Modern web browser adoption better than expected: 71% run latest version



Web developers fight a constant struggle: They want to use modern web browser features, but they also need to take browser adoption into consideration. If a large portion of their users run older versions of browsers, web developers will be limited in what they can accomplish.

With this in mind, we decided to find out how many people are running the latest version of their browser, whether it be Internet Explorer, Firefox, Chrome, Safari or Opera.

The current situation
Before we go any further, we should point out that what we examine in this article is the situation right now. The numbers will vary a bit over time since they are dependent on new browser versions being launched, how long ago the latest versions have been on the market, etc.

To make sure the numbers are up-to-date, we based them on stats for the first four days of November. That should be a decent snapshot of the current situation. The data is from StatCounter, based on visitor stats from more than 3 million websites.



For the record, the latest official (major) versions right now are Internet Explorer 8.0, Firefox 3.6, Chrome 7.0, Safari 5.0 and Opera 10.6.

Summary:

91% of Chrome users run version 7.0.
81% of Firefox users run version 3.6.
77% of Opera users run version 10.6.
71% of Safari users run version 5.0.
60% of Internet Explorer users run version 8.0.
The share of Internet users who are running the latest official, major version of either Internet Explorer, Firefox, Chrome, Safari or Opera is 71%.
It’s not strange that Chrome “wins” this since it’s currently the only browser with automated upgrades (they are handled in the background). It will most likely be a bit higher a few weeks from now since there’s still a small portion of version 6 users that haven’t upgraded yet. Another thing that brings down the number a bit are the various beta and developer versions.

Getting users to upgrade
Convincing users to upgrade their browsers can be a challenge, and browser developers have had varying levels of success with this. We studied this in detail a while back, and it’s still an interesting read if you’re curious to see how quickly various browsers tend to be upgraded.

We can’t help but think that webmasters can do their part here as well by educating their users when possible (and where appropriate, of course).

Final words
To be honest, the situation is better than we expected. To know that 71% of users are running the latest version of their browser is good news for web developers. It means that websites hoping to make use of the latest browser features have a pretty good user base to pick from.

The black sheep in the flock is Internet Explorer. Of the people running Internet Explorer, 25% are still running version 7, and 14% are still running version 6. Hopefully Microsoft will be able to convince most of those users to upgrade to version 9 once it becomes available.

Back to the games boys and girls

If banking were more Open Source, we would need less Wikileaks
Posted on December 6, 2010 by marco

Banks are important. The world economic crisis is due for a good part to insufficient transparency in banks. Wikileaks next document drop may target banks. And a small group of activists is trying to solve those bank problems in a (Open Source) way that may make Wikileaks less necessary.

The Open Bank Project develops Open Source Software called the OBP API (Application Programming Interface). In general, an API is a piece of software and/or a set of rules that many independent programmers can embed into their own software programs to make them talk to each other. “Open Source” means that the software is freely usable, auditable and reusable by everybody, so it can’t play tricks. The OBP API “exposes banking transactions to larger audiences and to software applications”. In normal human language, this means something incredibly powerful: the holder of a bank account managed with OBP-compatible software will be able (if he or she decides so, of course) to let everybody, or just some selected individuals, see some transactions on that bank account automatically, in real time from the Internet.

Yes, you read that right. OBP is a technology that will allow voters to say to their candidates “since you put transparency in your program, if you want my vote, please set up your account so I always know by email how much money you get and from who”. Interesting, isn’t it?

I asked Simon to explain how OBP was born. This is his answer:

Simon Redfern: About 5 years ago I started hearing and thinking (more) about corruption. I can’t remember exactly what made me conceive of it – and it wasn’t a formal process – but at some point I suddenly had the idea of a new type of bank where all the accounts were open for the public to see. This was the original idea and since then it has matured.

At first I thought I should keep the idea secret and think up some kind of business plan to take advantage of the concept so I didn’t talk to many people about it. However, the people I did speak to responded energetically – and a good friend of mine from the UK suggested a “protocol” so that the idea could be applied to other banks too.

