Posts by John Brown (no body)

Re: Excellent games

"The 800 was much nicer, but even more pricy, and since all the games were imported from the US they were expensive too, so it wasn't a very big seller."

I used to help run a local computer club. One guy, ONE!, had an Atari 800. He'd spent over £1000 in 1980's pounds for it and a couple of add-ons (not sure which now) while everyone else had Video Genies, ZX-81's, Vic-20's and a few others I don't recall, none especially pricy compared to that solitary Atari 800. It was nice though :-)

Re: Retro

"I was blown away as it was the first time I had ever played on a computer/console."

That's the exact bit that so many people talking about "retro" and the mistakes made, the shitty designs etc. For almost everyone, it was their first time owning a computer. It was mind blowing for most of them, including me. And then there was the pace of development. No matter what you bought, no matter how much or how little you spent, by the time it arrived, there was something better, faster, cheaper, more colourful just announced in the plethora of the new computing magazines. You really had to live through it to appreciate just what was being produced and how fast things were moving.

Re: I must be young.

...Space Hoppers!

"I am very, very tempted to pick up a professionally refurbed Amiga with capacitors that will last longer than me."

It'll cost you! Vintage/retro computing hit a high during the pandemic and it's hard work finding something "ready to run" because of that and there's no signs of the prices dropping. They probably won't drop, since as time goes by, they are becoming even more rare.

Re: Backwards

"In that sense the cheap smartphone has already taken the role of the desktop computer. And for those who really need it, there's a thriving pre-owned computer market where you can buy a still useful desktop or laptop for a pittance."

yes, no matter how cheap the computer, there still the stuff you need to plug in to it. keyboard, mouse and power source (possibly battery) is one thing, the real expense comes with a display of some sort. If you are aiming at the very poor, first time computer owners, the display is probably the biggest hurdle now. There are cheap, surplus smaller LCD displays out there now, but you still need to make them available in the target markets. Even brand new, smaller 8-10" panels from AliExpress are adding quite a bit to the system costs.

Re: The glory days of UK IT

Agreed, to an extent. We still have "non-PC" Apple :-)

Amstrad were good at spotting and filling a niche on the cheap. Apple went the other way with quality and aspiration.

It also helps if you have a vast home market that even a small percentage of it can make you rich, as you then have a head start on companies with small home markets.

Re: The glory days of UK IT

"While we were peddling ZX-80s and 380Zs, the US was into the PET and the TRS-80. They bring out the Apple II, we bring out the, er... Speccy? "

Not exactly. PET/TRS-80/AppleII all came out about the same time and predated ZX-80 by a few years and at less than a quarter the price of the PET/TRS-80/Apple, not to mention the even later Speccy. The 380Z is correct, and others such as Nascom might have been the UK competition at the time, or the UK101, both primarily sold as kits. And as the article stated, Sinclair was aiming at a price point, not a feature point because he understood the British market and customer. The Spectrum was competing with the Commodore 64, and again at a vastly reduced price because that's what would sell in the UK and was one of the reasons Commodore kept dropping it's prices because they had real competition.

Not only that, but you have to put yourself into the mind-set of the time and try to forget what we have now. They were all amazing and revolutionary in their own way, leading the way, sometimes down dead-ends, to where we are now.

Re: The glory days of UK IT

Yes, it was the entire electronics manufacturing industry that was hit. You could import completed units, tax/duty free, or at least very low, but in a misguided attempt to maintain the British electronics component manufactures, imported components and boards were taxed through the roof.

Re: ?

"Cows are actually quite docile. No fence needed. If you irk them, they will likely turn their back to you and move away."

Sometimes, irking them just means being in the same field if the have calves. There's been a couple of case in the year or so locally of people being killed by cows. I don't remember the precise details, but the cases I remember were not kids out messing about, just ramblers passing by.

Re: ?

"Sadly, the gookids destroyed the DejaNews archive,"

I bet they kept a copy. All that data saved, just in case. And then LLMs became popular and needed data from conversations. They keep the Big 8 for their own LLM and sell access to the cess-pit alt.* hierarchy :-)

Re: Douglas X-3 Stiletto, anybody?

I would assume they already tested at smaller scale in a supersonic wind tunnel. There was one operating in the UK as early as 1922, albeit with a 2cm diameter.

I believe NASA has at least one, a bit larger and newer :-)

Re: The cat flapper was neat

"That rabbit phone interface, bad idea. I see that quickly becoming a Hoover, and perhaps a spambot. Hope the security is tight, since you'll be giving it unfettered access to your phone. Think I'll pass."

They may have to find a new name for it anywhere where Hutinson still owns[*] the trademark right to Rabbit in the telecomms field.

* They may not. Apparently they may never have actually owned the trademark, at least not outright

Re: "better insurance rates"

"the upcoming generation, the one that already lives with their smartphones grafted to their hands, will likely sign up to this scheme without even blinking."

That'll be the ones already in the position of not being able to afford car insurance without have a telemetry spewing black box fitted into whatever cheap car they can afford. That ship has already sailed. The "voluntary" insurance black box is already pretty much financially mandated by raising the insurance prices, at least for new and young drivers. They are growing up i that world and don't know any different.

Re: Perhaps it's time for vehicle makers to take note.

