The strange beauty of historic computers

Wired have a great article on the sights and smells of historic computing, the strange beauty indeed of the "olden days" of computing : mainframes, minicomputers, line printers and other historic computing artifacts. Many of the computers and peripherals at places like the Computer History Museum in California (somewhere i must visit one day!) still work after being restored adding an extra dimension to the experience. The sound and heat of a punched card reader...

It is a very different tech world to now, a bigger world too. Computers filled huge rooms with printers being the size of small cars, plus tape units the size of wardrobes. That is part of the fascination i feel, its just so different to the computing we use now.

Unfortunately by the time i entered work we were past the age of old iron, though i did use a Prime minicomputer at university which was great fun. The biggest computer i've ever had physical access to is a HP PC server which was the size of a small fridge. Just not the same as a room full of IBM 360. One place i must try and get to this year is the UK National Museum of Computing which includes a fair amount of old iron in it's collection.

Photo from Flickr Commons

A825 passed!

The Open University surprised me by releasing my module result a week early, a nice surprise as they told me i had passed! Actually i did expect to pass (or at least i did not think i would fail which is subtly different) but i passed well so now i am ready to move onto my next module and complete my Masters. In fact it should be this time next year i get that result too.

A826 will begin in May and will consist of writing the dissertation i proposed as part of the final A825 assessment. I will get feedback on my proposal soon and until then there isn't much point in starting research. By mid-April i probably will be at least planning what i am doing.

Book code

Last night i finally got around to reading an old paperback book which i had bought off eBay years before. The book (the novelization of Bruce Lee's "Enter the Dragon" no less) is in reasonable condition though is rather faded and looks like it has passed through quite a few hands since it was printed in the early 1970s. The content itself is of course cheese central. But there is nothing wrong with that on occasion...

However on the second page of the story i found the word "man" circled. This struck me as rather random and i have not detected any other circled words yet. Of course having watched far too many spy dramas over the years i immediately thought of secret codes.

I suppose what might be fun might be to circle random words in a book you sell or give away and hope that one day you drive an amateur cryptographer mad trying to work out what you meant...

All England Badminton

I have vowed to try and see more live sport in the wake of the Olympics and today attended my first event of the year. Actually i am a big fan of badminton but last year when i was watching the Olympic badminton i thought to myself i really need to see the All England, especially as its actually held in Birmingham! So here i am, and i will be there tomorrow too. I did take some photos even though you arn't supposed to, but just some blurry iPhone pics. I did get told off once!

Its my first time to the National Indoor Arena which is a lovely venue. I must try and make this an annual pilgrimage.

London again

I've just returned from an accidental trip to London. I last went at the beginning of February but when i booked my train tickets the first time i accidentally bought them for the 2nd and 3rd of March and not February and so had to hurriedly rebook. Still it worked out fine in the end. A tiring trip though crossing London from the West End to Stratford twice all in all but i was able to indulge in my love of Korean food, visit St Pancras (which looks amazing) and got some serious tube travel in.

And i found the Dog and Duck, the pub which politicians and media commentators always mention when they want to talk about where the "man in the street" discusses issues. As its in Soho i suppose they do actually mean this one!

Free vintage posters

Its sites like this which make the internet so wonderful, Free Vintage Posters does exactly what it says on the tin. It has hundreds of vintage and period posters available for download. I love so many of them but my favourite are the Art Deco designs. Its the sort of site that can drag you in and before you realise it you've spent ages browsing the available riches...