Then in 2008, while working in Athens, I noticed lots of construction sites with European Union (EU) boards proclaiming “Funded by the EU”. When I mentioned this enthusiastically to somebody she said: “Yes but Simon, there’s so much corruption here!”. So, this got me thinking more about realising the project – and then of course, two years later, Greece collapsed.

By 2010, I had also come to know APIs better. My company TESOBE had built them for our internal projects musicpictures.com and eviscape.com; besides, it was easy for me to see that if Web services such as Flickr and Twitter have grown so well it is also because of APIs. The reasons is that APIs massively extend the IT team of a company, because they let external developers use the companies data and services to build innovative applications creatively and independently.

At the same time, I have been understanding more about the silent revolution that is “Open Source” and I realised that the issues concerned (public money, corruption etc) are too important and require too wide an adoption to not involve the Open Source community.

Corruption was the catalyst for the project – but the Open Bank Project is definitely also about better, simpler, cooler banking, business and financial apps and a more open philosophy towards software development and business too.

Back to the games boys and girls

smallest Linux desktop PC, smaller than an apple (fruit)


Measuring at just 2 x 2 x 2.2 inches this is the smallest Desktop PC. And it's running Linux.


Specs:
300 mhz atom
64MB of SDRAM
external video connector
supports 1280 x 1024 resolution.
Flash memory card slot
USB port
Ethernet
and a serial port.

Can't run any modern OS but Linux with these specs, can you?



See an apple:



Don't like yellow?



Too bad you still need wires:



Fits in the palm of your hand:


Back to the games boys and girls

THE BLUE BOX



The blue box built by Steve Wozniak, on display at the Computer History Museum, gift of Rick Prelinger

An early phreaking tool, the blue box is an electronic device that simulates a telephone operator's dialing console. It functions by replicating the tones used to switch long-distance calls and using them to route the user's own call, bypassing the normal switching mechanism. The most typical use of a blue box was to place free telephone calls - inversely, the Black Box enabled one to receive calls which were free to the caller. The blue box no longer works in most western nations, as modern switching systems are now digital and no longer use the in-band signaling which the blue box emulates. Instead, signaling occurs on an out-of-band channel which cannot be accessed from the line the caller is using (called Common Channel Interoffice Signaling (CCIS)).

The blue box got its name because the first such device confiscated by Bell System security was in a blue plastic case.
-------------------------------------------
History

In November, 1954, the Bell System Technical Journal published an article, which described the process used for routing telephone calls over trunk lines with the then-current signaling system, R1.[1] The article described the basics of the inter-office trunking system and the signalling used. This, while handy, could not be used in and of itself, as the frequencies used for the Multi-Frequency, or "MF", tones were not published in this article.

In November, 1960, the other half of the equation was revealed by the Bell System Technical Journal: another article entitled "Signaling Systems for Control of Telephone Switching" (by C. Breen and C. A. Dahlbom) was published containing the frequencies used for the digits that were used for the actual routing codes.[citation needed] With these two items of information, the phone system was at the disposal of anyone with a cursory knowledge of electronics.

However, contrary to numerous stories, before finding the articles in the Bell System Technical Journal it was discovered by many, some very unintentionally and to their annoyance, that some Bell System trunks could be reset by a 2600 Hz tone. Joe Engressia (known as Joybubbles) accidentally discovered it at the age of 7 by whistling (with his mouth).[2] He and other famous phone phreaks such as "Bill from New York" and "The Glitch", trained themselves to whistle 2600 Hz (which would reset trunks). They also learned how to route phone calls by causing trunks to flash in certain patterns.

With the ability to blue box, what was once individuals exploring the telephone network started to develop into a whole sub-culture. Famous phone phreaks such as John "Captain Crunch" Draper, Mark Bernay, and Al Bernay used blue boxes to explore the various 'hidden codes' that were not dialable from a regular phone line.
Some of the more famous pranksters were Steve Wozniak and Steve Jobs, founders of Apple Computer. On one occasion Wozniak dialed Vatican City and identified himself as Henry Kissinger (imitating Kissinger's German accent) and asked to speak to the Pope (who was sleeping at the time).[3]
Blue boxes were primarily the domain of "pranksters" and "explorers"; while others used blue boxes solely to make free phone calls.

