#274497 - 16/01/2006 23:40
One for andym
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old hand
Registered: 14/04/2002
Posts: 1172
Loc: Hants, UK
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#274498 - 17/01/2006 07:02
Re: One for andym
[Re: g_attrill]
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pooh-bah
Registered: 16/04/2002
Posts: 2011
Loc: Yorkshire UK
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It's still not complete proof that the world is round!
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Politics and Ideology: Not my bag
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#274499 - 17/01/2006 09:54
Re: One for andym
[Re: boxer]
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pooh-bah
Registered: 09/08/2000
Posts: 2091
Loc: Edinburgh, Scotland
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My first thought was - they are selling large gif's? Until I read down to the 9U high rackmount bit 
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Rory
MkIIa, blue lit buttons, memory upgrade, 1Tb in Subaru Forester STi
MkII, 240Gb in Mark Lord dock
MkII, 80Gb SSD in dock
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#274500 - 17/01/2006 10:03
Re: One for andym
[Re: frog51]
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carpal tunnel
Registered: 13/07/2000
Posts: 4180
Loc: Cambridge, England
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Quote:
My first thought was - they are selling large gif's?
Until I read down to the 9U high rackmount bit
Yeah. They're basically selling a large gif (though I expect it's 24-bit, and possibly uncompressed), on a storage medium consisting of 9U rackmount's worth of EPROMs.
Peter
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#274501 - 17/01/2006 10:04
Re: One for andym
[Re: frog51]
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carpal tunnel
Registered: 24/12/2001
Posts: 5528
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Quote:
My first thought was - they are selling large gif's?
Same here  Totally useless thing to buy but it is still pretty cool...
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#274502 - 17/01/2006 10:39
Re: One for andym
[Re: tman]
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pooh-bah
Registered: 09/08/2000
Posts: 2091
Loc: Edinburgh, Scotland
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what they need to use now is google earth, and then zoom in to whatever local broadcast region they need.
That'd be cool - more so if it was real time image, or at least up to date (just noticed the images on google earth for Prestwick, Ayrshire are at least 7 years out of date as they still show the swimming pool and trampolines at the beachfront esplanade)
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Rory
MkIIa, blue lit buttons, memory upgrade, 1Tb in Subaru Forester STi
MkII, 240Gb in Mark Lord dock
MkII, 80Gb SSD in dock
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#274503 - 17/01/2006 10:56
Re: One for andym
[Re: frog51]
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carpal tunnel
Registered: 17/01/2002
Posts: 3996
Loc: Manchester UK
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I wonder where he got it from? I'd imagine the beeb would be keen to hold onto stuff like that, I'll just email a few people.... I'd love it but sadly couldn't justify spending over £300 on it. 
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Andy M
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#274504 - 17/01/2006 15:12
Re: One for andym
[Re: andym]
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pooh-bah
Registered: 06/02/2002
Posts: 1904
Loc: Leeds, UK
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Just out of interest, why would anyone want that?
I can see why you would want one of the actual globes they used to film, but a grey box full of cards! Why?
Cheers
Cris.
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#274505 - 17/01/2006 15:33
Re: One for andym
[Re: Cris]
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carpal tunnel
Registered: 17/01/2002
Posts: 3996
Loc: Manchester UK
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Because it represents British ingenuity at it's best. The cutting edge of broadcast technology from two decades ago.
Why do people collect classic cars?
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Cheers,
Andy M
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#274506 - 17/01/2006 16:09
Re: One for andym
[Re: andym]
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carpal tunnel
Registered: 15/08/2000
Posts: 4859
Loc: New Jersey, USA
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I could imagine this being installed inside someone's MAME machine. Why not?
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Paul Grzelak
200GB with 48MB RAM, Illuminated Buttons and Digital Outputs
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#274507 - 17/01/2006 16:56
Re: One for andym
[Re: andym]
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carpal tunnel
Registered: 25/06/1999
Posts: 2993
Loc: Wareham, Dorset, UK
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Definition of a collector's car: - one where you have to stop every 500m or so to collect all the bits that fell off!  Oh, I'm so funny sometimes.
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#274509 - 17/01/2006 17:49
Re: One for andym
[Re: andym]
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carpal tunnel
Registered: 30/04/2000
Posts: 3810
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I have a friend who collects vacuum tube assemblies from old computers. They're very impressive on the mantle. Still, of all the vintage computer hardware I've ever seen, my absolute favorite is the CDC Cyber 6600.  This pictures gives the general idea. The swinging aluminum door is better than any bank vault door, in terms of the sheer engineering and craftsmanship that went into it. It's just amazing. Of course, it's hard to beat a Cray 2 for sheer eye candy.  (It's still amusing to consider that the Cray 2 had four processors running aroung 250MHz with 2GB of RAM. NASA Ames' configuration also had a whopping 72GB of disk.)
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#274510 - 17/01/2006 18:03
Re: One for andym
[Re: DWallach]
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veteran
Registered: 01/10/2001
Posts: 1307
Loc: Amsterdam, The Netherlands
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And the Cray actually worked pretty well as a sofa. I remember reviewing the benchmarks that one potential customer ran on it - the disk I/O results were just too good to be true.
Turns out they just couldn't imagine a 40Mb file fitting in RAM!
