A Bit More Detail

[PHOTO] Five photos of vintage calculators and Commodores, Z&Z Accounting (#thejunction)

Tue, 26 Nov 2019 15:00:48 GMT

I was passing by with Jim through the Junction on Dundas West one recent night when we came across the storefront location of Z & Z Accounting and Income Tax Services, at 3102 Dundas Street West. There, they had on display vintage machines of the sort that earlier generations of accountants would have used, including mechanical calculators and some vintage Commodore computers. (The C64 was not there, but the PET and VIC-20 were.)

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[NEWS] Six technology links

Thu, 24 Oct 2019 19:42:20 GMT

Carl Newport at WIRED argues that past generations have never been as suspicious of technology as we now think, here.

Anthropologist Darren Byler at The Conversation argues, based on his fieldwork in Xinjiang, how Uighurs became accustomed to the opportunities of new technologies until they were suddenly caught in a trap.

James Verini at WIRED notes how the fighting around Mosul in the fall of ISIS could be called the first smartphone war.

National Observer looks at how Québec is so far leading Canada in the development of clean technologies, including vehicles.

VICE reports on how a Christian rock LP from the 1980s also hosted a Commodore 64 computer program.

Megan Molteni at WIRED looks at a new, more precise, CRISPR technique that could be used to fix perhaps most genetic diseases.

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[PHOTO] The C64 Mini, $C 59.99

Fri, 30 Aug 2019 17:32:20 GMT

The nostalgia I felt on seeing this device yesterday felt physical to me.

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[NEWS] Five sci-fi links: Star Trek, Neuromancer and cyberspace, solarpunk, cyberpunk

Sun, 10 Feb 2019 15:51:32 GMT

Not too long ago, the Toronto Star noted that back in 1966 it had reported on the filming of "The Man Trap" , the first Star Trek episode to air. Its report is here.

This io9 report on how Alex Kurtzman talks about the tension between staying loyal to canon in Star Trek and doing something new provides insight.

This Mark Hill essay at Heterotopia Magazine looks at how the Commodore 64 version of Neuromancer reflects the cyberspace imagined very early in the history of the online world, all graphics and BBSs.

This Adam Boffa essay at Longreads takes a look at solarpunk, a new SF genre characterized by a hopeful post-apocalyptic environment imagining ecologically sound technologies and societies.

Lee Constantinou, writing at Slate, suggests that the continued survival of cyberpunk and children genres like solarpunk speaks of an exhaustion of the imagination of SF writers, in a lack of belief in change.

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[LINK] "Mac and me — on celebrating the 31st birthday of the Apple 128K"

Tue, 27 Jan 2015 22:05:25 GMT

I quite liked Dave Bidini's National Post essay on the anniversary of the Apple 128K. My encounters with this computer were limited--I had a Commodore 64C at home, and only had early-series Apples at school--but I recognize the feelings.

Trundling out of the loading bay in the early morning, its trailers stuffed with square white boxes squeaking with Styrofoam, the trucks hacked and coughed their way along routes leading to commercial zones, none of them — not yet — boasting hulking retail monoliths or other white whales of consumerism. Instead, there were a variety of department stores, RadioShacks, gadget shops and Active Surpluses; maybe a stereo branch breach-birthed into the modern age. An employee with a blue shirt and striped tie blandly stoned and already dreaming of lunch looked at the watch his grandmother had bought him for graduation and, knowing it was time, entered the stockroom smoking a cigarette while walking to the grille at the back of the building, which he groaningly rolled up before waving in the haulage. The truck braked — an awful screaming sound that portended more than just ear ringing and the inevitable I-should-really-get-my-s–t-together employee soul-searching — and the trucker, a clipboard under his arm, climbed from his seat. He walked the length of the loading dock, disappeared into the trailer and started lifting. A transistor radio duct-taped to the wall — not yet infected by the invention of open-line programming — played “Owner of a Lonely Heart” for the third time that day as a sweep of wind moved through the bay, swooshing an old newspaper folio along the floor. Somewhere a phone rang; the chime of its bell finding the two men. The trucker passed the boxes to the employee: five, maybe six, maybe seven, stacked just outside the stockroom. “Better not take too many, eh?” said the trucker. The personal computer. Expensive. About two grand. Besides, who knows what use anyone is going to have for them?

