It did have 64 but the assembler you mention above used the first 32 automatically and you couldn't change that, so for applications and whatnot you only had 32 available.
The user port was cool and the excellent analogue joysticks when everyone else had clicky microswitch ones:)
BBC Micro was a 6502-based microcomputer manufactured by Acorn in the UK. It has 64K ram of which 32 was taken up by a BASIC interpreter. It did colour nad cool sounds and loads of ports - parallel, serial, midi, weird proprietry ones for drives and a processor direct bus that allowed you to connect a second computer (didn't have to be the same architecture) for multiple processing.
They were very popular in UK schools and can still be found around the UK. Bulletproof as well. Had an excellent bank of ROM slots - you bought an application (the popular one being Wordwise) on a rom, slotted it into the machine and it became a resident programme.
Basic programmes were imputted off the command line, the command AUTO giving you line numbering and stuff (cool in those days).
Originally sold with a tape drive, they mostly used 40/80 track 5.24 inch floppy drives and were famous for being bundled with teh Epson FX80 dot matrix printer that was way more expensive than the copmputer and the loudest thing on the planet when running.
Best games include Frak! Castle Quest and the original Elite...... first (only?) game to use two screen modes on the screen at once:)
Very true - what tends to happen is that in 5 years time, another technology, or a development of an existing technology has rendered the "amazing new breakthrough" obsolete (or too expensive, complex etc)
These things tend to resurface a few years after they were invented or whatever and become part of technology anyway but without the fanfare and with a few people going "I told you so" and claiming 20/20 hindsight:)
Things like holographic and/or 3D memory storage - was firsat mentioned well over a decade ago as the "next great thing" and was promptly forgotted and has recently resurfaced as working prototypes etc.
Best thing to do is take it with a pinch of salt and wait a few years.
I also like the fact that you can read the submission at the top of the page as indicating an awesome instant-on device that takes 5 years to power up:)
I kinda agree - I always thought one of the bige advantages of the 'net was the fact everyone is equal until they say something stupid (or connect with AOL heh:) It doesn't matter what sex you are, or your sexual orientation, colour, background etc etc and it's up to you whether that is ever revealed to other people and to whom it is revealed.
It's only recently that differenciation has started with sites like handbag.com etc catering primarily for women.
Whether this is a good thing or not remains to be seen, I assume (IMHO) the only reason these sites exist is that research has shown people are interested in suchthings and that the reason the research has been carried out is because of the growing commercialisation of the 'net as a whole.
In the "old" days there were a few of us and we just did our own thing and it didn't matter what you were (although real girls were always a exciting find on muds and such like). Now with advertising attempting to become more focussed and specifically targetted, it's becoming important to know who/what you are so THEY can hit you with the right adverts.
Personally I hate it all really and I think we should all go back to the good old days before the web and IRC when the most complex sites around ran gopher and you did your meeting on an lpmud.
Excellent joke - I'd give this a [funny] if I had some spare points but I'm saving all mine to convert to beenz which I'll then convert into flooz and finally I might convert them into speedybucks which will allow me to get 0.0001% off a crap cd from a company nobody has ever heard of.
In the meantime I'd just like to say Yeah! I've been waiting for this film ever since I read the books for the first time - they are still the most re-read story I own.
That previous cartoonish attempt sucked as well but this looks like the guys in charge (Peter Jackson of Bad Taste fame) have the same mindset as myself.
Problem with a -2 offensive rating is thay it becomes extremely subjective as to the rating..
a very religious person for example might moderate something down purely because it was offensive to their personal beliefs, even if they were in the minority - equally a warped weirdo (heh) with moderation points could moderate down a posting because it went against their personal righ-wing (or whatever beliefs)
Providing something is on-topic it shouldn't be moderated and an (offensive) tag could be used to moderate down something that was on topic and therefore not a troll or flamebait etc.
Troc
Re:Day of the Triffids...
on
G3 Solar Storm
·
· Score: 2
That was a freak meteor show if I recall correctly.
heh. Bloody good story though and I remember it scaring me at the time - even the BBC series was good. Even now the sight of plants walking around making clacking noises makes me shiver.
True - but you have to realise that it can take a few days for atopic to be posted on Slashdot itself, so it's entirely possibly this was submitted by someone days or hours before you submitted it and it's just taken a while to get posted............
heh - I remember when IRC was quite new and run of a single network, used to be quite fun, writing bots and scripts to keep a channel up and running as netsplits across the atlantic sent in wave after wave of script kiddies after #england.
Dunno why they wanted #England so badly!
I rememebr we ended up taking over their own meeting channels for a couple of weeks in revenge:)
Those were the days.
