Digital Domesday Rescued By Emulation 395
eefsee writes "The BBC announced that the Digital Domesday project which had become unusable has now been revived thanks to the successful emulation of a 1980's era Acorn computer. Folks at Leeds University and University of Michigan did the emulation work. This is just one early indication of how difficult it will be to maintain our digital heritage. Note that the printed Domesday Book, on which the digital project was modeled, is still quite accessible after almost 1000 years."
Which computer? (Score:2)
From the linked BBC article:
BBC Micro was a popular computer in the 1980s (emphasis mine)
So which one is it?
Re:Which computer? (Score:3, Informative)
See here [cybervillage.co.uk]
Re:Which computer? (Score:5, Informative)
Or more accurately:
The British Broadcasting Company (the BBC) wanted to build a microcomputer in the early 1980s which they could use as part of their effort to promote national computer literacy. The idea was to have a standard machine that they could use in their TV shows - and viewers could buy one of their own and learn to use and program it by watching the shows.
After approaching several UK computer manufacturers they settled on Acorn. At the time Acorn were a leading supplier of micros, notable the Acorn Atom. The BBC contracted Acorn to produce a new more advanced version of the Atom which was designed and manufactured by Acorn but sold as the BBC Micro.
The BBC Micro was never sold as an Acorn machine, indeed Acorn produced their own rival (and much less successful) machine called the Electron.
So your equation is not strictly true, but its close.
Re:Which computer? (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Which computer? (Score:2)
Re:Which computer? (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Which computer? (Score:2, Interesting)
The BBC micro was a 6502 based machine that lots of people in the UK bought because the BBC ran a series on how to use one, and it is pictured at the top of the article.
There were a few types, but I have used the BBC's Doomesday Project and it came with a 'Master 128' IIRC.
Brian.
Re:Which computer? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Which computer? (Score:3, Informative)
My model B is still in fine working condition, thank you very much, but I don't have a laserdisc player for it. Now, I certinaly wouldn't mind getting my hands on the emulator either...mmmm, Elite....
DRM (Score:5, Insightful)
See? This is why we need DRM. If there were proper DRM going on then of course it would have been recoverable! We would just need the exact system(nope, can't change the processor, or the video card, or the hard driver) in order to recover it!
See, doesn't DRM help us all?
</sarcasm>
Re:DRM (Score:5, Funny)
Region Error
copyright/DMCA issues? (Score:2, Funny)
Re:copyright/DMCA issues? (Score:3, Interesting)
Emulator:
1.2. (omitted - irrelevant)
3. Computer Science. To imitate the function of (another system), as by modifications to hardware or software that allow the imitating system to accept the same data, execute the same programs, and achieve the same results as the imitated system.
Yes, Virginia, WINE IS an emulator!
Re:copyright/DMCA issues? (Score:2, Insightful)
You mean linux natively supports DLL (Dynamic Linking Library) and PE (Portable Executable) binary formats?
WINE emulates the Windows environment. It doesn't emulate an x86 or any other hardware directly, which is why it won't work under PPC linux, and why they don't want to consider it an emulator.
It is, however, in the logical and literal senses, an emulator. It's just not a hardware emulator.
Re:copyright/DMCA issues? (Score:3)
Well, gee, since the original project was done by the BBC, on a BBC microcomputer, and the emulation of said microcomputer was commissioned by the BBC, I don't think the DMCA applies.
The overall question you ask is a valid one, but the answer is "repeal idiotic laws like the DMCA". Not throw it all away and start over, in which case you'll just face the same problem a few years later.
Re:copyright/DMCA issues? (Score:3)
Of course, the DMCA is a US law anyway, and neither Acorn nor the BBC fall under its domain. Nor is the work in question under US purview. I suppose you could go after the University of Michigan researchers, who are in the US, but that's it.
Yes, I realize the whole Dmitry Skylarov issue, but that is a case of a foreign national violating the DMCA on a work owned by an US entity (a corporation). IANAL, but I think it's a considerable difference.
UK has had DMCA since 1988 (Score:3)
Of course, the DMCA is a US law anyway
True in name.
and neither Acorn nor the BBC fall under its domain.