Looking back, the first Macintosh Apple rig — the 128K, born as a consumer thing on Jan. 24, 1984 — didn’t exactly arrive wreathed in the pure beauty of light. Instead, like the spore that it was, its poetry lied in its blockish, unassuming café au grey; mundanely alien, as muted a portal as C.S. Lewis’s wardrobe or what happened when Abbot and Costello accidentally leaned on that sculpture on the bookshelf in that room where they weren’t supposed to be.

It had a small screenface and a mouth open to one side, which is the expression one makes when uncertain about whether to do what someone else has suggested. It looked like a small television for fear of looking too much like anything else. One sensed that its designers — Jef Raskin, Bill Atkinson, Burrell Smith, Steve Jobs and others — had as much of an idea of the exoticism of its impact as those who tried selling it. Even that Ridley Scott commercial that trumpeted the personal computer during Super Bowl 18 seemed to fetch for a vision of the future like two hands reaching to find each other down a dark hallway. There was a woman in red shorts, a hammerthrow and a sea of drones in Potemkin grey drooling in their fold-up chairs. All of this at a time of Night Court and Hulk Hogan and Madonna. A few days later, Michael Jackson was burned on set while filming a Pepsi ad, and people worried about what life would be like if anything ever happened to the King of Pop, proving that, as a species, following the right story has never been our strong suit.

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[NEWS] Some Sunday links

Sun, 05 Oct 2014 23:26:08 GMT

Al Jazeera notes the effects of population aging worldwide, observes the quarantining of four individuals possibly exposed to Ebola, comments on the huge costs associated with reconstruction in eastern Ukraine, and reports on a conference held by the Vatican on the plight of Middle Eastern Christians.

Bloomberg notes the recovery of house prices in Hungary, notes that elderly Koreans are being warned against speculative investments, looks at Southeast Asian Muslims going off to fight in Syria, notes the resistance of farmers to Thailand's junta, quotes Angela Merkel's comparison of the Ukrainian crisis to the decades-long Cold War and East Germany, looks at possible Russian capital controls and growing Spanish public indebtedness, points to the aging of Sweden's nuclear reactors, looks at Catalonia's separatists as they prepare for a controversial independence referendum, and warns the world about Japan.
Bloomberg View notes the profound uncertainty over Ebola, suggests Shanghai cannot replace Hong Kong as a financial centre yet, looks at skyrocketing real estate prices at the far upper end of the New York City scene, and suggests that Hong Kong's revolt will sputter out.

CBC notes that Makayla Sault, a First Nations child who refused treatment for her leukemia, is relapsing, notes that global warming is leading Greenlanders to hunt more orcas, observes that the Islamic State has ended the Arab spring, and wonders what China will do with Hong Kong.

IWPR notes the odd optimism of many eastern Ukrainians, looks at the problems of Syrian Armenian refugee schoolchildren in the Armenian school system, and notes controversy over the creation of a Russian satellite university in Armenia.

National Geographic notes the new phenomenon of sanctuaries for former pet pigs, and suggests that threats to an Ottoman tomb could bring Turkey into Syria.

Open Democracy notes the plight of Syrian Kurds, suggests that secularism is an alternative to oppressive religious identities, and criticizes European Union migration policy.

Wired looks at Europe's history of trying animals for crimes and examines Andy Warhol's sketching of Blondie's Debbie Harry on an Amiga.

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[BRIEF NOTE] On the Ubislate 7Ci aka Aakash 2, or, Is the $40 tablet worth it?

Tue, 29 Apr 2014 03:59:59 GMT

CBC reported in 2012 that Canadian-founded company Datawind was trying to make the world's cheapest tablet computer, for the educational market in India.

DataWind, a wireless manufacturing company started by two Indian-born, Canadian-raised brothers, Suneet and Raja Tuli, has produced what The Wall Street Journal calls the world's cheapest tablet computer.

The Aakash Tablet sells for $35. It has a basic touch screen and can be used for functions like word processing, web browsing and video-conferencing.

Aakash has a seven-inch HD 2.2 touch screen and an Android video co-processor. Last year, the company signed a contract with the government of India, which intends to deliver 10 million of the tablets to students across India.

Founded in Montreal and now headquartered in London, U.K., DataWind has offices in Amritsar, Dallas and Mississauga.

After no small amount of work and travail and scandal, DataWind has come up with the Aakash 2. This tablet computer is now also for sale in Canada, the United States, and the United Kingdom, marketed as the Ubislate 7Ci. The Ubislate 7Ci isn't for sale in any retail locations yet, but it can be ordered online at the Ubislate website.

