Check out the new article in the History of Computing section of my Possibly Interesting Web site: Five Intel chips that changed the world. These are the five “Firsts” that Intel introduced during its first four years as a small start-up: the first chip in each of four key memory types, and the first microprocessor. … Read more
While taking in the wonderful Israel Perosnal Computer Museum in Haifa I came face to face with the Intelligent Systems Compucolor II, a bizarre 1977 home computer built into a repurposed 13″ TV set. What drew my attention was the strange keboard layout: the arrow keys were clustered at the top right corner. This is … Read more
A while ago I took HP to task for their tendency to fill your hard disk with hundreds of Megs of software when all you need is a printer driver. I am happy to report that they’ve improved their ways… sort of. Back then, I wrote: It is not good manners to sell someone a … Read more
In a world of rapidly advancing technology it is the fate of any given product to go down from the latest and greatest to a commodity in a few years. The fancy box my first electronic calculator came in probably cost more to make than an entire calculator costs today – and today’s unit, though … Read more
I was shopping at Office Depot, and next to the checkout line they had this bin full of cheap items on sale. And in it, thrown carelessly with less decorum than potatoes get at the grocer’s, were blister-packaged Flash memory cards. They had 2.0 GB units selling for a pittance. That’s two billion bytes, or … Read more
Engrish is all around us; here is a recent sighting that made my day. This is from the box of a Teac Media Systems slim multimedia keyboard, model TK-5108. One can’t help but wonder whether this item is noble by birth, being descended from a long line of aristocratic peripherals, or is its praise the … Read more
Today I had the pleasure of attending the opening of the Computing and Communications museum of the Israel Electric Company. The IEC has been around for almost a century and has kept pace with computing advances since its early days; curator Dlila Shapira did a great job rounding up some lovely vintage pieces from the … Read more
I have a desktop and a docked notebook on the same desk, which I never use concurrently, so I decided to reclaim precious desk surface by keeping only one screen, keyboard and mouse and switching them between the two machines with a KVM switch. An online check discovered the cute KVM-0221 2-Port USB KVM Switch … Read more
I went to shop for a widescreen LCD monitor. I went from one large store to another; each had at least half a dozen candidates, and it was amazing to see how poor the images on them looked! Of course, in most cases the immediate cause was that they were being driven at the wrong … Read more
Was at Office Depot and noticed a keyboard on sale that was touted as the Anti-RSI keyboard from A4Tech. This, according to their web site, has an innovative “Natural A shape” layout that allows you to type ergonomically with your wrists held in their natural position, rather than bent at a strained angle. The site … Read more