True pedantically, but false in practice. The United Kingdom has had its own equivalent to the DMCA's circumvention ban since 1988, as section 296 of the Copyright Act [hmso.gov.uk].
Re:copyright/DMCA issues? (Score:3, Funny)
Re:copyright/DMCA issues? (Score:2)
Re:WINE Is Not An Emulator (Score:2, Insightful)
Oh, that's right, it didn't, and before WINE the term 'emulation' was more generic and didn't create ridiculous non-dictionary distinctions.
Interesting to think.... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Interesting to think.... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Interesting to think.... (Score:3, Interesting)
What would happen if something as culturally significant as the Bible or other work of a similar level were created and controlled by a DRM system.
What about music? Look at classical music - certainly some of the music created today would be listened to years in the future. But if it is controlled by a "lockdown" method like DRM how are we expected to listen to it?
I guess it boils down to two questions for me:
1. How do we(they?) determine what is culturally significant? Hindsight is 20/20, but we have no way of determining what media are going to be significant at the outset. In other words, we have no way of determining what is culturally significant when it is created.
2. How do we preserve information for the future? It's been stated before, but I'll repeat it - we're in a dangerous period(historically speaking), with most of our information being stored in manners that may not be retrievable in 30 years time, let alone 1,000 or more.
*gets off soapbox* err, sorry.
Re:Interesting to think.... (Score:2)
Re:Interesting to think.... (Score:3, Interesting)
So why (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:So why (Score:2, Informative)
interestingly a large number of NT based demos were not running due to DHCP errors - many of them displaying the errors prominently on huge projectors...
The BBC Lives! [nvg.ntnu.no]
Re:So why (Score:2)
This was a long time back of course, but the Visvesarayya Museum (hope I got the spelling right) in Bangalore, India also ran a lot of demos on BBC Micros the last time I was there (this was `92).It was my first and only exposure to a BBC Micro; was running another Brit comp myself, the Sinclair ZX Spectrum +, which is why I remember it clearly. Any Bangaloreans out there who'd like to update this?
Re:So why (Score:2, Funny)
interestingly a large number of NT based demos were not running due to DHCP errors - many of them displaying the errors prominently on huge projectors...
Hmmm... that could explain something. On my last visit, Charles Babbage's Difference Engine seemed to be hung up as well. It just sat there motionless the whole time I watched it. I suppose it might have been experiencing the same DHCP errors as the NT boxes.
Re:So why (Score:3, Informative)
nice! (Score:2)
I hope that they also make the content available online and that they donate the source and content to the different websites that would be interested (e.g. Project Gutenberg for the text, and emulator websites for the program).
Our digital heritage? (Score:3, Funny)
If something is truly of importance, it will be ported forward to new technologies before the existing technology becomes so out of date that recovering it becomes a Herculian effort, or it will also co-exist in a more future-proof medium. Otherwise it's simply dead data that's more than likely never going to have a need to be accessed again.... not every bit needs to be held forever.
Would the world have stopped turning if this little chunk of history gone unrecovered? No. Are there other forms of media (books, videos, music) from the 1980's that would have answered the same questions about culture and society that the data in this archive answers? Definately.
What is truly important (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Our digital heritage? (Score:5, Insightful)
Future Proof? (Score:2)
IMHO the first part of your post was more on target, if we want to keep these things around we need to maintain them. We need to be porting them every so often from one format to the next.
Unfortunately the set of all data that we want to save is monotonically increasing. Therefore the cost of storing and maintaining all of the "important stuff" in purpetuity will be increasing as well. So then we have to start deciding what will or will not be kept (in other words what someone wants to pay for) and what gets dropped. What's more important, the original Domesday book or the digital version?
Re:Our digital heritage? (Score:5, Insightful)
For example, we don't miss any of the treasures of the Roman empire lost under Constantine, Justinian and his successors when the newly ascendant Christians went on a Taliban style orgy of destruction, smashing up anything they considered "pagan" or "unacceptable".
And scholars of Rome *certainly* don't miss any of the works held in the libraries of Rome that were destroyed by the Gothic invaders before the so-called dark ages.
