Date : Thu, 08 Oct 2009 20:11:56 +0200
From : rick@... (Rick Murray)
Subject: Electric Dreams last night.
Rob wrote:
> the B&W portable got demoted to the BBS when I found an old green
> terminal in a junk shop that used composite video in (and built in
> keyboard, straight matrix to connector on the back).
:-) For a while I used my Beeb connected to a VT100-something terminal I
got for a tenner (which was a lot of money back then) from a shop
selling digital junk. I planned to try using it for a serial port
input/output for straight programming, but I opened it up to peek inside
and discovered it was a little microcontroller board connected by a
co-ax cable to the monitor board. I plugged in the Beeb instead, and
after some fiddling around got the picture to sync (I think it was
originally a 60Hz scanning rate?). Seemed to work well, everything
on-screen. Much better 'cos now I could play Chuckie Egg. Okay, in
monochrome shades of amber, but a heck of a lot less headache inducing
than staring at the TV for hours.
> This digital lark really has them confused; not helped by every TV
> manufacturer doing things differently as far as menus and buttons go.
Fair point. But I think the biggest lesson I'd tell oldies is this new
fangled digital stuff is SLOW (pick any excuse you like, the one I tend
to use is the 'brains' are fast enough to actually work and slow enough
to be cheap). Anyway, point is, you absolutely CANNOT press a button and
expect instant results.
Hell's bells - I don't know whether it's the fault of BBCi or my Freesat
box (Goodmans GFSAT100SD), but when in BBCi I can actually tap out 1 0 0
1 [select] *BEFORE* there is any on-screen notification of my choice.
That's kinda slow. And I think it is a malaise that affects a lot of
digital equipment, which really doesn't help when you are trying to
explain why changing the channel doesn't, unless you count to ten first!
For anybody, please let me recommend http://www.tvguide.co.uk/
You can view programmes in EPG-like format (though the six-hour span
option is a lot more useful than the tiny EPG-like default). You can
select which channels you are interested it. You can click a channel for
a more detailed through-the-day listing (I mean downwards, like
RadioTimes), and you can also enter a programme title to see when it is
on next. Missed "Micro Men"? Try Saturday and Monday, and if you have
BBC HD it will be in all the HD glory next Wednesday. It's a truly
useful (and free) site and it is a definite boon to anybody wading
through the itty-bitty timeslice of a digital EPG trying to make sense
of it!
Best wishes,
Rick.
--
Rick Murray, eeePC901 & ADSL WiFI'd into it, all ETLAs!
BBC B: DNFS, 2 x 5.25" floppies, EPROM prog, Acorn TTX
E01S FileStore, A3000/A5000/RiscPC/various PCs/blahblah...