Date   : Thu, 17 Dec 2009 21:19:29 +0100
From   : rick@... (Rick Murray)
Subject: New Retro Auction Website

Rich Mellor wrote:

> I agree - I have raised these issues with the designers but they comment 
> that most people use a resolution above 1024

Seriously?!?! That's just being elitist (and a bit stupid). There are a 
lot of displays of 1024x768 for which nothing can be done - it's a 
pretty common size of display panel on laptops.


> have not considered people with poor eyesight who still view screens at 
> 800x600 !

Or people with older CRT monitors (where anything over that size just 
looks bad), or indeed people who have mothers who listen to Radio4 LW in 
  the next room (haha, I bet that reason would shut them up!). I'll 
leave it to somebody more intelligent than me to explain why 800x600 
puts a high pitched whine in her radio which is out of her hearing range 
(60-64Hz refresh is best), while 1024x768 totally obliterates the 
signal. I have a feeling it is some interaction between 198kHz and the 
line or field sync rate.
Oh... doesn't matter if it is RISC OS or PC, though RISC OS allows for 
finer tuning of display timing. Doesn't matter what type of monitor. I 
would say the physical display size has a bearing on the interference, 
but seeing as the radio is only maybe four metres away...


> OK thanks - a lot of the translations are using google translate 
> unfortunately!!

Mmm, it is fairly common to machine translation. It is a shame there is 
no "interactive mode" where you can pick the words you actually want.

There used to be a time when:
   Acorn Computers
became
   Ordinateurs de gland
which, translated back, became:
   Computers of nipple

Google's translate is smarter and recognises Acorn as a brand, however 
you can enjoy fun like this at:
   http://uk.babelfish.yahoo.com/translate_txt

A useful trick is to cut'n'paste the translated text and translate it 
BACK. If the translation back is gibberish, the original translation 
probably is as well.
...that last line in Japanese and back would become "If the back is 
gibberish to the translation of the original translation is probably 
similar.", thus suggesting you're almost there. So you can play with 
subtle rewordings like "If it is gibberish when translated back into 
English, it was probably gibberish anyway." which gets closer yet.


Thanks for the reply.


Best wishes,

Rick.

-- 
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