Nor does anyone regret that poverty striken Icelanders took to using ancient manuscripts for dress patterns and firelighters in the 19th century. Nope, didn't lose much there at all.
Hell, we don't even miss all those Egyptian writings destoryed in the 19th century. Or by the Aswan Dam project.
And of course, accidents never happen. Just forget about that little fire in the Library of Alexandra.
I genuflect to your superior wisdom and knowledge.
What about next time? (Score:5, Insightful)
'The software and hardware needed to access the Domesday discs is to be deposited at the Public Record Office once the project is completed.'
This is all fine and good, but it has already introduced the problem we'll face in approximately 2015:
We're going to have to create an emulator for the emulator.
And so on, ad infinitum. What we really need is some universally acceptable method to store digital data that isn't likely to decay or fall out of favor in the next ten years. That, I'm afraid, is a difficult proposition.
I just hope the emulator's emulator works.
Re:What about next time? (Score:5, Informative)
Project Gutenberg's done it for a while.
It's called "ASCII."
Readily convertable to dead-tree format by every printer. Ever. Backward and forward portable on every 7- and 8-bit machine in existance. Ever. Readable on any screen by well over 1/3 the world's population. Can convey an immense amount of information.
(They didn't have images in their records for the last 2000 years; frankly, if something's really So Important That It Must Be Saved, it can be done in the good queen's English.)
If you just take a disk and don't do any crazy filesysteming, just write one big honking text file sequentially to it, and mark down somewhere on the top that it functions in 8-bit units, well, it doesn't take too much effort to figure out how to write a driver for it to port it to the next media that comes along.
(Or just print it out. After all, high quality acid-free paper, stored in a vault somewhere, has a shelf-life measureable in centuries. Not too shabby.)
Re:What about next time? (Score:5, Interesting)
Regardless, the problem mentality is pretty well represented in your post. The assumption in the 80s was to make the discs like the book - make them last forever. The trick with digital is to assume the media and format will expire, become obselete, etc. To preserve the data they should have planned for this (migrating data, etc) instead of keeping the old book mentality of preserving a relic forever.
Re:What about next time? (Score:2)
Re:What about next time? (Score:2)
Not necessarily. If we have the source code for the emulator, and if it was fairly portable, we can just tweak it and recompile it on future systems. The real difficulty is probably the medium that the data is stored on: sure it may be indestructible, but you're not going to be able to read it on today's DVD drives, or the future's even better drives.
So maybe the problem isn't a software or hardware or medium problem. Maybe the problem is that we just assumed that it would "just work" in the future like it just works now, without putting together a recovery plan. Sure we've got it backed up, but in this case, we need a long-term recovery plan, probably one that requires regular maintenance in order to ensure recoverability.
Re:What about next time? (Score:2)
Re:What about next time? (Score:2)
Punch cards. Especially if punched into UV-resistant plastic instead of paper, but even the paper ones will do.
Re:What about next time? (Score:2)
In a nutshell - no.
Any data archiving system has to incorporate a plan to recopy data onto new media as needed. This of course raises the cost of long term storage SIGNIFICANTLY. It should also make you think twice about what exactly is worth saving.
This reminds me of the last time I moved into a new house. When faced with having to pack boxloads of junk up for shipping, I began to rethink just how important it was for me to preserve some things for all of eternity. I've never seen such full trashcans in my life.
A good plan for a project that has to be low-cost is to save the data on several types of media to lower the risk of short-term obselecense. Then if it is really important you can also print using OCRable font on acid-free paper in base64 format.
Good brands of CD-Rs often boast 100 year estimated shelf lives if stored properly. However, storing CDs "properly" may not be all that much cheaper that just sticking boxloads of paper in a closet.
Re:What about next time? (Score:2)
Re:What about next time? (Score:2)
Guaranteeing storage in argon for 1000 years will get a bit tricky.
My favourite method: Paint in oxide suspensions on cloth woven from alumina (corundum), and then fire the pages and sew/bind them with alumina thread. The resulting book is resistant to physical wear and fire (the center of a bonfire would probably blur the letters, but that's about it), and is virtually invulnerable to chemical attack.
