test please delete

[NickFitz]

Two fire engines just pulled up outside the houses next-door-but-one-and-two, complete with blue lights and sirens

I went out for a look, but nothing seemed to be happening and there was no smell of anything burning.

After a few minutes they turned their lights off, and now they've gone away altogether.

Probably somebody with their head stuck in a saucepan

[BrowneIssue]

My first modem (which I still have) was a 28.8...

Your first was a 28800?

Blimey.

I sort of stole a Hayes 28800 from work when I was a permie. The different sites distributed email by dialling each up every hour until someone came up with a better plan. That meant a bunch of spare modems, including a couple of state-of-the-art Hayes Optima Smartmodems. Before they could be redeployed, they both went missing one night and I 'found' one at home.

It flew.

It meant I could realistically download software instead of paying the Public Domain Software Library to post it to me on floppy disk.

That Hayes 28800 was my third personal modem.

The first I used in work was for dial-up between the CP/M network we had and ICL mainframes; I was cheerfully writing Range COBOL on an ME29 with my CP/M micro running terminal emulation over a 1200 bps connection.

What I cannot remember though, is the speed we could get using acoustic couplers at college. I recall it was awful, but not how awful.

[NickFitz]

Two fire engines just pulled up...

Pic

[BrowneIssue]

I've spotted some minor errors on Wikipedia regarding ICL.

It says "The original DRS was the DRS 20". It was not. It was the DRS 8. That was followed by the DRS 15. the DRS 8 had 8 processor instructions, whereas the DRS 15 was far more powerful with 15 (so you could do advanced stuff like multiplication in assembler. Wow!)

It says "the DRS 300 ... Initial models ... ran Concurrent DOS". They most certainly did not. That came later. They ran Concurrent CP/M-86. And C-CP/M-86 was the dog's bollocks, I can tell you. Far superior to that DOS rubbish IBM was touting.

And nowhere does it mention the Quattro which was a fantastic piece of kit: a multi-user microcomputer. I'll repeat that: as IBM was trying to push the "Personal Computer", ICL were already selling a genuinely multi-user micro with record and file locking built in to the operating system, based on the far superior RAIR Block Box design.

Unfortunately, ICL never spent anything on marketing. And we are now saddled with Windows as a consequence.

[BrowneIssue]

Pic

Had they popped round to water the plants?

It seems that I have in fact been living in close proximity to a cannabis factory for quite some time

[BrowneIssue]

I was rummaging through my underware drawer to se if I could find a match

Surely rummaging about in your bra looking for a match might be more successful than in your drawers...

[NickFitz]

Had they popped round to water the plants?

Sadly, the plants are long gone, as are the propagators thereof

The "Scientific Unit" van on Saturday was a bit of a giveaway, although the coppers sitting in the hall with thermos flasks and sandwiches throughout Friday night (when you might expect them to be getting attacked by thugs in the city centre) also suggested that something might be amiss

[NickFitz]

Now I've got spam from "NailClippersforPets"

Does anybody else remember the talk in the early Eighties about creating microcomputer applications for vertical markets?

Some people made good money by writing BBC Micro, C64, or even Spectrum applications that allowed people like estate agents or architects to manage a tiny aspect of their business on a machine with 32K of RAM.

I didn't.

Ho hum

[NickFitz]

As I was approaching home, a National Express coach (number 767) came thundering by.

Naturally this made me think of an old friend. I always do, whenever I see a National Express coach

[BrilloPad]

Morning all