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> He was aware of both CPU and Sinclair Research, and he called them up. This is one of those sentences that make abortretry.fail articles feel slapped togethe

> He was aware of both CPU and Sinclair Research, and he called them up. This is one of those sentences that make abortretry.fail articles feel slapped together from other sources without attribution. Who is “CPU” in this sentence? Context and a little digging reveals it is likely a reference to another early British company in the PC space, Cambridge Processor Unit Ltd. , described in the History section of the Acorn computer Wikipedia. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acorn_Computers https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acorn_Computers This random reference to a random company never goes anywhere is never properly explained in the first place. It gives the feel of something that has been quickly adapted by the author without much thought or understanding.

lproven 2y ago
Yes, that struck me, as well. I think he does a lot of cribbing from Wikipedia and does not acknowledge it. Online a few people have pointed out big holes in this story. Small ones, like the Organizer IIXP did not have a backlight: no Organizer model had a backlight, nor did the MC or the Series 3 or 3A. No mention of the Odin or Crystal phones. https://www.oocities.org/epoc_32/odin https://www.oocities.org/epoc_32/odin No mention of the RIM lawsuit (the Canadians though they'd invented email on the move.) No mention of Charles Davies, employee #1. https://www.theregister.com/2010/06/25/charles_davies/ https://www.theregister.com/2010/06/25/charles_davies/ https://www.computerhistory.org/collections/catalog/102702098 https://www.computerhistory.org/collections/catalog/10270209... No mention of Psion Xchange running on other 68000 OSes as well as QDOS, and on MS-DOS. Little mention of the award-winning Psion games and some of the superstar developers.
- BirAdam 2y ago
  Author here. I don’t use Wikipedia at all. Generally, I read old magazines, books, and occasionally old websites in the Wayback machine when I can’t find other stuff. I then write. I don’t make citations as my work is meant to be neither authoritative nor academic. I research and write for my own enjoyment. As for Davies, I didn’t bring him up because I didn’t have a ton of material on him. For Xchange, I again didn’t have a ton of material. For the games, that early period wasn’t my focus. I really wanted to read/write about their mobile hardware. Now, for the backlight part, I will need to make a correction to my work. I recall reading it was present, but I was clearly wrong. Edit: as for CPU, covered that on my site already: https://www.abortretry.fail/p/mips-for-the-masses https://www.abortretry.fail/p/mips-for-the-masses Edit 2: also, honestly, writing about anything in the UK is somewhat more challenging. I grew up in the USA. Unless people present did interviews I can find, or if I can find books/magazines about it… I won’t have much to go on as I’ll not have experienced it.
  - lproven 2y ago
    Thanks for replying! May I suggest publishing some kind of contact info? I have gone far out of my way to try to contact you with corrections before, including doing WHOIS requests on your domains, emailing `abuse@` as a common catch-all address, and so on, with no success. Citations are one thing, but "more info..." links are good.

lproven 2y ago

Yes, that struck me, as well. I think he does a lot of cribbing from Wikipedia and does not acknowledge it. Online a few people have pointed out big holes in this story. Small ones, like the Organizer IIXP did not have a backlight: no Organizer model had a backlight, nor did the MC or the Series 3 or 3A. No mention of the Odin or Crystal phones. https://www.oocities.org/epoc_32/odin https://www.oocities.org/epoc_32/odin No mention of the RIM lawsuit (the Canadians though they'd invented email on the move.) No mention of Charles Davies, employee #1. https://www.theregister.com/2010/06/25/charles_davies/ https://www.theregister.com/2010/06/25/charles_davies/ https://www.computerhistory.org/collections/catalog/102702098 https://www.computerhistory.org/collections/catalog/10270209... No mention of Psion Xchange running on other 68000 OSes as well as QDOS, and on MS-DOS. Little mention of the award-winning Psion games and some of the superstar developers.

BirAdam 2y ago
Author here. I don’t use Wikipedia at all. Generally, I read old magazines, books, and occasionally old websites in the Wayback machine when I can’t find other stuff. I then write. I don’t make citations as my work is meant to be neither authoritative nor academic. I research and write for my own enjoyment. As for Davies, I didn’t bring him up because I didn’t have a ton of material on him. For Xchange, I again didn’t have a ton of material. For the games, that early period wasn’t my focus. I really wanted to read/write about their mobile hardware. Now, for the backlight part, I will need to make a correction to my work. I recall reading it was present, but I was clearly wrong. Edit: as for CPU, covered that on my site already: https://www.abortretry.fail/p/mips-for-the-masses https://www.abortretry.fail/p/mips-for-the-masses Edit 2: also, honestly, writing about anything in the UK is somewhat more challenging. I grew up in the USA. Unless people present did interviews I can find, or if I can find books/magazines about it… I won’t have much to go on as I’ll not have experienced it.
- lproven 2y ago
  Thanks for replying! May I suggest publishing some kind of contact info? I have gone far out of my way to try to contact you with corrections before, including doing WHOIS requests on your domains, emailing `abuse@` as a common catch-all address, and so on, with no success. Citations are one thing, but "more info..." links are good.