Posts by WowandFlutter

When the lights went out, and the shooting started, Y2K started to feel all too real

Was that it?

I spent my Y2K night in a hole in the ground, at a place I can't say, working for someone I can't mention.

The worry was a mixture of DOS and Windows machines that provided the usual office stuff but also some custom comms infrastructure and switching. Lots of effort was put into checking everything for Y2K compliance, each item proudly displaying a sticker to prove it had been given the once over. I could never work out why a 13amp electric kettle needed to be stickered as part of this regime though?

Come midnight, doors tightly closed, monitoring video and satellite feeds from around the world for anything unusual. Nothing... nothing happened! The only fault of note was a small mobile phone network falling over, not for Y2K reasons, but due to the capacity not able to cope with the number of people ringing each other to say 'Happy New Year'.

0600 emerged I from the hole, the grass was still green as it was 12 hours previous but with a bit of frost. Went home to bed.

Lloyds Banking Group says 'digitization' will power more branch closures

The only reason things move online? Because the alternatives are removed!

Let's face it, the entire banking system and concept of customer service is broken. If you remove all the face to face alternatives, not surprisingly the online uptake grows. Who would have guessed!

It also seems that banks make the rules up as they go along. The number of times a 'You can do this online' becomes 'you have to come into the branch' (or the reverse) is astounding with inconsistent interpretation by staff members unaware of their own standard procedures.

A large portion of the population still or will forever find digital access difficult or impossible. My mother-in-law is partially deaf (phone calls not much use), partially sighted (tablets etc. pointless), has no reliable 4/5G or fibre (so no internet anyway). The only way she can bank is by visiting a branch, even if it means a member of the family taking there. A 60 mile round trip for the closest relative.

Think of your future self as an elderly person with failing faculties who still needs access to banking. Maybe a grim prospect.

Another point, even Non-Profit Charities now pay transaction fees on cheques etc. The concept of 'free' banking is a myth.

Sainsbury's eyes up shoplifters with live facial recognition

Variation on the perennial self-service bagging 'bag' alert?

You are quietly standing in a queue waiting for a self-service till to become available when...

'Unidentified person in the queuing area, please seek security assistance'

blares out of the supermarket PA.

Radar problem caused mayhem in UK skies on Wednesday

It looks like David Gunson's 'What goes up might come down' after dinner speech prediction came true. Who pulled the 13 amp plug out!

808 lines of BBC BASIC and a dream: Arm architecture turns 40

Re: 1985

I remember the big selling point of the Neve/AMS Audiofile editing system in the mid 1980s was the fact it was powered by an Inmos Transputer. I went from 78 or 33 rpm gram decks, sticky splicing tape, ¼" magnetic recording and optical film tracks to 8 tracks of PCM audio at 48kHz in a few weeks. Transformed to world of TV and audio post production.

Static electricity can be shockingly funny, but the joke's over when a rack goes dark

Not the way to DJ

In the 1980s, the main radio studios in the BBC had a lot of gram decks made by a company called EMT. Wonderful machines, incredible quick start, push button reverse cue for setting the start point, time to run counter in mins & secs etc. all you could ever want in a deck designed for a major broadcaster.

However, all the transport controls were back lit tactile buttons which had a tendency to trigger erroneously when you carried any static. You only had to get within a cm or so for the switch to trigger the CMOS circuitry and all hell would break loose. Not just limiting the playback to normal 33 or 45 rpm you now had an infinite variation including reverse at top speed. So fast in fact that the cartridge and tonearm would be ejected off the disc with a loud splat to accompany the catastrophe.

To add to the fun, most of the carpets were hard wearing nylon. If you were working with a 'personality' that was unpopular (some were!) a surprising number of production staff would be seen rubbing their feet vigorously on the floor on their walk into the studio - I wonder why?

Sometimes possible to hold the drive horizontal and snap twist the wrist, using the momentum of the platter to free the bearing.

The passive aggression of connecting USB to PS/2

Re: slap a keyboard ...

When you mentioned tangerines, I was on a totally different track thinking TCS and the Microtan 65, predecessor to the Oric 1!

Microsoft Windows latest: Cortana app out, adverts in

Bought a cheap refurb desktop for £150 with Win 11 preinstalled and separate logins and Email accounts. This is the only machine in the house used for Web shopping etc..

The serious stuff then gets done on a Mac and a PC with SuSE Tumbleweed with fewer interruptions and less distraction.

It's been 230 years since British pirates robbed the US of the metric system

Re: The amount of times...

The best one is

28˚C = 82˚F

In praise of MIDI, tech's hidden gift to humanity

MIDI found its way into broadcasting too as a useful extra tool.