DDoS has always been part of the IRC and is going to stay that way - you can limit it by not allowing bots etc on your servers but people will always have scripts and there will always be script kiddies
Well I assume it uses rolling codes, so unless you intercept the data, save it and decrypt it later on using your supercomputer, cluster or pet distributed client etc, the data will change too quickly for you to crack it (using current technology)
Encryption works as long as the data expires before the meantime to decrypt - i.e. if your data is sensitive for 10 years, make sure you use a key that'll take a minimum of >10 years to crack.
Wasn't really trying to be funny, just letting my mind wander whilst I wiped the coffee off my laptop:)
I know the recent Macs have shipped with various 9.0.x builds, it's just the recent 9.0.4 is out, no it isn't, I downloaded it, my software update doesn't see it, mine does, what update?, it's up,no it ain't, I've been having nothing but positive thoughs about that OS upgrade all day, confusion:)
Apple today announced that despite the recent 'upgrade' by certain airlines, their Airport would still operate on the official 40bit system. Any systems attempting to land at the Airport with a 128bit airplane would be refused permission, even if they are painted a really cool pale blue colour.
"We are considering taking them to court over this one - after all, these new airlines look and feel just like our own so who is going to know which is the real one?" Steve Jobs was quoted as saying.
In other news, Apple have deniew rumours that the recent upgrade to MacOS 9.0.4 is to avoid hassles with the OS-9 trademark issue.
We also telephoned Steve Jobs to enquire about the recent Microsoft ruling but all we heard was insane giggling.
It is a US law but that doesn't stop countries like the UK (where I live) to follow suit (pun intended:)
We have our own bill of weirdness here, the RIP bill which is designed to allow aceess by the authorities of encrypted data - it's supposed to help catch rapists and child molesters etc. The out come of it is such that they can force you to hand over your keys etc or they will chuck you in gaol for a coupel of years - if you've lost or forgotten the key, you have to prove it (how does one prove they've forgotten a key?).
Problem here is that 2 years is less that a sentence for child molesting etc.......
I guess the important point is whether you believe the game reality affects the people who play it.
Personally speaking I enjoy a game for it's game-ness. I've played D&D etc as evil and good characters equally - both are fun and have merits etc but at the end of the day it's a game, not reality
As to Christian values, I think a lot of games DO teach these - even RPGs like D&D etc it all depends whether you equate Christain values with a belief in God
Personally I would like to think I have values that are essentially Christian in nature (i.e be nice etc etc:) but I don't believe in God (any gods)
I believe a persons values are vastly more important than their beliefs and I don't think a computer game affects people's beliefs. It might sway someone who's on the borderline but it's not the main factor
eeeew - terrible spelling mistakes etc in the previous post. Sorry.
Out of utter curiosity what platform do we think FF(insert numerals here) is best on.....
i.e Consoles (PSX (1&2), Dreamcast etc) or PCs (Mac, Win, Linux etc)
I've player FF7 on PSX and PC and I actually enjoyed the PSX version more but I'm not sure why.... Maybe if I used a game controller instead of keyboard?
This then branches out into a point I've always wondered, how important is the ergonimics of a game in the grand scheme of things. Given the game on 2 platforms would you sacrifice ease of playing (i.e decent controllers) for cutting edge graphics?
Eeek.. there's me still not player FF8 yet! Not done so as I can't spare the week of life it'll alost certainly lose me once I start playing. FF7 nearly destroyed a month of my life a couple of years ago!
For an interesting fictional account of the Enigma etc, try Bruce Sterling's Cryptonomicon (or however it's spelled) - was reviewed on here a while back.
Yeah - problem I can see is that it would suffer form the same problems as coax ethernet - i.e. a break in a cable would take the network down (or in the best scenario, split the network in two)
Star formation netrowkr are IMHO superior due to this problem so maybe we'd need hubs for networking purposes.
As has been stated before though, there's Gigabit ethernet but it's expensive. WOuld a firewire solution be cheaper in the long run?
Also, what about the idea of having intelligent firewire devices that would act as standard peripherals when connected to a single computer but could be used as networked storage if connected to a firewire network?
I can see this developing in a similar way to the PSX 1 mods that are around - they are based on the original 'region' controller that shipped with the press demo and other usints when the PSX was first released. All that happends is you burn the data onto an eprom and solder it into your PSX (but I guess you all knew that anyway:)
So I assume somewhere down the line people will be getting copies of the recalled software and using it instead of the stuff their PSX shipped with.
Which kinda brings me to a point......... this software has been recalled etc etc. Would it actually be illegal for me, if I owned a UK PSX2 for example to replace my software with the old software as I own the hardware and stuff. I guess this is like asking if it'd be legal to use someone's copy of word 2 if I owned word 6 so I guess it would be illegal.
Slashdot Mirror
It did have 64 but the assembler you mention above used the first 32 automatically and you couldn't change that, so for applications and whatnot you only had 32 available.
