COMPUTERS, THE AGONY AND THE ECSTASY

[Stanley]

I wish you all the luck in the world Cathy! Can't be having you handicapped.....

[Big Kev]

Replacing the 'flying machine' today as long as the NAS installation goes OK. It's moving along to one of my offspring to replace his machine...

[Big Kev]

Replacing the 'flying machine' today as long as the NAS installation goes OK. It's moving along to one of my offspring to replace his machine...

The NAS is in, another 400GB left to copy over and I can set up the new machine. Well, not really new, I put it together from a few 'broken' machines that were no longer fit for purpose. An i5 processor, 16GB of DDR3 RAM and a couple of 250GB SSDs should keep Photoshop under control for a while.

[Stanley]

Nice to know the FM2 is still surviving..... FM3 is still faster than me and putting the two SSDs in put it on turbo. I don't see how a new machine could be an improvement. people used to say that 16gb of RAM was overkill but I note that more and more are fitting it. It's 20 years since Big Harry told me that excess RAM was the best way to make a machine faster. I remember upgrading the Amstrad to 500k memory and that was a red letter day! No hard drive, you ran the programme off a three and a half inch disk I think. (Or was it a 5" floppy?)

[PanBiker]

I remember upgrading the Amstrad to 500k memory and that was a red letter day! No hard drive, you ran the programme off a three and a half inch disk I think. (Or was it a 5" floppy?)

Depends which model of Amstrad you were running. If it was the PCW series, they all had bespoke Hitachi 3" disk drives, the disks were double sided and were in competition at the time against the 3.5" Sony system. The drives and media were actually technically better than the 3.5" floppy but that ultimately won on manufacturing costs and became the industry standard.

The Amstrad PCW series machines 256K and 512K were game changers for Alan Sugar. The systems were build out of just on the cusp or already obsolete parts. The operating system was based on CP/M mainframe software which was obtained for next to nothing, the drive as mentioned 3" format but a failed concept in the mainstream. The dot matrix printers were a cheap and cheerful Epson clone, the machines had a green or grey mono screen. For the price though they gave small firms, word processing, spreadsheet and database facilities. They ran a sales promotion where you got £50 off the price of a machine if you brought in a mechanical typewriter, we were inundated with them and they all went to the tip. Must have sold hundreds of them.

[Tizer]

I started our publishing business on an Amstrad PCW back in 1989. All the admin and text editing was done on it but of course I had to go to a freelance typesetter for the page layout and image work. (1989, thirty, yes 30 years ago!! Fugit inreparabile tempus.)

[Stanley]

Was mine a PCW or the very first one they made? I remember going on to a 'proper' PC clone after the Amstrad. I think it had a very small hard drive but in those days Word Perfect fitted on a 5" floppy. The screen was black with white text and I felt very grown up! Epson dot matrix printer that could take wide tractor paper for the spreadsheets.....

[Big Kev]

Nice to know the FM2 is still surviving..... FM3 is still faster than me and putting the two SSDs in put it on turbo. I don't see how a new machine could be an improvement.

The FM2 runs at 800mhz, perfectly adequate for a lot of things but the new machine runs at 2400mhz and doubling the RAM and upgrading to SSDs will make a noteable difference to image manipulation.

All the images have been transferred to the NAS so it's just a case of configuring the new machine, swapping out the graphics card and putting the 2 3TB SATA drives into a new USB caddy. Offspring will have a useable machine with 2 1TB drives in it to use as a media centre.

[Tizer]

After my baptism of fire with the Amstrad I went to work at publisher Reed Elsevier in about 1992. Everyone except the cleaner had a PC on their desk, all on the local network. I think it was green text on a black screen background with WordPerfect for DOS but the typesetting department had specialised software, probably Pagemaker. We changed to windows while I was working there. When I left and ran my own business again I got a DAN Technology PC and installed WP for Windows and Pagemaker.

[Stanley]

Big Harry once told me that DOS stood for 'Dirty Operating System' and told me the history of it which started as an OS for Xerox copying machines if I remember rightly.

[PanBiker]

Ah but the history will point to Bill Gates which is incorrect he was given the base code as it had become obsolete for its original purpose.

[Tizer]

I think we missed mentioning this in our obits topic...
`Net's founding father Dr Larry Roberts dies aged 81' (BBC News, 31 December 2018) LINK

[PanBiker]

I used to operate Packet Radio back in the 80's before the advent of email and the like. I used a BBC computer with a Packet TNC on the HF bands. Another Barlick radio amateur mate (Bill G4PWC) and myself used to exchange messages via a forward store repeater based in southern Italy. It operated on the 20M (14Mhz) amateur band. He or I could transmit a packeted text message to the repeater which would store it in memory until accessed by the receiving station that it was addressed to. Same kind of protocol that email works on now.

[Stanley]

Tiz, wrong place and off topic I know but you reminded me that I got a surprise two days ago when I heard a radio interview with James Lovelock who is still alive and well in Dorset aged 99. I was under the impression he had died but evidently not!

[Big Kev]

All is good with the new machine and a very noticeable increase in speed
The FM2 has gone to it's new home. I now have a spare 1gb graphics card going cheap if anyone needs one (I need a 'low profile' card for the new machine).

[Tizer]

Stanley, I'll put something about Lovelock on the Science thread.

`German politicians targeted in 'mass hack attack'' LINK
`Hundreds of German politicians including Chancellor Angela Merkel have had personal details hacked and published online, reports say. Contacts, private chats and credit card details were put out on Twitter which belong to figures from every political party except the far-right AfD. Data from celebrities and journalists also appear to have been leaked....'

[Stanley]

I read the article Tiz.... good link to a fine piece of writing.
I saw the report about the hack of critics of the Far Right in Germany. It appears that extracts were being posted on Twitter before Xmas but nobody noticed!
Looks like an open and shut case against the extremists but you can never be sure.
See THIS BBC report. What struck me was reference to accessing data in 'the cloud' using stolen passwords.....

[plaques]

Do a Google search on virtually any item of your choice and the first three or four results and sometimes the full page will show 'sponsored results'. Clicking on any of these will often show 'No Result'. Is this a less than subtle attempt at a bit of subliminal brain washing to look at their site first even though they don't sell the particular item you're after. Advertising choice is acceptable but advertising no choice is a brain cell too far.

[Tizer]

My google isn't doing that. Perhaps they like you more than me!

[Stanley]

I always avoid the sponsored sites P on principle. My brain is perfectly capable of sorting the wheat from the chaff and seldom lets me down. I am a sentient Human Being, not a robot!

[Gloria]

Just posting an update on our abysmal internet connection. After being given advice from you wonderful people we contacted EE, and what we were getting was about the best we could expect, so we plugged on. Then yesterday I thought sack this, and into EE in Chorley we went. We have upgraded to fibre, which should happen within the next couple of weeks. I have been told the difference will be amazing, going from 0.something download to 35. Once our new router arrives and we are told we can install it, it takes around 2 weeks to settle down, and then it is all systems go. I will report back when we are up and running.
Thankyou all for your advice.

[Tizer]

Welcome to the 21st Century, Gloria - well done!

[Gloria]

[Big Kev]

Not wanting to put a damper on things (I'm sure all will be good) but if they can't provide an ADSL service much above 0.something how can they promise 35mbps with fibre?
It'll be over the same 'copper' to the cabinet...

[Tripps]

It'll be over the same 'copper' to the cabinet...

That's the bit that has always puzzled me too.