Blue boxing hit the mainstream media when an article by Ron Rosenbaum entitled Secrets of the Little Blue Box was published in the October 1971 issue of Esquire magazine.[2] Suddenly, many more people wanted to get into the phone phreaking culture spawned by the blue box, and it furthered the fame of Captain Crunch and groups, like the Legion of Doom.

In November 1988, the CCITT (now known as ITU-T) published recommendation Q.140, which goes over Signaling System No. 5's international functions, once again giving away the 'secret' frequencies of the system. This caused a resurgence of blue boxing incidents with a new generation.[citation needed]
During the early 1990s, blue boxing became popular with the international warez scene, especially in Europe. Software was made to facilitate blue boxing using a computer to generate the signalling tones and play them into the phone. For the PC there were BlueBEEP, TLO, and others, and blue boxes for other platforms such as Amiga were available as well.

The death of blueboxing came in the mid to late 1990s when telcos, becoming aware of the problem, eventually moved to signalling systems with separate data and signalling channels (such as CCIS and SS7), making manipulation impossible. It is rumored that some international trunks still utilize in-band signaling and are susceptible to tones, although often it's 2600+2400Hz then 2400 Hz to seize. Sometimes the initial tone is a composition of three frequencies. A given country may have inband signalling on trunks from a specific country but not others.
--------------------------------------------
Operation

The operation of a blue box is simple: First, the user places a long distance telephone call, usually to an 800 number or some other non-supervising phone number. For the most part, anything going beyond 50 miles would go over a trunk type susceptible to this technique.

When the call starts to ring, the caller uses the blue box to send a 2600 Hz tone (or 2600+2400Hz on many international trunks followed by a 2400 Hz tone). The 2600 Hz is a supervisory signal, because it indicates the status of a trunk; on hook (tone) or off-hook (no tone). By playing this tone, you are convincing the far end of the connection that you've hung up and it should wait. When the tone stops, the trunk will go off-hook and on-hook (known as a supervision flash), making a "Ka-Cheep" noise, followed by silence. This is the far end of the connection signalling to the near end that it is now waiting for routing digits.

Once the far end sends the supervision flash, the user would use the blue box to dial a "Key Pulse" or "KP", the tone that starts a routing digit sequence, followed by either a telephone number or one of the numerous special codes that were used internally by the telephone company, then finished up with a "Start" or "ST" tone. At this point, the far end of the connection would route the call the way you told it, while the users end would think you were still ringing at the original number. KP1 is generally used for domestic dialing where KP2 would be for international calls.
------------------------------------------------
Names

Spiro was one of the names given to the blue box, a piece of telephone hacking equipment used in the 1970s to make long distance telephone calls without being billed. In a sarcastic reference, it was named after Spiro Agnew, the vice-president of the United States at the time, who was greatly unpopular with the youth and counterculture who largely made up the telephone hacking community. Other pieces of hacking equipment were named the Agnew, and even the T, Agnew's middle initial.

The Spiro consisted of a set of audio oscillators, a telephone keypad, an audio amplifier and speaker. Its use relied, like much of the telephone hacking methodology of the time, on the use of a constant tone of 2600 hertz to indicate an unused telephone line. A free long distance telephone call (such as the information operator from another area code) was made using a regular telephone, and when the line was connected, a 2600 Hz tone from the Spiro was fed into the mouthpiece of the telephone, causing the operator to be disconnected and a free long distance line to be available to the Spiro user. The keyboard was then used to place the desired call, using touch tone frequencies specific for telephone operators. These frequencies are different from the normal touch tone frequencies used by telephone subscribers, which is why the telephone keypad could not be used and the Spiro was necessary.

Development and use of the Spiro was largely enabled by Bell Telephone's policy of publishing all technical documentation regarding its equipment. In response to the development of this and other means of telephone hacking, the company began to develop other means of securing its system, without publicly disclosing the details[citation needed]. This, plus the investigation and prosecution of several hackers by the FBI, finally made the Spiro and other hacking equipment obsolete. The hacking community evolved into other endeavors, however, and there currently exists a commercially published hacking magazine, titled 2600, a reference to the 2600 Hz tone that was central to so much of telephone hacking.

