* Posts by Toxteth O'Gravy

150 publicly visible posts • joined 15 Sep 2008

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Chewier than a slice of Pi: MIPS Creator CI20 development board

Toxteth O'Gravy

Re: Wait a second!

Who’s we?

Send me one and I'll try it out in place of the one I have in my Pi. Will I like it better than the PiFace that you can see in the picture?

Toxteth O'Gravy

Re: Wait a second!

It's the piFace RTC. See https://smittytone.wordpress.com/2015/02/25/review-the-piface-real-time-clock/

Hungry for humbler Pi? Check out kid-friendly LED-laden Pibrella

Toxteth O'Gravy

Re: Decent pass through connectors aren't cheap!

Great, but what I really want is a female-to-female version that'll drop onto the Pi's GPIO pins and give be Arduino-style connectors instead. Dunno if I'm using the wrong search terms, but I'm darned if I can find one of these.

Micro Men: The story of the syntax era

Toxteth O'Gravy

Thank you, El Reg

I love this show but knew almost nothing about its production. Thanks for actually going out and talking to people and finding out. I shall watch this again tonight.

PS. Sinclair on his electric invalid carriage being overtaken by HP, Dell, Microsoft et al at the end is a scene of pure genius.

PPS. Only criticism for me is the knowing lines in the script, eg.

Hermann Hauser: “We all want to go with the 6502 processor.”

Nick Toop: “Of course. It’s the only choice.”

Roger/Sophie Wilson: “For the moment...”

BBC, ITV gang up on YouView with 'FreeView Connect'

Toxteth O'Gravy

Being free-to-air doesn't make the advertising-funded ITV a Public Service Broadcaster, shurely?

STRIPPED DOWN and EXPOSED: Business kit from the good old days

Toxteth O'Gravy

Re: Gasmasks

Prefer Wilf Gasmask Grimshaw, myself.

Whatever happened to the Grumbleweeds?

Boffin dreams up smart battery gizmo for Raspberry Pi fiddlers

Toxteth O'Gravy

Re: If a battery fails when there is no-one to see it ...

Now *that's* a fanboy admission if there ever was one, changing the battery in your gimmick record sleeve. That micturates from a mighty height on anyone buying the latest iPhone/'droid every year. Top marks.

Toxteth O'Gravy

Re: Where's the incentive @John Bailey

So pay the man his 90% and damn his eyes. This isn't an investment, it's an advance order by another name.

The other end of the telescope: Intel’s Galileo developer board

Toxteth O'Gravy

Re: Review or plug for intel?

What would you like? 'We hooked it up to some LEDs and sensors and it worked.'? I'm sure they did that. 'We hooked it up to something really esoteric 99.9% of you will never use'? I'm sure they didn't do that, an there probably would not be much point if they did.

Sinclair’s 1984 big shot at business: The QL is 30 years old

Toxteth O'Gravy

Re: Those who knew Sinclair avoided QL

> Flattish keyboard

Yet, ironically, that's what we're all typing on these days, whether on laptops or (glances around the office) desktops.

In this sense the QL really was ahead of its time.

Ten top tech toys to interface with a techie’s Christmas stocking

Toxteth O'Gravy

Yeah, like the man says, nothing worth watching.

Bet you stand up when they play the music too, you patriotic goon

El Reg Contraption Confessional No.1: The Dragon 32 micro

Toxteth O'Gravy

The official Dragon Data assembler/disassembler cartridge was called Alldream. Dream = DRagon Editor AsseMbler, IIRC

Britain’s forgotten first home computer pioneer: John Miller-Kirkpatrick

Toxteth O'Gravy

RTFA! It mentions the ZX80 in the previous paragraph.

PS-PHWOARRR: We review Sony’s next-gen PlayStation 4

Toxteth O'Gravy

Re: In short

Been reading El Reg for longer than that, and I don't recall any particular PS3 bashing. More from commentards grumbling about missing Linux support.

Ah, but then you're 'barry shitpeas', aren't you? Wondered when you'd pop up.

BBC's 3D blunder BLASTED OUR BRAINS – Doctor Who fans

Toxteth O'Gravy

Re: "Tax" - really?

iPlayer is free and doesn't require a tax payment if you promise not to watch live streams.

I only pay the licence fee because I have to. If it goes, I'll buy Doctor Who on disc - I do anyway. I've given up on Radio 4 and will only go back if they promise to consult a dictionary and learn what the word 'comedy' actually means.

