Apr 14
Domesday
I was fascinated by computer technology, as a child. One encounter really sparked my imagination, though.
It’s hard to remember just how exciting sound, photos and video on a computer were, back in the mid-80s. The Domesday project, of 1986, was astonishing and cemented my love of computers. Although all the multimedia stuff was simply genlocked into the BBC Micro’s video output, it still rocked haaaaaaard, to an eight year old me.
Now, some chaps have reverse engineered the original system and stuck it online, complete with all the photos and ridiculous levels of detail about places like Dipton, in County Durham (near where I grew up … not simply chosen at random). It’s legit, in association with the BBC and National Archives.
April 15th, 2005 at 5:50 pm
My word, deja vu. Only after reading this yesterday, then what should appear in the UCC? That’s right, one of the original BBC Laserdisc-ROM drives.
It has the BBC name on it, and all the othe stuff as described, a SCSI interface, video and audio connectors, and a heap of other stuff.
Freaky stuff!
Seems it was a popular day to throw out rare machines. We also aquired a 5th revision BeBox, which is significantly neater then our other BeBox, no messy wiring going everywhere, it’s all on a proper daughter board. Of course, there were only 300 made, apparently.