be sorta fun if the screen was between QWERTY part and the numeric/arrow key part
stuaxo 4y ago
I really hope people start to bring some of Dana's creations to life, I'm a big fan.

128 points by sohkamyung 4y ago

EamonnMR 4y ago

Interesting to see a Mastodon link given as a primary source here.

dmix 4y ago
All the source links still go to her twitter
tambourine_man 4y ago
Twitter is truly dead in some niches. Mac dev is one.

pram 4y ago

The description for the "Performa 110" is perplexing considering the Apple II was a "keyboard computer"

devaler 4y ago
That one jumped out at me, too, but I was thinking the Apple IIc.
YurgenJurgensen 4y ago
It also looks weirdly flat compared to contemporary all-in-ones. The Pizza Box Performas were pretty chonk. This stands out because most of their 'cursed' qualities come from being something that could have been but really shouldn't have been.

eternityforest 4y ago

I love it! All those grey and beige machines still feel like someone is about to do something amazing on them, even though modern stuff is better in basically every way. It's like seeing the alternate possibilities for how tech could have developed, and invites you to ask "What if we had tech just like now but used it differently". Is the fact that all tech has mostly the same look related to the fact that it's mostly all just used for consuming the same content? Smartwatches have greatly changed how I use tech, what other possibilities are we still ignoring? I wonder why we don't have tablet cases that look like old laptops. Even thought form and function are more separate than ever, we have way more boring aesthetics, just ever thinner phones I'll immediately put a rubber case on as soon as I take them out of the box, and cases that all kinda look the same. It's a good thing partly, because stuff is thin and light and cheap, but I'd think there'd be some serious products that keep the old 2000s look, or at least accessories that have it.

YurgenJurgensen 4y ago
There's a lot of niche communities out there (cyberdecks, console miniaturisation, case mods, new-old-retrocomputing, custom mechanical keyboards, custom arcade cabinets) that basically do what these mock-ups do, but for real. It is however an expensive and difficult hobby to get into (and I would bet that 90% of the people doing it happened to pick up the skills in their day jobs), and when it goes wrong you're typically out hundreds of dollars in components. Tooling and prototyping-as-a-service have gotten a lot better in the last decade, but it's still something that requires a lot of trial and error. The AI revolution I want isn't chatbots and anime girls with mutilated fingers, it's one where it's as easy to make a real novelty piece of hardware as it is to make a mock-up in Photoshop.
dfxm12 4y ago
Is the fact that all tech has mostly the same look related to the fact that it's mostly all just used for consuming the same content? I think this is part of it (but then again, we're consuming mostly the same content we always have), but I think there are bigger reasons. It's more about how fewer companies are designing/producing tech. Add that to the fact that each company's design is branding, and we're unlikely to see such radical changes to the designs of popular tech, like a ThinkPad, and many companies want to copy the successful look of say, a MacBook, rather than risk creating something new (all these look-a-likes are probably all using the same off the shelf parts, so that lends itself to having a similar design as well). The next is the advance of touchscreens. A flat panel can be the UI for anything, and it's probably so much cheaper than developing purpose built UIs. For this reason, all UIs are the same flat panel touchscreen with different graphics on them instead of a unique-looking array of physical buttons, switches, dials, etc., let alone any custom parts. It's like seeing the alternate possibilities for how tech could have developed, and invites you to ask "What if we had tech just like now but used it differently". I just watched the Running Man over the weekend. Even though it was set in a dystopian 2019, the tech that the film imagined for 2019 looked so much more playful and interesting than what we have today. Compared to some more recent film's guesses about future tech which usually involve graphics on a touch screen that may or may not be invisible. Is this just nostalgia for physical buttons or is do we all get excited to play with physical objects? That, I really don't know...

dmix 4y ago

The authors post about attempts to innovate with screens sizes for lower end up 1980s computers is also really interesting: https://twitter.com/mwichary/status/1173829224026628101 https://twitter.com/mwichary/status/1173829224026628101

rob74 4y ago

Of all these almost-perfect-looking mockups, the "ZIP drive" (which unfortunately has a very prominent position in the article) stands out because it 's just a 2D image of a zipper slapped on a 3D ZIP drive. But hey, everybody is allowed to be lazy once in a while ;) Or maybe there was some deeper reason for doing it this way that eludes me?

nanoraptor 4y ago
Sometimes I'll go down the rabbit hole, pixel away for half an hour or so and realise it's just not what I was hoping for, or I couldn't fix it how I wanted, or yes, often laziness. But then I'll post it anyway because what the hell. Perfect being the enemy of the good-enough-for-a-laugh, and all.

turnsout 4y ago

Dana is truly a treasure. I hope she makes a $200 coffee table book someday. I’ll be first in line!

bee_rider 4y ago

I want that PowerBook 190p.

selimthegrim 4y ago
I’m waiting for the video where someone plays Macintosh Plus on that Macintosh Plus

nine_k 4y ago

I think this is a bit how ChatGPT works with texts, ported to hardware / UX designs.

johnklos 4y ago

Dana long championed the perfection that is the Quadra 605, and even got a PowerPC emulator running on it, then booted Mac OS X! It was a fraction of the size of its contemporaries, could have an FPU with a simple m68040 swap, could run at 33 MHz with a trivial overclock or 40 MHz with an overclock that's a little more work, its VRAM could be extended to a full megabyte, and it could take a 128 meg SIMM, giving it 132 megs. http://www.danamania.com/605/ http://www.danamania.com/605/ I have a Quadra 605 which compiles NetBSD pkgsrc binaries named after her :) * edit * I think she may've gotten Mac OS X running on a Centris 650, not a Quadra 605: https://www.applefritter.com/node/5103 https://www.applefritter.com/node/5103

nsxwolf 4y ago

She always posts these with their descriptions on Twitter totally dead-pan. If you scroll through the replies, it becomes obvious that thousands of people now believe her creations are real. Not sure if that's her intent, but she's done it nonetheless.

dfxm12 4y ago
Not sure if this is entirely the case. Most of her images top out at dozens of replies, not thousands. Even still, a lot of these replies (I'd even venture nearly all of them) are people playing along with the parody, not believing it.

ilyt 4y ago

The cursed M keyboard mac could be sorta fun if the screen was between QWERTY part and the numeric/arrow key part

stuaxo 4y ago

I really hope people start to bring some of Dana's creations to life, I'm a big fan.