Rick's b.log - entry 2015/08/25

Donate to HeyRick's hosting!

Thing is, he is paying for all of this. So I'm going to ask that if you enjoy or benefit from any of the stuff on HeyRick (not just on the blog), please consider saying "thanks" with a donation towards the hosting. This doesn't go to me, it goes directly to Rob. All you need to do is click on the (slightly modified!) PayPal button that looks like this:

Don't worry if you see a graphic saying "ImpulseBuy" - this is an on-line shop that Rob has set up. You'll see the donation reason is listed as "Hosting".

While we're here, let's take a look at what else Rob has to offer:

• http://www.impulsebuy.co.uk/ - Moshi monsters, cute furry lemurs, and even a Hello Kitty webcam.
  Ah - so this gothic-looking sort-of-animé girl I've seen is part of a range called "Simply Gorjuss". I wonder if there's a poster of that one?
  
  
• You might have noticed that the Gorjuss is at http://www.craftthings.co.uk/ - another shopfront using the same system, but since serious crafts people might not be interested in Predasaurs DNA Fusion, they are linked but separate.
  I kind of wish other online shops might do this, instead of, you know, the increasingly bizarre matches that Amazon comes up with. Or is it only me that looks for a Japanese phrasebook and gets a suggestion for a €250 thesis on the best type of toilet flush, running to 600 pages of what must surely be only fit for flushing down said toilet, page by page...?
  
  
• Rob has a blog. He doesn't write it very often, but what he does write is interesting. Sort of the opposite of this blog, really...
  
  
• Teletext Preservation Project. Need I say more? Oh, okay then. You young people, your stupid modern red button nonsense. What can you do? Press that red button and see some text that looks pretty but takes ages to be received. You can also watch alternative streams and behind the scenes programming (hint, it is just another channel - any cheap FTA box can tune into this stuff directly).
  You know what we were doing? "Back in the day" with our two megahertz eight bit processors? We were using the text service. Sure, you could look at it on your TV, but it was possible to connect a teletext receiver to a computer. Pages of information could be saved. Archived. Printed. We could even download software using teletext. Back around 2002, I used to pick up the exchange rates for the major currencies from CNNi and RAI Uno and average them, then collate a chart of today's rates, plus fluctuations for the past 28 days. A fairly simple BASIC program, a satellite receiver, and a teletext interface. No internet. No modem.
  What can you do with your red button text? Exactly.
  
  Teletext provided an EPG before that acronym even existed. And no - cancer hasn't been cured, the only household robots (outside of Japan) are braindead vacuum cleaners, and we'll probably kill each other over phantom sky fairies long before we even get to having holidays in space...
  
  
• Viewdata Preservation Project. Same idea as above, but for Viewdata. Prestel would have been British Telecom's answer to France's Minitel if they didn't balls it up, charge too much, and the infamous email hack (which interestingly enough is not mentioned at all on the Prestel wiki page).
  Never mind, viewdata is still used fairly extensively by travel agent booking systems as it can provide a clear colourful display with really basic hardware. I had a viewdata adaptor may years ago. It was basically a rudimentary modem (1200 baud down, 75 baud up) hooked to a 6502 processor. A handful of other chips provided the firmware, some RAM (2KiB!), and a television interface. You could probably replicate most of that with a single mid-range AVR these days. Why be complicated when you can be simple and reliable?
  
  
• This is a picture of the inside of Rob's Master. Perhaps when Rob was making this, his CD player was acting up and had Yazz's "The Only Way Is Up" playing repeatedly?
  People born after 1988, click here.
  
  
• If you happen to be looking for a young actress that isn't camera shy, perhaps Eva-Jane might interest you? Based in Salford, she even has an IMDb profile! A violin player, a gymnast, and has worked on a number of BBC/CBeebies productions as well taking the lead role in an independent short film.
  Contact with Eva-Jane is via her parents, for obvious reasons; and for professional roles, via the Bonnie&Betty agency - details on the above site (under 'Contact').

Your comments:

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Rob, 26th August 2015, 00:01

Now I'm blushing :D    lol. And oops; must update Tiddler's CV.. she's currently switching Agencies.

Fred, 27th August 2015, 11:21

Hey Rick, I enjoy reading your blog (mostly the technical stuff) even though I don't write many comments (this might be the first, actually).    Plus, I found the TMS320DM320 TRM on your blog. So, I'm happy to help with the hosting.    Cheers!

Bernard, 2nd September 2015, 16:25

Salut ma bonne meule de foin. (Sorry. That's either too familiar, too bad a pun or sounds rude to the untutored ear: I'll put something in Rob's hat as penance).    But ahhhh, Teletext, My bread and butter for a few years at Ceefax: programming in a proprietary BASIC-like, but BBC BASIC-quite-unlike, language shunting, formatting, sorting data between the page database, the journos and the automatic data feeds, then on to the output instantly visible to everyone in the land. How very satisfying. (And of course we have corresponded re. your RISC OS Teletext software, March 2012 and June this year, and may do again).

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