Posts by Stoke the atom furnaces

The BBC Micro's SN76489 sound chip (which was also used in the Sega Master System) stands up very well against the SID chip.

Dysfunctional

My experience working as an assignee to an IBM plant in the US is that their management is so dysfunctional and poor at making decisions in the first place, you have to wonder what they can possibly achieve at 8am on Saturday morning that cannot wait until Monday.

2038

Moving from 32 to 64bit signed integers only pushes the 2038 problem back to 15:30:08 UTC on Sunday 4th December of the year 292,277,026,596.

If they got rid of the pilot all together the airplane could pull much higher G-loads. The dead weight/cockpit/ejector seat etc. would be replaced with more fuel and munitions.

Maurice Wilkes

Maurice Wilkes, inventor of cache memory, microcode and the subroutine, would be a worthy choice.

BBC Micro

I always liked the host/parasite naming that Acorn gave to BBC Micro and second processors plugged into the Tube interface.

Can it run RISCOS?

Thank you

Thank you for the ZX81, my first childhood computer.

One more thing.

Chalk this up as another thing that VoteLeave kept very quiet about during the referendum campaign.

How is this going to differentiate Wndows from ChromeOS?

Looks like another flat-footed MS copy of a competitors product to add to Bing, Edge, Windows Phone and half a hundred other projects that should have been strangled before seeing the light of day.

Self driving car

Avoid parking problems by having your self driving car drive around in circles all day whilst you are shopping/at work.

On a visit once to HMS Illustrious they had a training rocket on display with four holes punctured in it in a neat row by Phalanx or Goalkeeper. Princess Anne walked pass me as well.

Ice Giants

Wish NASA would get their finger out and send Cassini-like probes to orbit both Neptune and Uranus.

Now that would be cool.

Sea Gripen

A navalised version of the Saab Gripen would offer much better value for money than the buggy and eye-wateringly expensive F35B.

Convict Colony

How do you know when a plane is full of Poms?

It does not stop whining when you turn the engines off.

Not fit for purpose

Why doesn't Microsoft quite whining about the NSA and get on with the job of fixing their buggy software?

Motor car recall

Surely the comparison here should be with the motor vehicle industry.

if a vehicle contains a dangerous fault then it is recalled and repaired at the expense of the motor vehicle manufacturer. Why should software any different?

Clippy Reborn ?

Microsoft Echo clone, "It sounds like you are trying to do some shopping, would you like me to bugger it up for you?"

The results would be mildly interesting if I trusted Microsoft with my personal data.

I am very impressed with my daughters Asus chromebook. Very responsive, solidly built and the quad core ARM CPU gives it oodles of battery life.

I would love to see someone putting a Raspberry Pi into a laptop of the same quality and at the same price point.

Why no mention yet in the Register of the ZX Spectrum Next Kickstarter, fully funded on St George's Day and the 35 anniversary of the launch of Sir Clive's original Speccy?

Stocious

Great headline - I now know what Scots for p*ssed is.

Where is the video of the Uber self driving car driving though the red light?

Here :- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_CdJ4oae8f4

My current desktop machine came second hand from a school in Virginia via Ebay for $22. I upgraded it with a SSD and a 45nm 3.2GHz Quad Core Phenom II, and I think I am good to keep going for at least another two to three years.

Open Source Alternative to SKYPE

Any recommendations for an open source alternative to SKYPE that my daughter can use to chat to her Grandparents at the weekend?