Sneak was intrigued to read reports that the BBC is to screen a 'comedy drama' about the early days of the home computer industry in the UK, when men were men, computers were knocked up from kits that had to be soldered together at home, and software was almost invariably loaded from audio cassette tape.

The show is apparently to be called [bad pun alert] "Syntax Era", and will star comedians Alexander Armstrong as Clive Sinclair and Martin Freeman as Chris Curry, one of the founders of Acorn Computers.

Many of the reports Sneak has seen indicate the show's plot will centre on the rivalry between Sinclair and Acorn Computers for "home computer supremacy".

This isn't how Sneak recalls this period of IT history, it has to be said. Sinclair's ZX Spectrum and Acorn's BBC Micro computers were aimed at very different ends of the computer market.

The 'Beeb' was regarded as the Rolls-Royce of home computers, as it had a full typewriter keyboard, video outputs for a TV and monitor, and an array of ports, including analogue-to-digital converter, disk drive interface, and even a set of chip sockets for plugging in add-on ROM chips that expanded its built-in software. It was a hobbyists' dream.

By contrast, the 'Speccy' was cheap and cheerful, with a rubbery keyboard and a single expansion port that simply brought out the processor bus signals to a connector at the back of the case. It was great for learning to program, playing games, and an introduction to the world of computers.

It would be difficult to decide which of the two was best, however. While the Beeb was clearly technically superior, the Spectrum was far more affordable and had many more software titles created for it. Which would you choose?

As to the "Syntax Era", don't you think that it's great that the BBC went out of its way to find so obvious a look-alike for Clive Sinclair?

July 1, 2009 Television, Web/Tech | Permalink | Comments (1)

Can you think of anything worse than having any of today's television stars in your living room?

Sneak can't either, the thought of sharing sofa space with Ross Kemp or Noel Edmomds is rather similar to the thought of sharing an airless tank with some skunks wielding razor blades. Rather unpleasant to say the least.

Sadly, their presence - that is Ross and Noel not the skunks - could soon be felt at home as Sky Television is apparently planning to unleash them on unsuspecting viewers, in 3D virtual form at least.

According to a report in the Times newspaper, Gerry O'Sullivan, Sky director of strategic product development, recently said that a 3D television service "could be launched any time in the next two years".

Users will be expected to still wear 3D glasses of some form, and given that boxing is high on the 3D agenda, as apparently it is easy to film, gum shields too.

January 30, 2009 Television | Permalink | Comments (0)

Sneak’s bolthole is just around the corner from Marshall Street, the unfortunate corner of London in which WAGs Boutique is filmed. When the two rival reality-TV shops are open, long queues of optimistic followers of low fashion clutter up the entire street. And the lines have been getting steadily longer.

Given that the queues are composed of impressionable people eager to throw their cash at a pair of shops that happen to be on the telly, hoping no doubt to be featured in the programme, and also given that the TV companies are clearly keen to rake in dosh by whatever means necessary including fake phone-ins, Sneak wonders why these two streams have not been taken to their logical confluence. Why not create a sort of eBay TV which could simply auction off chunks of primetime airtime to the highest bidder, no matter how lowbrow their proposed content?

No, hang on, we already have ITV.

April 5, 2007 Television | Permalink | Comments (0)

Sneak will be glued to the TV screen tonight for the first episode of The Apprentice, series 3 (it’s on BBC One at 9pm). Although the programme is yet to air, you can already take stock of the preening candidates via the BBC’s web site. Sneak has already taken a dislike to Adam Hosker, the requisite gel-haired used car salesman, who manages to stand out in a line-up of cocky, cocksure cocks by saying, “My strengths and weaknesses are often the same thing, on occasion my confidence can become arrogance.” But on the performance of past series, no doubt Adam will actually turn out to be the kind of laughably overconfident fool you actually end up rooting for, à la the wonderful Paul Torrisi from series 1.

On the basis of job bias, however, Sneak has to root for 25-year-old telecoms manager Lohit Kalburgi, who looks a decent enough chap. He certainly has the ears for monitoring the communications of his rivals.

March 28, 2007 Television | Permalink | Comments (1)

Sneak is nonplussed to learn that best of British broadband provider Bulldog has had its knuckles rapped by the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) for its "misleading" advert suggesting customers could get up to 8Mbit/s of broadband for only £15.50 per month. Seduced by this advert some customers apparently signed up only to find that unless they happened to live a stone’s throw from an exchange (OK, not even Sneak can quite lob a stone 3km, but you get the idea) degradation of the signal meant that for many eager buyers, an eight-meg connection was about as probable as growing a second head.

But now that’s cleared up, Sneak can’t help thinking the ASA could be opening a lot of wormy cans if it plans to insist on actual accuracy in technology adverts. As far as Sneak can ascertain, iPods have never turned anyone into a silhouette; a BT phone will not swing a house purchase unless the buyer is clinically insane; and magical castles and guard dogs do not appear around your PC every time you turn on Windows unless you buy your mushrooms from a furtive hippy. Moreover, Sneak is sure that deploying Microsoft products will not instantly turn your company into a “people-ready business”. Or at least Sneak would be sure about it if “people-ready” actually meant something outside the addled imaginations of advertising execs.

