Date: 29/7/98

Welcome to the amazing, bunchbiteing, offensive, hits-you-in-the-nobbly-bits Stu Campball's Macbeth! Err.......

Oh Oh, page name change

From August whenever, page170's name will change to the even less inspired page670. When this happens, the url will change silightly and a new home.ml.org url will also be set up. So get ready for the Bug!

Or just change the name of the link in your links thing. Anyway......

Back to normal then

It appears, for the first time in digi's history, the great MrBiffo has bowed down to pressure from the idioids in alt.digitiser, who complained about the crappness of the new Characters on page 171. Chester is back, as is that Fat Pig. Is this the new age we've been promised for ages? No, actully, we just scared the hell out of Biffo. Ra! Ra! Look! I'm a lion.

The Digital age is upon us. Damn.

I bought Wired on Monday. I've always like the magazines mix of half intresting features and odd gadget things. And it's always been a pleasure to read. However, it's attitude that everything must become digital has scared me a little.

Everyone seems to be looking to the future, yet, not properly.

You see, having things go around in 1's and 0's is great. The website reached you this way, as soon will TV. But having to look on archives of 0's and 1's is going to become a nightmare. In the past, where records were all on paper, any tom, dick, or Andrew could go up to a libary, and read it. In the future, when records and archives are stored digitally on tape, how the f*ck at we to know that we will be able to read them in say, 100 years time?

By then, no one will be using Windoze 95, Linux or a Macintosh. Computers in 2198 will be completly irreconizable to the PC's of today. Hell, there may be no eletricity to run the things. ASCII may be forgotten. Whole Text's will become completly irreadble, because the technology to read it simply won't be around. What we may see the Digital Age may be seen as the dark age in a 1000 years time, simply because records of the time will simply be in a format readable with just the naked eye. Scary? I think it is.

I'm not saying that change is bad. Change isn't bad. Change is good. But too much change so we can't see what we changed to in the future is very bad, and regrettable later.

DYS?

£50 Saturn's

If you havn't noticed, Saturn's are dirt cheap ATM. But ignore Sega's please of "£70". A Good Exchange shop or Electronics Boutique will sell you one of those darling buds of Japan a Saturn with one controller for a good 50 notes, second hand. Yes sir. But so far I have found none of the so fabled £5 games. Worse, major titles, such as Nights and Sega Rally - seem to be scarce, even new. You would think shops would re-stock there Saturn shelves before the price cut, but most re-tailers have ignored the move completely. Such a surprise?

I'll still be getting one, though.

Project X

Horrible Irony Time: Project X, the Entertainment Stealth Chip developed by VM Labs, could be scuppered by the very people supporting it, or not. As well as no Japanese Developers stepping up to give VM a hand, 3 of the creators of the chip come from, gulp, the 3DO company. Of course that won't effect them. It wasn't the right time in the market, the people wern't ready for it (cont p.94)

Idiots may also like to know that the CEO of VM Labs just happens to be Richard Miller, who co-developed the Z88 with Sir Clive Sinclair (Which also failed) and used to work for Atari (who were bought out by a hard drive company). Another member of VM Labs just so happens to be John Mathieson, who created and designed (in England of all places) the Jaguar (which also dramatcally failed). Does this company looked doomed or am I a large fish?

That Said...

Project-X still looks rather nifty. The chip will be licenced in the same way Dolby licences it's technology to the consumer electronics people. They won't make the chip themseleves. Like Dolby, it could be impregnated into every living new black appliance in the land. The Hi-fi, the TV, the video, the kettle[lie] etc.

Also, the processor is so powerful that as well as building polygons, it can, with a little bit of software trickery, ray trace in REAL TIME, replaceing the need for un-realistic looking polygon figures. Not even SGI workstations can do this, this cheaply. Bite me.

And finally, the lack of Japanese support will become immaterial. The VM Labs chip could create a market that won't need the Japs support. The Spectrum and C64 never had the land of the rising sun at their feety-computer things. So why should VM Labs? Sony showed everyone that you don't have to have a history in Video-games to become a player, it's time for VM to again break the mould.

Just forget that the CEO's British....

Senior Citizen

Bored on a Saturday's Netting? Then try out Senior Citizen! Contains loads of various stuff, but is basically a traw around the net to find rather intresting sites and things. Worth a look, and if you like it, subscribe.

Just ignore the exclamation marks...

Carol Vorderman's final thought

GRAPEFRUIT! PAndroid's MailFantastic