coobird

Pine (パイン) is likely a contraction of pineapple (パイナップル), as the Japanese word for pine is matsu (松=まつ) and I don't think many Japanese are familiar with the English word for it.

I probably still have some LEDs and transistors in my parts bin that (my dad) bought for me from that Fry's.

Fry's really made me feel like a kid in a candy store -- all the PC software and hardware along with electronics parts too. I was less interested in the household appliances, but I think the small Sony Trinitron TV that was in my bedroom was from Fry's.

Oh yes, they also had candy as well, strategically placed in the isle where we'd wait before reaching the cashier. Must have picked up dozens of Reese's peanut butter cups and Skittles over the years.

That was my local Fry's and I wouldn't touch any returned item with a 10-foot pole given the stories I heard about them, despite them being on discount. This was back in the late 90s before social media, so it must of been word of mouth through my high school friends.

I had the impression that their return process was very lax so you'd have "customers" returning broken items or worse... And they'd end up on the shelves with the white "returned item" sticker with the discounted price.

IIRC, the Athlon XP processors also had these contacts, but it required an additional step to fill a gap dug between the contacts with super glue. (Probably possible because previous processors used a ceramic package while the newer ones used organic plastic.)

> What is this obsession with the past and the early days of computing? The reason why people don't cherish these types of things is they are rational. Technology is about tomorrow. It's not about yesterday

This reply hanging off a thread about prior art is telling.

As surprising as it may be, the past can tell a lot about the future, as the past was present at a point, and the future is now.

Take an example about AI. This past couple of years isn't the first time that AI had been a hot topic. Look back to the late 80's -- there was a lot of research into it and lots of predictions about how the world would change -- but that didn't happen. It definitely didn't affect the general public as has today. So why is that? Looking at the different circumstances between the past and today (i.e., increase in computing power, availability of networks and broadband, general availability of computing devices, etc. etc.) could then be used to predict the future.

Looking back at the past can give hints about what the future may hold.

This.

If you want to see a world without fair use, check out the Japanese Wikipedia pages -- it's noticeably lacking in pictures and images than the English counterpart, likely because the latter was written by those in the U.S. It's especially ironic when there's more photos and images on the English language article for topics about Japan!