September 21, 2006 Television, Web/Tech | Permalink | Comments (0)

A re-release of 1960s TV series Star Trek has gone down like a duranium balloon with fans, for featuring updated visual effects. The wobbly, fuzzy starship Enterprise has been replaced with a pin-sharp computer-generated doppelganger, much to the dismay of fans who clearly prefer their nostalgia to look like crap. Never mind that Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry was reportedly appalled by the original special effects - particularly those used for the opening credits sequence - which were shoddy even at the time.

Apparently it’s only the exterior space shots that have been redone - in the scenes where there are actors, polystyrene rocks and papier-mâché monsters, nothing has been retouched, which seems like a job half done to Sneak. But perhaps the graphics wizards are leaving a more extensive redecorating job for a later date, when the technology has advanced sufficiently to generate the illusion that William Shatner could act.

September 12, 2006 Television | Permalink | Comments (0)

Sneak is gutted to learn that the beautiful friendship between those two titans of modern office life, Ricky Gervais and Microsoft, has come to a sticky end. They really were so well suited: one's a globally recognised comedian with a bit of middle-aged spread and a rampaging God complex, and the other's Ricky Gervais.

Apparently Gervais is less than happy that a training video he and comedy partner Stephen Merchant created for his erstwhile corporate backer three years ago has been leaked onto various video websites. The comedian had originally only agreed to do the video, in which he stars as the infamous David Brent, on the condition Microsoft would never release the material.

According to one report a spokeswoman for Gervais said he was concerned the release of the videos could make fans think he had gone back on his decision to retire Brent. Which may be the case, but could the uncharacteristically reticent Gervais also be fearful that confirmation he was willing to take the Microsoft shilling doesn't really chime with the countless interviews he has given claiming he wants to avoid over exposure and stay true to his comedic genius.

A great example of which appeared in last week's Saturday Guardian where in a fawning puff piece Gervais was quoted as claiming "You have to discipline yourself and you have to ration yourself. I can get sick of someone I like within the space of a weekend if I see them on two quiz shows and then in the Sunday paper".

Well Sneak just hopes Microsoft staff aren’t sick of Ricky's training videos because it doesn’t look like they're going to get an updated version any time soon.

August 25, 2006 Television | Permalink | Comments (1)

Is it just Sneak, or is there something odd about the latest BT TV advert? The useless, floppy-fringed thirty-something male plus new partner (mother of a brood of sullen sprogs) tour a trendy house for sale, guided by a clipboard-clutching pipsqueak of an estate agent, only to stumble across a white IP-phone, whereupon the pipsqueak agent launches into a sermon about the wonders of BT’s Total Broadband package. That one.

Why, if the bleeding IP-phone is so great, have the previous owners left it behind in their otherwise stripped-bare house?

And why, exactly, does BT think it a good idea to use an estate agent to extol the virtues of its services? That profession does, after all, enjoy a reputation for being about as trustworthy as a hoodie’s promise to tidy his room. Plus, estate agencies are universally loathed and despised for creaming off huge profits from customers that they pretty much have over a barrel.

Ah... suddenly Sneak sees the connection.

August 8, 2006 Television | Permalink | Comments (0)

As per every year, Sneak will be trying to roundly ignore the terrifying exercise in human ant-farming that is Big Brother. But as per every year, Sneak will no doubt fail miserably and end up letting every moment of every episode sluice into his brain like liquidised offal swirling down a plughole. While trawling the web to find alternative ways of mashing brain cells to a pasty pulp, Sneak somehow ended up navigating to the BB web site – just as sirens once lured sailors to their mangled doom on the rocks with promises of a bit of harmless fun. At the site, Sneak learned that contestant “Mikey” is not just an apparent genetic hybrid of gormless TV host Vernon Kay and Roberto, the Italian loser from last year. No, Mikey is, scarily, a software developer by trade. Or, to be precise, a “software developer and model”.

There can’t be many people who list both those occupations on their CV, which did set Sneak wondering. So, have any of you out there ever employed the skills of Mikey as either a bit-basher or as a clothes horse? And was he any good at either?

May 19, 2006 Television | Permalink | Comments (6)

Sneak mentioned new Channel 4 sitcom The IT Crowd a couple of weeks ago. Rather than the usual lawyer’s letter, Sneak was surprised to receive a complimentary reviewer’s copy of the first episode on DVD.

And Sneak can report that the first show, at least, is not bad at all. Its resemblance to a real IT department is uncannily exact. If, that is, you work in a decrepit basement surrounded by racks of decaying monitors, trolleys stuffed with old system units, unwashed cups and broken chairs. And if your idea of a burning IT issue is typically covered by BoingBoing rather than IT Week.

Still, at least Sneak was able to play spot the nerdy detail in the background: the flying spaghetti monster pinned to a wall; the “Fair use has a posse” sticker on the door; the Electronic Frontier Foundation logo on a laptop, and of course the RTFM T-shirt.

To be fair to the producers, they did get one thing absolutely spot on: the CEO who thinks sending email is as complicated as IT can possibly get.

The show opens on Friday 3 February at 9.30pm, or you can download it via the Channel 4 web site a week earlier.

Filed under TV and computers

January 24, 2006 Television | Permalink | Comments (5)