SiC - David Sidwell

I think I got my first PC back in about 1985 or 86.  Probably paid $2000 to $3000 for it. It was IBM’s ill-fated PC JX. Really only ever available in Japan, Australia and New Zealand, I believe, it was an attempt to bring in a ‘cheaper’ PC for the masses. Probably about 1/2 the price of the ‘real’ IBM PC at the time.

A few web sites have information on the PC JX.

But the main things that I remember were:

• 4 Mhz CPU speed (compared to today’s 2,000 or 3,000 Mhz,  each for 2 or more processors!)
• 512 KB of memory (today  1 Million to 2 Million KB)
• No hard drive
• No networking
• No mouse as it basically ran a command prompt IBM PC DOS

It had two 3″ floppies (diskettes) BUT they were bizarre. Instead of being the - then common - 720 KB (which the real PC had), these drives were modified to be only 360 KB. Apparently by skipping every second track of data or similar. So it couldn’t read or write diskettes from real PCs (!!).  Nor could they read/write JX ones. Ahhh….

Over time at least 2 solutions came out:

1. Hardware: IBM sold a 5″ floppy unit in an expansion box. This could read/write standard IBM PC 5″ floppy disks
2. Software: A hack! Someone found a way to tell the diskette drive in the JX to read/write every track, so it could be a proper 720 KB drive.

Anyway it’s been sitting in a cupboard for years. Today I got it out, dusted it off and - to my sheer joy - it booted into DOS the first time from the good old Diskette Drive A:

I carefully went though my collection of about 30 diskettes - on the JX - to make sure there were no ‘historically important’ documents etc on them. I actually found some, so copied them over to a spare 720 KB diskette…and on to a hard drive of my main Windows XP PC.

All done now. So it’s time to bid a sad bye bye to the old dear.  Even watching it boot brought back memories of the early days as it created a RAM disk of about 128 KB, just so things could go that bit quicker.

Anyway I’m not quite sure what I’ll do with it. It’s a bit like an old 35mm SLR film camera. Sadly once leading edge and a very useful tool, now just a historical relic.

Insert cliche: yes you do learn something every day.

Just a few minutes ago the lights in one room flickered and went out. But all other power was still fine. I was slightly annoyed as it was one of those “last for months/years” compact fluorescent globes…and it was fairly new.

Checked another room, no lights.  Clearly it was the fuses.

And no, they were both fine.

I checked the neighbours on one side and they have both power and light. Next step was to change the light fuses just in case…and that meant a trip to the shop to buy some new fuse wire.

Just about to get in the car when the neighbour on the other side saw me and asked if I had strange power problems. Their lights were okay, but some devices had lost power.   Now this really puzzled me.

Trying to remain logical I looked up and saw both our houses had power lines coming off the same pole. So we talked to the occupants of a 3rd house on said pole. And they were the same as me.

But in a stroke of luck, he is an electrician. He pointed out that different phases of power come into our houses…and it depends what is wired to where. So Phase A does not always go to Lights, and B to Power.  He said that they - the power supplier - had probably lost one phase.

Just as he said that, his lights came on. And, inside my house - and indeed my head - so did mine.

Watching the excellent Mexican/Spanish movie The Orphanage (El Orfanato) today, I realised it was the third emotionally-intense, chiller, supernatural film I’d really loved over the last few years. And all were produced or directed by Guillermo del Toro.

All had strong lead actors who were children and children were pivotal to the unfolding story. The other two films were The Devil’s Backbone (El Espinazo del diablo) and Pan’s Labyrinth (El Laberinto del fauno)

I saw all three at the cinema. It dawned on me today that besides their complex and emotional stories, it’s their sound that really immerses you. Maybe it’s because all three are in Spanish, with English subtitles. As in, we effectively switch off that part of our brain that is trying to recognise the spoken word and that gives us more focus on the rest of the film’s sound.

I don’t mean the music - which is relatively subtle - I mean the sound effects. They can be as simple as scurrying feet ‘behind’ you. And boy, is that effective in a darkened cinema with no music or other sounds. Tension-city.

A quick summary of The Orphanage. A family of 3 move into a large old orphanage near the sea. The young son starts playing with imaginary friends, who appear to be setting puzzles for him to solve. But are the puzzles clues to a darker past or are they portends of darker things to come? And off we go from there…

All three of the above movies are intelligent, well realised chiller/fantasy movies. And this bodes well; Guillermo del Toro is directing the long-awaited movie adaptation(s) of The Hobbit.

