Hard News: Steve, 1999
149 Responses
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Russell Brown, in reply to
At this stage benefits are accruing to technophiles and shareholders but it appears that Apple has some way to go to improve its triple-bottom line business practice. Did Jobs share some responsibility in that? You would certainly have hoped so.
You would. And it does seem that Apple has been much more engaged with the issue than most of the companies that use the same assembly plants.
I'd be interested to know how the Foxconn plants in the Czech Republic, India and Brazil compare to the big one in Shenzen.
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Lucy Stewart, in reply to
Strikes me as an extremely unlikely thing to happen. The cost would not be great. The cost of entering long passwords adds up every day.
As Stephen says, identity theft is a real concern. Not as much in NZ as the States, but it's there. And there are a number of very nifty tools for minimizing password re-entry on, for example, home computers (Firefox's master password tool, frex.) Of course, that password then needs to be high-security, but for that sort of usage there are plenty of hardcopy options for storage, and remembering *one* complex password on a regular basis is a much simpler proposition.
Ultimately, of course, all security is a risk/cost analysis; what's the risk of a breach and what's the cost of stopping it? There are some pretty crazy password policies out there in the name of security that inevitably result in bypasses. Twenty random characters, changed every sixty days, never repeated, that sort of thing, which is fine if you work for the SIS or whoever, but ludicrous for pretty much everyone else.
There's a middle ground somewhere. It's different for everyone, and different for work vs. home and for different types of work. Personally, I live with someone who is paid to lovingly maintain his tinfoil hat in regards to these matters, so I will never be allowed to live it down if anyone ever hacks any computer-related account I have, no matter the actual result. I have lots of incentive to care.
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recordari, in reply to
My first computer, in the early 80s, was a 48k Sinclair ZX Spectrum.
I had the predecessor ZX81. The hours of fun I had programming sine wave curves and playing Orbit.
This video is so trippy, especially the flashback of the noise for the tape loading the game.
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BenWilson, in reply to
I will never be allowed to live it down if anyone ever hacks any computer-related account I have, no matter the actual result. I have lots of incentive to care.
LOL, well that makes sense.
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Lilith __, in reply to
Love the video, Jack! A friend of mine had a ZX-81 before I got my Spectrum, and I remember thinking it was terrifically exciting, although also quite hard work to have fun with. ;-)
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BenWilson, in reply to
I had the predecessor ZX81. The hours of fun I had programming sine wave curves and playing Orbit.
Luxury. I learned to program from a book. Never even saw a computer up close until I'd gone right through several books on BASIC. Then a friend got the predecessor to the ZX81 - the ZX80. I hand wrote some games for it, tried them at his place.
It was probably the most stoked I've ever been in my life when I came home one day and my folks had got a VIC20. 3K of RAM. I wrote at least 50 games for it.
I was asked the other day at a job interview if I had any experience in writing tight code for smaller machines, like smartphones. I had to point out that my smartphone is 10 times more powerful than the first PC I wrote software on in the 90s, solving problems a hundred times more complex than what they were wanting.
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recordari, in reply to
I remember thinking it was terrifically exciting, although also quite hard work to have fun with. ;-)
The kids today, they have no fun-related work ethic.
Cue appropriate Queen song.I learned to program from a book.
So did most people back then, as the computer sure didn't have a help menu.
I guess you were one of those guys freezing games and giving them a POKE while playing. What we would do in those days for a PEEK and a POKE.ETA: If you can read that whole wiki page without smirking or losing control of your facial expressions, then you are a better person than I.
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Rich of Observationz, in reply to
I've got a project on the shelf at the moment involving coding for the ATTINY13A , with a generous 1k of ROM and 64 whole bytes of RAM.
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So did most people back then, as the computer sure didn't have a help menu.
Yup and it wouldn't have helped anyway, because I didn't have the computer. When I say I learned it from a book, I mean I knew the language before I had even seen a computer use it.
It was the first time I understood the value of a good manual too. The VIC had the best introductory manual I've ever seen. That's why it sold so well, enabling them to build the C64.
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BenWilson, in reply to
I've got a project on the shelf at the moment involving coding for the ATTINY13A , with a generous 1k of ROM and 64 whole bytes of RAM.
Heh, you anachronist, you. Do you also enact sword battles?
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Rich of Observationz, in reply to
The ring-bound tech manual which you could buy for the C64 was brilliant. It contained the information that most of the other manufacturers required you to discover for yourself, by disassembly and tracing circuits.
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Rich of Observationz, in reply to
No, but I did build a pirate ship
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Simon Grigg, in reply to
I haven't seen the same arrangement elsewhere.
They do offer refurbished models throughout S.E. Asia with warranty - or at least they did when I saw the advertising a year or so ago. I guess that still exists. JB Hifi in Queen Street was selling old model MBP 17"s at prices below $3k in July, although I have no idea how many - it may have just been the one or two on display.
