So this is basically a GSM version of the US-market CDMA Droid? How come the review (AFAICS) doesn't even mention this? The Droid is one of the best-known new models of smartphone in the world... That merits a line, doesn't it?
The Valley was a particular personal fave of mine. Spent ages playing it on the original PET and later on my Spectrum. There was even a commercial version for the Speccy at one point...
http://www.mobygames.com/game/zx-spectrum/valley
... which really was taking the Michael. I bought it anyway. Same game, but line-drawn pixel graphics instead of UDG characters. Appalling rip-off. :-)
I've been looking for the source for years - many thanks for the link & a splendid article!
& to "Sysgod" & the Anonymous Coward: if you look back on your own youth without pleasure or nostalgia - don't blame the machines, blame yourself for not making your life better, you miserable buggers.
The late-90s-spec thing is a fair comment; I apologise unreservedly for my inability to accurately remember PC specs from 15-odd years ago. :¬)
Yes, an ARM chip would be a better fit for such a machine, but there are few ARM-based Linux distros around just yet. Some of the tinier thin clients also use MIPS processors, which are even less-well-supported. The snag with going non-x86 is that suddenly you can't use off-the-shelf Flash players, Java VMs and so on - while some of them are out there, they are often not free to download & cost the system-builders serious money to license.
Yes, a "netbook" would be cheaper, but it would also be around twice the size. The Linutop2 really is *very* small and netbooks still have cooling fans and so need airflow.
As for a CarPC, I'm afraid that never even occurred to me. I don't have a car - I'm a biker myself. As such, like most bikers, I am generally dead set against any in-car distractions for drivers whatsoever.
Actually, I quite like it! (To channel Arthur Dent for a moment.)
Grabbed the RC candidate off a torrent as my TinyVista and TinyXP systems self-immolated. As someone who is normally an Ubuntu user and hankers for a much faster Mac than my elderly G5, I'm actually modestly impressed.
It runs a smidge slower than TinyVista, which is Vista with all the unnecessary bloat removed - which is to say, vastly slower than TinyXP on my ancient Athlon XP 2800+ with 1GB of RAM and a mere 120GB PATA disk. I'm going to compare it against Win2K for a laugh, as well, but I have to patch that up to date & install all the drivers first.
It's pretty - shinier than Vista and a mite more polished. Looks cheap & plasticky compared to Ubuntu, though, let alone OS X. Everything seems to work OK. Installation was quite quick but the unexpected and random-seeming reboots made me think my PC had died.
It is going to utterly blow the minds of people migrating from XP, though. There must be hundreds of millions who know nothing else and this is *very* different. Compared to the changes from NT3 to NT4, it's modest, but it's still a substantial leap. The legions of parrot-fashion click-this-then-that users will be all at sea. Those with a clue will love it, though.
So far, not a single feature of it seems actually *advantageous*, but the nicer bits of Vista are still there (Start menu search box, automatic online and recursive directory tree search for drivers) and the tacky ones (like the sidebar) aren't.
Your friend, colleague or whatever does not have a firm grasp of basic arithmetic, so his analysis is more than a little suspect. He talks continually of "a decline of -6%" and so on. A *decline* is a subtraction. Subtract -6 from a number, you *add* 6 to it.
Don't just take my word for it - grab a calculator. Take 100, subtract -6. Result, 106.
Given that extremely serious error - and no, this is not just a small matter of definitions, it means he can't add up - then frankly the rest of his message is of no interest.
The tentacles are stealthily concealed in the form of an implausibly large moustache, you see... Once in microgravity, it transforms into giant appendages. I mean, even more giant than normal.
People could do what I do. Get an old bike of Freecycle, do it up and ride it to work.
Factoring in the walk to and from the Tube station, it's as fast as getting the Tube - and I travel from the very edge of London on the Surrey borders to SW1 - and it saves me >£5 a day.
Quick, healthy, fun. Doesn't cost a few grand and makes you fitter rather than fatter.
Mind you, I'm not 100% sure whether this counts as an inspired hack or savage butchery of a classic machine. Still, kudos to the chap: all the original ports and controls work, as does the original screen, keyboard and SID chip!
