All that is true, and I'm aware of it, but it misses the point. The point wasn't why the ZX81 didn't last long- that, of course, was because it was superseded.

The point I was making was why the Spectrum *did* last so much longer despite also being eclipsed in purely technical terms. That, as I mentioned, was because it was the first machine "good enough" for arcade games and "good enough" for its existing software base to have value. The mid-80s point circa the Amstrad buyout, when "serious" support started to fade was (I'm guessing) the point at which the non-gaming hobbyist/enthusiast market moved on to more advanced machines, and the point at which it probably would have faded if it was being purchased for the same reasons as the ZX81. It didn't- it lasted well the early 90s, i.e. past the start of the Mega Drive era!

Also, the original unexpanded ZX81 had a full 1KB; still a tiny amount by most standards, but not the almost unusable 256 bytes (i.e. "1/4k") that you suggest. The Atari VCS/2600 had an even tinier 128 bytes (plus one line of screen memory), but that was a much older machine and intended to run programs stored on external ROM, so the RAM there was "only" needed for keeping track of scoring players, etc. Still an incredibly small amount, though.

As far as I'm aware, the Vega *is* effectively just a cheap ARM-based computer running an emulator anyway (as opposed to a logic-level reimplementation of the original circuitry like the C64 Direct to TV was), supplied in a parodically cut-down mockery of the original Spectrum keyboard.

If I was a Spectrum fanatic, I'd want something that was either a "true" reimplementation of the original Spectrum and/or something that looked and could be used like the original Spectrum- possibly with additional features or connectivity, but retaining the original features.

This is- in some respects- better than Elite's "relaunch" of the ZX Spectrum (reported as such in many places) as a Bluetooth keyboard (i.e. they designed a Bluetooth keyboard that approximates the old Spectrum case and works with some crappy proprietary Android app). But that's a pretty low bar... the Vega is still just an emulator in a nostalgia-exploiting case that won't properly replicate the experience anyway, so why bother? I've no doubt it'll still sell, though.

That may have been true of the ZX80 and ZX81 (since those weren't ideal for games anyway).

However, while the Spectrum may undoubtedly have attracted hobbyists in its early days, I suspect that long-term the vast majority were sold for playing games on (regardless of what schoolkids told their parents to get them to buy one!). Yeah, some of those kids did write games on them... most of them probably didn't!

The reason is almost certainly that the Spectrum was the first really cheap home computer on the UK market to feature high-resolution graphics (*), colour and "sound" (**) sufficient to render acceptably realistic approximations of early-80s arcade games.

It's obvious that the Spectrum- having got there first- benefitted from the "network effect" (***) I assume this is why- despite countless "me too" competitors released in the wake of the Spectrum's success- almost none gained significant market share, even when they may arguably have had better specs, or been cheaper. (****)

The Spectrum's established software base and continued support meant it continued to be popular for gaming for years, even when its limitations (e.g. "attribute clash", 8-colour palette, lack of hardware scrolling or sprites) became more obvious when trying to replicate newer arcade games with more detailed background graphics et al.

As I said earlier, I've no doubt that a significant number of early adopters were "serious" hobbyists, and it would still been a major success with them alone. However, it probably wouldn't have lasted as long; it's clear that they'd started to move on by the mid-80s as the Spectrum was superseded technically and the "never mind the limitations, check out the massive amount of very cheap games" younger gaming market remained.

To back this up, it's worth noting that after Amstrad bought out Sinclair's existing computer line in 1986, their marketing was almost entirely gaming-focused. It's also notable that by this point almost all the Spectrum magazines concentrated on games.

That's probably why the mainly-hobbyist ZX81 (for all its influence) had a much shorter lifespan- only around three years- yet the Spectrum continued to be sold for a decade until 1992(!!), by which point the Mega Drive (AKA Genesis) was quite popular.

(*) "High resolution" by the standards of the time, i.e. 256 x 192, as opposed to (e.g.) the ZX81's 64 x 48 character-based graphics
(**) Albeit via the very limited single-channel "beeper"
(***) i.e. people rushed out to buy the Spectrum, so many games were written for it, so many people more bought it because it had the most games, so more games were written for it... etc.
(****) Other 8-bits, such as the Commodore 64, BBC Micro and later Amstrad CPC enjoyed success in the UK, but those were aimed at distinctly different (higher) price points and market segments

This is oft-quoted as fact, but I've seen it disputed often enough that I wouldn't take it at face value. From as early as 1996, this thread commented that:-

Even if Sony prohibited porn from being copied in their own commercial duplications facilities (which, I assume, would have had much- if not most- of the capacity in the early days), this doesn't mean the lack of commercial porn would have been the reason for Beta's failure.

Maybe Betamax *did* fail because of a lack of porn. But I suspect the shorter running time in the early machines would have been a bigger problem.

Let's be honest, from what I've heard the picture quality was a *bit* better, and yeah, the cassettes were a bit smaller than the annoying bulky VHS ones. But if they couldn't record more than an hour, then that's a severe limitation for timeshifting films, longer dramas and sports games.

I know the story's meant to be that people went for quantity over quality with VHS, but if the improved quality meant it wasn't actually useful for a lot of what most people wanted then IMHO, it's a perfectly reasonable decision that doesn't make you a philistine. Video recorders were a means to an end, and I'm sure a lot of people knew Beta was better quality but preferred to be able to record a whole film and went for VHS.