I have to say, the best after sales support I've ever had from a computer manufacturer has been from HP. They've replaced out of warranty motherboards at no cost and corrected a fuzzy screen, once again at no cost. Result: happy daughter. Machines are rubbish, but the service was fantastic.
Apple, OTOH, have been obstructive and refused to honour a factory recall of a known fault without my paying, until went up the chain by asking repeatedly to speak to the next person up - I ended up with VP of Customer Relations in Singapore, who asked how far up I intended to go with this? 'Steve' I replied, and they then fixed the fault gratis. I was asked not to tell anyone. Ha.
There was a huge thread on the refusal to honour the recall on the Apple forums, much of it subsequently being deleted - as seems to be case when any threads there get too critical of the mothership. Obstruction in this case seemed to be corporate policy and a guy at Apple here quietly said that the problem was far bigger than they had at first assumed - this was the reaction.
So, love the product. Not quite so sure about some of the corporate philosophies.
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Biobbs, in reply to
My first computer, in the early 80s, was a 48k Sinclair ZX Spectrum. It had a whole 7 colours, and unlike it’s predecessor (the 1k, monochrome, ZX-81) was marketed as a games machine! It had no monitor, the keyboard and joystick connected to your TV.
Was it red?
http://www.muzu.tv/gb/loureed/my-red-joystick-music-video/22663/
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andin, in reply to
“Why isn’t there an entry-level DAC that’s iPod-ready – i.e., an iPod dock with a third-party DAC? That would be good
Onkyo had been working on this in Japan, but they have still yet to progress from the digital media transport.
Snap Still need an external dac hmmm This is from 2009 I hope they havent been sitting on their hands since then. Or is the site on delay. HDMI wired Dac’s only come looking to be hidden away
Best information I found was:
More and more PC motherboards are equipped with HDMI outputs, such as the AMG780G based motherboard I have. You’ll find a number of graphics cards with HDMI outputs too. The focus until recently has been video related but now we’re seeing graphics cards processing (or passing) audio via their HDMI socket .
DAC’s with HDMI inputs; they do of course exist in the form of home cinema receivers.
I’m pretty sure it’s a dead cert that these cards will happily stream two channel audio to your receiver. What I can’t answer is whether or not you’re getting bit perfect audio or whether Vista will be playing with your sound. I don’t imagine any hifi DAC would ever be equipped with an HDMI socket as USB, SPDIF optical/coax and firewire connections all provide enough bandwidth to cope with two channel audio.You can of course take the HDMI connection to a home cinema receiver to benefit from the dolby/DTS HD formats whilst also playing your two channel music through the same amp – it is, after all, just an external amp with a DAC.
Thing is though, are cinema amps the best way to playback two channel audio ? probably not. But if you’re trying to achieve an all in one package then that would be the way to go I think and some are of course very musical according to the reviews. Arcam receivers are very musical, so I have read
How it goes with Apple I have no idea. The Apple TV has an optical out, I wonder if two channel would sound any different out of that via a dac vs HDMI ….
Back to Steve not Steve B … the other one. -
It would be helpful to have a glossary or Guide for Dummies so we can figure out what you guys are talking about sometimes ;-)
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Lilith __, in reply to
Hi Biobbs :-)
Was it red?
No, it was not! And I'm not convinced Lou Reed is talking about computer games, either.
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Rich of Observationz, in reply to
Are you just after improvements to audio quality? Get a professional sound card?
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Kumara Republic, in reply to
Are you just after improvements to audio quality? Get a professional sound card?
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Biobbs, in reply to
No, it was not! And I'm not convinced Lou Reed is talking about computer games, either.
Well if you want computer games...why didn't you say so?
The future never looked so old...
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Lilith __, in reply to
The future never looked so old...
Funny, I was just listening to that yesterday. Quaint, now!
Must have been around that time one of my big brothers was working for a computing outfit in Chch. That was in the days of punchcards, and for many years afterwards we used the discarded punchcards at home for writing phone messages on. I remember how some had only a few holes and others so many they were like lacework, and hard to write a message on without your biro slipping into the holes and marking the kitchen bench. Mum was always wiping off the biro marks with meths and telling us we should be more careful.
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andin, in reply to
Are you just after improvements to audio quality?
My home stereo is just dandy thanks for asking. Would eat 99% of home theatre sound systems.
I knew there were ipod dockable DAC's -
Kumara Republic, in reply to
The future never looked so old...
Incidentally, the video was filmed at what used to be ControlData's Sydney office. Back in those days, ControlData was as big as IBM, HP and what is now Unisys. It never fully recovered from Seymour Cray jumping ship and going it alone.
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Russell Brown, in reply to
Incidentally, the video was filmed at what used to be ControlData's Sydney office. Back in those days, ControlData was as big as IBM, HP and what is now Unisys. It never fully recovered from Seymour Cray jumping ship and going it alone
I will alert the editors at NZ On Screen to this awesome little bit of background.
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Russell Brown, in reply to
I knew there were ipod dockable DAC's
But over $1000 at retail in NZ. Ouchies.
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