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  • Retro-Acronym Of The Week: ?FMV?

    From Lawrence D?Oliveiro@3:633/10 to All on Mon Dec 29 23:08:57 2025
    There are quite a few acronyms, now long forgotten, which were bandied
    around a lot back in the day, when the technologies they represented
    were new, exciting, and above all, still unusual enough to be worthy
    of comment.

    One of those from the early 1990s is ?FMV?, which is casually dropped,
    without explanation, at 1:28 in this video <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IxSCNhblC3g> on The 8-Bit Guy?s
    channel, which is about the old Philips ?CD-i? (?Compact Disc
    Interactive?) format.

    It stands for ?Full Motion Video?. The idea of being able to watch
    digital video clips at a decent resolution and frame rate on a regular
    PC was still pretty cutting-edge at the time. The CD-i machines needed
    a special add-in card, which was quite an expensive option, to achieve
    this. The card had hardware designed for real-time decoding of MPEG-1,
    which was the state of the art for video compression technology (at
    least as intended for the mass market) at the time. And at 320?240
    resolution, it was only considered to be about equivalent in overall
    quality to VHS.

    --- PyGate Linux v1.5.2
    * Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)
  • From Freddy1X@3:633/10 to All on Tue Dec 30 09:20:38 2025
    Lawrence D?Oliveiro wrote:

    There are quite a few acronyms, now long forgotten, which were bandied
    around a lot back in the day, when the technologies they represented
    were new, exciting, and above all, still unusual enough to be worthy
    of comment.
    ( some cuts )
    which was the state of the art for video compression technology (at
    least as intended for the mass market) at the time. And at 320?240 resolution, it was only considered to be about equivalent in overall
    quality to VHS.

    The pup asks "What is VHS?"

    Freddy,
    feel the obsolete.
    --
    Store only in a cool, dry place.

    \|
    /| I may be demented \|
    /| but I'm not crazy! \| /|<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<\|
    * SPAyM trap: there is no X in my address *


    --- PyGate Linux v1.5.2
    * Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)
  • From jayjwa@3:633/10 to All on Tue Dec 30 13:07:21 2025
    rbowman <bowman@montana.com> writes:

    There are quite a few acronyms, now long forgotten, which were bandied
    around a lot back in the day, when the technologies they represented
    were new, exciting, and above all, still unusual enough to be worthy of
    comment.

    You need to add that to the wtf acronyms file.
    Actually it should probably be /usr/share/misc/acronyms.comp for
    computer acronyms, but then you have to put the "-t" flag for type.

    FILES
    /usr/share/misc/acronyms default acronym database.
    /usr/share/misc/acronyms.comp computer-related acronym database.

    wtf -t comp fmv
    FMV: full motion video

    --
    PGP Key ID: 781C A3E2 C6ED 70A6 B356 7AF5 B510 542E D460 5CAE
    "The Internet should always be the Wild West!"

    --- PyGate Linux v1.5.2
    * Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)
  • From Lawrence D?Oliveiro@3:633/10 to All on Tue Dec 30 21:14:53 2025
    On Tue, 30 Dec 2025 09:20:38 -0500, Freddy1X wrote:

    The pup asks "What is VHS?"

    Don?t worry, the kids have never forgotten.

    <https://www.tomshardware.com/video-games/pc-gaming/cyberpunk-2077-transformed-into-a-stunning-vhs-visual-experience-using-new-reshade-preset-so-1980s-real-you-start-watching-for-mullets-another-enthusiast-benchmarks-presets-visuals-using-an-actual-vhs-recording>

    --- PyGate Linux v1.5.2
    * Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)
  • From Lars Poulsen@3:633/10 to All on Wed Dec 31 00:16:11 2025
    On 2025-12-30, rbowman <bowman@montana.com> wrote:
    On Linux Mint the files are in /usr/share/games/bsdgames. Acronyms.comp is from 2023/07/06 and doesn't have it. The Fedora install of bsd-games does put the files in /usr/share/misc but still doesn't have fmv. https://github.com/vattam/BSDGames/blob/master/wtf/acronyms.comp
    Doesn't have it either. Some build, somewhere might.

    Isn't /usr/share a repository of default files, and if you edit anything
    it is supposed to be put elsewhere? Not that I know where that would
    be. Maybe in /usr/local or /etc.
    --
    Lars Poulsen - an old geek in Santa Barbara, California

    --- PyGate Linux v1.5.2
    * Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)
  • From Lawrence D?Oliveiro@3:633/10 to All on Wed Dec 31 03:05:29 2025
    On Wed, 31 Dec 2025 00:16:11 -0000 (UTC), Lars Poulsen wrote:

    Isn't /usr/share a repository of default files, and if you edit
    anything it is supposed to be put elsewhere?

    It?s a location for read-only architecture-independent data (e.g.
    icons, fonts, sounds, message text).

    --- PyGate Linux v1.5.2
    * Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)
  • From Nuno Silva@3:633/10 to All on Wed Dec 31 09:31:15 2025
    On 2025-12-30, Freddy1X wrote:

    Lawrence D?Oliveiro wrote:

    [...]
    which was the state of the art for video compression technology (at
    least as intended for the mass market) at the time. And at 320?240
    resolution, it was only considered to be about equivalent in overall
    quality to VHS.

    The pup asks "What is VHS?"

    I'm told it's the primary medium for distribution of "The Star Wars
    Holiday Special".

    --
    Nuno Silva

    --- PyGate Linux v1.5.2
    * Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)