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From: Duncan Kennedy on 18 Feb 2010 05:56 In message <hli9fl$dve$1(a)pc-news.cogsci.ed.ac.uk>, Richard Tobin <richard(a)cogsci.ed.ac.uk> writes >In article ><1je3791.14uyxcux7m7i8N%real-address-in-sig(a)flur.bltigibbet.invalid>, >Rowland McDonnell <real-address-in-sig(a)flur.bltigibbet.invalid> wrote: > >>That's what Sinclair did. One reason Sinclair and the other British >>micro makers died is that they did spend the money on half-decent >>customer service > >What??? Did you live in some alternate 70s and 80s? > >This is the Sinclair who never made a product that didn't fall to bits >within a month of purchase, assuming that the bits could be forced >together in the first place - it's not for nothing that many of them >were sold as kits. Who advertised products that were never available, >or were months late. The only reason Sinclair didn't collapse sooner >and more often is that it was bailed out with taxpayers' money while >Sinclair himself ranted about the evils of socialism. > >Sinclair was British industry at its very worst. > I still have 2 working ZX 81s and 2 Cambridge Z88s originally Sinclair. (The latter did a lot of very serious work on trains from Scotland to London and back for a couple of years.) On the other hand the fist single chip 15(?) watt amp I built into a volume / tone control did get burned when a heat sink fell off while soldering and the thermal runaway using an in-ear phone of the day was not a good idea - I'm deaf as a result (well, partly as a result). -- Duncan K Downtown Dalgety Bay
From: Chris Ridd on 18 Feb 2010 06:31 On 2010-02-18 11:00:37 +0000, Woody said: > Chris Ridd <chrisridd(a)mac.com> wrote: > >> Even modern digital clocks drift quite a lot, so it isn't surprising >> that all of his reported different times. > > Hmm.. this is many minutes a day. That is not really a drift! Impressive! -- Chris
From: Peter Ceresole on 18 Feb 2010 07:50 Woody <usenet(a)alienrat.co.uk> wrote: > Hmm.. this is many minutes a day. That is not really a drift! I had to read up once on the history of time keeping. Early pocket watches- I think this would be early in the 19th century but might have been earlier- were accurate to within something like half an hour a day. They were jolly expensive. The *really* expensive ones had a larger and more accurate base unit that sat at home, and which automagically wound and adjusted the pocket watch overnight when it was inserted on top. Greenwich have the components of a Breguet set in their museum. The pocket watch did, however, mean that the employer held the whip hand over their workforce when it came to hours of work and the resulting pay. Actually, time keeping always involved a relationship of power between those who had access to it, and those who didn't. Just like computers and comms nowdays. -- Peter
From: Richard Tobin on 18 Feb 2010 08:29 In article <7u4he4Fvf4U1(a)mid.individual.net>, Chris Ridd <chrisridd(a)mac.com> wrote: >Even modern digital clocks drift quite a lot, so it isn't surprising >that all of his reported different times. http://www.nvg.ntnu.no/sinclair/other/blackwatch.htm -- Richard -- Please remember to mention me / in tapes you leave behind.
From: Chris Ridd on 18 Feb 2010 08:54
On 2010-02-18 13:29:21 +0000, Richard Tobin said: > In article <7u4he4Fvf4U1(a)mid.individual.net>, > Chris Ridd <chrisridd(a)mac.com> wrote: >> Even modern digital clocks drift quite a lot, so it isn't surprising >> that all of his reported different times. > > http://www.nvg.ntnu.no/sinclair/other/blackwatch.htm The story about the nail's good :-) -- Chris |