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#274511 - 17/01/2006 18:39
Re: One for andym
[Re: andym]
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carpal tunnel
Registered: 17/01/2002
Posts: 3996
Loc: Manchester UK
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Just been having a read about the C.O.W. (sadly never seen one in real life) Quote:
This Computer Originated World (or "COW"), was played out from a metal box containing slots that held a dozen or so vertical cards of microchips (similar to what you might see inside a modern-day PC). The lettering and the blue sphere were held as a static image on two of the cards. A static all-gold sphere is also stored. Most of the chips contain the 20 000 pixels of map data pre-rendered as frames of animation. The processor would then show the blue sphere and use the map data to decide for each pixel whether to leave it as the sea or plot a pixel from the golden sphere for the land or simply plot a black pixel to represent the land on the other side of the world. Each complete revolution took 12 seconds.
That seems a pretty cool way of plotting it. certainly an interesting compression system.
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Andy M
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#274512 - 17/01/2006 19:03
Re: One for andym
[Re: frog51]
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carpal tunnel
Registered: 08/06/1999
Posts: 7868
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Quote:
what they need to use now is google earth, and then zoom in to whatever local broadcast region they need.
One of the US based news services does this, but I can't remember exactly what one it was. I only noticed it at a glance on someone elses TV.
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#274513 - 17/01/2006 19:27
Re: One for andym
[Re: drakino]
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carpal tunnel
Registered: 17/01/2002
Posts: 3996
Loc: Manchester UK
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Quote:
Quote:
what they need to use now is google earth, and then zoom in to whatever local broadcast region they need.
One of the US based news services does this, but I can't remember exactly what one it was. I only noticed it at a glance on someone elses TV.
Much of the BBC's news graphics are now done 'on the fly' using a Linux box with some fancy Nvidia card with SDI outputs. It wouldn't surprise me if the maps are done like that. Their weather system is made by some New Zealand firm which uses a IBM PC running Mandrake Linux and a BlackMagic-type SDI interface card.
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Andy M
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#274514 - 17/01/2006 20:06
Re: One for andym
[Re: DWallach]
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pooh-bah
Registered: 13/09/1999
Posts: 2401
Loc: Croatia
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Quote:
Still, of all the vintage computer hardware I've ever seen, my absolute favorite is the CDC Cyber 6600.
<nitpicking>Just 'CDC 6600', I think. 'Cyber' series derived from it was 'Cyber 170'. (Wikipedia agrees)</nitpicking>
Ah, I remember paying some $6k for their Wren-VI 300MB ESDI full (or was it half?) hight 5-1/4" disk  (It was in days after S. Cray, after Cyber, even after ETA, somewhere in very late 80's)
It's interesting that vector processors and corresponding instructions that made those computers so fast (relatively speaking) are returning (now as a part of main CPU or graphics cards). Although the intended use is different (multimedia), matrix operation is still just a matrix operation...
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#274515 - 17/01/2006 22:11
Re: One for andym
[Re: drakino]
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carpal tunnel
Registered: 23/08/2000
Posts: 3826
Loc: SLC, UT, USA
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Quote:
Quote:
what they need to use now is google earth, and then zoom in to whatever local broadcast region they need.
One of the US based news services does this, but I can't remember exactly what one it was. I only noticed it at a glance on someone elses TV.
CNN uses Google Earth all the time. They used the hell out of it during Katrina.
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#274516 - 18/01/2006 06:13
Re: One for andym
[Re: loren]
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old hand
Registered: 14/08/2001
Posts: 886
Loc: London, UK
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The BBC uses Google Earth (or similar) for match of the day to zoom in from space to football stadii
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#274517 - 18/01/2006 11:36
Re: One for andym
[Re: loren]
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veteran
Registered: 25/04/2000
Posts: 1529
Loc: Arizona
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Quote:
Quote:
Quote:
what they need to use now is google earth, and then zoom in to whatever local broadcast region they need.
One of the US based news services does this, but I can't remember exactly what one it was. I only noticed it at a glance on someone elses TV.
CNN uses Google Earth all the time. They used the hell out of it during Katrina.
CNN started using it back when it was still Keyhole. The first time I really noticed it was on CNN and Fox when Operation Iraqi Freedom started. We had a three-month subscription for it back then for a project I was working on. Fun stuff.
- Tim
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#274518 - 19/01/2006 20:20
Re: One for andym
[Re: Tim]
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carpal tunnel
Registered: 17/01/2002
Posts: 3996
Loc: Manchester UK
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Looks like it's been withdrawn from sale.... I figure either he's been offered a large sum of money for it, or the BBC's asked for their property back. I'm thinking the latter, since I doubt it was given away.
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Andy M
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#274519 - 19/01/2006 20:23
Re: One for andym
[Re: andym]
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pooh-bah
Registered: 14/01/2002
Posts: 2489
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Is it not likely to have been at item that was tossed in a skip at some point by someone who didn't think at the time it was of any use?
The BBC may be buying it back!
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#274520 - 19/01/2006 20:48
Re: One for andym
[Re: CrackersMcCheese]
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carpal tunnel
Registered: 17/01/2002
Posts: 3996
Loc: Manchester UK
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It's policy that all equipment has to be either destroyed or sold off officially. They would've never sold that so I figure someone helped themselves to it, it probably wouldn't have been noticed until it went on ebay and some broadcast nerd went and emailed their mates in the corporation.... oops!
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Cheers,
Andy M
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