"A recent petition proposing that Paula Vennells be quite rightly stripped of her CBE got more than a million responses and was likely instrumental in her making the decision to jump before she was pushed and hand it back;"

On the other hand, as others have pointed out, sending back the trinket is only a symbolic thing. The award is bestowed by the monarch and can only be withdrawn by the monarch. It's usually handled by a committee, and it's quite rare for an honour to be withdrawn. It may well happen in this case, but it might take some time, might not happen at all, but whatever happens, she still holds that honour until and unless it's officially taken from her. Her returning of the representative physical symbol of the honour might swing the committee into action though.

Re: A happy life?

My Garmin SatNav went EOL a good few years ago. But it still gets the "Lifetime Map Updates" as advertised. I think it must be at least 10 years old now, if not older. I really can't remember! The battery is shagged and it rarely manages to lock onto a traffic update signal these days, but it still does it's job, working under voice control and no need to report back to the mothership every time a turn it on.

Re: ransomware

"I foresee a cute little cottage industry springing up: Vehicle FW "updates" that trap telemetry spews to the Mothership, and redirect them into /dev/nul. (Of course, they would acknowledge the messages in such a way so as to satisfy the underlying spyware....)"

MS Windows telemetry. I'm not a Windows user, but If there was any level of cottage industry for apps to block that, it's not made much headway in the general populace as far as I can tell. I can't see it being different for connected cars. As someone said further up, data snooping and collection is becoming the norm and almost impossible to avoid.

Re: Why use A-I? Because there's no other way to get anything close to the essence of Carlin.

'There is no "I" in team.'

I like Carlins response. On the other hand, my response is "So what? There's a 'me' in 'team'!!"

Re: Resend, resend, resend, ...

"The aim here isn't to be perfect, it's to offer something that might save a life ASAP. The ideal endpoint is to get more satellites up there so a device that a lot of people have can offer additional help in emergencies."

Exactly! This whole sub-thread is moot since it's discussing how to use the system "as-is", when it's only a test flight of 6 sats, barely more than a proof of concept. The plan is for "no dead spots", anywhere in the world, so clearly SpaceX is expecting to launch more sats with this capability. I suspect once it's proved (which they seem to have done now) and regulatory approval is granted for full deployment, all future Starlink sats will have the capability by default. The only hurdles then remaining will be which countries will allow it's use over their territories and on which bands.

The real fly in the ointment is going to be targetting the beams enough such that they aren't impinging on local networks on the ground causing interference by allowing use and bands in one country. but not in a neighbouring country.

Re: What goes around come around.

The one thing that seemed to be missing from the blurb is battery packs and range extensions. I'd expect, a "modular vehicle" to have options for larger or addition battery packs which are easily replaceable. I've seen a video of a drive-in battery replacement station, I could see a use for something similar in a modular vehicle. Small and light for city driving, but add in an extra battery pack for those longer journeys, especially in the US market. No need to carry 400 mile range weight of batteries for the daily commute when half or a quarter of that mass/energy is all you need most of the time.

Also, "thermal creep", especially with those old DIL sockets. Thermal cycling up and down makes the metal legs and spring contacts expand and contract ever so slightly such that over time the chips creep out of the sockets. Any mechanical connection that is a friction-only joint suffers this, including screw in terminals.

And yes, that "crunch" of the chip going back fully is a very satisfying sound, especially to a field engineer of many years :-)

Re: They don't have a clue

"reentry is clearly an unknown at this point, but that's not technically required for Artemis"

It might be financially required though. All those re-fuelling launches don't really want to be "one shots" or SpaceX won't be able to deliver within the budget allocated by NASA. On the other hand, it's Artemis, so it seems almost unlimited pork barrelling is allowed.

And that is actually the biggest problem with the Honours system (senior) civil servants in particular get them as part of their retirement bonus just for being there and, possibly, doing their job for some number of years. In many cases, the big crowning achievement is simply surviving in the role, something many of us do in our lifetimes and get SFA for in comparison.

"Only if I insist that her name actually is Venables, and that the poster who corrected me definitely wrong, and their error means they owe me £20k."

Even I, a devout NOT follower of football, saw the footie reference to "own goal" and "Terry Venables" :-)

Re: Why did everyone get vaccinated?

"Smallpox, polio, mumps, measles, rubella, HPV. Pretty sure these stop you catching and spreading those viruses."

Different viruses mutate in different ways and at different rate. All those you just mentioned are very stable, so a single injection, or maybe one more booster, can be enough for a lifetime. COVID is more like 'flu, hence why 'flu vaccines are continually being developed in time for the next wave. You need to read more instead of denying. This is "done" science" and has been known for years.

Re: Why did everyone get vaccinated?

"they were even close to what they were marketed as at launch"

I'm not sure what marketing claims you saw, but the stuff I saw made it clear they didn't yet know how long "immunity"[*] would last. It was made clear quite early on that this would like the 'flu jab, a yearly, at least, occurrence as it mutated, unlike measles etc type vaccine which pretty much last a lifetime as they don't mutate much, if at all.

They never actually said the word "immunity", since that's not how vaccines work.

Re: A gross understatement?

And also, since I assume Boeing approved this mod by Sprit, the maintenance manual was updated to show the "plug" and the fixings such that they were not just ignored during an inspection. Or was it called something else and got a single mention in an addendum at the back where no one noticed it, like MCAS?