Liam Proven
I for one welcome our new bottom-inspector overloads →#
AmigaAnywhere was just a licensed version of Tao's stunning Taos OS, a technical tour-de-force. It's a brilliant bit of code; binaries were completely cross-platform compatible. The same single executable ran on x86, ARM, MIPS, PowerPC, whatever, without any cumbersome bytecode interpreter or just-in-time compiler; Tao's VP code was converted on the fly into native machine code as it was loaded from disk.
However, with the world converging on X86, I'm not sure there's much need for it any more. SPARC and POWER and ARM are going their own ways; the desktop is now X86-only. Perhaps Taos' deep multithreading and very SMP-aware code might benefit it, but it didn't do BeOS much good.
Tao is dead and gone now. Amiga can't be far behind.
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12 posts • joined Monday 7th January 2008 18:00 GMT
Liam Proven
Droid? → #
Posted Monday 21st December 2009 01:09 GMT
In Motorola Milestone Android smartphone
So this is basically a GSM version of the US-market CDMA Droid? How come the review (AFAICS) doesn't even mention this? The Droid is one of the best-known new models of smartphone in the world... That merits a line, doesn't it?
Liam Proven
Oh my yes! → #
Posted Saturday 28th November 2009 21:59 GMT
In (Back) into The Valley
The Valley was a particular personal fave of mine. Spent ages playing it on the original PET and later on my Spectrum. There was even a commercial version for the Speccy at one point...
http://www.mobygames.com/game/zx-spectrum/valley
... which really was taking the Michael. I bought it anyway. Same game, but line-drawn pixel graphics instead of UDG characters. Appalling rip-off. :-)
I've been looking for the source for years - many thanks for the link & a splendid article!
& to "Sysgod" & the Anonymous Coward: if you look back on your own youth without pleasure or nostalgia - don't blame the machines, blame yourself for not making your life better, you miserable buggers.
Liam Proven
Mea culpa mea culpa mea maxima culpa → #
Posted Tuesday 12th May 2009 15:44 GMT
In Linutop 2
The late-90s-spec thing is a fair comment; I apologise unreservedly for my inability to accurately remember PC specs from 15-odd years ago. :¬)
Yes, an ARM chip would be a better fit for such a machine, but there are few ARM-based Linux distros around just yet. Some of the tinier thin clients also use MIPS processors, which are even less-well-supported. The snag with going non-x86 is that suddenly you can't use off-the-shelf Flash players, Java VMs and so on - while some of them are out there, they are often not free to download & cost the system-builders serious money to license.
Yes, a "netbook" would be cheaper, but it would also be around twice the size. The Linutop2 really is *very* small and netbooks still have cooling fans and so need airflow.
As for a CarPC, I'm afraid that never even occurred to me. I don't have a car - I'm a biker myself. As such, like most bikers, I am generally dead set against any in-car distractions for drivers whatsoever.
Liam Proven
Posting from the product itself → #
Posted Monday 27th April 2009 09:11 GMT
In Microsoft names Windows 7 RC1 dates
Actually, I quite like it! (To channel Arthur Dent for a moment.)
Grabbed the RC candidate off a torrent as my TinyVista and TinyXP systems self-immolated. As someone who is normally an Ubuntu user and hankers for a much faster Mac than my elderly G5, I'm actually modestly impressed.
It runs a smidge slower than TinyVista, which is Vista with all the unnecessary bloat removed - which is to say, vastly slower than TinyXP on my ancient Athlon XP 2800+ with 1GB of RAM and a mere 120GB PATA disk. I'm going to compare it against Win2K for a laugh, as well, but I have to patch that up to date & install all the drivers first.
It's pretty - shinier than Vista and a mite more polished. Looks cheap & plasticky compared to Ubuntu, though, let alone OS X. Everything seems to work OK. Installation was quite quick but the unexpected and random-seeming reboots made me think my PC had died.