Frequencies and Timings

Each MF tone consists of two frequencies, shown in the table on the left. Note that these are not the same as customer dialed Touch Tone, which is shown by the table on the right:
---------------------------------------------
Operator (blue box) dialed MF frequencies

Code--700 Hz--900 Hz--1100 Hz--1300 Hz--1500 Hz--1700 Hz
1--------X-----------X
2--------X----------------------X
3--------------------X----------X
4--------X-----------------------------------X
5--------------------X-----------------------X
6--------------------------------X-----------X
7--------X-----------------------------------------------X
8--------------------X-----------------------------------X
9--------------------------------X-----------------------X
0/10----------------------------------------X-----------X
11/ST3 -X--------------------------------------------------------X
12/ST2-------------X---------------------------------------------X
KP-------------------------------X---------------------------------X
KP/ST2-------------------------------------X---------------------X
ST-------------------------------------------------------X---------X
-------------------------------
Customer-dialed Touch-Tone (DTMF) frequencies

---------1209 Hz--1336 Hz--1477 Hz---1633 Hz
697 Hz----1-------- 2-----------3-----------A
770 Hz----4---------5-----------6-----------B
852 Hz----7---------8-----------9-----------C
941 Hz----*----------0-----------#-----------D
--------------------------
Normally, the tone durations are on for 60ms, with 60ms of silence between digits. The 'KP' and 'KP2' tones are sent for 100ms. KP2 (ST2 in the R1 standard) was used for dialing internal Bell System telephone numbers. However, actual frequency durations can vary depending on location, switch type, and the machine status.

Special codes ---------------------

Some of the special codes a person could get onto are in the chart below. "NPA" is a U.S. telephone company term for 'area code'.

NPA+100 – Plant Test – Balance termination
NPA+101 – Plant Test – Toll Testing Board
NPA+102 – Plant Test – Milliwatt tone (1004 Hz)
NPA+103 – Plant Test – Signaling test termination
NPA+104 – Plant Test – 2-way transmission and noise test
NPA+105 – Plant Test – Automatic Transmission Measuring System
NPA+106 – Plant Test – CCSA loop transmission test
NPA+107 – Plant Test – Par meter generator
NPA+108 – Plant Test – CCSA loop echo support maintenance
NPA+109 – Plant Test – Echo canceler test line
NPA+121 – Inward Operator
NPA+131 – Operator Directory assistance
NPA+141 – Rate and Route Information
914+151 – Overseas incoming (White Plains, NY)
212+151 – Overseas incoming (New York, NY)
NPA+161 – trouble reporting operator (defunct)
NPA+181 – Coin Refund Operator
914+182 – International Sender (White Plains, NY)
212+183 – International Sender (New York, NY)
412+184 – International Sender (Pittsburgh, PA)
407+185 – International Sender (Orlando, FL)
510+186 – International Sender (Oakland, CA)
303+187 – International Sender (Denver, CO)
212+188 – International Sender (New York, NY)
Not all NPAs had all functions.

Back to the games boys and girls

Nowadays we are used to having hundreds of gigabytes of storage capacity in our computers. Even tiny MP3 players and other handheld devices usually have several gigabytes of storage. This was pure science fiction only a few decades ago. For example, the first hard disk drive to have gigabyte capacity was as big as a refrigerator, and that was in 1980. Not so long ago!

The Selectron tube
The Selectron tube had a capacity of 256 to 4096 bits (32 to 512 bytes). The 4096-bit Selectron was 10 inches long and 3 inches wide. Originally developed in 1946, the memory storage device proved expensive and suffered from production problems, so it never became a success.
The Selectron vacuum tube, is the only technology listed here that was not for secondary (permanent) storage. Selectrons were used for primary data storage, like a modern computer’s RAM.


Above: The 1024-bit Selectron.




Punch cards
Early computers often used punch cards for input both of programs and data. Punch cards were in common use until the mid-1970s. It should be noted that the use of punch cards predates computers. They were used as early as 1725 in the textile industry (for controlling mechanized textile looms).


