I spent many hours in my last two c128 posts trying to contextualize, link, and explain in detail the difference between two hardware devices I recently purchased, namely the ZoomFloppy and the uIEC/SD drive. While I erratically surf the web looking for information about whatever it is I am interested in, I noticed I tend to rely heavily on short videos of folks explaining things. For example, this CBM-Command demo video was quite useful for getting me up and running with their disk utility for Commodore computers.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pqrgx88H_Wk
The CBM-Command video is 12 minutes long and I probably listened to half of it while searching for other stuff, but that was more than enough for me to figure the application out. So, in that vein I wanted to do a video wherein I try and explain (in less than 5 minutes) the practical differences between the ZoomFloppy and the uIEC/SD drive.
Why do this if I already wrote it up? I was wondering if I could do in 5 minutes what it takes me roughly 5 hours to write up in two blog posts. There are limits to videos, they often have to be on YouTube to be found, they can meander, less likely to have links, etc. At the same time I use them all the time, so I wonder if the blogger in me is privileging one form over the other. Either way, the idea of explaining something clearly and quickly for someone who may have similar questions as I did would’ve been quite valuable to me over the last few weeks.
So, I did this imagining there was someone in a similar situation of nascent understanding who might benefit from a fairly quick, straightforward explanation. I’m not sure if I succeed, but I find it a useful exercise for my own comprehension to try an explain something I’ve learned to an imagined audience. Also, it’s a small token of my appreciation for all the folks who take their time to teach me something without any expectations of anything in return (save internet fame and glory). A bit of paying it forward on and for the web.
Also, for the record, this is the first time in years I’m posting a video to YouTube, I feel a bit torn to be honest I’m using my Reclaim Hosting YouTube account (don’t tell Timmmmyboy). And while the above video has nothing remotely takedown worthy, I also have a compressed version uploaded and stored on my own webserver given I don’t trust the automated arbiters of copyright at Google.*
Update: Re-listening, one major gaffe was saying the 5 1/4″ floppies have 64KB, I was thinking the RAM for the machine. In terms of disk space on a double-sided 5″ floppy it could hold 360KB, and the high density 1.2 MB.
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*So why upload anything to YouTube again? That’s easy, because I used up my weekly quota on Vimeo 🙂
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