Status report Page 5,626

Quote: Jennie @ 1st May 2014, 9:06 PM BST

What if you're driving a long way alone? I quite like having a handsome (in my mind) man telling me which junction to take.

Google map print out combined with road map. You sometimes have to stop but usually not for long.

Quote: zooo @ 1st May 2014, 8:40 PM BST

Ahh. I think my brother went there for a year.
Can't believe Facebook's only been around for 10 years or so. Seems like bloody forever!

Ah well 't whole WWW thing's only been around effectively for 19 years and 't Internet about 10 years longer.

't Internet didn't get even the primitive eMail & non-WWW stuff in the UK until 't BBC stirred it all up in about 1993 & persuaded BT to install a lotta dial-up modems.

teeel...toot-tootle tooo dunk. {or something lile that}

Don't cha remember them thar days?

Lol, yes I remember the dial up noise. I kind of miss it.

Like the fax noise?

Quote: zooo @ 1st May 2014, 9:49 PM BST

Lol, yes I remember the dial up noise. I kind of miss it.

A few month ago I donated my whole collection of old modems to the New Centre For Computing History in Cambridge, including the early one which didn't have a dialer so you had to dial with a phone & then switch in the modem when you heard the tones,

Almost everybody has broadband now and the tones are way too high in frequency to hear.

They are up around the mediun waveband Radio spectrum.

Quote: billwill @ 1st May 2014, 9:57 PM BST

A few month ago I donated my whole collection of old modems to the New Centre For Computing History in Cambridge, including the early one which didn't have a dialer so you had to dial with a phone & then switch in the modem when you heard the tones,

Almost everybody has broadband now and the tones are way too high in frequency to hear.

They are up around the mediun waveband Radio spectrum.

My God Bill you're a living techno museum! (Do you open on Sundays?)

I've said before - satnav is the work of Satan. Google street view (plus a street atlas) is the jinkies. It means you know what the building you're going to, looks like.

Rossie,

Originally I was thinking that I might have to open a museum, but fortunately Centre for Computing History (CfCH) have almost the same aims & objectives as me and they are LOTS further forward.

So I am slowly shifting all my old stuff to the CfCH, but my aim, where possible, is to try to get the stuff working again with suitable demo software, before donating it.

I donated a about a TON (really) of 1970-1989 Computer Magazines to them a year or so ago.

But I still have MASSES of stuff.

I got my old Newbrain Computer (1982) working again a month or so ago, plus the Console of my 1982 CP/M S100 computer. I'll probably check the rest of that computer soon, (which cost me over £4000 in 1980, which is about £20,000 today's money). But it should be OK it was still working a year or so ago.

~~~

Then there is a DEC LSI11 from about 1983 or so that used to belong to Reading University. I bought that when it was given up by the bloke who took it on when the University scrapped it. I paid only about £40 in 1996 money.

I was looking over the bits of that DEC LSI 11 today and working out how to build a wooden 'rack' to hold it all.

Do you get credited for all this stuff? I mean can we go to the museum and see a label which says BillWill (the old lothario) donated this?

Just got hired for a bizzaro job via the old website.

Some guy from Canada thinks his cousin is hilarious. So he's going to book him a night at a comedy night and hired me to write him a standup routine.

As a surprise.

Quote: Lee @ 30th April 2014, 3:58 PM BST

No flour. Hopefully you'll have more luck than me.

Healthy Pancakes (2 Ingredients) - Video Recipe: http://youtu.be/IEzP_gMqc1o

Thanks. Going to give this a go over the weekend. Got eggs to use up and bought bananas specially. Just got to be bothered now.

Quote: Oldrocker @ 1st May 2014, 9:52 PM BST

Like the fax noise?

At work today someone was trying to send us a fax to the regular telephone number. I answered several calls that just resulted in the beeping noise and know a few other staff who did as well. In the end I was tempted to scream into my head piece but am aware that the twit sending fax wouldn't have heard me. It made me think that there needs to be a code you can type that tells the person trying to send the fax that they are ringing a normal telephone number. Although you would think that they would have realised around the fourth time that they got a notification telling them the fax had not sent.

Quote: billwill @ 1st May 2014, 9:57 PM BST

New Centre For Computing History in Cambridge

I remember you mentioning this place a while back and I must get down there. It's not too far and I love a good museum.

Quote: roscoff @ 2nd May 2014, 8:33 AM BST

Do you get credited for all this stuff? I mean can we go to the museum and see a label which says BillWill (the old lothario) donated this?

Well I stick a Donated By label on most things before I hand them over, but sometimes it falls off.

They do keep good records.

http://www.computinghistory.org.uk/pages/1116/Vintage-Computer-Hire/

http://www.computinghistory.org.uk/pages/4895/Latest-Additions/

I see they already have a nice Newbrain, though they don't say whether it is working, so I might sell my one instead to funds some of my expenses involved in getting things going.

http://www.computinghistory.org.uk/det/5291/Grundy-NewBrain-AD/

Happy birthday to me, happy birthday to me, blahblaablaabllablaa bla

Happy birthday yadda yadda

Cream cakes for all

(They're only a few days out of date)

Image

Ben woke up feeling terrible, but a little better now. Needs some sustenance.