Re:What about next time? (Score:2)
Perhaps a better question is who would care to have access to this data? Doesn't exactly sound like prime-time TV to me.
There is a reason nobody noticed until recently that there was no way to read the discs...
The Curse of History (Score:5, Interesting)
It is very much easier to educate a person according to the curriculum you desire if contradictory information is not available, especially regarding the history of a place. The extreme example is that of the Pol Pot regime. But you also see it in a newspaper when they fire all of the old hands who know where the bodies are buried, and only the young bucks are around who can be easily stampeded. No institutional memory.
On another note - if you want to damn a politician to history, make sure to get those stone obelisk and stelli erected with heavy engraving. Make sure some are out in the desert so that they are properly preserved.
Archeologists will come by centuries later and will take what you say as truth. Or at least very seriously. Have a field day.
the digital data will have disappeared, and the testimony on your stone monuments will be one of the few surviving original source records from the era.
Re:The Curse of History (Score:2)
Heck, you see it even if they keep all the old hands around! Here's a good case in point, concerning weapons inspectors and Iraq. [fair.org] And like the archaeologists, most people take what is said for truth. Even super-reputable magazines like the Economist are parroting this lie from the State Department. Nobody's rocking the boat.
The irony is that this is sourced from a web-site. Heh.
Re:The Curse of History (Score:2)
Good troll. I bite.
Ulimate Revenge (Score:4, Funny)
I can see it all now. LUGs getting together to make testimonial stone glyphs testifying to the Ages their opinions of the character of their least favorite politician or software company.
You get the idea. Also applies to politicians.
have a blast. Have it placed on you tombstone or something. or in the side of a cliff.
This is why... (Score:2, Insightful)
Emulate? (Score:2, Insightful)
Whew... (Score:2)
Abandonware (Score:4, Funny)
Rumor has it that MAME 0.7 [mame.net] will support it.
Original Domesday is not quite accessible (Score:5, Insightful)
Not really. I saw one volume of the Domesday book at the White Tower back in 2000. It was sealed under a sealed glass box, and you could only look at the two pages it was turned to. I would have tried to get access to it under the box, but there were these guards that looked quite intimidating and they kept saying "Move along..."
Even then, I could barely make out the cryptic scribbles. Sure didn't look like English to me.
At least with a digital version they can make infinite copies of it and distribute it to anybody interested, unlike the paper version locked up under a glass box.
Re:Original Domesday is not quite accessible (Score:5, Informative)
There's a good reason for that: the Domesday Book wasn't written in English. It was written by Norman monks as the article mentions. They wrote it in Latin. That was the language of government, the arts, and bureaucracy in those days. Old French was a strong second. And Old English, as the language of a subjugated populace, came in a distant, distant third.
æ And even if it had been written in English, you still wouldn't have been able to read it without special training. Here is an example of Old English (from memory, so if there are any mistakes, they're mine!):
Translated roughly, that means: The language has changed substantially since those days, no? And as if that weren't bad enough, styles of handwriting have changed an awful lot too. Once you get into postgraduate-level medieval studies, you get special training in reading historical forms of handwriting, the study of which is called palaeography.Lastly, the project is not a copy of the original Domesday Book: it was an effort to create a resource of similar utility for future historians by gathering interesting stuff from around the country and storing it in digital form. Videos, maps, and so on, as the article said. There have been some electronic editions of medieval texts, notably the sole remaining manuscript of the poem Beowulf, which was written down in the early 1100s. Alas, it is proprietary, and you have to pay a rather large sum to the British Library if you want a copy. Some of it is web accessible [uky.edu].
Next question!
Re:Original Domesday is not quite accessible (Score:3, Informative)
The Professor (Score:5, Funny)
Damn, and I thought the Professor was all that by making a radio out of a coconut. A computer in an acorn? DAMN!
Remembering dead technology (Score:2)
decoding old english decoding Acorn computer (Score:2, Interesting)
I don't know about you, but not many English speakers can still read/decode old middle English. I haven't tried reading the Domesday book myself, but if it's anything like Chaucer, the spelling is dynamic (i.e. not even consistent within the same document) and obscure by even modern English standards. Let alone the language itself is far different from modern English.
