Hi all,

After a few distractions (including a bout of flu), I managed to get back to seeing to what extent I can transform this minimal hardware into a real PC...

ESRB I'll be the first one to say that computers are only as smart as those that would design and write the software. That said, the New York Times recently posted an article concerning the ratings system of the ESRB and how it will move from human-based grading to computer-based grading. It isn't that the computers have some sort of A.I. that plays the entire game through an assigns a rating (wouldn't that be grand?) but rather that the games will move toward a questionnaire-based rating system.

This looks extremely interesting and it appears to be freeware too!

Anyone played it (or heard of it before even) ?

Hi All,

Well, a few things have happened since my Flea86 project introduction from the previous month. This month's latest update will cover the following :

1) Completion of Flea86 case design transfer to CAD.

2) Inclusion of EGA (planar) video support for Flea86.

Today, Good Old Games (gog.com) shut down. It was one of the very few ways available to customers who want to purchase a game that's more than five years old.  This is sad news, but not nearly as sad as the cannibalistic reality that we've been living with for a very long time.

"Abandonware" is a term that should fill the heart of anyone who cares about computer gaming with shame.  Imagine if you couldn't buy or borrow a book written more than five years ago - or if older films like Casa Blanca or Citizen Kane were simply impossible to get your hands on.  The grim situation - if you're not already familiar is this.  After a game is about 5 to 10 years old, two things happen.  Firstly, it is "succeeded" by a sequel.  Instead of adding bug fixes, new content and other improvements to the original game, those are usually released in a new box and sold as a separate piece of software.  Then, the old software is simply forgotten, and it is assumed that no one cares about them and they are not sold.  The other problem that leads to the existence of Abandonware is the insane, frothing-at-the mouth technology arms race that we've found ourselves embroiled in since day one.  Technology has, of course, always been linked to computer games;  but for the past twenty years, the situation has been ridiculous.  If your software is more than six or seven years old, chances are most people won't even have a suitable platform to play your game on.

According to WMEXperts Windows Phone 7 will have no support for Xbox Live in smaller language areas like the Netherlands and other European countries. The countries in question are so called non-EFIGS countries which is an abbreviation for non-English, French, Italian, German and Spanish. It will come as no surprise that the 'Marketplace' functionality will be severely limited in these countries. This is according to WMExperts but Microsoft has neither denied nor confirmed this.

So there won't be any localized menus for the non-EFIGS countries but the biggest draw-back will be the complete absence of Xbox Live on non-EFIGS Windows Phone 7 cellphones/mobiles/handies. Playing multi-player games will not be possible for a lot of users. Less antagonizing is the lack of Zune-support as this has never been available outside of the US.

So why on earth would one want to buy an Windows Phone 7 cellphone in a non-EFIGS country? The only reason would have been the integration with Xbox Live but all the other smart-phones out there on the market are a far better choice when it comes to functionality that is being offered. The sad part is that most companies would be able to get away with using English in most of the non-EFIGS countries as the penetration of English as a second or third language is huge. But they just don't and will lose out on quite a large part of the European market

As a non-EFIGS world citizen I feel discriminated against. The family is spread around the Netherlands and France. Some services I can access from the family home in France but won't be available to us in the Netherlands. Crazy stuff...

Source: WMExperts

While charging my Kindle up last week I left the 3G on and lo and behold I got a free upgrade to the firmware. The first thing I noticed is the font change (though this does tend to vary from book to book) and the fact that page turns are now a bit quicker.

Sir Clive - world famous in at least the UK and Europe - has recently told reporters that he doesn't use any computer in his day to day life. The current generation of computers suffer from bad design flaws and are the absolute opposite of being conservative in their use of internal memory - according to Sir Clive. And he's the man who knows what he is talking about as he is the designer of the Timex1000/ZX80/ZX81 series of machines that came out in 1980 featuring a whopping 1Kb of RAM and a basic interpreter.

All this and more can all be read in a recent interview in the UK paper the Guardian. It seems that even all email correspondence is all printed out by his secretary and handled by him on paper. That would actually cause the bald red-bearded Sir to be somewhat of an environmental hazard, wouldn't it? Oh, by the look of the photograph in the article he actually lost the beard. Well Sir Clive will be celebrating is 70th birthday this year and perhaps it does make him look a little younger. One does tend to get this Gandalfian/Dumbledorian look when sporting a grey/white beard... Sir Clive has an extensive track record when it comes to the ZX Spectrum line of microcomputers that did shape a large part of computer history - at least in Europe, Brazil and Russia.

He's currently devoting his energy to design yet another energy efficient electric car. Let it be noted that his last attempt called the ' C 5 ' bombed! Perhaps he'll be more fortunate this time around. Go Sir Clive!

We write about videogames and we all have some opinion on just about any game out there. But how do we play them? Are we any good? Or do we stink? Well playing the games is where it is all about isn't it! Here's how I play.