There's also the Beta licensing/manufacturing issue, but this wasn't really meant as a "*why* VHS beat Beta" post. Point is that the "porn won the war for VHS" thing probably took the (supposed) lack of porn on Beta, assumed it *was* the reason Beta failed and the argument gained currency because it was "obvious" and catchy... not because it had been proven.

Whoosh!

You had a joystick *and* a button? Luxury! I used to *dream* of having a joystick. I only had a disconnected joystick cable and I'd control it by making the connections with my tongue.

And the button wire was missing. And I didn't have any games. Or a computer.

But you know, I were happy in those days, even though I was poor.

(FWIW, I was still using that type of one-button Atari-format joystick on my Amiga until the mid-90s when the Amiga died altogether as a mainstream format and I was losing interest in games anyway. That was probably the point at which the "classic" one-button 9-pin Atari stick died(?); I don't count the Mega Drive/Genesis controller, as that had three buttons even though it used the 9-pin Atari connector and was sort-of-compatible).

Mostly wrong. Only high-end professional-oriented DSLRs have 35mm-sized sensors, the majority use smaller APS-C sized sensors or something in that ballpark.

Even with Slashdot's slightly hyperbolic headline, the summary correctly reports the planet as having been "detected" rather then "discovered", and clarifies that this was "only" an already-discovered exoplanet (as does the original article).

If that was your implied criticism, then, it's not valid.

If you understood this, but your point was that "detecting" an already-known exo-planet was pointless because it's alredy been done... even though the person involved did it with equipment orders of magnitude cheaper and lower-end than that originally used by NASA less than a decade back, and which few of us would have assumed possible, which *is* the point here... then Slashdot probably isn't the place for you.

Coincidentally, this is broadly similar to something I already mentioned elsewhere in this thread!

Wasn't that a popular diagonally-scrolling shooter in the Early Middle Ages?

There's a difference between being able to read cursive (i.e. "joined up" in Commonwealth English) handwriting and actually being able to write it yourself. Besides which, even *my* joined-up handwriting isn't the same style as some of the more elaborate "copperplate" styles favoured in the past.

And while we're talking about it, the headline "Finland dumps handwriting"- which the original story used and Slashdot copied- is misleading anyway. From the article itself, it's joined-up writing that's being dumped, not writing altogether. The latter would be far more serious- IMHO kids should learn to write, but joined-up? Well, it makes me slightly uncomfortable to think of ditching it, but then *I* remember how little I actually write these days. (*) As long as they can at least write half-competently, that's the main thing.

FWIW, I certainly think that kids should be being taught basic typing skills, and if you're going to explicitly teach it anyway, it makes sense to go with touch typing. I'd been using computers for around 15 years before I learned to touch type in the late 90s, and that only happened because I explicitly learned to do so. I'd got pretty good at "hunt and peck" (**), but I would never have picked up touch typing skills from that alone.

I used Mavis Beacon, and to be honest, it didn't take *that* long to become good enough that I switched completely to touch-typing. I'm pretty sure that most kids could pick it up as fast, so it shouldn't waste too much schooltime anyway, even if typing (say) became obsolete in fifteen years time.

"Texting" skills, OTOH... stupid waste of time. Smacks of a slightly out-of-touch and conservative middle-aged person having belatedly caught up with this new "texting" fad and mistaking it for an important skill. Even if old-style (numeric keypad) texting needed a bit of practice to learn, it's not something that kids needed to be- or should have been- taught. More importantly, that typing style is being quickly rendered obsolete by the move to smartphones that use virtual QWERTY keyboards instead.

(*) And how rubbish it is often when I do- mainly because the speed of typing has made me impatient with writing speed- even though rushing it doesn't speed things up that much. If I actually make an effort to write, I'm still as neat as I ever was.

(**) My classmates were quite impressed with my typing speed, but this was back in the late 80s/early 90s when computers hadn't permeated everyday life as much, and most domestic use by non-geeks was for games or very basic use that didn't need much typing skill. (I was a geek, of course!)

That's essentially what I was implying by the first of those two options.

The problem is that- depending upon the contract- the smaller company being screwed over is now in a position where they *can't* pull out of the contract because their large customer has them over a barrel. They've expanded and/or dedicated significant resources to supplying and pleasing that customer they thought would be a cash cow- possibly dropping other markets- and if the large company was to terminate the contract as threatened, they'd then have a massive production operation to fund with no-one to buy the end result.

It's either that quick death, or the slow death of having your margins ruthlessly squeezed beyond a sustainable point.

From another letter in the comments section of that article (from "Mugs"):-

This was behaviour I was already familiar with relating to Wal-Mart, but it shows you it happened even back then. You can bet your life that in every case, the large customer knew exactly how this was going to play out in advance.

See this:- The Wal-Mart you don't know
And this:- The Man Who Said "No" to Wal-Mart

He didn't say that anywhere. His problem was solely about whether particular energy uses had been included or not, and whether those *should* count towards the claim made.

You're entitled to agree or disagree with him on that- and I'm not saying I entirely agree- but he didn't say anything about being opposed to Scotland getting its energy from renewables, and it's pretty unreasonable to put words in his mouth on that count.

The Register ran an opinion piece when the details on this story were first appearing a couple of weeks back. It noted an almost unbelievable point others have commented on elsewhere in this thread:-

Something the author describes as "sheer lunacy". Either they were utterly, *utterly* struck blind or there is something strange and dubious going on. Oddly, the "struck blind" explanation isn't as improbable going by a comment in the letters section (from "Edwin"):-