Therefore, saying that the original domesday book is still accessible is like saying the that all my old C64 files are still accessible because I still have the 5.25in floppies. (Note: the C64 floppies had varying number of sectors/track depending how close the track was to the hub ... these floppies can't be read on a DOS machine.)
I was 12 (Score:5, Interesting)
I also remember see the finished version in the Natural History museum (or was it the Science museum?). It had one of those Marble Madness balls on the front for navigating - great fun.
If they put this online it will make a good read.
The original is here. [domesdaybook.co.uk]
Not even carving it onto a rock is enough... (Score:2, Interesting)
Obviously, it is overly simplistic to assume that you, as long as the physical medium is durable enough, your data will be preserved forever. Look at the difficulties we have interpreting the Rosetta stone, the hieroglyphs, etc today! The data IS there, but what use is it if nobody really understands it? Yes, lots of progress has been made in understanding them - but still, look at the difficulties.
The laserdisc was "decoded" with emulation. Any proposals on how to emulate ancient Egypt?
Re:Not even carving it onto a rock is enough... (Score:2)
Linguists can do some pretty amazing things when it comes to tracing the roots of a language. Don't discount the ability of future historians to do the same with english.
Re:Not even carving it onto a rock is enough... (Score:2)
Yes - just send corporal^h^h^h^h^h^h^h^h Indiana Jones
The difficulty is hubris (Score:5, Insightful)
The real problem is that people don't look any further than right here, right now. All that's required to preserve digital data for future generations to revere or vilify is an effort to keep migrating it onto future media and to publish the method of reading the data along with it. Software formats come and go, there are probably software packages that can't even reliably read data using older versions of that software package.
The specification for the format in which the data is stored is the Rosetta Stone of the 21st century. Make this open and data can live in perpetuity.
About The Doomesday Project (Score:2, Informative)
There were a few relevant video clips, e.g. of the Falklands war, but the most interesting content for me was where they had walked round Brecon (in Wales) and taken photos at various intervals and in about eight directions (and then with zooms of interesting features), so the effect was that the user could explore the place. Interaction was via a mouse as I remember and the display quality was far in advance of what the BBC micro was capable of.
All the sections of the content were navigated around in some sort of virtual art gallery (a bit like someone might make with VRML).
Another useful feature was the extensive maps of the whole of the UK that were easily manipulated/zoomed.
Most of the posts here are assuming that the content was protected in some DRM style way, but I don't think that is true. It seems likely to me that the navigation system for the data was encapsulated in the program, and so emulation or rewriting are the only options.
Brian.
Aliens (Score:5, Interesting)
This is a fall at the first hurdle (Score:5, Insightful)
To be kept available future data archives will need to be copied over and over. They will have to be copied in bulk, there will not be the man power to do specials on anything.
What am I trying to say: this problem will get worse, worse than you can imagine. Well defined, simple Open standards for data is a must for the basics. Well defined, simple Open standards for Open Source applications to implement anything richer - these applications growing gradually over time, but maintaining backwards compatability. I still use troff and can still maintain/print documents that are over 15 years old.
A proprietary future will be much poorer than an Open one. A future that overly controls copying will be much poorer than an open one.
All of the numbers above are probably an underestimate.
still working (Score:2, Informative)
IIRC it was a BBC Master 128 with 2nd processor, SCSI card, video disc player and track ball.
Still worked, although some of the disks were damaged.
Preserving data in perpetuity (Score:2)
We still can't beat paper for durability.
Yet another reason to use open source (Score:3, Insightful)
As the GNU project says, "source code" is the preferred form for modification of a work. For this project, the source code for the display program might be BASIC or assembler, but that's not important. What's important is the text/image/video/audio content, and the source form for that content might be XML PNM (no lossy compression), uncompressed AVI and WAV files.
Converting the original, BBC-Micro specific program into a modern source format will eliminate the need for a special or unique system to access that content.
