26 May
2020
26 May
'20
4:43 a.m.
On Mon, 25 May 2020 at 20:49, Fred Cisin via cctalk
<cctalk at classiccmp.org> wrote:
Most Brits do not realize it [sic] but all the 'z' spellings are legal
in British English too. I use them from preference, partly as I work
in US English, partly because I enjoy hand-writing a cursive Z, and
partly because I enjoy annoying people.
https://www.learnenglish.de/spelling/spelling-ise-ize.html
I put Windows Thin PC on an old Sony Vaio P recently and yes, I had
forgotten how much I liked it... but I am happier with MacOS and Linux
now.
I apologise for offending you. Sloppiness and insnesitivity on my part,
not a deliberate attempt.
Just saddened, Fred, not offended.
I never had a ZX81, but the door-wedge joke is as old as the machine.
I think its historical position as the first usable computer for under
?100 is sealed, though, so if you're gonna use the joke, get it
right...
"Knock knock!"
"Who's there?"
"How many Germans does it take to change a light bulb?"
... Doesn't work. Same thing.
I did show my late Uncle Tom how to use the ZX81 he bought himself,
though. Using knowledge I'd gained fooling around with PETs at school.
I typed in a Lunar Lander type game, saved it to cassette, and got it
working, as I recall. He was deeply impressed; he had planned to
return the machine as faulty.
His widow, my Aunt Valerie, is 85 now and just remarried. Good for
her! I vaguely hope she still has the ZX81 and lets me have it... I'd
love to own the first privately-own computer I ever used as a child.
Character graphics were never an acceptable substitute
for bit-mapped.
Agreed.
And whereas it's easy to forget now, I think the roles of colour and
sound in gaining the attention of children is underestimated.
I look at the specs and capabilities of something like the Acorn Atom
in 1980 -- _way_ ahead of a ZX80 or ZX81, and to me now, looking back,
far more desirable (and far more expensive, of course). But to me at
12? Black and white, silent? REPEAT...UNTIL loops? *BOOOORING!*
Here, the default TRS80 was $600, which was about 300 pounds,
but you could get it without the [ordinary] cassette recorder monitor
(which was a tuner-ectomied RCA TV) for $400, which was about 200 pounds.
But, instead, it looked as though they just replaced the dollar sign with
pound sign, and ignored the exchange rate! So, you paid about twice as
much for the machines. I have heard prices of PET: 600 pounds (V $600),
Apple: 1200 pounds (V$1200), and TRS80: 500 pounds (V $400 to $600)
Yep, that was standard practice.
I am sure I've mentioned it before, but around 1984-1985 and possibly
for a while after, there was a company in London that sold US-model
Apple Macintosh computers for about 2/3 of the price of Apple UK. The
way they operated was:
? you placed your order
? an employee took a taxi to Heathrow Airport and bought a walk-on
ticket to New York
(NB: we don't really *do* walk-on tickets in Europe. Almost all
flights involve crossing an international boundary, customs, passport
control, etc. So you pre-planned it, as it meant ~2h of security at
each end. Ergo, walk-on tickets are super-expensive.)
(P.S. to N.B. the Schengen zone has somewhat reduced this in
continental Europe, but the security requirements and checks are still
onerous.)
? the staffer got into a taxi from JFK to the nearest Apple dealer,
bought a Mac cash.
? the staffer got a taxi back to the airport, while opening the box in
the cab so it wasn't new sealed goods which attract import taxes
? the staffer flew back to Heathrow
? you collected your Mac from the shop
This *still* meant a 15-25% profit margin on a new Mac, since UK
prices were 2.5x higher than UK prices. The price differential of
about ?1000 allowed for a decent profit of a ?200 or so after all the
taxi fares and the air ticket.
This is why Apple introduced a policy of limiting its international
warrantees to people living in the country where the machine was
bought -- until jet-setting businessmen complained, when it was
reintroduced as a perk of your rather expensive computer.
ham radio shack was slang for wherever a amateur radio
hobbyist set up.
Other than that, "shack" referred to an improvised/impromptu dwelling,
such as ones made of tar paper, so it had similar negative connotations to
everybody but amateur radio. When they wanted to move upscale, they set
up "Tandy Computer Centers/Stores" to start to get away from the "Radio
Shack name. It was ABOUT 1983 that they discontinued using the "Radio
Shack" name. Transition is apparent betwen models of the Model 100 and
the "Color Computer".
Aha!
