Posts by PhilBuk

@Thoguht

I once loaded up the 8K BASIC interpreter on our 12K PDP-8/E (slowly, as we only had the tape reader on an ASR33) hoping that it would allow me to get round some of the limitations of 8K FOCAL. No such luck. The BASIC was almost identical to FOCAL in functionality - they just swapped the commands over and made it much less efficient!

Phil.

Re: I hope..

@TheProf

I think the film/documentry was "For All Mankind" ??

Phil.

That's a lot for a pretty crap salary.

Phil.

Re: iPhone 6 user here

It's interesting that the last big buying spree was on the iPhone 6/6S line. Also the last iPhone with a headphone socket! Maybe people are just hanging onto them like grim death so that they don't end up looking like twats with buds hanging out their ears.

Phil.

p.s. iPhone 6 still going strong on iOS 10 (I'll upgrade when they fix 11).

Damn Zippy! You beat me to it!

Re: Thickos

Driving on the wrong side of the road (the right hand side) was a scam introduced by Napoleon with the intention of making the roads safer. In Britain, we persisted with riding/driving on the left so that when we met oncoming traffic, they passed on the sword-hand side so we could take a swing if needed.

Phil.

Re: Maximizing profits

Email.

Phil.

Re: Ringworld Calling...

Not accidentally. It was introduced by the Puppeteers because they considered the Protectors that built the Ringworld were a threat.

Phil.

Re: Pictures are all wrong

Thanks to the particular skills of KLM, no saying where your luggage will end up.

Phil.

Re: Memories

I occasionaly go home to visit my sister who lives over near Gallows Inn. Don't usually go over that side of town unless I visit my nephew on the Cotmanhay estate. Can't sample the ales any more thanks to coeliac disease but the prices in Il's'on are comparable to where I live at the moment, the Wirral.

You're right about the Nottingham Canal - that was a long way away when I was a lad. Isn't the Nutbrook Canal up there somewhere?

Phil.

p.s. Age tends to make memories better but I will always remember Ilkeston as being 'boring' rather than 'bustling'.

Re: The older I get, the more I like Earth

What we need are spindizzies.

Phil.

Re: Lovely bits of kit.

OS/8! Luxury. We had to load up via an ASR33:-

Rim Loader

(Low Speed)

7756/ 6032

7757/ 6031

7760/ 5357

7761/ 6036

7762/ 7106

7763/ 7006

7764/ 7510

7765/ 5357

7766/ 7006

7767/ 6031

7770/ 5367

7771/ 6034

7772/ 7420

7773/ 3776

7774/ 3376

7775/ 5356

Phil.

p.s. Apologies for the extra blank lines - not sure where they came from.

We're not robbing - just opening the casket and hammering the stake back in.

Phil.

Re: professional restaurant

If it was an armature restuarant I could get my starter motor rewound while I ate.

Phil.

50 minutes away from me but still worth it!

Phil.

Re: My hopes and dreams, dashed.

You can see why Starbucks failed. They should have stuck to their usual drinks rather than trying something they know nothing about like coffee.

Phil.

Re: The first virus EVER was a DRM tool.

The first virus ran on an Apple ][. First exploitation of the autorun feature on diskette-based programs.

Phil.

Re: Marconi Monument & Lizard Wireless Station?

El Reg already did. Try here:

https://www.theregister.co.uk/2015/02/23/geeks_guide_maroni_and_the_lizard_uk/

Yes - they did spell Marconi wrong in the link.

Phil.

The console on our IBM mainframe S/380 (?) looked just like a 3270 terminal except for big green and red buttons at the top right of the keyboard. Red was the off switch. It soon gained a metal cover after one of the operators accidentely hit it whilst going for one of the top right keys.

Phil.

Re: Privacy for the dead but not the living

Good comment, but please, it's "lose" for God's sake!

Phil.

Re: I’ve always wondered...

Isn't that the spec. for one of Slartifartbast's planets?