IMDB and RT pages for these movies. RT has lots of reviews and creates an average score; all 3 do very, very well. But beware, some pages at IMDB have spoilers, which are clearly marked:

• The Devil’s Backbone (2001) RT
  
• Pan’s Labyrinth (2006) RT
• The Orphanage (2007) RT

There’s only a handful of podcasts I have on my must get list each week. One of these is ABC News Radio’s StarStuff program. It’s an excellent, 30 minutes weekly summary of what’s new and hot in Astronomy and related areas. It started as a radio show some 8 years ago and now is sent out as a podcast as well; which is where I found it.

Sadly it looks like all that is about to end this week. I’m hopeful the team, including host Stuart Gary, can continue to create the show as ‘just’ a podcast. I’ve emailed them and suggested they talk to the good people at another of my must get podcasts; AstronomyCast.

But, either way, a public thanks to Stuart and the team for their wonderful work over the years.

With the apparent July 1st announcement only a few days away, speculation is out and about as to a number of TiVo things.

There’s talk of needing an Internet connection, possibly broadband, to be connected to the TiVo. This would be for three main purposes, it is assumed:

1. Downloading of the Electronic Program Guide (show info: channel, start time, duration, description, genre, actors/presenters). Enabling the recording by simply selecting the shows name from a list etc. Apparently it does not support the EPG that is delivered over the ‘air’ ; as part of the digital TV signal
2. Downloading of updates/fixes for the TiVo itself; specifically the firmware
3. Streaming (like YouTube) of video shows directly off the Internet. May not be YouTube as such, perhaps things like TEDs.

Initial reports are that the TiVo will come with the ability to plug directly in to a wired network (your typical Ethernet blue cable) but you may have to purchase a wireless adapter, should your home network be wireless.

The things that I’d be interested in finding out include:

• If the recordings can be copied up to a PC, are they encrypted or protected with DRM
• Can it play back media files from your local PC, hard drive, USB thumb drives etc. Things like MP3s and AVIs.
• Can you really record two shows at once whilst watching back an earlier recording, or starting to play back one of the shows still recording?
• Is it a ‘closed’ box or can users install their own code to enhance the base function, like some Topfield PVRs support?
• Does it work with universal remote controls, such as my Logitech Harmony?

All will hopefully be revealed very soon.

Well well. Nearly 10 years after the TiVo hit America we finally get it here. This hard drive Personal Video Recorder lets you record TV shows - these days two shows at once - and play them back later. Unlike VCRs you can start playing back a show as it’s still recording. Depending on the model other things are available too, including:

• Playing back of an earlier show, whilst two others are being recorded
• The ability to skip-ads on ‘live’ TV. Not really live; the machine automatically records the show at (say) 7:00pm and you start watching it at 7:10 and skip the ads that way. A button jumps forward 30 seconds to help here
• Recording via a simple point and click on the show’s name in a schedule. The much-fought-over Electronic Program Guide. Even lawsuits!.
• Smart recording: record a show - by name - regardless of when it’s on and if it runs over time. Trust me this over-run is very common. Up to 15 minutes! So you can ask it to record “Battlestar Galactica” and if it’s 10:30pm Tuesday one week, and 1am Friday the next, you still get it recorded.
• The ability to copy the recording off to your PC or Mac, so you can keep it or create a DVD etc

Anyway the TiVo rumours suggest most of the above, with Ad-skipping being the one that is uncertain. Also the TiVo is High Defintion. But can also record normal (Standard) definition TV as well, so you won’t have to get a new High Def TV to use it.

It’s the price that’s the killer. $700 is the report. And that’s quite cheap, compared to its current competitors.

So therein lies the message. Wait and see what the market does. There’s no way the current PVR makers can still be hundreds of dollars dearer, even if they (in theory, at least) offer some more cool, geeky features. But the mass market is the target of the TiVo, not we ‘early adopters’. But it’s most probably going to force down the prices of the current competitors, like Topfield, Pioneer, Sony etc. And hence better value all around, you’d assume.

Of course the current PVR makers could go another way. For a bit more, say $799, have similar features to a TiVo but offer some sweet extras. Perhaps a DVD burner and player on-board. Or the ability to play most (any) common media formats, like DivX AVI movies, either from DVD,CD (RWs too) or via a wired/wireless home network.

You know something has made it big when it becomes a verb or is mentioned in pop culture shows. Back in 2001 (!) on Friends, in the episode The One with the Stripper this exchange took place:

Dr. Leonard Green: What’s new with you?
Rachel: Um… I got TiVo!
Dr. Leonard Green: What’s TiVo?
Phoebe: It’s slang for pregnant.

Oh I do love a witty title. Evernote is a new application that lets you record and index ’stuff’, so you can find it later. Not just text, but web pages and even images. And images means photographs or webcam captures. But the killer bit number one is that it examines (scans) the image for text and adds that as a searchable keyword. And killer bit number two is that you can do this from your PC/Mac and/or your mobile phone and have the whole lot synced up.