It is going to utterly blow the minds of people migrating from XP, though. There must be hundreds of millions who know nothing else and this is *very* different. Compared to the changes from NT3 to NT4, it's modest, but it's still a substantial leap. The legions of parrot-fashion click-this-then-that users will be all at sea. Those with a clue will love it, though.
So far, not a single feature of it seems actually *advantageous*, but the nicer bits of Vista are still there (Start menu search box, automatic online and recursive directory tree search for drivers) and the tacky ones (like the sidebar) aren't.
Liam Proven
"Who's"?! → #
Posted Wednesday 4th February 2009 14:18 GMT
In Netbook demand surge to slow next year
Tsk, tsk!
> Asus, who's original Eee PC
ITYF that's "whose".
And while I'm at it...
> But it won't lastr
"Lastr"? And finally:
> in DisplayBank's there's still plenty of demand
In DisplayBank's what?
I am scandalised, appalled etc. [cont'd. p94]
Liam Proven
@Jason Newton → #
Posted Wednesday 28th January 2009 15:21 GMT
In IBM whittles x64 iron prices
Your friend, colleague or whatever does not have a firm grasp of basic arithmetic, so his analysis is more than a little suspect. He talks continually of "a decline of -6%" and so on. A *decline* is a subtraction. Subtract -6 from a number, you *add* 6 to it.
Don't just take my word for it - grab a calculator. Take 100, subtract -6. Result, 106.
Given that extremely serious error - and no, this is not just a small matter of definitions, it means he can't add up - then frankly the rest of his message is of no interest.
Liam Proven
Doc Oc in spaaaaace! → #
Posted Friday 23rd May 2008 01:41 GMT
In Dutch boffin, astronaut in space-sickness breakthrough
The tentacles are stealthily concealed in the form of an implausibly large moustache, you see... Once in microgravity, it transforms into giant appendages. I mean, even more giant than normal.
Liam Proven
A cheaper, healthier alternative → #
Posted Wednesday 21st May 2008 21:48 GMT
In Tory proposes street-legal Segway legalisation
People could do what I do. Get an old bike of Freecycle, do it up and ride it to work.
Factoring in the walk to and from the Tube station, it's as fast as getting the Tube - and I travel from the very edge of London on the Surrey borders to SW1 - and it saves me >£5 a day.
Quick, healthy, fun. Doesn't cost a few grand and makes you fitter rather than fatter.
Liam Proven
You can run XP on one, too... → #
Posted Sunday 20th January 2008 19:13 GMT
In Remembering the Commodore SX-64
http://www.mini-itx.com/projects/sx64/
Mind you, I'm not 100% sure whether this counts as an inspired hack or savage butchery of a classic machine. Still, kudos to the chap: all the original ports and controls work, as does the original screen, keyboard and SID chip!
Liam Proven
I for one welcome our new bottom-inspector overloads → #
Posted Friday 18th January 2008 15:33 GMT
In Got an amicable a*se? We have the job for you
My best guess is "positive demeanour" or something like that, thoroughly mangled...
Liam Proven
Awful casting → #
Posted Tuesday 15th January 2008 03:53 GMT
In Scarlett Johansson to play Courtney Love?
I mean, Ms Johanssen is actually quite attractive, and is thus clearly very inappropriate to depict Mrs Love.
But why is this on the Reg? I don't come here for bl**dy celebrity gossip, I come here to avoid it!
Liam Proven
Taos lives on → #
Posted Monday 7th January 2008 18:27 GMT
In AmigaOS 5 surfaces... sort of
AmigaAnywhere was just a licensed version of Tao's stunning Taos OS, a technical tour-de-force. It's a brilliant bit of code; binaries were completely cross-platform compatible. The same single executable ran on x86, ARM, MIPS, PowerPC, whatever, without any cumbersome bytecode interpreter or just-in-time compiler; Tao's VP code was converted on the fly into native machine code as it was loaded from disk.
However, with the world converging on X86, I'm not sure there's much need for it any more. SPARC and POWER and ARM are going their own ways; the desktop is now X86-only. Perhaps Taos' deep multithreading and very SMP-aware code might benefit it, but it didn't do BeOS much good.
Tao is dead and gone now. Amiga can't be far behind.
- LP