Date   : Thu, 18 Nov 2010 02:55:26 +0100
From   : rick@... (Rick Murray)
Subject: [OT] Who'da thought...

OT, and yes, you can shoot me for it later... ;-)


Anyway. I recall back in the day (here I am, only 37 (in a month) and 
already sounding like a crustie) when state of the art came in two 
flavours. You had your de facto 1200/75, which understood that people 
wanted to get data, but contributions were rather less likely so the 
tedious upchannel wasn't such a hardship. You also had modems with 
exciting names like "Linnet" which could push to 2400bps. I've never 
called a BBS at 2400bps so I don't know if that is bi-di.

When I left school at set up my little BBS, the world had advanced so 
that 9600bps was pretty common, but all the cool kids had 14k4. Some of 
the extra-cool ones offered 16k, but this required a USR modem.

I went to France, new house (well, hundreds of years old but you know 
what I mean) and came back to update my modem. 28k8 was the in thing, 
but a select few could do 36k. I got a 36k, but never in my life ran it 
anything faster than 33k2. I guess the Aldershot exchange was naff.

Then I dropped out of sight. 2002 the Rick was disconnected. I am aware 
of some tech, like the amusing dichotomy of the ever-so-expensive ISDN 
that offered 64kbps, or a bog-standard modem on POTS that offered nearly 
that. With my experiences of ISDN (at the library, pre-ADSL), it was... 
crap. When it functioned it functioned pretty well, but that's a mighty 
big conditional clause. Sometimes my hour allocation (before they got 
weird and said "an hour per family" because the librarian's son 
complained we were using *his* computer...) would be spent doing nothing 
more than attempting to connect.

2008 came, and so did the Internet "chez nous". A megabit. Not 
astonishing, but pretty impressive given we live in the sort of place BT 
would probably say would never ever be wired. The rest of the world uses 
8 or 16mbit which is mindblowingly fast (I mean, my RiscPC's network 
card runs at 10mbit, you're telling me a bit of unbalanced twisted 
copper can top that...!? [wholly cow!]). Hiccup a moment in time and 
we're now 2mbit. And when it works (thanks for the noise, EDF), it is 
sweet. But still slow compared to world+kitten.

So here I was, five minutes ago, downloading the "making of" AKB48's 
"Sakura No Hanabiratachi". http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6G2i1NnsOSE
129Mb. I was counting off a megabyte every four seconds, more or less. 
And thinking, hasn't it all come a long way?

   1200/75            ->  megabits
   2MHz CPUs          ->  multiple cores at >2GHz
   32K                ->  1Gb minimum
   64K addressing     ->  hundreds of gigabytes
   tapes for storage  ->  half terrabyte harddiscs as standard


Yet, you know what? I kinda miss the simplicity of the BBC era machines. 
Like with the guy who's ROM slots and/or disc controller is acting up. 
We're all "try this", "maybe its this latch". Theo points to a few pins 
on a few chips to get a larger-than-normal flash device into a Beeb.
You know what's in my eeePC? Three chips. Three epically tiny (there's a 
paradox!) complicated-beyond-imagination chips. I assume one is the N270 
processor, one is the underclocked (why?!) GPU, and the third is the 
"everything else" device. I make assumptions. That's all I can do 
really. Because stripping an eee is really going to be more trouble than 
it is worth. It isn't like the Beeb. The Beeb is clear. Basic, simple, 
to-the-point TTL logic. You can grasp it. You can wrap your head around 
it. You can flowchart and diagram every single address line through 
every single logic gate. And if your inverse reflux debounce reflector 
packs up, you just track down the 74LS324(11)7 chip in a good 
electronics shop and fit another. If my eee's USB ports all blow up... 
well... chance of repair is going to cost more than a 
bin-it-and-start-again approach. Today's hardware isn't designed to be 
understood. It is designed to allow the drooling masses to gawk at 
kittens and naked asians. And play inane games on Facebook.

A Joni Mitchell lyric comes to mind:
   Something's lost but something's gained in living every day.

It's a bit like that with computers, too.


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...