Opera and Firefox. The origins.

Today, I've received a new update for my dear Opera and I've wondered, how the old browsers were, so I've resorted to my resources to find out more information. I already knew a website with lots of old versions of many software programs, which I like to visit, so this time, I've got the perfect excuse to download old software and try it.

I've really had  problems to install most of browsers I wanted to try, in such a way that I've got to make work two of them.

Opera


This has been my first thought. The oldest version I've been able to find has been the 3.00. Here is a snapshot.

As you can see, the content has been loaded perfectly. This version was released on December 01, 1997, when Opera programmers had no idea about flash, so that I haven't been able to log in Twitter, Youtube or similar, although the load progress in all websites has been instantaneous.
By the way, this was a paid version.


Mozilla Firefox


Mozilla Foundation started to work rather later than Opera, so it stands out in their first browsers compared with Opera's first ones. The version I've tried has been the 0.6. This was a freeware version released on June 12, 2000. Here is a snapshot:

The skin is a bit better and the load of the websites is much better, but BUT BUT BUT BUT!!! IT'S CRASHED 3 TIMES BEFORE I COULD SEE THE BLOG!!! This version was freeware because no one wanted to paid for it! Sure.


Anyway, now we live in different times, and they both have evolved very much.


PS: Use Opera and you'll be happy.

The craze for blogs

The craze for blogs has came to Internet! I think so. Long time ago, I started to realise, people, like me, or maybe, better writers, discovered Blogger. They decided to open accounts and progressively fill them with letters and phrases talking about their lives (usually not very well), what they think about the world and whatever teenagers used to think...

I don't know why this happened, and certainly I don't think they opened their blogs just for relaxing writing, for reflecting or to keep a place in the Internet for talking about them. Maybe, new blogs were created for the love for typing, to get visitors, or just for creating a blog, for now it's free!

Anyway, why teens create blogs? and by the way, why teens read blogs? What are you/we doing? Facebook is waiting for us.

Music for Sunday night #42

This Sunday, we'll listen to a song from the last album of Mägo de Oz. I don't really like this album because it's been made with songs not included in previous albums for various reasons, so the setlist is a bit poor and there are several boring songs, however there are also a couple of them very good, like this. Enjoy.

Gods

You know about who I am speaking. Yeah, Chad amazed me yesterday. I was watching a video of "Otherside" when, in the end of the video, he played a great solo inside the song, I was shocked! Please, watch it and listen to it with your own eyes and ears:

The solo is in the end, if you want to go just to the solo please go to 8:10. But it's better to enjoy the full video.

Floppy music

As a good musician and technology lover, I love these projects! If I am right, I posted about this once, well, now, here is the second part.

Do you remember old floppy disks and readers? Geek people use them to make music. I've listened to several songs played by this way, but I've got to affirm that this is the most complex song I've never listened from floppy readers. Amazing!

Drumstick Pencils

Yesterday, a friend of mine showed me this:

Cool! isn't it?

I really wouldn't mind to receive this present for my birthday, dear reader, I'd be a great little gift.

You can buy it for some dollars here:

http://www.thinkgeek.com/homeoffice/supplies/b866/

Music for Sunday night #41

Tonight we'll listen to this funny song which I discovered while I was watching The Simpsons. Enjoy:

American/British English

I've discovered that list of different words between American and British English. It seems quite complete but for me, although I really hate discovering so many differences. Check it out.

http://www3.telus.net/linguisticsissues/BritishCanadianAmerican.htm

PD: There's also a comparative with Canadian English.

Music for Sunday night #40

Tonight, we will listen to a funny but great song of The Offspring called "Hit That". I like it very much. Enjoy.

Amstrad Sinclair ZX Spectrum +2 128K

Finally, here's the post about my Spectrum +2:

I discovered it when I was a child and I didn't know what it was. Later, I connected it to the TV and switched it on, and after discovering it wasn't a games console, I started to learn how it worked. Now, I know it was a good experience, and to my mind, with it you can program in a very similar way as current programming.

Some technical information:

- CPU Zilog Z80 8-bits. 3.5 MHz.

- 128 Kb RAM memory.

- Resolution: 256x192 pixels.

- Sound chip: Yamaha AY-3-8912.

The machine has a keyboard quite similar to Qwerty one, but there are lots of differences with a full modern keyboard. On the right, we can see a cassette unit with the typical buttons of a cassette player. In the left side there's the reset button and two joysticks plugs.

The Spectrum is fed by this power supply:

I forgot to weigh it, but I assure you that it's quite heavy.

Here's a picture of the plugs and slots of the Spectrum:

As you can see if zoom it in, there are a slot for the printer, a the power supply connector, an expansion slot, an old MIDI plug, one aux. plug, an RGB out, the TV out and the sound out. Unfortunately, I couldn't find any USB port.

There is a detail that I'd like to emphasize: This computer has it own user manual which was included when it was bought:

It is really a good help for beginners.

I counted with some cassettes to make tests: Video games "Tetris" and "Bubble Bubble".

And now here are some snapshots:

This is the main menu. There are so many options that I don't know what to choose.

The first one is the Program Loader:

This is how it looks while the Spectrum is loading from the cassette.

For a test I put the"Tetris" game in, but the cassette was overwritten, so I set it fire and caught other one.

I don't know how years affect to cassettes, but the thing is that any side of that cassette worked. After 5 minutes 15 seconds waiting while the game finished it load, I just got the main screen::

Well, I'll leave the second option for the end. Now, the third one is the calculator:

I didn't be able to work out great operations, although the user manual said that the computer could calculate functions.

I'm sure it can solve some equations, but I didn't get it.

The last option is the 48 BASIC editor which, if I'm right, let you program in BASIC with 48 Kb of RAM memory, as with it predecessor:

Very simple screen.

The second option is the +3 BASIC editor, and it's the most interesting one. 

This programming language is very easy to use if you want to write simple programs, but with heavy applications it becomes too complex.

In this video, I load a program which I found in the user manual and run it; it's for converting Celsius degrees in Fahrenheit degrees. (Sorry for the awful quality).

 .

Finally, to end this post, I did this simple program which shows in the screen the next sentence:

Thanks for reading.

Music for Sunday night #39

Tonight, I have to bring this song to Music for Sunday night because it's been the song of the week, it's been sounding inside my head during all the week and it's the first time I don't mind to be listening to the same song every day. Here it is, Otherside, by the best ones. Enjoy.

Photo from 24th