Furthermore, distribution costs on the Internet approach zero, so that work can be made widely available to everybody, not just a few schools or visitors to a museum.
Over time our popular formats such as JPEG and AVI files will become obsolete, so the work must be converted into that newer form in future, possibly ad-infinitum. At least those future conversions will occur from one well-known and popular format into another.
They haven't really learned from their efforts, have they?
So here's the new reason to use open source: It is important to preserve our digital heritage, and using source code is the best means we have of making works accessable and compatible with the computers of the future.
Similar situation at SLAC (Score:3, Informative)
Back in the day(TM) before RDBMS were a commodity, SLAC used the SPIRES database written at Stanford running on an IBM Mainframe. Well, as these things go, the IBM Mainframe was getting long in the tooth, but there was a ton of data in this SPIRES database. SPIRES wasn't going to get ported to anything modern. I forget who exactly, but one engineer just up and decided to write an emulator for the IBM mainframe in practicly no time at all.
Now the SPIRES database is still running. However, it now runs on Solaris using a home-brewed IBM Mainframe emulator. Even though it's in emulation, it runs faster than it ever used to on the real deal (Moore's Law and all).
As a side note, the first truly useful web site was here at SLAC when George Crane and Paul Kunz hooked up a web front end to the SPIRES database so the High Energy Physics community could easily get at other's papers.
The BBC must have lost the backups then (Score:5, Informative)
When we left the BBC, they had all the original Video data on Broadcast quality masters, and all the digital data preserved on VAX tapes. They must have thrown those out in the intervening 12 years (which wouldn't surprise me).
I know of two former MMC directors who have CD-ROM backups of the digital data and working Domesday systems.
Which is not to decry the work in emulating it - that si the real long-term answer. The Church-Turing thesis is the ultimate refutation of DRM too.
Re:Domesday? (Score:3, Informative)
"The first approach to a modern assessment roll or cataster is the well known Domesday Book."
http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/source/domesday1
"The Domesday Book was ordered by William the Conqeror to assess the value of his conquered kingdom 20 years after defeating Harold at the Battle of Hastings."
http://www.villagenet.co.uk/history/1086-domesd
Re:Domesday? (Score:2)
Well, your ignorance could be pardoned, except that there is a FRIGGIN' LINK TO THE ARTICLE that explains both of your questions. So some people say that there are no stupid questions, but I disagree. R T F A!
Re:Domesday? (Score:5, Informative)
The Domesday book was commissioned in December 1085 by William the Conqueror, who invaded England in 1066. The first draft was completed in August 1086 and contained records for 13,418 settlements in the English counties south of the rivers Ribble and Tees (the border with Scotland at the time).
The book has nothing to do with the "doomsday" world-ending yadda, it was mainly set up to inform the king of how much tax monies he should have been receiving.
Find out more [domesdaybook.co.uk].
Re:Domesday? (Score:5, Interesting)
Copyright? On a book written nearly a thousand years ago?!
Re:Domesday? (Score:2, Informative)
If it's a photograph then there's a copyright on the photo.
If it's a translation from Old English to Modern English or another language then there's a copyright on the translation.
But, all in all, yes, it's rather silly.
Re:Domesday? (Score:4, Funny)
Stupid Sonny Bono...
Re:Domesday? (Score:3, Informative)
Crown copyright may be infinite. I have seen [google.ca] discussion [debian.org] which indicates that the King James version of the Bible (commissioned by the crown, as was the Domesday Book) has an infinite copyright.
I wonder whether that would change if Britain became a republic?
Re:Domesday? (Score:5, Informative)
Excepting that they're the same word, just the language has evolved in the intervening millenium.
I could rape the previous
Re:Domesday? (Score:2)
An example of the same word/same definition but different context that comes to mind can be had in "solicitor": In England it means a rather different profession than it does in the U.S. (generally speaking =) but the two are pretty unrelated. Except, of course, when they are seen to hire one another, as needed. Ahem.
Re:Domesday? (Score:2, Troll)
Re:Any Brits out there? (Score:3, Funny)
Blame the French.