:)
The user port was cool and the excellent analogue joysticks when everyone else had clicky microswitch ones
Troc
BBC Micro was a 6502-based microcomputer manufactured by Acorn in the UK. It has 64K ram of which 32 was taken up by a BASIC interpreter.
:)
It did colour nad cool sounds and loads of ports - parallel, serial, midi, weird proprietry ones for drives and a processor direct bus that allowed you to connect a second computer (didn't have to be the same architecture) for multiple processing.
They were very popular in UK schools and can still be found around the UK. Bulletproof as well.
Had an excellent bank of ROM slots - you bought an application (the popular one being Wordwise) on a rom, slotted it into the machine and it became a resident programme.
Basic programmes were imputted off the command line, the command AUTO giving you line numbering and stuff (cool in those days).
Originally sold with a tape drive, they mostly used 40/80 track 5.24 inch floppy drives and were famous for being bundled with teh Epson FX80 dot matrix printer that was way more expensive than the copmputer and the loudest thing on the planet when running.
Best games include Frak! Castle Quest and the original Elite...... first (only?) game to use two screen modes on the screen at once
Troc
Very true - what tends to happen is that in 5 years time, another technology, or a development of an existing technology has rendered the "amazing new breakthrough" obsolete (or too expensive, complex etc)
:)
:)
These things tend to resurface a few years after they were invented or whatever and become part of technology anyway but without the fanfare and with a few people going "I told you so" and claiming 20/20 hindsight
Things like holographic and/or 3D memory storage - was firsat mentioned well over a decade ago as the "next great thing" and was promptly forgotted and has recently resurfaced as working prototypes etc.
Best thing to do is take it with a pinch of salt and wait a few years.
I also like the fact that you can read the submission at the top of the page as indicating an awesome instant-on device that takes 5 years to power up
Hohum
troc
It's only recently that differenciation has started with sites like handbag.com etc catering primarily for women.
Whether this is a good thing or not remains to be seen, I assume (IMHO) the only reason these sites exist is that research has shown people are interested in suchthings and that the reason the research has been carried out is because of the growing commercialisation of the 'net as a whole.
In the "old" days there were a few of us and we just did our own thing and it didn't matter what you were (although real girls were always a exciting find on muds and such like). Now with advertising attempting to become more focussed and specifically targetted, it's becoming important to know who/what you are so THEY can hit you with the right adverts.
Personally I hate it all really and I think we should all go back to the good old days before the web and IRC when the most complex sites around ran gopher and you did your meeting on an lpmud.
Well perhaps not quite like that
Troc
And anyway, ClickerChick sounds better :)
Troc
Excellent joke - I'd give this a [funny] if I had some spare points but I'm saving all mine to convert to beenz which I'll then convert into flooz and finally I might convert them into speedybucks which will allow me to get 0.0001% off a crap cd from a company nobody has ever heard of.
In the meantime I'd just like to say Yeah! I've been waiting for this film ever since I read the books for the first time - they are still the most re-read story I own.
That previous cartoonish attempt sucked as well but this looks like the guys in charge (Peter Jackson of Bad Taste fame) have the same mindset as myself.
:)
Troc
Problem with a -2 offensive rating is thay it becomes extremely subjective as to the rating..
a very religious person for example might moderate something down purely because it was offensive to their personal beliefs, even if they were in the minority - equally a warped weirdo (heh) with moderation points could moderate down a posting because it went against their personal righ-wing (or whatever beliefs)
Providing something is on-topic it shouldn't be moderated and an (offensive) tag could be used to moderate down something that was on topic and therefore not a troll or flamebait etc.
Troc
That was a freak meteor show if I recall correctly.
heh. Bloody good story though and I remember it scaring me at the time - even the BBC series was good. Even now the sight of plants walking around making clacking noises makes me shiver.
Maybe I should stop taking those drugs
Troc
True - but you have to realise that it can take a few days for atopic to be posted on Slashdot itself, so it's entirely possibly this was submitted by someone days or hours before you submitted it and it's just taken a while to get posted............
Troc
heh - I remember when IRC was quite new and run of a single network, used to be quite fun, writing bots and scripts to keep a channel up and running as netsplits across the atlantic sent in wave after wave of script kiddies after #england.
:)
Dunno why they wanted #England so badly!
I rememebr we ended up taking over their own meeting channels for a couple of weeks in revenge
Those were the days.
DDoS has always been part of the IRC and is going to stay that way - you can limit it by not allowing bots etc on your servers but people will always have scripts and there will always be script kiddies
troc
Erm, I made it 5 minutes and about 15 seconds a year downtime.
