I worked for a systems reseller/support provider back then. We had 50 to 100 customers out in the field running a particular OS and associated software products.

Our major vendor was extremely slow at getting updates out. The OS definitely had a problem, as account expiry dates were stored using two digit years, so ever user on every system would get locked out come 2000. They managed to devise a fix to the account security system, but it was well into 1999 before this update appeared. Even then the update was in the form of a complete new release of the latest version of the OS which had some terrible inherent problems not seen in the earlier releases many customers chose to still run.

More annoying with this new update is at the same time many long lasting OS features were discontinued, features which the majority of our customers used. It was as if they simply couldn't be bothered to audit the code, so they simply junked it. These features included WAN connections via serial and leased lines and integration with IBM mainframe architecture - with these features no longer available the OS no longer had an advantage over the then competition.

The knock-on effect was that the majority of our customers simply decided to abandon the OS altogether and migrate to something else, such as NT.

Some really old and depreciated API calls could get dropped in the transition between OS versions. When depreciated these calls will log error messages in the various log files.

Back in the early 1990s my then employer was a reseller of a non-PC server platform. The manufacturer sold two models with different processor options (386, 486 I believe), and each had the option for extra memory boards from 4MB to 32MB in capacity. The memory boards for the high-end machine cost around 4 times the price of those for the low-end model, although the specification was otherwise identical.

This hardware platform was discontinued, as the OS vendor moved to PC platforms. A few years later we managed to acquire a job lot of these old servers to from a customer, in the hope of using them as spares for those still out in the field. All of these servers were supplied with the memory boards in place. It was then that it dawned on us that the only difference between the two versions of this memory board was the position of an unmarked option jumper.

That looks like Espionage Island from Artic Computing. It was released initially for the ZX81, then ported to the larger memory ZX Spectrum with no changes - same limited text descriptions in upper case text, limited vocabulary, white text on a black background and so on. Their whole series of games were fairly limited plot-wise, and extremely linear - i.e. just one puzzle to solve at a time for most of the game. So if you got stuck on one puzzle there was no point exploring the rest of the game.

The only advantage that Artic's games had is that they were quick, having been coded entirely in assembly language. Many other games of that era were written in BASIC, and therefore suffered from having slow parsers and logic engines, with some games taking almost a minute to respond to commands. One software publisher went half-way - they coded the vocabulary parser in assembly, but still had the logic in BASIC.

Here in the UK there were a good number of such games published during the 8-bit micro boom of the early 1980s.

The first game to really start things going was Melbourne House's The Hobbit which, on some platforms, included crude graphics for some of the locations. The parser for this game was quite complex, allowing the player to pass instructions on to other characters. The other characters in the game also had some form of artificial intelligence, granting them the ability to wader around at random and move things around. Consequentially no two games were ever the same.

Another significant developer was Level 9 who created huge games using text compression. These were sold for a huge range of platforms.

Another major development was when Gilsoft developed The Quill, a an adventure game construction kit. This allowed virtually anyone to create a game based around a standard runtime environment. Many games were then released to the market, some so cleverly constructed that major software publishers could pass them on at full price. Later add-ons were created that allowed in-game graphics, basic sound effects and other features. Text compression was eventually added, too.

Only a few weeks ago I was given a URL by a recruitment agency for an on-line skills test which needed to be completed as part of a job application.

That particular site was coded to reject all login attempts if the user agent wasn't IE. Furthermore there were severe rendering problems if I used anything other than IE6, making the test impossible to complete. As I don't run Windows here by choice this was fairly annoying.

I ended up having to install a copy of XP under a VM just to complete the test.

I found an identical model at work about 15 yeas ago when clearing up. It came supplied with MS-DOS 2.x, a bus mouse, and some strange GUI software called Epson Taxi. If I recall correctly the floppy drives uses non-standard connectors, so it wasn't possible to fit anything of a larger capacity. I'm also certain that the second floppy drive wasn't working.

It was possible to get the thing onto our LAN using a boot floppy and an ARCNET card, but even that was tricky as it took some effort getting both DOS and the LAN software onto a 360K floppy.

Eventually I located a suitable 8-bit ISA hard disk controller and hard drive from elsewhere in the building.

Most of these flaws probably can be applied to the PCs and CP/M word-processors of Amstrad, a UK consumer electronics company who started to make PCs in the mid 1980s after having some success with their own 8-bit machines before then. Most problems were due to saving costs.

Early PCs featured the power supply built into the monitor, which, coupled with non-standard monitor ports, made replacement difficult. The power-supply wasn't rated high enough to drive many expansion cards. The units themselves, being maninly plastic, had terrible shielding problems causing severe interference. They keyboard and mouse also used a non standard interface; not only was the connector different, but the different keyboard drivers made the supplied version of MS-DOS mandatory.

Later models had better PC compatibility, but some suffered reliability issues due to Amstrad's proprietary hard disk controller. These were so bad that later units were retro-fitted with an standard off-the shelf controller, taking up one of the three expansion slots.

The CP/M word-processors originally shipped with 3" floppy disk drives, which were almost exclusively used by Amstrad. These units also had no on-board ROM; the printer ASIC supplied the process with the minimum instructions to boot off a floppy. The majority of the printer electronics were in the base unit, which meant that the printer itself used a non-standard interface and couldn't be replaced with purchasing a third-party serial interface. Although these machines were supplied with 256 or 512 MB RAM, the majority of the memory could only be used as a ramdisk.

Amstrad also produced a couple of portable machines. They did have a full-sized keyboard, but unfortunately came with a tiny LCD screen. They were also floppy only without third-party expansion units.

In the US the major network affiliates generally broadcast on VHF frequencies, for which these rabbit ears are sufficient. In the UK we use UHF, which doesn't perform as well without a dedicated external or loft aerial.

The UK used to use VHF for television, back in the days of the 405-line black & white service. BBC1 was broadcast on VHF Band I, whilst ITV was on VHF Band III. You can still see some of these aerials on the tops of some buildings; they were needed as the UK transmitters were often many miles away, although it was possible to pick up some services on an indoor aerial. These transmitters were eventually switched off in 1985.

Yes, I've used it to edit network PC startup files on floppy only PCs.

Back in the days when it was the only editor provided with MS DOS prior to version 4. A few vendors also included their own editor - I remember Amstrad's earliest PCs had a full visual one.

EDIT provided with later versions of MS DOS had a nasty problem with its keyboard handler, which would cause the entire PC to hang if a network message appeared whilst editing a file, so hardly got used once PCs were actually connected to the LAN.