An example:

You are out having lunch with some friends. They order the wine and you find it wonderful. Rather than remember Penfolds Bin 138 Old Vine Grenache Shiraz Mourvedre 2004, you simply take a photo of its label with your mobile phone. You add it to Evernote on the phone and it’s uploaded to your Evernote web storage area. The image is automaticallly scanned for text and so it adds the keywords Grenache, Shiraz, Penfolds etc.

Later that day you go home and use your PC or Mac to access your Evernote stuff and search for Penfolds. And there’s the wine info, including the text and picture. You can then quickly search the web for who sells it nearby. Once you find the web page of a good wine seller, you can copy their details - including maps/images - into Evernote…and it’s pushed back out to your phone. So your phone now has the information on the wine and who sells it.

More at their web site. Article found via Lifehacker.

VOIP. It’s 4 letters your telephone company does not want you to find out about. Voice Over IP. In other words, telephone calls over the Internet. And not involving your telephone company.

The main reason I switched over was cost. For me it’s much cheaper to use VOIP than a traditional phone provider.

Initially it was only PC-to-PC (or Mac etc, but you know what I mean). Programs like Skype enabled free audio calls, but only to other Skype users and only if they were at their PC with Skype started and ready.

Then I moved to PC-to-standard-Telephone. In this case I signed up with a VOIP provider (mine is Pennytel) and used a free piece of software on the PC, called a softphone. This enabled me to use standard PC microphones and headphones/speakers to make calls to ‘normal’ phones (landlines, mobiles, international) without the recipient having to have a PC or anything special.

There were some hiccups: if you have a big download going on that download may choke your connection and the VOIP call gets badly distorted. Plus, sometimes, firewalls block certain connections and the calls rings at the other end, but goes dead (quiet) when the other person answers. But it’s fine now.

The final step was to use a current phone (hand set) and plug it into the Internet to use VOIP. Now as these phones came out years before VOIP, they have no idea what it is. So a ‘man in the middle’ box is used to convert the old analogue phone to use the Internet. These are called Analogue Telephone Adapters (ATAs). And yep, Pennytel etc sell them, preconfigured with your Pennytel account information.

It’s a tiny box. You plug your standard phone in to one socket and your Internet - from your Modem, Router, Switch etc - into the other (Ethernet) port. A bit of configuration later…and you can pick up the phone and just dial away. If you want you can even use it for inbound phone calls.

And the price for the calls? Well check out Pennytel for example. I’ve got one word to say to you, Kimmie: cheap.

Small bit of rain about so I thought: why not spend some time at the Melbourne Museum as I’d heard that they had recently totally re-done the large Melbourne Gallery section. Plus being a Museum Members keeps the entry price to exactly zero.

That area is called Melbourne Story and they have done a great job with it. It now tells the story in logical time order and sections. So first it’s pre-1835 (before white settlement), then from 1835 to the 1850 gold rush and separation from NSW etc. Each section has a well thought out mixture of the Big Picture items and context, right down to individual stories and objects.

I have recently been interested in the history of Little Lonsdale street; aka Little Lon. Having worked just near there for a year in Albert St, I got to learn more about early Melbourne’s most infamous street. One main source being the excellent Bearbrass book.

A few years ago, a large archaeological dig there revealed a mass of objects from early Little Lon. A fair few of these have been cleaned up and are on display as part of the Melbourne Story. Also there is a walk-though recreation of a number of shanty-town ‘houses’. Just 2 rooms in each. And both houses sharing the one tiny outdoor toilet. An added touch is the use of dark and dingy lighting in these houses, to really transport you back 150 years ago.

Even if you have just a tiny interest in Melbourne’s history, then I’m sure you’ll find the Melbourne Gallery section of interest. Plus there’s the rest of the wonderful Museum to explore too.

A friend pointed this out the other day, for which I say Thank You.

It’s best explained by themselves via direct quotes from their web site

TED stands for Technology, Entertainment, Design. It started out (in 1984) as a conference bringing together people from those three worlds. Since then its scope has become ever broader.

The annual conference now brings together the world’s most fascinating thinkers and doers, who are challenged to give the talk of their lives (in 18 minutes).

This site makes the best talks and performances from TED available to the public, for free. More than 200 talks from our archive are now available, with more added each week. These videos are released under a Creative Commons license, so they can be freely shared and reposted.

So these fascinating talks are now on line and can be accessed via their web site or subscribed to in iTunes etc. The ones I’ve grabbed and watched have been excellent; notes from the early computer development, deep multi-week caving explorations (and their relevance to exploring other planets), using the Wii controller for 2 very clever, non-game purposes.

Yeah it’s not really TV as you download and not stream, but I do watch them on my TV.