A very enjoyable podcast with lots of information and a reflection of the tech past

I love the concept of this show, and do find it enjoyable overall. The hosts have a lot of energy and their choices of topics is solid. However, in every episode I’ve listened to so far, they simply lack enough information about the given topic to have the meaningful insights that I suspect most people listening to this type of show probably want. I don’t expect _insanely_ deep-dives, but in many cases the insights provided are little more than “I skimmed the Wikipedia article; now let me tell you about it”. It’s enough to whet your appetite about a particular topic and set you off to do your own research, sure, but I personally want more than that. Yes, BeOS failed, but why was it interesting in the first place? It wasn’t simply “it played media well” — when you ran it on then-current Mac hardware, you really saw the differences between the hardware capabilities and the software capabilities first-hand in a way you simply hadn’t before. This was an era where Finder copies could block the whole machine and MP3s would skip when you clicked in the menu bar, yet BeOS could boot in seconds, play multiple MP3s at once, copy [n] files in parallel, and so forth. Sure, the OS was nowhere near as complete as Mac OS and was really only for hobbyists, but as a proof of concept to say “here is what modern OS unpinnings can do on this hardware”, it was fairly amazing, and it had a “cuteness” and a “kinda sorta like the Mac” UI that differentiated it in that community compared with, say, Linux, Windows, or OS/2, which had the more modern OS features but didn’t appeal to Mac users. This is all somewhat touched on in the episode, but they missed the real “meat” of the topic. In the episode on AOL Instant Messenger, the hosts do a fine job ascribing the importance of AIM and some of its various features such as away messages and profiles. And they admittedly do talk about how it essentially set the user experience standard for messaging platforms to come, which is great. But how can you meaningfully have a conversation about internet chat without even mentioning ICQ — which totally dominated in the years before AIM — and how AIM joined later and basically eradicated it? Buddy lists weren’t particularly novel; what was novel is that ICQ and predecessors, much like email, were fundamentally designed around the message as the atom: “they send you a message, and you can reply back”. In AIM, it was about the conversation. In other platforms, you basically had to pre-announce that you wanted to have a longer conversation, which has often-undesirable social implications. By contrast, the design of AIM’s conversations view worked well for single messages, but also provided the possibility of a long conversation organically developing. This was critical, but mostly overlooked in terms of what it brought to the space, and how it still influences well beyond “you have a buddy list and a chat window”. I’ll keep listening, but it’s shame that this show isn’t achieving more than “well, there are probably a million better resources to learn about any of these topics, but at least this one is convenient to listen to in my car, and if one episode piques my interest, I can at least look it up later”.

Love this podcast! Having owned a Newton, Magic Link and Palm Pilot back in highschool, I’m brought back to to the genius of these devices, what we brought forward from them, and what we left behind. I even was part of a Magic Cap users club where we got to meet the CEO along some remarkable people like Andy Hertzfeld and Bill Atkinson. I’m only on the first episode, but look forward to future ones. I hope they get to BeOS!

I love listening because there is no other podcast like it. One of my top favorite podcasts.

I really love retro tech. This show is well done, entertaining, and reminds me of tech of old (and not so old). I wish they were still releasing new episodes.

Interesting content, great hosts, just wish it came out more often. Need a Pebble episode!

Haven’t listened to a single pod yet, but if the pods half as good as the YouTube channel, I’m sure it’ll be great; entertaining and informative. Don’t make me look dumb mr Quinn !

I love listening to Stephen Hackett’s podcasts, so I thought I would check this one out. After listening for a few episodes, I lost interested. Then, I decided to come back and learned the error of my ways. The content is interesting and the chemistry between Quinn and Stephen just keeps getting better

there is ONE flaw, still no episode on the most successful kickstarter products (pebble ect..), and I am mad 😠. For real though, this podcast claps. Informative, fun, and unique. good job guys 👏👏

I’ve followed Quinn for a long time and always liked his niche interests, and this podcast does a great job detailing really interesting aspects of the tech world.

Came here from Snazzy.

Love it! Now, do an episode about the Apple IIgs.

This is seriously a freakin' awesome podcast! It's become something I look forward to every week. Keep up the great work y'all!

Good podcast

It’s entertaining on long car rides. Though you could play a drinking game for every time Snazzy Labs says “This was so (insert year here)”.

Everything you want in a podcast. These first 2 episodes are incredible. Informative, entertaining, humorous. Both hosts are so engaging and knowledgeable I couldn’t stop listening.

Fun trips down memory lane.

👍

Good first one, great content, but Quinn on WVFRM was a breath of fresh air on the podcast scene. More time to chat, “two dudes talking”-style as Relay contributor CGP Grey and battle-tested Dr. Brady Haran often say, I think would be even so much better. We want to hear from you both, let it breathe.

I am beyond excited to have a new place to hear Quinn Nelson. Also, with Hackett being just a little bit a bit of an Apple fanboi, it will be cool to have a rational person like Quinn in the studio with him to maybe gently push back sometimes on his most egregious Apple apologism. Congrats to both of you guys on a great new show. I will not miss an episode!

Quinn has a great YouTube channel. Looking forward to hearing the new content

I’ve been following him for years on Youtube. It’s exciting to have a podcast now.

Quinn is an amazing YouTuber so he’s podcasts must be great. It is. The best thing that can happen.

Can’t wait for the first episode! This sounds like a great show and I love Snazzy Labs! I’ve been hoping for a podcast from him for a while now and it’s finally happening!

So excited to have Quinn and Stephen together for this. What a great blending of minds!