Re:Phew (Score:2, Funny)
Re:Phew (Score:2, Funny)
Re:Phew (Score:3, Insightful)
The BBC wanted a micro which they could use in their educational stuff. They went to Acorn, who was a successful manufacturer of the Atom [planet.nl], and basically they agreed that the next generation computer, which was to be called the Proton could be called the BBC Micro. This gave Acorn exposure and extra sales, and the BBC the machine they were looking for. For about a decade, you saw BBC micro's popping up in BBC shows including Dr Who. Acorn later made the Electron, and then the Archimedies, before going bankrupt.
Therefore the BBC do not own the copyright on the ROM's in the BBC micro.
Re:Phew (Score:2)
Didn't Adric use one in 'State of Decay' to realign the radio telescope ? Or am I hallucinating again ?
Re:Phew (Score:2, Informative)
Well, Acorn made the Archimedes (which, despite Apple's claims, was the first home computer to use a RISC processor) and then the RISC PC (a old 202Mhz model is sitting next to me at the moment) - just as they were about to launch the RISC PC II (aka Phoebe), Morgan-Stanley Dean Whitter decided that Acorn's shares in ARM Plc (the designers of a whole range of RISC processors - originally the company was called Acorn Risc Machines, then Advanced Risc Machines) were worth more than the company itself and the split the company up.
Most IP rights and staff went to Element 14 [e-14.com], but the rights to the RISC OS operating system were sold to Pace [pace.co.uk] who have sub-licenced the rights to RISC OS Ltd [riscos.com]. The "Acorn" name and logo itself were sold off to Acorn's largest distributor Castle Technology [castle.uk.co].
More information [dmoz.org] is available.
Re:Phew (Score:2)
Acorn later made the Electron, and then the Archimedies, before going bankrupt
Acorn became ARM, who put their knowledge of processors to good effect with their recent designs. They don't manufacture hardware anymore, simply license the designs to third parties. They most certainly didn't go bust, as I know people with stock they've owned since the BBC Micro days, and they still get a healthy return off of it. As far as I can recall, BBC employees got offered Acorn stock back in the eighties - part of the Thatcherite attempts to get ordinary people interested in stocks and shares?
Chris
Re:What the hell is this? (Score:3)
No.. no you didn't RTFA. Because if you had you would have seen this:
And, also this:
So, what it is is an inventory of England. People and culture. Please don't say you RTFAd if you didn't, and then don't ask for more information when you say you don't care.
Re:What the hell is this? (Score:2)
England maps, English people, English buildings.
Which people, and doing what, and for what purpose?
English people, doing English things, to inventory English life.
Ok, its an archive. But an archive of what, and for whom?
English people, doing English things, for English people who want to document English life.
Whatever, mod me down as flamebait again.
I'm $rtbl'd, and there is no -1, Stupid mod so I wouldn't bother.
Just more time spent trying to decipher slashdots crappy report of the BBC's shitty, uninformative coverage.
Have you thought maybe just reading what they write? Maybe... just an idea.
Re:I am guessing... (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:What's so hard (Score:5, Interesting)
A schematic does not contain all of the information needed to build a device, either. Seeing, for example, that a 2N2222 bipolar NPN transistor is required for an amplifier isn't going to be too useful in the year 2100, I would bet. And the paper those semiconductor companies use for those big thick spec books? that crap turns yellow and falls apart in 10 years!
Re:Frisbee (Score:2)
Re:Frisbee (Score:2)
IANABrit, and hate to spoil the joke, but is the pun is on the word 'floppy'?
Re:Paper is cool (Score:2)
What happens if there's some kind of cataclysm and only a handful of people survive, revert to barbarism, then arise as a new advanced culture thousands of years from now? Future historians will find our libraries and data centers and they'll be USELESS due both to limited shelf life of media and inaccessibility of an unknown format.
Big granite slabs are the way to go. But don't make that writing TOO fine, or it'll erode with time. One centimeter letters etched a millimeter into the stone should last a few millenia.
Re:Paper is cool (Score:2)
Re:Major reason for open source! (Score:2)
No - the new software will be rendered useless - the old x86 software will continue to run fine, whether under Wine, or old copies of Win95.