Nik Nak’s Daily Teaser — 21st April 2025

21st April, 2025.

Did I mention today is a bank holiday in the UK?

Today is a bank holiday in the UK.

Just so you know!

Which means … that I don’t have a weight management meeting, this morning.

That’s disappointing, in one sense.

Chatting to the volunteers is nice, and monitoring my weight, a good thing.

On the upside … ?

On the upside, I can stay in be for an extra hour.

That’s an equally good thing!

~≈⏲≈~

I’ve got Radio Four: as ever.

It’s reassuring to have the news on, I think.

At any rate?

One of the presenters has mentioned there’s a film out about the ZX Spectrum.

Something I had as a youngster*.

As the Today programme hasn’t broadcast its piece, yet?

I can only assume they’re talking about this film.

Which looks well made, interesting … 

And is on Amazon at a reasonable price!

That looks very appealing … !

~≈🌈≈~

Nik Nak’s Daily Teaser — 7th June, 2018.

7th June, 2018.

Yes: it’s officially official … 

In amongst other things: an extensive film collection, a job, an entertaining nephew … ?

I have … a crap phone!

One that’s only a few months old.

I got it — on offer, I should add — to replace an older Sony: one with an ageing battery, and not a lot of RAM.

I could only afford to replace it … with a cheap Alcatel with a newer battery … and the same amount of storage.

Both … ?   Run out of storage the minute I open the Facebook app.

One day … ?   I’ll have the cash to make the choice: of exactly WHAT phone to replace it with.

Right now?   I’m wondering whether I should delete the FB app!

~≈§≈~

While we’re ON technology?

I had a ZX Spectrum, when I was young.

So followed the story of the troubled ZX Vega⁺ — a remake backed by no less a person than Clive Sinclair, himself — with a certain amount of interest.

Unfortunately?

It seems Indiegogo has called in the debt collectors: as Retro Computers, that company behind the Vega⁺?

Have defaulted … 

Amidst increasing internal arguments: and no sign of any working devices … 

That’s a blow for us that would have loved to see the thing succeed.

~≈§≈~

Micro Men

My word …

I was mildly impressed, last night … !

No, I was.

I’ve got to admit, in between watching the occasional bout of this year’s Grand Prix snooker tournament, I caught “Micro Men”.

And I ended up impressed with a docu-drama that seemed to capture the excitement of the times.

“Micro Men” charts the early years of the British computer boom, and follows the clash between Clive Sinclair — played by Alexander Armstrong — and his former employee, Chris Curry; played sympathetically by former “The Office” star, Martin Freeman.

It’s a very affectionate look at the period the funky looking ZX Spectrum was battling it out with the sturdier — and dull looking — BBC Micro.

Both of which I used.

The Beeb was a sturdy — and fairly high spec — piece of kit. But always had something of a reputation, back then, for being a bit … well … swotty.

It was used at school, remember? (OK, granted a lot of musicians used to record one or two hits on it, but … )

The Spectrum, on the other hand was the nicely designed fun one!

Literally, fun!

The number of games for it was phenomenal.

And rather eye-catching; that’s probably left its mark, on me, at least. The basic equation, for me, is Fun + Computer = Mac.

You couldn’t see that coming, could you?

But back to the story …

As I write, it’s currently still available on the BBC iPlayer, so I’d urge you to go watch it, yourself, while you still can.

But watching “Micro Men”, last night, did leave me very convinced of a thing or two.

Firstly that, whilst Clive Sinclair left us a big legacy — the idea that all of us could have a computer in our front rooms — he seems to have come off rather badly. After all, after the collapse of his company, with the farce of the C5, he ended up having to sell Sinclair Research — and the ZX Spectrum — to Sir Alan Sugar.

And whatever you may think of Sir Alan, time has shown us he’s one hell of a businessman.

And that — however much of a shark Sir Clive may have been — other bigger sharks have managed to build on the foundations he and Chris Curry* laid, and succeed a lot better than he could have dreamt.

That seems a shame; the early 1980s seemed to be one of the few times in my memory when Britain was innovating and seen to be doing so.

* Chris later went on to become a director of the company that developed the ARM chip, and the concepts behind RISC computing. You’ve probably got an ARM chip. It’ll be the one powering your mobile phone. Now that’s a coup!

Ubuntu, and other Animals …

Hmmm …

I’ve got to admit, that’s a photo I never thought I’d show you …

Yes, that’s the Mac Mini; I know at least three friends of mine have looked at and been surprised about the size of it, I know that …

But that’s the Mac Mini running a Ubuntu 9.04 live disc.

Not something I thought I’d have a punt at, I know!!

And I’ve got to confess that, at the moment, actually installing Ubuntu on a few spare gigabytes of the Mini’s hard drive space is still something I’m a little unsure of, even though I know Ubuntu is something that works.

Good ol’ fashioned nerves, I think!

But it does show me that — in principle — it’s something I, or someone else, can easily install on many brands of computer.

I think the other hold back, there, is good ol’ inertia; lets face it, how many of us want to change, unless we absolutely have to?

But either way, Canonical have been rather clever; or at someone in the open source community has, at any rate!

You notice I called that a live disc?

In this particular context, that’s actually quite simple to explain.

Basically, what you have to do is put the disc in a PC and restart the PC. The Ubuntu disc basically takes over — much like any other install disc — and, if it’s the first time you’ve used it on a given PC , the Ubuntu disc will offer the usual sort installation options.

But also offers a ‘Try Ubuntu before Installing on This Computer’ option.

It’s a try before you buy scheme, in other words.

It’ll let you hook up to the net, use the on-board copy of Open Office, what have you.

And let’s you have a go at using Ubuntu, before you take what — for most of us — is the big step of installing it.

•••••

Actually, there’s another point, if you’ve got a friend with a computer running Ubuntu 9.04.

I do know it’s relatively easy to burn an Ubuntu install disc, whether I’m using the OS X powered Mini, or Ubuntu itself.

With OS X 10.5.x, I can open up Disc Utility, pick the relevant .iso image, and then hit the ‘Burn’ button.

Disc Utility even allows me to check on what’s called the MD5 Checksum, to make sure I’ve downloaded it correctly.

No, don’t ask.

I don’t know what an MD5 checksum is, either; beyond the obvious fact it’s what I have to check, to see if something’s downloaded properly!!

Hmmm …

No help, there, then!

But I’m burbling, aren’t I?

The point I’m trying to make here, is that Ubuntu allows you to either burn an install to either CD …

Or to a USB flash drive.

You know, those little memory stick things?

Something I’ll admit I’ve already tried to do, with mine. Which didn’t work, to be frank. Mostly because it’s one that’s partitioned into a larger (3.82 Gb) and smaller (1.5 Mb) volume; something I think prevents it from being used as a start-up drive. Don’t quote me on that, but I think that’s what’s happening.

I’m might just have to see if I can use Disc Utility to reformat it …

I’ll let you know on that.

•••••

I’ve also been in touch with an old school friend, on Facebook. As a result of which, we both had a look round, and managed to find a site called ZX Spectrum Games.

Dedicated to online versions of some old ZX Spectrum games.

Unsurprisingly …!!

Strange, but true; it’s kind of nice to be able to play “Jumping Jack”, after all these years.

It’s just a shame no-ones done “Atic Atac”!