NewsBytes with Neasden Postlethwaite

[hirez]

Those of you with FaceAche and/or MySpac accounts should probably update your AV definition files el-pronto: http://www.kaspersky.com/news?id=207575670

(That links to some slightly older news, but there's a new version of that bot in the wild)


Otherwise, I spent a merry evening looking at old computers last night.

Many years ago (but after 1981) I scraped together enough cash and persuaded Pater to drive me down to the Edgeware Road, where I came away with a blue-and-white cardboard box full of parts that over the course of a weekend I soldered into a UK101.

It mostly worked first time, too. Apart from the cassette interface being, um, somewhat suboptimal.

Time moved on and my spodding-platform changed to a C64, then an Amiga2K, Amiga4K, before finally ending up in PC land. While the rest of those computers were sold or given away, I always hung on to the UK101. Mostly because I never found anyone who wanted the thing, but also because it was My First Computer.

Anyway, the fine chap who runs the UK101 website has it now. It's in good company.

Comments

[naturalbornkaos.livejournal.com]

Cheers for the virus warning. Tragically, I'm the kind of guy who would've totally clicked a link that read "Paris Hilton tosses dwarf on street".

[miss-gothe.livejournal.com]

Does it affect MAC users as well?

[hirez.livejournal.com]

It would seem not. Though that's only because the writers haven't bothered, rather than any notion of OS X being proof against social engineering.

(A Mac user [and MAC user] and security geek writes)

[reddragdiva]

Darnit, you didn't get a photo, did you?

[hirez.livejournal.com]

Sadly no, but you could ask c0re_dump because mine is largely unmodified and still in its original box.

[reddragdiva]

Just asked, dropping yr name :-)

[hirez.livejournal.com]

http://www.libeljournal.com/malarkey/UK101.JPG

(Shoddy as you like, but it'll do for a placeholder. What bleedin' license malarkey's it going to want. Geezer.)

[reddragdiva]

CC by-sa 3.0 is fine if that's ok with you. Thank you!

(Full wikiwankynerdy list of allowable licenses here. Overly tedious how to contribute guide. Precis: "I took it myself, it's CC by-sa" is sufficient.)

[hirez.livejournal.com]

Works for me.

[reddragdiva]

Turing bless you, sir!
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Image:UK101_by_John_Hawkes-Reed.jpg
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compukit_UK101

[blue-condition.livejournal.com]

> over the course of a weekend I soldered into a UK101.

Flamin' Nora, you got that up and running-ish quickly!

[hirez.livejournal.com]

I think it was a weekend. It was over the Christmas/New Year period and I remember being very motivated and really getting into that solder-breathing groove. It was over twenty years ago remember...

[c0re-dump.livejournal.com]

I also soldered together a UK101, back in 1980. Mine took about six hours, and nearly worked first time. The '3' key was stuck -- I think I found it because it auto-repeated whenever the machine booted into the machine-code monitor.