Posts by PaulM 1

8 bit computers are all around you down on Earth

Not many people realise how many 8 bit computers are all around you down on Earth. For example the computer in your bankers card is most likely to be a Motorola 6805 or an Intel 8051. The touch controller in your Android phone is most likely an Atmel AVR 8 bit processor. The 6805 is very similar to the 6502 microprocessor in the Commodore 64 computer and the BBC micro and the 6809 processor in the the Dragon computer and the Tandy Colour computer. Someone recently estimated that 90% of all computers manufactured are 8 bit microcontrollers and only 2% of all mircoprocessors manufactured find their way into PCs. Intel is therefore arguably irrelevant as a volume microprocessor manufacturer.

Many contractors have had a 10 year pay freeze already

This article makes it clear that it contractor rates have fallen this year. What it does not make clear is that many contractors have had no cost of living increases for the last 10 years AND that overtime pay has disappeared.

Also these figures do not include employer's national insurance, acomodation costs or pensions. True salaries are half those quoted here

Samsung manufactures many iPhone and iPad components

Samsung will no longer prioritise production of components for Apple. Expect shortages of Apple products over the next year. Sell your Apple shares.

Most of the enthusiastic young IT graduates in the UK are Indian Nationals

I have met many enthusiastic young IT graduates recently in my travels as an IT contractor. However the suprising thing is that they are mostly Indian Nationals. A conversation with one Indian graduate revealed to me why this is happening. He told me that the ICT teacher he had from age 11 was passionate about C programming. My son's ICT teacher told me has never written a line of code in any programming language. The UK has a lost generation of young people who could have had a career in programming who instead are stacking shelves at Tescos because they were failed by ICT teachers who know virtually nothing about computers.

You have to buy 10000 to benefit from this price.

RS Components tweeted:

RS Components ‏@RSElectronics

Relax @Raspberry_Pi The Androids are not coming yet. Most VIA staff unaware of APC. $49 price applies to 10000 units. Interest expressed :-)

Retweeted by Raspberry Pi

A level playing field for developers

One question that I have is how can people have ported a Linux software package to the Raspberry Pi when no hardware is yet available? The answer is presumably that around 500 Raspberry Pis have already been shipped to serious software developers around the world.

The problem is that Open Source development is supposed to be a level playing field. What I think should happen is that people be allowed to request that the Raspberry Pis that they have on order be shipped to them without magnetic jacks now on the understanding that they are sold as seen. I can not see how a large amount of educational software will be available in the middle of the year when the model A ships unless incomplete model Bs are shipped to developers now.

Electrostatic cleaning may be considered for future mars missions

The designers of the Opportunity Mars Rover tried to reduce the effects of dust by making Opportunity's panels larger than they needed to be. This combined with providential winds when needed has kept Opportunity going.

Electrostatic cleaning may be considered for future mars missions. Here is a link

http://www.technologyreview.com/energy/26116/

Note that the Curiosity Mars Rover currently headed for Mars has a nuclear power source and so needs no such technology.

Apple did not invent the mobile phone

Apple did not invent the mobile phone. All they did was to implement a touch based Graphical User Interface (GUI) that people like. Most software in a mobile phone is not part of the GUI.

Apple was banned from selling iPhones in Germany in November because the iPhone was found to violate two Motorola Mobility none GUI related patents. The first, European Patent (EP) 1010336 (B1), covers a "method for performing a countdown function during a mobile-originated transfer for a packet radio system", while EP 0847654 (B1) describes a "multiple pager status synchronisation system and method".

Over the next Year I expect the real inventors of Mobile phones Motorola, Nokia, Ericsson and Microsoft to ask for payment for the many hundreds of their patents which may have been violated by the iPhone.

Why is the new Kindle $79 in US and £89 in UK?

A pound is worth $1.58 and so why does the UK Kindle cost 1.78 times as much as the US Kindle? I do realise that US proces are always given without sales tax and UK prices include Vat. However, this can not fully explain the 78% price hike.

Can the Fire run standard apps such as a PDF reader?

The Kindle Fire has a customised old version of Android. This leads me to ask whether it can run standard Android apps such as a PDF document reader, a Word document reader and an Excel spreadsheet reader.

My reason for asking this question is that existing Kindles can not read PDF files without first mailing them to Amazon. I do not want Amazon to read work related PDF files and this had stopped me from buying earlier versions of the Kindle ebook reader.

The fact that the Fire has a customised version of Android also leads me to ask whether the Fire obeys the copyleft restrictions on the Linux kernal. Richard Stallman would not be happy if the Kindle Fire is a closed source software product.

@PaulM

I am perfectly aware that you can do ARM Linux cross development on a desk top PC.

However, if I was to buy a Linux netbook I would want to be able to development work such as running perl scripts on my netbook.

My point is that a Linux netbook is of little more use than a mobile phone if it can not be used for simple development. Given that mobile companies will give you a PDA mobile phone free as part of a mobile phone contract then it really is more sensible to buy a PDA mobile phone than a Linux netbook.

I am sick and tired of bloatware. If I have a PC in my pocket that is as powerful as a desktop PC from 10 years ago then I want to be able to do development on my netbook.

I wonder if these limitations apply also to XP netbooks. Are they similarily crippled so that you can not develop simple Visual Basic using an XP netbook?

Will firmware upgrades remove dual boot from fat PS3s?

The best PS3 for Linux has always been the original 60 Gb model that came with PS2 compatibility. The reason is that the original model had 4 USB ports and also featured a Memory Stick card slot. In later 40 Gb and 80 Gb PS3s the number of USB ports was reduced to 2 and the Memory Stick card slot was lost.

I have noticed that many people are now selling second hand original model 60 Gb PS3s for about £220 in the UK, which is great news for Linux fans.

However, there is still one very important question that Sony must answer. That question is "If you upgrade the firmware in a fat PS3 to the latest version, will the fat PS3 also loose the ability to boot an alternate OS? If Sony plan to continue to support Linux on fat PS3s then enough fat PS3s will always be available on the second hand market to satisfy the needs of Linux users.

re. Hey Sony are you listening

I agree that the PS3 needs more RAM. IBM's most recent enhancement to the Cell Processor was to add a DDR2 RAM interface. If the PS3 slim used this chip and if its firmware was upgraded to support Linux again then a network of PS3 slim devices would represent a really useful Linux supercomputer.

More RAM would also help in the porting of XBOX 360 games to the PS3 slim. The XBOX 360 has twice as much RAM as the PS3.