Flutterby™! : Veni, Vidi, Video

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Veni, Vidi, Video

2005-02-15 14:02:43.314631+00 by petronius 4 comments

I bought a combo VCR/DVD player from Sears yesterday, and was rummaging through the instruction book last night. One intriguing feature is the ability to change the DVD menus into many, many lanquages by entering a 4-digit code. Besides the usual Spanish, French or English, I also had the option of choosing Abkazi, Azerbijani, Croatian, Scots Gaelic, Singhalese, Xhosa (with the click), Faeroese, Greenlandic, Icelandic (but not Vinlandic), Greek, Afrikaans, Zulu and Yiddish and many more. Even more interesting were the options for Esperanto, Interlinqua and Volapuk, three concocted, synthetic lanquages. Are there enough Volapuk readers to need this feature? Then I saw the capper. I can program my VCR in Latin! My Jesuit teachers would be so happy. Of course, setting a recording for the Ides of Januarius might be a bit tricky.....

[ related topics: Language Hardware Hackery Television ]

comments in ascending chronological order (reverse):

#Comment Re: made: 2005-02-15 18:56:44.202767+00 by: ebradway

What! No Klingon?

#Comment Re: made: 2005-02-15 19:40:36.415012+00 by: petronius

In Klingon, the VCR programs you!

#Comment I, for one, made: 2005-02-15 20:21:42.036452+00 by: baylink

welcome our new digital overlords.

#Comment Re: made: 2005-02-16 01:15:45.050634+00 by: meuon

Paradign shift hindsight: Before we had such powerful CPU's and ram and software in such devices, UI designers spent lots of time and effort on designing icons that were supposed to be crystal clear as to their function to any level user in any language.

Often in 2 'colors' 60x60 pixels.. or so.

--What would be fun is to know a few languages well enough to look for those wonderful grammatical translation errors.. ie: Delete = Flush the Toilet amd Fast Forward = Running like a headless chicken..