Above: Card from a Fortran program: Z(1) = Y + W(1)


Above left: Punch card reader. Above right: Punch card writer.

Punched tape
Same as with punch cards, punched tape was originally pioneered by the textile industry for use with mechanized looms. For computers, punch tape could be used for data input but also as a medium to output data. Each row on the tape represented one character.


Above: 8-level punch tape (8 holes per row).

Magnetic drum memory
Invented all the way back in 1932 (in Austria), it was widely used in the 1950s and 60s as the main working memory of computers. In the mid-1950s, magnetic drum memory had a capacity of around 10 kB.


Above left: The magnetic Drum Memory of the UNIVAC computer. Above right: A 16-inch-long drum from the IBM 650 computer. It had 40 tracks, 10 kB of storage space, and spun at 12,500 revolutions per minute.

The hard disk drive
The first hard disk drive was the IBM Model 350 Disk File that came with the IBM 305 RAMAC computer in 1956. It had 50 24-inch discs with a total storage capacity of 5 million characters (just under 5 MB).


Above: IBM Model 350, the first-ever hard disk drive.

The first hard drive to have more than 1 GB in capacity was the IBM 3380 in 1980 (it could store 2.52 GB). It was the size of a refrigerator, weighed 550 pounds (250 kg), and the price when it was introduced ranged from $81,000 to $142,400.


Above left: A 250 MB hard disk drive from 1979. Above right: The IBM 3380 from 1980, the first gigabyte-capacity hard disk drive.

The Laserdisc
We mention it here mainly because it was the precursor to the CD-ROM and other optical storage solutions. It was mainly used for movies. The first commercially available laserdisc system was available on the market late in 1978 (then called Laser Videodisc and the more funkily branded DiscoVision) and were 11.81 inches (30 cm) in diameter. The discs could have up to 60 minutes of audio/video on each side. The first laserdiscs had entirely analog content. The basic technology behind laserdiscs was invented all the way back in 1958.


Above left: A Laserdisc next to a regular DVD. Above right: Another Laserdisc.

The floppy disc
The diskette, or floppy disk (named so because they were flexible), was invented by IBM and in common use from the mid-1970s to the late 1990s. The first floppy disks were 8 inches, and later in came 5.25 and 3.5-inch formats. The first floppy disk, introduced in 1971, had a capacity of 79.7 kB, and was read-only. A read-write version came a year later.


Above left: An 8-inch floppy and floppy drive next to a regular 3.5-inch floppy disk. Above right: The convenience of easily removable storage media.

Magnetic tape
Magnetic tape was first used for data storage in 1951. The tape device was called UNISERVO and was the main I/O device on the UNIVAC I computer. The effective transfer rate for the UNISERVO was about 7,200 characters per second. The tapes were metal and 1200 feet long (365 meters) and therefore very heavy.


Above left: The row of tape drives for the UNIVAC I computer. Above right: The IBM 3410 Magnetic Tape Subsystem, introduced in 1971.

Twistor Memory
Twistor is a form of computer memory, similar to core memory, formed by wrapping or closing magnetic tape around a current-carrying wire. Although the developers, Bell Labs, had high hopes for Twistor, it was used for only a brief time in the marketplace between about 1968 and the mid-1970s. In this period all previous forms of memory were quickly replaced by semiconductor memory chips, which were considerably faster and less expensive. Twistor is largely the brainchild of a single person, Andrew Bobeck, who later developed bubble memory after generalizing some of the concepts used in Twistor.

Bubble Memory
Bubble memory is a type of non-volatile computer memory that uses a thin film of a magnetic material to hold small magnetized areas, known as bubbles or domains, each of which stores one bit of data. Bubble memory started out as a promising technology in the 1970s, but failed commercially as hard disk prices fell rapidly in the 1980s.


