When I think about all the stuff I've given away, sold or scrapped over the years it makes me a little sad. An IBM 5155 luggable computer, several Apple IIes, a Spring Circle Apple IIe clone, a couple of Amstrad PC1640s and an Amstrad PC2286 amongst others. Of course, I'm buying it all back now at inflated modern prices :)

..it comes out on DRM-free digital distribution using patent unencumbered codecs.

Not exist!

That would be "Do people want fire that can be nasally fitted?"

I took my towel to work, and kept it with me for the day. One person asked why I had a towel. He didn't know who Douglas Adams was. Noone else commented. I fear a conspiracy.

I was about to ask the same question. I guess the word ARM wasn't quite exciting enough ;)

> No, I meant Acorn.

Acorn had Acorn as a Customer? ARM was not separate company from Acorn until after Apple invested. The Archimemdes was made by Acorn using the ARM processor that Acorn designed and had manufactured by VSLI Tech. It was only several years later (around 1989 IIRC) that Apple decided to invest, and the CPU business was spun off as Advanced RISC Machines. This was well after the ARM architecture had become well established outside the US by Acorn and the Archimedes. It was the existing success of Acorn that drew them to Apple's attention.

>They did very well in the UK schools market and quite well in the UK home market, which got ARM's volumes up, but they had almost no international sales so they were basically invisible to US...

I see. I have never lived in the US and don't share your perspective. The Archimedes sold a crapload better than the Newton here, with most Newton models never even being imported. But this is getting off-track. You said that the ARM was "made popular" by the Newton, which I dispute. Popular means something like:

regarded with great favor, approval, or affection especially by the general public; "a popular tourist attraction"; "a popular girl"; "cabbage patch dolls are no longer popular"

The fact is, the Newton was never regarded with great favour, approval or affection. The Archimedes was, and was regarded so several years before Apple had anything to do with Acorn or the Archimedes. I agree that the Newton established the ARM core as a low-power CPU for mobile devices. But what made the ARM core popular was Acorn well before Apple even had a look in.

>Having Acorn as a customer...

I assume you mean Apple. :)

>Newton demonstrated that you could put a reasonable amount of CPU power in a handheld without needing a huge battery

True enough, but Acorn had been making ARM computers for six years by the time the H1000 was released. It's hard to beleive Apple would have invested back in 1989 or thereabouts if ARM hadn't gained a notable place in the market already.

> Apple was one of the original ARM investors (back when it was Acorn RISC Machines) and pretty much made it popular with Newton...)

That's the first time I've ever heard the Newton described as "popular"!

Actually, Acorn (who, as others have noted, designed the ARM processor) made ARM popular with the Archimedes.

Woo hoo! Now the iPhone is almost as useful as my 15 year old Palm! Well done, Apple.

I have a small, modern, efficient motorcycle. Ridden hard over winding hilly road it gets about 26 mpg (8.8 l/100km) and ridden gently on open roads it gets about 33 mpg ( 7.3 l/100km). It's much more fun to do the former than the latter though :) With 135KW (180 HP) and 0-160 kmh (0-100mph) in 2.7 seconds you have to keep shoveling in the fossils ;)

I can assure you that the Internet is just as strong as ev@%$&^#^@NO CARRIER

On the other hand I won't take anything greater than a 486. Older computers are just more fun.

Wow. I won't take on x86 machines at all - with the occasional exception like the Atari Portfolio. What's interesting about a 486 when there's such a diverse faunæ of old 8 bit beasts to be had?

Note that under this amended amendment a user's ISP access can only be cut off by court order. This is a far better process than was previously proposed.