In the late 1980s when the Yamaha DMP7 MIDI mixer was first released, MIDI was used as a way of getting around the security restrictions at major sporting events like the Olympic and Commonwealth Games. One DMP7 was placed in the 'secure' athletes area with the mic and audio connected to the broadcast comms. A second DMP7 was placed in the 'tech' area connected with just the appropriate pair of MIDI in<>out cables running down the corridor. The athlete's mic fader was then remotely operated from the tech area 'by magic' with out the need for the sound operator to have physical access to the tightly controlled secure area.

Still have 2 working Atari ST1040e systems with the SM124 mono monitor, Steinberg Pro 24 (with blue dongle) and a Cubase Notator/Unitor Timecode interface. Automated mixdown on the cheap with 8 track audio and film or U-Matic video. Still waiting for that 'emergency' job.

GNOME 42's inconsistent themes are causing drama

The current fad for excessive whitespace around icons and gui elements is a total nightmare - it's not just Gnome and Linux but MacOS and Windows are guilty too.

I seem to have less screen real-estate now on a 5K screen than I did 15 years ago on a 1080x768. All because of some perceived need to make desktop and tablet interfaces the same.

A few years ago I spent sometime teaching visually impaired computer users to edit audio using various Windows and Mac DAWs. The change from bordered icons to a new style of borderless or focus on hover icons made the packages unusable overnight. The so called 'Accessibilty' options don't help either - it's very difficult for the gui to highlight a non-existant border.

Apple seeks patent for 'innovation' resembling the ZX Spectrum, C64 and rPi 400

Re: I'll get my trusty

Agreed, +1 for the MTX512. Brilliant piece of design.

Sadly, mine was a review machine and had to go back to the manufacturer. I still have my Oric 1 48k, Oric Atmos and Jupiter Ace (with 16k memory pack) though.

Analogue tones of a ZX Spectrum Load set to ride again via podcast project

Re: I was there...

FM gave us the fidelity, and you could always drop one channel if there was an azimuth problem; often caused by a cassette duplication problems at source from the game companies.

The AM gave us the range as long as the upper frequency in the FSK (frequency shift keying) pair was clean (about 2kHz or so), which was OK for the 4.5kHz bandwidth of a AM Medium Wave transmission if slightly under-modulated. Also, we did have at least 100kW to play with.

As for the mystery format, could be anything we had in the cupboard at the time. As well as the usual Commodore and Tandy suspects there was an Oric 1, Oric Atmos and Jupiter Ace as mentioned, but also my favourite, a Memotech MTX512. The programme presenter was a guy by the name of Chris Jones.

Radio reception in Caerphilly was always bad due to the 'mountain', I used to live north of Ystrad Mynach in Penpedairheol.

I was there...

I used to work on the BBC Wales off-shoot of the Micro Show in the early 80s. (I still have a Jupiter Ace and Oric Atmos that was sent into the show for review all those years ago).

One of the tasks at the end of the show was to hang around in the transmission continuity for Radio Wales and Radio Cymru and wait until the end of the normal schedule of programmes, which was normally around midnight. I would then load up a ¼ inch tape machine with the tape containing a BBC Micro or ZX Spectrum listing (being the BBC we had to be fair to both sets of enthusiasts and alternate every week). Then turn off the normal transmitter signal processing (an early form of Optimod) and press the play button.

Hopefully, someone was at home listening and loading the game off-air. The only problems we faced was that the system was very fussy about the tape head azimuth and quite often some pass band filtering improved the chances of success. However, we did get quite a few letters from Norway claiming it got that far.

Master boot vinyl record: It just gives DOS on my IBM PC a warmer, more authentic tone

Confirmation that the BBC transmitted computer programme files

In 1983, I worked as an Audio Supervisor and occasional reviewer for various off-shoots of the BBC Micro Show with a presenter called Chris Jones.

At the end of the broadcast we would transmit a file listing in the usual warble and screech (bi-phase) audio format. Seem to remember we tried to keep it fair by alternating BBC Micro and ZX Spectrum files and recommended that the listeners recorded the transmission onto cassette. We would also repeat the broadcast at the end of the day before closedown (in the days before 24 hour broadcasting).

Although it was hit and miss at times, it did work with a bit of equalisation on the AM band (4.5kHz bandwidth) but we had to remember to turn off the the in-line audio processor. Much easier to get working on FM (15kHz bandwidth). The files were played off a ¼" tape (Studer A80, £15,000 a piece in 1983) through a BBC designed sound desk (about £250,000). Photos of the desk at can be found at http://www.orbem.co.uk/cons/conscf.htm (Cardiff MaxiCon).

Incidentally, I still have a working Jupiter Ace with a 16k memory pack that was sent for review by Jupiter Cantab - unfortunately the company went bust just after the review. Shame, as I found Forth quite fun to programme in.