Little devil: Electric Imp is an Internet of Things Wi-Fi PC-ON-AN-SD-CARD

Toxteth O'Gravy

Re: A solution looking for a problem

Based on the size of Powerline Ethernet adaptors, I'm not sure it would be a good alternative to something like this for IoT applications.

FWIW, Imp seems a good idea spoiled by the proprietary IDE and web server tech - if Electric Imp dies, all that kit will be useless. Still, it's nice having someone to manage the server security for you, so I'd give it a whirl rather than be truly DIY.

Hot digital dog: A man’s best friend is still his... K-9

Toxteth O'Gravy

Re: Bleh

Hmmm. Never had a robot that shat on the living room carpet, or yielded belches straight from the devil's rear end. Not sure I want a robot mutt, but a real one you can keep.

Toxteth O'Gravy
Coat

Re: Robots of renown

Blimey, this thread is turning into Twikipedia

Dear-ly beloved: Apple’s costly iPad Mini with Retina Display

Toxteth O'Gravy

No, still doesn't work, even under Mavericks and iOS 7 - just tried it.

Toxteth O'Gravy

Does Mac-to-iDevice AirDrop work now? Last time I tried it - pre Mavericks - it didn't.

Toxteth O'Gravy

Dropbox doesn't sync on iOS, it just lists what you have stored in the cloud and provides access to it. So it only pulls down files when you need them. Download speeds aside, it's a good way to get files onto an iDevice. But you're right 32GB should be the baseline.

What a plot of nonsense: Ten Master master plan FAILS

Toxteth O'Gravy

Re: A send-off just like Darth Vader’s?

See http://www.theregister.co.uk/2013/11/11/feature_how_doctor_who_plundered_sf_film_and_literature/

Fukushima fearmongers: It's your fault Japan dumped CO2 targets

Toxteth O'Gravy

The missing 'W' word

849 words of reasonable analysis - BUT not one of them was 'waste'.

The micro YOU used in school: The story of the Research Machines 380Z

Toxteth O'Gravy

Re: Great Nostalgia

A lot of those other machines have been covered - you can find them here:

http://search.theregister.co.uk/?q=archaeologic

RETRO-GASM: The Fuze electronics kit for the Raspberry Pi

Toxteth O'Gravy

Re: Scrumpi

Even allowing for inflation for the past 35-odd years, I don't think the £56 Scrumpi could ever be described as "scarily expensive".

Toxteth O'Gravy

Re: A Blast from the Past

Nascom? You'll be wanting to take a look at this, then: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2013/08/21/unsung_heroes_dr_chris_shelton/

El Reg interviews the bloke who designed it.

Toxteth O'Gravy

Re: Really really basic computers

Amen.

If we can do real-time voice recognition, we can certainly make compilers that can understand and cope with syntax errors in code and such. The Python interpreter on my Pi still gets regularly baffled by indentation levels.

Doctor Who nicked my plot and all I got was a mention in this lousy feature

Toxteth O'Gravy

Re: However ... "Logopolis"

Ah, Bidmead's got a new pseudonym, I see

Staying power: The small screen spans of the eleven Doctor Whos

Toxteth O'Gravy

Re: Worst infographic EVER

If I can figure out what's going on here without a key, I'm sure you can, FH

Samsung Galaxy S4 Active: The mobe for CHUCK NORRIS TYPES

Toxteth O'Gravy

Re: Ticks a lot of my boxes

It's the BBC's English, actually - or would be if the Corporation hadn't embraced regional accents, moi durr

Knocking China with shocking phones and mocking tones

Toxteth O'Gravy

Re: Mostly true

It's irrelevant whether they're paid less (or more) than a Western living wage. What matters is whether their standard of living, however much they are paid, matches ours (which is pretty good, all told). Chinese folks' desire for consumer goods and their ability to satisfy that desire implies many are not badly off at all, even on wages we consider tiny.

Mind you, that's urban China. It's a very different matter out in China's sticks, of course.

Smartwatch makers: You need apps to beat Apple

Toxteth O'Gravy

Re: Well..

Indeed. I rather not take my phone out at all. Stop me being seen as one of the herd, all wandering about, mobiles in hand on the off-chance it might ring or beep. Smartwatch is a nicely discreet way of picking up incoming email and SMSes.

MSX: The Japanese are coming! The Japanese are coming!

Toxteth O'Gravy
Headmaster

Re: This article would have been...

You'll be wanting the 'print this article' view, then...

Is the next-gen console war already One?

Toxteth O'Gravy

Not impressed

Even more fugly than previous Xboxes and full of extra crap I don't want or need.

