EEVblog 1654 - Lee Felsenstein: Counterculture & the Computer Revolution

[EEVblog]

A full 3 hour discussion with the legendary Lee Felsenstein, designer of the Osborne 1, SOL computer, VDM-1, Pennywhistle modem, and the inventor of social media. Covering everything from the Berkeley free speech movement, the counterculture movement, his career, through to Obsourne and his ideas for social media.
His book: https://www.amazon.com/Me-My-Big-Ideas-Counterculture/dp/B0DJ8T45F1/
https://felsensigns.com/

00:00 - Full 3 hour talk with Lee Felsenstein
08:24 - University of California at Berkeley, and the Free Speech Movement.
29:04 - First Junior Engineer job at Ampex
36:20 - The first hackathons with Richard Greenblatt
37:33 - Hackers, Heros of the computer revolution
1:03:36 - Techical career at Ampex
1:12:52 - Atari Computers and Steve Jobs, Nolan Bushnall, and Allan Alcorn
1:15:00 - He tried to pitch social media to Steve Jobs
1:22:15 - Designing the Pennywhistle 103 modem +
1:25:36 - Marty Spergel selling kits
1:31:53 - Steve Wozniak and how the Apple 1 is NOT a personal computer
1:43:42 - Osborne Computers
1:53:22 - Osborne 1 physical design
1:57:57 - Osborne 1 development timeline
2:01:19 - The Osborne Effect wasn't what killed the company

[erkko]

That guy, with such a history and experience... And that interview just needs to be done in a fashion that makes me resort to auto-generated subtitles in attempt to overcome that audio quality, some parts I actually listened twice to understand what was said...

As a professional youtuber, you cannot possibly send a guy a mic or teach him how to set up one he already has. You cant even tell him to use a phone or tablet or laptop, which he perhaps finds laying around the house, to use that as a local audio-recorder or maybe even video-recorder. So that later he can send you that recording back and such mega-interesting interview can be compiled without that crappy phone-audio. No? As a professional youtuber, you need to be told to do that?

I dont know what to say, thank you for interviewing him? Yeah, sure. But. If you find someone interesting like him in the future, could you do a world a favor and plan ahead, set stuff up and test it for handful of minutes, making sure these 3 hours of this guys life are gonna be spent for a good reason and outcome is not such a lousy audio. Just an idea.

[Bud]

Agreed. Audio was a torture. I could only handle about 25% of the interview, then gave up.

[brucehoult]

I've been using this on my 30 minute walks the last couple of days, using Airpods (without video). Lee's audio is fine for me, but it's Dave's that is shocking!

Weird that the ground breaking social media stuff is actually mostly already after when I started using dial-in (at 1200/75) to an X.25 PAD to access Byte magazine's "BIX" conferencing system in the USA (from New Zealand) in 1986. Fortunately on my employer's dollar (lots of them).

By 1989 there was a BBS in Wellington (Actrix) with 5 or 6 dial-in lines and a TCP/IP connection and I could telnet to BIX and pay my own way. That prompted me to buy a cheap Chinese 2400 bps modem [1] in a smoky plexiglass enclosure I saw at MacWorld SF in January 1989 and buy my first computer for home, a Mac IIcx.

One of the first big "social media is a revolution" experiences was reading first-person accounts of the Loma Prieta earthquake and reposting them on a local NZ BBS. That was comparable to a friend showing me the random citizen on a ferry photo of Flight 1549 in the Hudson river 20 years later that was what got me to join Twitter.

Another earlyish example, pre Netscape and PPP being widely available, was when I was one of the scorers at the January 1995 World Gliding Championships. I had my PowerBook 100 with me, equipped with an internal modem, UUCP software, and Eudora email app, and a UUCP-based usenet "News reader" program (NewsWatcher). I was sending daily contest results to rec.aviation.soaring and by email to several people, and also gave any competitor or official who wanted it a temporary email account on a temporary UUCP subdomain (omarama.actrix.gen.nz) During the day people would visit me, read their emails and write replies, and in the evening just after I pinned the official results for the day to the notice board I make a 1 minute long distance (525km) phone call back to Actrix in Wellington. UUCP was great for connecting and very quickly sending and receiving everything that had built up during the day on both ends.

https://groups.google.com/g/rec.aviation.soaring/c/RJhK9yu-yHI/m/PMVsbP_rcLkJ

[1] US $99? Tele-permitted Aussie Netcomm 1234SA modems were about $1500 IIRC

[jonovid]

The VHS Videocassette Recorder was developed for Cold War Spy Drones?

1:04:20 time- the Ampex videocassette recorder used in aerial videography.
the video quality would be way too poor for aerial videography.  something just isn't right about this part of odd story.
maybe Lee Felsenstein is still keeping old military secrets?  American technical pride vs humiliation by the Japanese engineering at that time?
aerial photography / cinematography used in project Corona was up to the job.
the first digital camera in 1975 by Eastman Kodak was also under a similar military motivation to cover it up as Kodak was working for military aerial photography at the time.
convincing the public in the 1970s through into the 1980s a digital camera was science fiction.

[brucehoult]

It seems entirely possible that helical scan of a tape might have been developed to enable high data rate on a relatively slow moving tape for U2 / SR71 / satellite reconnaissance, while at the same time the military system didn't use NTSC/PAL as the recording format or restrict itself to a frame fitting on one scan so you could pause.