Yes, it is on sale for the price of $C37.99. Even including taxes and the costs of shipping within Ontario, the total comes to $C54.22. Prices in the Ubislate 7Ci's other First World markets seem comparable. This isn't bad for a device with 4 gigabytes of memory, a seven-inch screen, WiFi connectivity, and the like. (And always, I keep comparing this device as other devices with the Commodore 64C that was my first computer.)

The reviews I've come across for the Ubislate 7Ci so far tend towards the cautiously positive. Reviewers like Yahoo Shopping's Marc Saltzman, Toronto Star's Raju Mudhar, Wired UK's Olivia Solon, PC Mag's Sascha Segan, and The Next Web's Josh Ong tend to think it's at least basically capable, and that while not comparable to the current generation of tablets, can serve certain basic functions.

Robert Santellan's video review is a complete half-hour clip that evidences his own enthusiasm for the device.

Canadian Press' Michael Oliveira suggests in his review that this is a device more suited for simple uses--children's entertainment, say, or watching videos or listening to media.

What exactly do you get in a tablet that costs just $37.99 before taxes and shipping?

The Ubislate 7Ci — which is billed as the "world's lowest-cost tablet" by its maker Datawind — has a seven-inch screen, is assembled with outdated hardware, and not surprisingly runs on Google's Android platform, the common denominator of most ultra low-priced tablets.

But does it work?

Certainly there's no comparing the Ubislate 7Ci to one of Apple's iPads or another higher-end tablet. And it doesn't even come close to rivalling Google's Nexus 7, a cheap but very capable device designed to undercut the tablet market at $229.

But for a device that costs just over $50 all in, there's a lot to like about the Ubislate 7Ci — assuming a buyer has very realistic expectations about what they're getting.

I'm pleased that a company that at least has strong links to Canada has managed to pioneer the market of ultra-cheap tablet computers. Might we still have something of a high-tech future in front of us?

I'm also curious as to the extent to which prices for tablet computers will drop generally. As a content-generator more than a content-consumer, the Ubislate 7Ci--tablet computers more broadly--don't appeal to me. Might this change as more capable devices become available for less?

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[LINK] Vintage Andy Warhol computer art, found!

Tue, 29 Apr 2014 01:59:38 GMT

Vintage Andy Warhol computer art, found! The press release of the Studio for Creative Inquiry makes for fun reading.

A multi-institutional team of new-media artists, computer experts, and museum professionals have discovered a dozen previously unknown experiments by Andy Warhol (BFA, 1949) on aging floppy disks from 1985.

The purely digital images, “trapped” for nearly 30 years on Amiga^® floppy disks stored in the archives collection of The Andy Warhol Museum (AWM), were discovered and extracted by members of the Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) Computer Club, with assistance from the AWM’s staff, CMU’s Frank-Ratchye STUDIO for Creative Inquiry (FRSCI), the Hillman Photography Initiative at the Carnegie Museum of Art (CMOA), and New York based artist Cory Arcangel.

Warhol’s Amiga experiments were the products of a commission by Commodore International to demonstrate the graphic arts capabilities of the Amiga 1000 personal computer. Created by Warhol on prototype Amiga hardware in his unmistakable visual style, the recovered images reveal an early exploration of the visual potential of software imaging tools, and show new ways in which the preeminent American artist of the 20th century was years ahead of his time.

The impetus for the investigation came when Arcangel, a self-described “Warhol fanatic and lifelong computer nerd,” learned about Warhol’s Amiga experiments from the YouTube video of the 1985 Commodore Amiga product launch. Acting on a hunch, and with the support of CMOA curator Tina Kukielski, Arcangel approached the AWM in December 2011 regarding the possibility of restoring the Amiga hardware in the museum’s possession, and cataloging any files on its associated diskettes. In April 2012, he contacted Golan Levin, a CMU art professor and director of the FRSCI, a laboratory that supports “atypical, anti-disciplinary and inter-institutional” arts research. Offering a grant to support the investigation, Levin connected Cory with the CMU Computer Club, a student organization that had gained renown for its expertise in “retrocomputing,” or the restoration of vintage computers.

The video of Warhol drawing on an Amiga--in this case, of Blondie's Debbie Harry--mentioned in the text is below.

For the curious, I'd recommend the technical report (PDF link) describing how the data was retrieved. This is computer archeology in action, people, culturally and technically important. The Verge's Rick McCormick has a brief article that may be of interest.

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