More to the point, Destiny, the only game I'm looking forward to playing, will run on my 360 anyway.

I'll pass, I think.

Smartwatch face off: Pebble, MetaWatch and new hi-tech timepieces

Toxteth O'Gravy
FAIL

Re: Research fail

No, it's LCD. Described as "e-paper", yes, but not E Ink. I know, I have one in front of me now.

'Ultimate nerd chick’ prompts C64 clone cancellation

Toxteth O'Gravy

Re: It takes a scammer to see another scammer

I dunno. I like old computers - I love El Reg's line in retro tech - and I have nearly bought various old Speccys, Beebs and such... and then realised I'd have a quick play and never touch them again. If it's games you want, you can do that in emulation, and are really going to sit there and hack out code in Basic? Especially with no internet and all the modern stuff we all take for granted? I think I'd rather code on a Pi, and actually be able to do interesting and possibly useful things.

Toxteth O'Gravy

No she isn't, she got fired earlier this year, according to her own Tweet.

ZX Spectrum cassette player lost? There's an app for that

Toxteth O'Gravy

Same here, but I use an old MP3 player I had at the back of a drawer. Don't need an app for this.

Star Trek: The original computer game

Toxteth O'Gravy
Megaphone

Re: Never played it but I got a flashback to "4K computing on passive LCDs" .... urrrrhhh!

Lets start a campaign to BRING BACK LINE NUMBERS

PEAK iPHONE? Apple mobe growth slumps to ‘lowest in its history’

Toxteth O'Gravy
Facepalm

Re: As ever ...

As ever... you haven't noticed that the word 'sales' isn't even used.

May I suggest you try - radical notion, I know - reading through to the end before commenting?

British bookworms deem Amazon 'evil'

Toxteth O'Gravy

Re: What sort of cretin buys a Amazon Swindle anyway?

Or... er... their Kobo breaks and they want to replace it with a Kindle.

Kindle DRM is at least - cough, cough - easy to remove - cough.

Oh S**T, here comes a robot to take my job

Toxteth O'Gravy
Holmes

Re: bad example

Yes, stuff still needs to be typed, but none of it's done in rooms full of rows and rows of desks, each with a PC and a lady behind it typing away.

That's what the old typing pool was like. You wanted something typed, it went to the pool and came back when they got to it, not before.

The ten SEXIEST computers of ALL TIME

Toxteth O'Gravy

Cute... but not so very different from a thousand and one other mini-towers.

Review: Intel Next Unit of Computing barebones desktop PC

Toxteth O'Gravy

Re: Is there any reason ...?

Eh? You reckon that's the case even though all Macs ship with Python pre-installed and Apple's (good) IDE, Xcode, is a free download? You have to cough up if you want to distribute applications through the App Store, but it's easy enough to distribute through other channels for nowt. Plenty of other options/languages out there too.

Ten serious sci-fi films for the sentient fan

Toxteth O'Gravy
Headmaster

Re: SF is not just about "big ideas", it only looks that way...

If Star Wars is the "penultimate science fiction" movie, what's the ultimate science fiction movie?

Please next time ask a bit more sentient fan to write this stuff, someone whose knows what words mean :-)

Ten smartphones with tablet ambitions...

Toxteth O'Gravy

Re: Name Change

Or vaguely like Swiss confectionery?

MasterCard tries to zap PayPal with own-brand mobe wallet

Toxteth O'Gravy

Re: Consumer Credit Act 1974

PayPal and Google don't (yet) need to be. It's the card they're acting as a proxy for that's covered by the Act, leaving you with the opportunity to sue the card issuer - or, better, get them to sort it all out - if neither the seller nor PayPal/Google can address your complaint.

Tablets aren't killing ereaders, it's clog-popping wrinklies - analyst

Toxteth O'Gravy
Pint

Re: Outdoors

Location, location, location.

I mostly read in my local, which is not known for its bright lighting (thank god), so a backlit screen is essential. Nexus 7s and pints of ale all round.

PS. Bought Nexus before Amazon Paperwhite came out. No desire to swap.

Have Brits fallen for Netflix, or do they still LoveFilm?

Toxteth O'Gravy
Black Helicopters

Re: Don't have a Tv Licence... Love Netflix

>> anonymous because I dont want the TV licence people thinking I watch broadcast tv.

Ahem. Still supposed to have one, but I won't tell.

Samsung, LG 'lose confidence' in OLED TV tech

Toxteth O'Gravy

Damn right - mine's going into a deposit on a house. I have any left, THEN I'll decide whether I buy a TV to put in it (probably not given the current broadcast output).

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