Bear in mind, as I said, we didn't have most TRS-80 models here. The
CoCo was the 6809 one, right? The underlying reference design was put
in a different case and sold as the Dragon 32 here.
https://www.theregister.co.uk/Print/2012/08/01/the_dragon_32_is_30_years_ol…
I *think* but am not sure that the TRS-80 range existed but barely
sold -- it was so expensive for a somewhat indifferent spec that
non-US machines looked far more competitive.
One model was related to the Dragon. Another was related to the Hong
Kong-made Video Genie:
http://knut.one/VGS.htm
I never saw one, but I know they were around -- I saw mention of them
in the magazines and things.
And, the USA market was oblivious to any offerings
elsewhere.
Indeed.
But as discerning admirers of vintage kit, nowadays, we know better,
right? Right?
I was able to get two used Epson HC-20, which was
later marketed in USA as
HX-20 (with beige instead of grey case, and removal of Katakana from
keyboard aand character ROMs. It had an impressive Microsoft BASIC for
its time.
Then, I got a friend going to Japan to get me an Epson RC-20 (wrist watch
with Z80-like processor, RAM, ROM, and a serial port) NEVER sold in USA.
Epson _printers_ were very common here, indeed the defacto standard
for years for dot-matrix devices. Still are very common in inkjets.
They sold lots of PCs in the early days, too -- before Amstrad came
out with PCs such as the PC1512 and 1640 which drove the price down by
about half.
Suddenly everything else seemed uncompetitive.
I bought a used Yamaha MSX from Mitchell Waite, and it
was the only MSX
that I ever saw. Well, I barely saw it - within an hour of getting it, my
assistant, who was into music borrowed it permanently.
I bought a Sony SMC-70 (3.5" drive, obviously Italian case design, and had
had some amazing demonstrations, without actually becoming readily
available for sale.
The MSX 1 machines were here, but fairly rare. MSX1 did not impress
me. MSX2 looked great, very impressive, on paper, and MSX2+ and
Turbo-R were amazing -- some of the most-upgraded 8-bitters ever.
I never got an Amstrad, but I was impressed with the
3" disk design, and
had some 3" drives.
Hitachi designed I believe.
. . . , and a couple of Toshiba T300s (fairly ordinary
NON-PC-DOS MS-DOS
machine with 720K 5.25" drives; I patched PC-Write's video segment to run
on them). At one point, I loaned them to the local USA Toshiba Nuclear
Magnetic Resonance Imaging group.
I don't think I have _ever_ seen a *desktop* Toshiba! Hugely important
company in notebooks/laptops and even some huge clamshell
not-really-portable gas-plasma machines.
You are absolutely right. I screwed up. BIG TIME.
I apologise. again.
OK, OK!
We have a national culture of ehtnocentricity and
arrogance. "We're
number one!" (particularly in COVID-19!)
True.
Mind you, closely rivalled by the UK who are catching up fast. I am glad I left.
We have a spectacular level of ignorance and
gullibility sometimes!
https://www.cnet.com/news/more-than-40-of-republicans-think-bill-gates-will…
It is to weep.
The Monster Raving Loony party gave up on establishing
in USA, because we
can be TOO loony, and elect candidates beyond their jokes.
:-D
WARNING FOR
THE SARCASM IMPAIRED. THIS IS HUMOUR. DO NOT ATTEMPT TO CORRECT IT.
We wouldn't know humour unless you remove the 'u'! Our FAVORITE COLOR is
GRAY. And we use 'z' instead of 's' Our TV "Sit-Coms" can not compare with what
are called "Brit-Coms"; Ed
O'Neill is quite goos as Al Bundy, but not as good as Richard Wilson as
Victor Meldrew.
Ah, there you go. I veer the other way. There was great UK/ TV comedy
in the '70s and '80s, a little in the '90s (e.g. Father Ted), and very
little since, IMHO.
For light reading, I have most of the published
writings of Douglas
Adams and Terry Pratchett.
As former president of the Official Douglas Adams Appreciation
Society, I approve of this message.
No, you're
thinking of Windows.
Absolutely.
The more that I use Windoze XP and 7, the less that I hate them; so they
want to force me to switch to 10, and probably have to search to find
suitable software for what I want. I have always been impressed by her silly sense of
humour, such as her
flip watch and her cup holder. But even more impressed at her
demonstrations of homemade transistors and ICs.
Very true.
Also the distinction of being the only person ever fired from Valve, I
believe...?
--
Liam Proven ? Profile: https://about.me/liamproven
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