Aaah good old POKE loops and DATA statements. I wrote my first proper machine code routine using those, a message scroller and worked out the relative jump offsets (and updated them as I edited the code) using that method. Having spent hours on it and meticulously checking every jump, it ran first time with no bugs (crashing the speccy and needing to reload it all made it worth being meticulous about checking things - quicker to spend 5 mins checking than to have to reset and reload your last save from tape and apply any recent edits again).
Then I got an assembler, and then a Plus D (great little disk drive interface), then UniDOS for it and started hacking it a bit... I wrote a few cool routines for demoscene demos, and a rather fast little.wav file player using the stack (47kHz 4-bit sample player).. Been about 7yrs since I wrote anything proper on it though.
Yep, heartily agree on that one. Just taxing all PCs at the moment sounds pretty damn silly to me.
They could charge for downloads of BBC content to pay the same tax (whether micropayments per download or constant-fee service which might as well be the same as the actual licence perhaps less a bit in admin), and if you could prove you already had a TV licence for an ordinary TV (provide name, address and licence no.) you wouldn't need to pay.
Looking more broadly, with the recent requirement of having to provide your address when you purchase a new TV, they could do the same for TV capture cards and then know they expect you to purchase a licence.
Does that provide enough cover for every situation?
Maybe I'm cynical, and yes I'm a Linux user most of the time; but let's hope they can get it implemented without too many bugs or interface/functionality differences. Embrace and extend by all means (with consideration for other systems and standards), just separate the "extend" from the "existing"...
What's the chance of them getting it right? (not a flamebait, just to make you think).
It won't work that well for many websites (eg. blogs) where the content changes regularly (BitTorrent isn't expected to handle multiple-dated versions of files as such a big part of it), and html source doesn't usually get that big so the improvements won't be so dramatic. A larger proportion of the time will be spent finding a node to download from..
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Aaah good old POKE loops and DATA statements. I wrote my first proper machine code routine using those, a message scroller and worked out the relative jump offsets (and updated them as I edited the code) using that method. Having spent hours on it and meticulously checking every jump, it ran first time with no bugs (crashing the speccy and needing to reload it all made it worth being meticulous about checking things - quicker to spend 5 mins checking than to have to reset and reload your last save from tape and apply any recent edits again).
.wav file player using the stack (47kHz 4-bit sample player).. Been about 7yrs since I wrote anything proper on it though.
Then I got an assembler, and then a Plus D (great little disk drive interface), then UniDOS for it and started hacking it a bit... I wrote a few cool routines for demoscene demos, and a rather fast little
"I am not an atomic playboy"..
Quote source: one of the best PC demos of the 90s, 2nd Reality.. Nostalgic memories of coding and watching many... <drifts off>
But I'm getting ott.
The .xx is .15 IIRC (A-level Physics >10yr ago)
Yep, heartily agree on that one. Just taxing all PCs at the moment sounds pretty damn silly to me.
They could charge for downloads of BBC content to pay the same tax (whether micropayments per download or constant-fee service which might as well be the same as the actual licence perhaps less a bit in admin), and if you could prove you already had a TV licence for an ordinary TV (provide name, address and licence no.) you wouldn't need to pay.
Looking more broadly, with the recent requirement of having to provide your address when you purchase a new TV, they could do the same for TV capture cards and then know they expect you to purchase a licence.
Does that provide enough cover for every situation?
Maybe I'm cynical, and yes I'm a Linux user most of the time; but let's hope they can get it implemented without too many bugs or interface/functionality differences. Embrace and extend by all means (with consideration for other systems and standards), just separate the "extend" from the "existing"...
What's the chance of them getting it right? (not a flamebait, just to make you think).
It won't work that well for many websites (eg. blogs) where the content changes regularly (BitTorrent isn't expected to handle multiple-dated versions of files as such a big part of it), and html source doesn't usually get that big so the improvements won't be so dramatic. A larger proportion of the time will be spent finding a node to download from..