Date   : Tue, 02 Aug 2011 17:36:07
From   : heyrick.beebsoc@... (Rick Murray)
Subject: [BeebSoc] Auntie, dear Auntie

On 03/08/2011 01:36, Mick wrote:

>> Give 'em credit, the FCC mandated everything had to support captions,
>> so you'll find caption-capable NTSC videotapes. That's something we
>> never sussed.
> How did you access the subtitles? Surely the picture from a VHS is too
> unstable?? Are you yanking my chain???

I remember Mullard used to do Teletext (WST) sets in America, but when 
Closed Caption was mandated as a law, they dropped WST because the two 
systems were similar (hidden in the VBI) but different.

My guess is, given that you don't need a lot of data for subtitling, 
that the bitrate was a lot slower, leading to something that *could* be 
read out from a video recording.

   http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Closed_captioning


> But it's all we had. Our BBS did all the work for us.

The only thing I lament about BBSs was the fact it could not 
parallel-task. You could not fire off a download and leave it running 
while you looked at messages or searched for other files.

I half-wrote a replacement for ArcBBS that offered the following:
* Works in ANSI mode or MTerm mode. MTerm used drawing primatives to
   build a display. It was possible to transmit a sequence of drawing
   commands, followed by an ANSI frame. The commands could be actioned
   immediately (so the ANSI overlays) or queued until the ANSI had been
   rendered, with the drawing overlaid.
* If an MTerm client was detected, *all* data was sent in headered
   packets, so display frames, chat, and file transfer could all run
   simultaneously.

The code I knocked up was buggy and mostly didn't work - it was instead 
intended to test how the setup worked, and with lockbaud to 19200 
between two machines, it worked quite well. Better, I might add, than 
AFS's RSDFS. :-P

I never carried it through, however, as I was a RISC OS C newbie at the 
time and Keith Hall had just released ArmBBS.


> I wonder how many computers are still fidonetting?

I have been led to believe that there is something of a war regarding 
those Mennonites who wrap up their fido packets and push them around the 
Internet, and the Amish who dial up each other as always...

I guess from a purist point of view, the dial-up method preserves what 
made Fido different, but then not everybody gets free calls so passing 
data via the Internet makes sense. It also means a system can poll 
hourly (or more!) instead of nightly (host) or whenever (point).


>> [Amstrad @-mailer, anybody?]
> Yes, I was given one. Still got it. Had a half hour play.

Doesn't do much out of the box, does it?


> Is there any way of hacking it?

http://www.cowlark.com/amstrad/
http://inputplus.co.uk/ralph/emailer/index.html


>> My oh my, haven't we totally cocked up the internet!
> My oh my, haven't we screwed up the world!

You win.


>> I think in total I watched maybe three episodes? I didn't much like
>> their accents...
> Don't visit Liverpool then.

must.. resist.. temptation..


>> [bonus points if you know why I chose this specific thing]
> It looks very interesting. No bonus for me though.

What it is:
   http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_5100

It doesn't have a microprocessor, exactly. It has a processor board 
called "PALM" which means "Put All Logic in Microcode". It was 
innovative, and freaky. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_PALM_processor

Why I'm interested?
   http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Titor

Because:
   http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steins;Gate
   [anim? version, though I've also got scanlations of chapters 1-6 of
    the manga]


>> Could be worse, could be a programmer with dyscalculia... :-/
> Oh you've seen my programming then :-(

I was talking about mine. :-(


Best wishes,

Rick 2:254/86.1 (once upon a time)