Size matters

[Dave1234]

It is a really weird coincidence.


Edit: Also, look at what the Pandora version looked like!

Uncanny. Just one of many Pandora/Sinclair parallels though. If you don't know what I'm talking about, I suggest watching "Micro Men".


For best results, watch it on a Pandora.

 

[craigix]

I do very much like that film. When I first saw it I was amazed at how similar it was and also how the film makers had captured the nature of this business.


I recently contacted the makers to see if we could include a copy with every Pandora for a small fee, but they didn't answer.


It's a shame as the BBC have no interest in releasing it on DVD, you can buy a copy from the makers of it but it's £30 and I suspect a DVD-R.

 

[moxie]

That whole development line is quite nice, actually. I'd say it started with the Epson HX-20 - Note the spiffy 20x4 char screen and built in printer and cassette player - and passed through the Tandy above, the oddity that is the Husky Hunter, and the Amstrad NC-100, designed, according to rumour, to be a computer even Alan Sugar could use. And, of course, dear old Sir Clive made the ultimate machine in the series, and since then there has been nothing.


I really would like to get my hands on a z88, actually.

 

[craigix]

It's odd that he has not made a computer since. He did once talk about making one for the year 2000.


If he just put his name to a new Pandora style device it would sell tens of thousands and get publicity which you just could not buy.


Whatever he signed when he sold to Alan Sugar must have been for the rest of his life.

 

[ckblackm]

That whole development line is quite nice, actually. I'd say it started with the Epson HX-20 - Note the spiffy 20x4 char screen and built in printer and cassette player - and passed through the Tandy above, the oddity that is the Husky Hunter, and the Amstrad NC-100, designed, according to rumour, to be a computer even Alan Sugar could use. And, of course, dear old Sir Clive made the ultimate machine in the series, and since then there has been nothing.


I really would like to get my hands on a z88, actually.

http://cgi.ebay.com/Cambridge-Computer-Z88-Original-box-and-case-CLEAN-/220732272891?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item3364ab30fb


One Z88....

 

[Sugar_Kane]

It was Alan Sugar's idea to add the tape deck to the 128 +2 wasn't it? I really don't know why it wasn't designed that way from the start. Would have saved my parents a few quid on buying a new tape recorder when we dismantled ours to see how it worked.


I would love to deck my Pandora out with some 48k decals. I wonder if there is a place on the netty webs that lets you order custom transfers. Even just a rainbow on the corner would be utterly brilliant.

 

[Prometheus]

^ Well, I know where to get self-adhesive vinyl sheets, or there's also these, off of the top of my head.

 

[chris_c]

the truth will out its no coincidence (about the pandora name) Craig is Sir Clives love child - I bet he goes bald in a few years time then we have proof!

 

[second exodous]

Whatever he signed when he sold to Alan Sugar must have been for the rest of his life.

When Nolan Bushnell, the founder of Atari, sold his shares of the company he signed that he would never ever directly work in the video game industry ever again. It wouldn't be unheard of for a clause like this in whatever Sir Clives sold, it wouldn't make sense if either of these guys went off to make a new company in the same field to crush their old company.

 

[Foop]

Edit: Also, look at what the Pandora version looked like!

oh shit

"i want to believe"?

Wow. Clive Sinclair has always been a visionary.


Isn't the Open Pandora being developed by UK engineers? Perhaps a meet-up with Sir Clive would be useful to talk about common interests and a collaboration. Something to think about: Sinclair has connections in the manufacturing sector, and he's probably rational enough to have become a fan of Linux too.


If nothing else, perhaps Clive can set you up with some strippers:


Miss Britain

 

[DaMummy]

rofl, miss england is a las vegas stripper?

 

[Aurekana]

First person to case-mod their Pandora to look like the old one gets a gold star. :lol:


Has anyone managed to contact Mr. Sinclair as to his thoughts on our beloved machine?

 

[Foop]

Has anyone managed to contact Mr. Sinclair as to his thoughts on our beloved machine?

I emailed his website today. Here's an article saying he gets his staff to do email for him... It also says that his flat overlooks Trafalgar Square. Kind of a nice location. Hey, maybe someone should stand in the square with a sign to get his attention "Bring back the Pandora" etc.


Guardian


A couple quotes:


"Sinclair, who is not an especially tall man, has always been a great one for the smallness of things. "


""Our machines were lean and efficient," he says. "The sad thing is that today's computers totally abuse their memory – totally wasteful, you have to wait for the damn things to boot up, just appalling designs. Absolute mess! So dreadful it's heartbreaking.""

 

[vadsamoht]

""Our machines were lean and efficient," he says. "The sad thing is that today's computers totally abuse their memory – totally wasteful, you have to wait for the damn things to boot up, just appalling designs. Absolute mess! So dreadful it's heartbreaking.""

True dat. It's truly amazing what some people could achieve with 64K of memory (essentially RAM) in those days, and these days most popular programs run well in excess of 1GB in physical size and the boxes themselves are now produced with 4GB of RAM (65536 times as much, assuming the sticks actually are 4GB).


That's not to say that all of the size in newer programs is just bloat, but now that people don't need to manage memory to the same extent, they just don't.


EDIT: Another quick bit of math: a 5 1/4 inch floppy could hold just under 90KB of data. In that space you could have a simple word processor and spreadsheet/accounts editor. MS Office 2010 requires 3GB of hard disk space (2796202.67 times the size - yes, over two and a half MILLION times bigger).


Also, I have a copy of the original Civilizaation. It came on 4, 3 1/2 inch floppy disks. Assuming that these are the larger, 1.44 MB disks, that comes to 5.76MB. Civ V requires 8GB of Hard disk space (1142.222 x).


EDIT2: Civ says on the box that it requires 640K of space, making Civ V 13107.2 times larger.

 

[Prometheus]

EDIT: Another quick bit of math: a 5 1/4 inch floppy could hold just under 90KB of data. In that space you could have a simple word processor and spreadsheet/accounts editor. MS Office 2010 requires 3GB of hard disk space (2796202.67 times the size - yes, over two and a half MILLION times bigger).

I'm slightly reminded of this article, although it is misleadingly named, because it's obvious before you even start reading which machine wins.

 

[vadsamoht]

EDIT: Another quick bit of math: a 5 1/4 inch floppy could hold just under 90KB of data. In that space you could have a simple word processor and spreadsheet/accounts editor. MS Office 2010 requires 3GB of hard disk space (2796202.67 times the size - yes, over two and a half MILLION times bigger).

I'm slightly reminded of this article, although it is misleadingly named, because it's obvious before you even start reading which machine wins.

Interesting article. The fact that they left out a lot of the networking and internet tasks, which apparently the mac could do, makes me think that they wanted this 'surprise' result, though.

 

[Foop]

Interesting article. The fact that they left out a lot of the networking and internet tasks, which apparently the mac could do, makes me think that they wanted this 'surprise' result, though.

And yet Wifi on modern computers is not very fast. I benchmarked my 2.4 GHz Mac which has 802.11g using a utility called bandwidth (My link) and it maxed out at about 1.2 megabytes per second. I am guessing that probably an older Mac could send at 1 MB/second over Ethernet, within its subnet anyway.