Thin-film Memory
Thin-film memory is a high-speed variation of core memory developed by Sperry Rand in a government-funded research project.
Instead of threading individual ferrite cores on wires, thin-film memory consisted of 4 micrometre thick dots of permalloy, an iron-nickel alloy, deposited on small glass plates by vacuum evaporation techniques and a mask. The drive and sense lines were then added using printed circuit wiring over the alloy dots. This provided very fast access times in the range of 670 nanoseconds, but was very expensive to produce.
In 1962, the UNIVAC 1107, intended for the civilian marketplace, used thin-film memory only for its 128-word general register stack. Military computers, where cost was less of a concern, used larger amounts of thin-film memory. Thin film was also used in a number of high-speed computer projects, including the high-end of the IBM System/360 line, but general advances in core tended to keep pace.

Compact Cassette
And of course, we can’t mention magnetic tape without also mentioning the standard compact cassette, which was a popular way of data storage for personal computers in the late 70s and 80s. Typical data rates for compact cassettes were 2,000 bit/s. You could store about 660 kB per side on a 90-minute tape.

Above left: The standard compact cassette. Above right: The Commodore Datassette is sure to bring up fond memories for people who grew up in the 80s.

There are so many interesting pictures from “the good old days” when you look around on the web. These were some of the best we could find, and we hope you liked them.

Back to the games boys and girls

The exponential growth of computing performance is very noticeable when you examine how the performance of the world’s most powerful computer systems, the supercomputers, has changed over time.

To give you an idea of how rapidly performance has been growing, the top supercomputer in 2000 delivered more performance than the entire top 500 supercomputers combined in 1995, just five years earlier. Comparing 2005 with 2000 you see the same thing, and 2010 with 2005.

Top supercomputer performance over time
Here is the performance of the fastest supercomputer in the world, the past 15 years:

Top in 2010: 2.57 petaflops
Top in 2005: 280.6 teraflops
Top in 2000: 4.94 teraflops
Top in 1995: 170 gigaflops
If we set the fastest supercomputer in 1995 as the baseline:

The top supercomputer in 2000 was 19 times faster.
The top supercomputer in 2005 was 1,650 times faster.
The top supercomputer in 2010 was 15,100 times faster.
Or, illustrated with a chart:



We could have used a logarithmic scale to make the smaller values easier to see, but we wanted to illustrate the sheer difference in scale. The bars for 1995 and 2000 aren’t even a pixel wide.

If you wonder why we didn’t go farther back than 1995, it’s because the TOP500 Project didn’t start tracking the global supercomputing performance until 1993.

From billions to trillions to quadrillions
In 2010, we measure the performance of the fastest supercomputers in petaflops (quadrillions of operations per second). In 1995, we used gigaflops (billions of operations per second). We are now using a scale a million times larger than we did 15 years ago.

That’s progress.

Top image: The Jaguar, the fastest supercomputer in the world until very recently. Image courtesy of the National Center for Computational Sciences, Oak Ridge National Laboratory.

Back to the games, boys and girls.

Handicapping the success or failure of a given technological product is a fool’s errand. Every one of the items on this list was at one point heralded as a game-changer that would revolutionize our lives, from the way we communicate to the way we consume media, and every item in turn met a brutal demise when it failed to gain traction in the marketplace. They’re the technological flops that serve as reminders that not every new device or development will work the way it’s been promised. If you wound up investing in one or more, well, better luck next time:

1. HD DVD
When high-definition DVDs hit the market, there was a format war between HD DVD and Blu-ray Discs reminiscent of the VHS-Beta battles of 25 years earlier. Several movie studios supported both formats for a while in hopes avoiding a market fight that happened anyway; these included Paramount Pictures and its subsidiaries, BBC, Magnolia Pictures, and more. However, Sony’s decision to package a Blu-ray player with its PlayStation 3 game console, as well as shifts in alliance, led to a slight edge for Blu-ray, and the format began to gain dominance. In early 2008, the final studios switched to Blu-ray exclusivity, and Toshiba announced it was halting production on the players, effectively ending the format war and ruling in Blu-ray’s favor. The players and discs still work, but they aren’t making any more.


2. Apple Power Mac G4 Cube
Apple’s known for its wild successes, especially with products like the iPod and iPhone, but the company’s also had its share of misfires. Case in point: the G4 Cube. Its aesthetic beauty couldn’t outweigh the fact that it was overpriced, prone to cracks in the case, and tough sell in general because it didn’t include a monitor. Debuting in 2000, the product was put out to pasture in 2001.


