ScuzzBlog: Diaries June 2017
Entry 3rd June 2017: Post: 01
Things never cease to amaze me
Hi
Seriously.. when it comes to computers things never cease to amaze me. I
have, as you know, been mucking around with a BBC Master and BBC B. The
second machine here, may also have amused some, when I discovered it
smoking in the hallway earlier this year. Filthy habit. I have run this
computer a lot this last week or so and it has not again gotten hot or
smoked or smelt like burning. Neither should I add has the BBC Master.
So I have enjoyed my BBC programming this week and have created a text
based program that has grown somewhat and I have been able to save to
5.25" floppy.
Today I received through the post a cable connector that allows me to
plug in the humble BBC B into a Samsung large flat screen TV/Monitor via
a scart. I have to say I was highly sceptical. Anyway, connected up and
there bright and a crisp as you like was the BBC boot script and BASIC
with prompt... I quickly took my disk and fed it into the 5.25" floppy
drive and loaded and it all ran like it was 1981 but with a modern
twist. Incredible in truth.
NOW !! I can here some say ' Why not just use an emulator ? ' To that I
have always given out a deep sigh. There is an equation that results in
nothing. No matter how big the quantity on one side when added to the
other it makes nothing. Its like the double negative. Its like winning
the game and knowing how to get infinite lives. Its like finding a bug
in an MMO that gives you everything without trying. For me , I repeat
for 'me', the game is the kit, always has been. If I didn't own an Amiga
I wouldn't use an emulator. Same goes for anything I have. It really is
not the same. And when you can get a 1981 bit of hardware to do what I
just did then that's reward enough for me. Getting the Amstrad working
again yesterday was the reward that no pixels on a modern screen could
ever give. Its never been about software.. its always been about the
actual produce. I guess I could download every piece of music known to
mankind. Thing is the only music I truly possess is stored on vinyl,
tape or original CD all in their original boxes. In some ways the
listening is less important to the holding of Captain Fantastic and
viewing the original artwork and even sensing the smell of the vinyl.
Today I spent the best part trying to get an old Windows 95 machine
working. The computer was given to me by a man who was selling the A500
with the Viper. He told me the owner had died and the guy had removed
the hard drive as he had told him to before he died. So I have a machine
with unknowns running basically off the motherboard and no hard drive.
There is a hard drive in the machine but its removable and just wont be
recognised by the early boot and going into the BIOS. Thing is why
bother. Its ancient... probably slow as you like and not the original OS
anyway. But that is the challenge. I have now managed to get a hard
drive recognised, from my mountain of old junked hard drives that I have
salvaged at various times. I am struggling with the CD at the moment
but its early days.
I guess what I'm trying to say is that computers for me are about
hardware and software. They are so important and they in many ways have
to work side by side to make the process fun. So an Amiga with its OS.
The BBC with its OS. And dare I say the Windows 95 machine and a machine
of that era. I get a real buzz from finally cracking the machine and
getting back up and running... and then I lose interest. That is why the
Windows 10 machine was such a load of crap. It wasn't just that it was
no challenge , I could see that there was no future in the machine in
terms of what I could do with it in the future. The cloak of the
internet and 'verification' processes that go with modern computing have
made the processes just so sterile. I don't need anyone's blessing to
keep 99% of what I have up and running. None of it needs some company's
authorisation code to make it work. Most of it doesn't have any issue
with adverts, spam, downloads, clouds etc. The kit and me does not need
validation from social networking to make the whole process worthwhile.
It really is just about enjoying an interest in real computers and their
software and trying to relive a time when they were first created.
I kinda do get a bit angry with what I hear users do to make computers
into modern kit. I get very angry when I hear see the way computers have
been literally hacked to pieces to add modern kit. At this point I do
say why not use an emulator or better just get a modern computer. Please
I beg of you stop destroying those machines. It is so sad to see. First
post on a forum by any new guy seems to carry the same message... how do
I get this Amiga 1200 to run like a modern machine. Its like they are
just incapable of enjoying the computer for what it was, instead of
trying to make it what it aint.
In truth if I switched on my Amiga 1200 and it performed like a Windows
7 machine why would I need an Amiga 1200. The very point of having
something of such a treasure as that which you can hold in your hand,
sense in all its glory, listen to as it fires into action, and then
responds as the creature you have always known to be...... is to know of
its real worth and value. Not simply to venture down memory lane but to
have and to hold. I do not question others' attitude to computing. I
appreciate fully why folk gave up their kit. Folk move on. It is human
nature. However for me when I can see what I did today on that screen as
produced by a red blooded actual BBC B I have to repeat... such things
never cease to amaze me.
Hopefully I can continue to find such joys from what is the greatest
interest for me in my lifetime. The Computer.
scuzz
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