Phil.

Re: I disagree.

Agree. I was getting short of breath reading that mind fart.

Phil.

You got me there Eddy. I recall that when I was in Philadelphia (in the late 70s) that the baseball team was the Phillys and the NFL team was the Eagles. A quick search and I was assured that my memory is not failing.

Phil.

Re: Firefox must die

Yep, merge them with the Gnome 3 developers. They can all go together in a deep mire of bad ideas.

Phil.

Re: "why does the artwork always show a scenery which is pretty much unlikely?"

"of met"

Huh??

Phil.

Re: 450 seat 777 - oh dear

Totally agree. I'm not exactly a big-butt guy but the economy seats are bloody tight. The wing design seems to attract turbulance. All the most uncomfortable flights I've had were in bloody 777s. When flying into Dubai, it seems that only the A380 get proper gates - the rest, including 777s get a 20 min bus ride and a 20 min taxi to the runway.

Phil.

Re: People who keep old cars and bikes going

The current equation editor will not edit equations created in Equation Editor 3. It is also not as capable as 3.0. Many teachers and academics have now lost the ability to edit their own equations in their documents and presentations. Fortunately, I still have an XP machine with Word 2003 and the editor intact - sometimes there are benefits to not getting updates.

See here for some of the problems:

https://word.uservoice.com/forums/304942-word-for-mac/suggestions/10316460-microsoft-office-2016-does-not-support-equation-ed

Phil.

Re: slashdot

I gave up on Slashdot when beta appeared. Having gone back recently, it seems just like it used to be with the same old commentards (I recognise some of the Sigs). Agree with AC about mod points. I get about 5 a day, sometimes 10. Not the once a week batch that I remember. It does allow me to do my duty and push irrelevant political posts into obscurity and boost the tech comments. There are still some very knowledgeable people posting though.

Phil.

Re: Eh?

It's not you. Either a word or maybe an entire line missing.

Phil.

Re: 80s Sci Fi

The rental tapes used much higher quality stock than consumer (confirmed by a friend who worked at 3M). I bought a few ex-rental tapes and they were usually better than freshly bought consumer prints.

Phil.

Another Sony VCR user - that thing could play video from a slice of toast. How the mighty have fallen!

Re: The amount of crap I had to remove was unbelievable.

Time it right and you can see the train on three levels of track. Managed to get a video of the whole thing about three years ago.

Phil.

Thought that the CPU was a radiation-hardened COSMAC 1802.

Phil.

Re: KB2952664

Always hide this one. As AC says, I don't even need to look this one up.

Phil.

Re: CompuServe's minicomputers?

"Minicomputers weren't portable."

I could pick up a PDP-8/E to move it round the lab. Wouldn't be able to do it these days without referring myself to a chiropractor for a few weeks.

Phil.

Re: Boffins mount oscilloscope upside-down!

The telescopes are in Chile. They were upside down.

Phil.

Re: Nickel-Iron

You get really bad alkaline burns if they leak. Used to be used by some cavers - now superceded by lithium.

Phil.

Re: How Far Is Progression On AI Doctors

There was a recent article in El Reg:

https://www.theregister.co.uk/2017/09/25/ai_in_medicine/

- about why this doesn't really work. One of the main reasons is that experts are really bad at explaining why they came to a particular decision. So, if your expert system training is no good - the system makes incorrect or low-confidence decisions - not something you would want for a medical diagnosis.

Phi.

Re: Great article

@ Kristian Walsh - Managed to get a second-hand Lenovo T60 with the 1400x1050 screen for £100. Great for program development and general texty type stuff. Even with a SSD, it's getting a little slow these days.

Phil.

Re: Bah!

Kodak also had a starring role in developing digital cameras and held a lot of the patents for the technology. They made digital backs for Nikon, Hasselblad etc. that were used by NASA and other high profile organisations. However, ther own cameras and their marketing of said items was shit.

Phil.