4 ms·

I'm surprised he didn't offer paperclips as a "stretch goal" David is a joke among a lot of retro computing people, and utterly loathed by many others

SPascareli13 4y ago
Now I'm curious, where is this retro computing community that dislike him? I follow him on yt but don't participate in the community.
- colejohnson66 4y ago
  A lot of people (not me) hate him because he destroyed a prototype IBM a few years ago trying to repair it.
- clifdweller 4y ago
  the main technical side is as he has exploded on youtube he has basically became the defacto keynote speaker at most of the retro computing events. now he is quite knowledgeable in the commodore/vic/pet programming scene however a lot of his other presentations/ videos are collections of community knowledge that he has gathered . that comes part of the issue in the community freely shares tons of info for it to be greatly profited by a few. there is also many cringe at some of his videos where he is given access to rather rare items and doesn't follow 'sane' practices before applying power going as far as saying in one video he is constrained on time to release the video so with a high probability blows up a prototype pc power supply basically for purpose of providing closure to a video.
- renewedrebecca 4y ago
  Definitely on Mastodon, was on Twitter before that.
- syntheweave 4y ago
  If it's not the questionable qualifications(although he is an enthusiast, he has a limited professional background in electronics repair and software development, two things that are constantly featured on his channel), it may be because of his gun-toting libertarian leanings - some years ago he accidentally posted a video where he was proudly open-carrying on a shopping trip. Of course some people voiced outrage. I think the guy is good at making videos - but it's with an asterisk. He doesn't have a lot of expertise to share, but he wants to be seen in control. So the videos themselves are always really polished, but then the thing he does is something he should have asked for help with.
justin66 4y ago
What's this about? I shared this video, and pretty much the only controversy I imagined might manifest was people getting weird about FPGAs, since FPGAs are something people get weird about. His retrocomputing videos seem helpful enough in the common Youtubish way.
- shrubble 4y ago
  He used a paperclip to deliberately override a short in a vintage machine's power supply, with predictable (bad) consequences, as I understand it.
  - asddubs 4y ago
    not really, he used it to connect two pins together which he thought acted as a switch, but ended up causing a short. People get way too upset about it, if you've never made a major mistake like that, you've never tried to attempt a repair at that complexity at all.

SPascareli13 4y ago

Now I'm curious, where is this retro computing community that dislike him? I follow him on yt but don't participate in the community.

colejohnson66 4y ago
A lot of people (not me) hate him because he destroyed a prototype IBM a few years ago trying to repair it.
clifdweller 4y ago
the main technical side is as he has exploded on youtube he has basically became the defacto keynote speaker at most of the retro computing events. now he is quite knowledgeable in the commodore/vic/pet programming scene however a lot of his other presentations/ videos are collections of community knowledge that he has gathered . that comes part of the issue in the community freely shares tons of info for it to be greatly profited by a few. there is also many cringe at some of his videos where he is given access to rather rare items and doesn't follow 'sane' practices before applying power going as far as saying in one video he is constrained on time to release the video so with a high probability blows up a prototype pc power supply basically for purpose of providing closure to a video.
renewedrebecca 4y ago
Definitely on Mastodon, was on Twitter before that.
syntheweave 4y ago
If it's not the questionable qualifications(although he is an enthusiast, he has a limited professional background in electronics repair and software development, two things that are constantly featured on his channel), it may be because of his gun-toting libertarian leanings - some years ago he accidentally posted a video where he was proudly open-carrying on a shopping trip. Of course some people voiced outrage. I think the guy is good at making videos - but it's with an asterisk. He doesn't have a lot of expertise to share, but he wants to be seen in control. So the videos themselves are always really polished, but then the thing he does is something he should have asked for help with.

justin66 4y ago

What's this about? I shared this video, and pretty much the only controversy I imagined might manifest was people getting weird about FPGAs, since FPGAs are something people get weird about. His retrocomputing videos seem helpful enough in the common Youtubish way.

shrubble 4y ago
He used a paperclip to deliberately override a short in a vintage machine's power supply, with predictable (bad) consequences, as I understand it.
- asddubs 4y ago
  not really, he used it to connect two pins together which he thought acted as a switch, but ended up causing a short. People get way too upset about it, if you've never made a major mistake like that, you've never tried to attempt a repair at that complexity at all.