3. DVD recorder
It made sense in 1999 to assume that people would want a stand-alone DVD recorder that would record and playback discs the way VCRs had used VHS tapes. But the tech never caught on, thanks to the growing popularity of TiVo and other DVRs, which allowed for easier recording and deletion than DVD recorders. Add to that the fact that people used their computers’ DVD burners for video and picture use, and the stand-alone DVD recorder disappeared from U.S. markets.


4. MiniDisc
Positioned as a replacement for casette tapes, Sony’s MiniDisc flat-out fizzled. A tinier optical disc that looked like a CD, albeit housed in a permanent plastic case like a floppy disk, MD struggled from the beginning by only offering a limited number of albums. The technology was also priced too high for many consumers, especially when blank CDs entered the market in the mid-1990s and made it easier to record your own music mixes or copy albums you already owned on CD. Just like that, MD became the 8-track tape of the 1990s.


5. UMD
The Universal Media Disc, or UMD, flopped for many reasons, including one of the biggest obstacles to tech success in the late 20th century: a lack of adaptability and personalization by the consumer. People are free to burn and make their own CDs and DVDs, but the UMD is a tiny disc that plays a movie and does nothing else. You can’t make your own. The format still works with Sony’s PlayStation Portable, but not with the PSP Go. The format’s as good as dead.


6. Motorola Rokr E1
The amount of hype surrounding the Motorola Rokr E1 in 2005 was huge: Here, at last, was the first cell phone designed to work with Apple’s iTunes. However, to prevent it from competing with the iPod, users could only store 100 downloaded songs on the phone at any given time. What’s more, the absence of high-speed USB made for ridiculously slow file transfers. When Apple released the iPod Nano later in 2005, Motorola CEO Ed Zander accused Apple of trying to undercut the phone. Apple distanced itself from the Rokr, all but killing it, and would later find wild succcess with the iPhone.


7. Segway
The Segway PT was breathlessly described as “It” before its release, leading people to wonder just what the mystery machine might do to change our lives and the world around us. The Segway made its public debut on ABC’s “Good Morning America” in December 2001, but the personal transportation device never managed to crack the mainstream beyond simple brand recognition. Many cities have banned Segway use on sidewalks because they’re not necessary medical devices like wheelchairs. Inventor Dean Kamen predicted at the outset that Segways will replace cars just as cars replaced horse-drawn carriages, but that was a gross miscalculation. The company hoped for annual sales of 40,000 units, but they shipped just 30,000 units total between 2001 and 2007. Segways are mostly seen now in use by city tour groups and cropping up in movies and TV series as a jokey representation of a character being out of touch with reality.


8. Nokia N-Gage
Nokia’s attempt to combine a mobile phone with a portable video game system was, frankly, disastrous, resulting in a clumsy gaming experience and a dreadful talking set-up that required users to hold the unit on its side at a weird angle to speak. Even worse, the phone’s screen would freeze up and turn white if the unit’s memory was overused. Although it clung to life for a while after its 2003 debut, Nokia announced in 2010 that they’d end the service by the end of the year.


9. SACD/DVD Audio
Super Audio CDs and DVD Audio have been low-profile flops, but flops nonetheless. Both high-def formats are loved by audiophiles but might as well not even exist for most people, given their utter lack of success and market presence with mainstream listeners.


10. Apple TV
Appearing in 2007, Apple TV has largely flopped because of its limited uses: The set-top box only allows viewers to use their TVs to view content obtained via iTunes or YouTube, which makes it too narrowly focused to win mainstream approval. Later models have added storage space and lowered prices, but it’s clear that unless drastic changes or made (or we all give up on Netflix), AppleTV will go the way of the Cube.


This is only a list of ten flops of technology. They are probably not the biggest or most important. Interesting, I think so.

Back to the games boys and girls

THE DOWN AND DIRTY FACTS

Background

A hallowed ancestor of the modern bargain computer, the Timex Sinclair was the sleazy American cousin of the British Sinclair Computer.
The most popular model was the Timex Sinclair 1000, which sold for $99.95 and was the first computer to sell for under $100.