Helical scan was patented in 1950 and Ampex had a product in 1961.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ampex_2-inch_helical_VTR

[jonovid]

It seems entirely possible that helical scan of a tape might have been developed to enable high data rate on a relatively slow moving tape for U2 / SR71 / satellite reconnaissance, while at the same time the military system didn't use NTSC/PAL as the recording format or restrict itself to a frame fitting on one scan so you could pause.

Helical scan was patented in 1950 and Ampex had a product in 1961.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ampex_2-inch_helical_VTR

all this wide capacity video tape had to fit inside a cassette. more explanation by Lee Felsenstein would help.
as we know about the 1950s project Corona. but not about this.__ extraordinary avionics videocassette recorder predating VHS.

Osborne 1 may have been a tool for spy's.  please tell us more  -maybe re-do the interview with better Audio. 

[EEVblog]

As a professional youtuber, you cannot possibly send a guy a mic or teach him how to set up one he already has.

He already had a prefectly fine Samson GoMic, a mic I've used myself for many Amp Hour episodes.

You cant even tell him to use a phone or tablet or laptop, which he perhaps finds laying around the house, to use that as a local audio-recorder or maybe even video-recorder. So that later he can send you that recording back and such mega-interesting interview can be compiled without that crappy phone-audio. No? As a professional youtuber, you need to be told to do that?

I dont know what to say, thank you for interviewing him? Yeah, sure. But. If you find someone interesting like him in the future, could you do a world a favor and plan ahead, set stuff up and test it for handful of minutes, making sure these 3 hours of this guys life are gonna be spent for a good reason and outcome is not such a lousy audio. Just an idea.

The problem was some issue with StreamYard. We probably spent 10-15 minutes trying to fix the various issues, but at some point you have to just go ahead and try and hopefully fix whatever issues there are in post.
I spend many days trying to edit this thing and fix this audio, I am happy to upload the raw files and if you think you can fix it better then please do so.

[EEVblog]

I've been using this on my 30 minute walks the last couple of days, using Airpods (without video). Lee's audio is fine for me, but it's Dave's that is shocking!

My audio is actually prefect. The problem is I have to mute his audio every time I speak because of the echo.
There is one editing goof with my audio about 5min or something, I didn't want to re-redner a 3 hour video to fix this 10 second problem.
And often in the edit I mute my audio and what you are hearing in the echo bleed through onto his channel.

[Bud]

I feel Lee using a headset mike instead of a desk or built-in one would helped the issue. Samson or not, he was still in an empty room with bare walls causing reflections, and the audio artefacts sounded like codec overcompression.

[EEVblog]

I feel Lee using a headset mike instead of a desk or built-in one would helped the issue. Samson or not, he was still in an empty room with bare walls causing reflections, and the audio artefacts sounded like codec overcompression.

It's more than the mic, there was a technical problem with StreamYard that prevented the echo cancellation software from working, and he didn't have any headphones.
I was aware the recoring might have the echo in it so I actually spent the entire 3 hours knowing that I had to say as little as possible so I didn't talk over him in case I couldn't removei t in post. And that turned out to be true.
I'm rendering a new version now without any of the noise reduction or levelisation steps to see if it makes any difference to those complaining.
I did a poll on X that is currently at 15% think it is "unlistenable".
https://x.com/BigBrothyr/status/1863340482341765402

[Bud]

Perhaps adding close caption may help.

[EEVblog]

Here is the unprocessed audio version, no nosie reduction or levelisation (noise reduction pass + levelisation pass). For those who think the other version of "unlistenable" please tell me what you think of this one.

[brucehoult]

I'm managing with the first version, but this is SO MUCH better. Such wow.

[nctnico]

I'm managing with the first version, but this is SO MUCH better. Such wow.

Agreed. Using a dynamics compressor (to equalise the level) on audio is rarely a good idea as it quickly leads to a 'pumping' effect which is very tiresome to listen to.

[Bud]

That did it! 

[EEVblog]

I'm managing with the first version, but this is SO MUCH better. Such wow.

Agreed. Using a dynamics compressor (to equalise the level) on audio is rarely a good idea as it quickly leads to a 'pumping' effect which is very tiresome to listen to.

I've actually used this tool (The Levelator) countless times on The Amp Hour over the years with zero complaints. Maybe it didn't like this audio for some reason.
Uploading another version now with only the noise reduction.

[EEVblog]

That did it! 

Ok, three people confirming now, thanks.
Will upload a new version to the main channel. I think the noise reduction version is even nicer. Still one editing goof on my voice at 1:56, but I think that's the only goof.
Will be here once it's done uploading:

[EEVblog]

A vote is up on Youtube:
https://www.youtube.com/post/Ugkx0NbXwu5VNQdbd8w2w2ZtNNRzF2xoDCLf

and X:
https://x.com/eevblog/status/1863769921232212460

[EEVblog]

FYI, Youtube has a new feature called Stable Volume, make sure it's turned off when doing comparisons.

[EEVblog]

Poll results. On Youtube the majority think there is nothing wrong with the orignal.

On X 37% say the no processing version is better

Goes to show that it's very subjective, there is no "best".

[golden_labels]

I just finished watching the interview. Had to find time and energy to sit down and listen to it all. Thanks, Dave, good job!

Not sure, where is the problem with audio. It’s not crystal perfect studio recording, but even as a non-native speaker I had no trouble listening to it and that’s regardless of the playback speed I used.