Troc
Well I assume it uses rolling codes, so unless you intercept the data, save it and decrypt it later on using your supercomputer, cluster or pet distributed client etc, the data will change too quickly for you to crack it (using current technology)
Encryption works as long as the data expires before the meantime to decrypt - i.e. if your data is sensitive for 10 years, make sure you use a key that'll take a minimum of >10 years to crack.
Troc
Wasn't really trying to be funny, just letting my mind wander whilst I wiped the coffee off my laptop :)
:)
I know the recent Macs have shipped with various 9.0.x builds, it's just the recent 9.0.4 is out, no it isn't, I downloaded it, my software update doesn't see it, mine does, what update?, it's up,no it ain't, I've been having nothing but positive thoughs about that OS upgrade all day, confusion
Troc
Cupertino, 5/4/00.
Apple today announced that despite the recent 'upgrade' by certain airlines, their Airport would still operate on the official 40bit system. Any systems attempting to land at the Airport with a 128bit airplane would be refused permission, even if they are painted a really cool pale blue colour.
"We are considering taking them to court over this one - after all, these new airlines look and feel just like our own so who is going to know which is the real one?" Steve Jobs was quoted as saying.
In other news, Apple have deniew rumours that the recent upgrade to MacOS 9.0.4 is to avoid hassles with the OS-9 trademark issue.
We also telephoned Steve Jobs to enquire about the recent Microsoft ruling but all we heard was insane giggling.
We have our own bill of weirdness here, the RIP bill which is designed to allow aceess by the authorities of encrypted data - it's supposed to help catch rapists and child molesters etc. The out come of it is such that they can force you to hand over your keys etc or they will chuck you in gaol for a coupel of years - if you've lost or forgotten the key, you have to prove it (how does one prove they've forgotten a key?).
Problem here is that 2 years is less that a sentence for child molesting etc.......
For more information, go here
Erm, my point was that this bill will hopefully be ruled against the EU human rights acts
So there you go - it's not just the States that puts out stupid, short sighted bills!!
Troc
try this..... funn y
Troc
Personally speaking I enjoy a game for it's game-ness. I've played D&D etc as evil and good characters equally - both are fun and have merits etc but at the end of the day it's a game, not reality
As to Christian values, I think a lot of games DO teach these - even RPGs like D&D etc it all depends whether you equate Christain values with a belief in God
Personally I would like to think I have values that are essentially Christian in nature (i.e be nice etc etc :) but I don't believe in God (any gods)
I believe a persons values are vastly more important than their beliefs and I don't think a computer game affects people's beliefs. It might sway someone who's on the borderline but it's not the main factor
Troc
eeeew - terrible spelling mistakes etc in the previous post. Sorry.
Out of utter curiosity what platform do we think FF(insert numerals here) is best on.....
i.e Consoles (PSX (1&2), Dreamcast etc) or PCs (Mac, Win, Linux etc)
I've player FF7 on PSX and PC and I actually enjoyed the PSX version more but I'm not sure why.... Maybe if I used a game controller instead of keyboard?
This then branches out into a point I've always wondered, how important is the ergonimics of a game in the grand scheme of things. Given the game on 2 platforms would you sacrifice ease of playing (i.e decent controllers) for cutting edge graphics?
troc
Eeek.. there's me still not player FF8 yet! Not done so as I can't spare the week of life it'll alost certainly lose me once I start playing. FF7 nearly destroyed a month of my life a couple of years ago!
heh
troc
I guess it depends whether someone ports Napster to the Dreamcast :)
troc
Yeah, that'll be it. Ooops :)
troc
For an interesting fictional account of the Enigma etc, try Bruce Sterling's Cryptonomicon (or however it's spelled) - was reviewed on here a while back.
Bloody good read
Troc
Star formation netrowkr are IMHO superior due to this problem so maybe we'd need hubs for networking purposes.
As has been stated before though, there's Gigabit ethernet but it's expensive. WOuld a firewire solution be cheaper in the long run?
Also, what about the idea of having intelligent firewire devices that would act as standard peripherals when connected to a single computer but could be used as networked storage if connected to a firewire network?
Troc
I can see this developing in a similar way to the PSX 1 mods that are around - they are based on the original 'region' controller that shipped with the press demo and other usints when the PSX was first released. All that happends is you burn the data onto an eprom and solder it into your PSX (but I guess you all knew that anyway :)
So I assume somewhere down the line people will be getting copies of the recalled software and using it instead of the stuff their PSX shipped with.
Which kinda brings me to a point......... this software has been recalled etc etc. Would it actually be illegal for me, if I owned a UK PSX2 for example to replace my software with the old software as I own the hardware and stuff. I guess this is like asking if it'd be legal to use someone's copy of word 2 if I owned word 6 so I guess it would be illegal.
Hohum
troc
I thought games like GranTurismo (2), Medievil and well lots of the newer PSX games were pushing the PSX to the limit?
troc