So Called Features

The Timex Sinclair had the following "features":
It had an embedded BASIC interpreter and a Z80A CPU, running at a screaming 3.25 MHz.
BASIC not only described its built in language interpreter, but also its design and functionality. (Its quality and design were as good as the watches of the same name.)
It had a membrane keyboard that took far too much pressure to type on and the keys were scientifically spaced to thwart even the most creative touch typist.
Its display was your TV set,and then, only in livid Black and White.
Its bargain design did not have a dedicated video IC, badly overloading the processor, which was pedaling as fast as it could simply running the embedded OS. It put out a slow 24x32 column text only display.
You could store your programs to an (optional) cassette recorder through the infamous 'Kansas City Interface', to cheap Radio Shack cassette tapes (specced to no less than three dropouts to the inch).
You could print to a small, tacky (and optional) thermal printer that used paper very similar to a cash register tape. (Don't leave the print in direct sunlight!)
It also had an (optional) 16K memory expander unit that plugged to the back, but was only secured by friction, thus was constantly coming loose and causing the unit to malfunction. The manufacturer recommended taping the expander to the unit.

Comparison to Other Computers

All in all, the Timex Sinclair 1000 (some called it the 'Slimex Sinclair') made the Commodore VIC 20 look like a Cray supercomputer. And, oddly enough, when Micro$lop released Windoze Vishita many years later, any computer that ran Vishita made the Timex Sinclair 1000 AND the Commodore VIC 20 look like Cray supercomputers by comparison.

Interesting Facts Concerning This Unit

The prototype for the Timex Sinclair was built from an inexpensive digital watch (Timex) powered by a tiny engine fueled by gasoline (Sinclair). A competing product, the Casio Shell, was abandoned in development and never reached the market.
Nicknamed 'the kitten killer' it drove many of its users to the self (and kitten) destructive habit of Kitten Huffing.
In a book written a number of years ago about the early success of the Commodore 64, its author told of a special program Commodore had for getting $100 off a Commodore 64 by sending in your old computer. By that time the Timex Sinclair 1000 was selling for $50 and a lot of people simply bought a unit and sent it to Commodore.
Not knowing what to do with the flood of Sinclairs, they finally decided that they made excellent doorstops and used them as such around Commodore headquarters.
Work is underway to develop a version of Linux for the Sinclair. The "Timux" distro is currently in alpha development.

Ultimately Unloaded on Central America

It later had its OS translated to Spanish and was inflicted on Central America.

Other uses


A slightly more interesting version of Part 1 The end.

Back to the games boys and girls

]WHAT NOW ?

The first part dealt with the machines themselves and a small piece of the history. Intended for the more studious in the audience.

For the more adventurous and those asking themselves what do you do with it if I get one, other than putting it on the tidy little shelf with all the rest of my collection, or using it as a bookmark?

Here are few suggestions:

Make server;

Add a USB:

Add a harddrive:

wanted to find out how much that is possible, and have my external 3.5 "HD (500GB) plugged into my Zeddy.

And lo and behold, it works! While making absolutely no sense, especially since there is no support for subdirectories, but it's cool, 500 GB on Zeddy to have.
Add a LCD

PIctures of possibilities


Have not been able to get an actual system

Try a virtual machine:

Worried about programs?

Come to THE OLD COMPUTERand download the roms for this machine because a search of the net will find programs to switch those rom formats back to the original format that will let you use all of them on the actual machine.

There are many resources for these machines on the web. Forums, hardware, and even yet programs are being developed.

My point to this is, whether it is the Timex Sinclair or any other retro system, there are people who are avid about them who try to keep them alive.

A search of the web will provide results and plentiful information. Sadly this information is slowly disappearing, so be thankful that we have this site dedicated to and honoring the great history of gaming and computing.

HAPPY SEARCHING

Back to the games, boys and girls

OLD COMPUTERS - rare, vintage, obsolete -
Once again, appreciate the beauty of your first true love
Early personal computers were nothing like present day computers, they had personality!
Each was. different and more exciting than the previous, with new features and capabilities.

As a bit of a challenge------ How many can you recognize and name?