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Archive 1Archive 2

Welcome!

Hello, and welcome to Wikipedia. Someone must have been lazy, as you have not been welcomed yet. Thank you for your contributions. Since you have been here for a while, we can pretty much assume you are not a troll, vandal, or clueless newbie. I hope you continue to like the place and don't get all grumpy and leave over nothing. Here are a few good links for newcomers, even though you aren't one:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Verifiability I hope you still enjoy editing here and being a Wikipedian, and won't get mad over something stupid and leave! By the way, please be sure to continue to sign your name on Talk and vote pages using four tildes (~~~~) to produce your name and the current date, or three tildes (~~~) for just your name. If you have any questions, see the help pages, add a question to the village pump or ask me on my Talk page. Again, welcome, and sorry for your not being welcomed in the past! Alphax τεχ 07:56, 7 November 2005 (UTC)

OSI model

Thanks for cleaning up the OSI model page. It looks as if the person whose changes you removed copied stuff from the data link layer page and put it into the network layer section of the OSI model page; removing it was the right thing to do (and would arguably have been the right thing to do even if he or she had put them in the data link layer section, as that section already links to the data link layer page). Guy Harris 19:47, 27 December 2005 (UTC)

Yeah... the content looked excessive, so it seemed clear that something was amiss. Thanks for explaining. StuartBrady 20:23, 28 December 2005 (UTC)

SAM Coupé

I've got the pics we took. Most of them don't seem to be as good as the ones the article has currently. We do have extra bits, but I'm not sure how many pics the article needs.. I'll stick on commons and you can add if you feel like it. Secretlondon 20:12, 28 December 2005 (UTC)

Thanks. There aren't any images in the sections that deal with the Messenger, SAMBUS and Kaleidoscope. I don't think there's space for the 1MB memory module, or the break button card, though. I'll add them, but if anyone removes them, I won't object. StuartBrady 20:20, 28 December 2005 (UTC)
I'm gonna categorise and tidy the home computer section of commons and stick them all in there, with the current ones. Then we shall we have more SAM Coupé pictures than anyone will know what to do with! (which is fine for commons) Secretlondon 20:35, 28 December 2005 (UTC)
Ok. I've not moved the current photos to commons but I have uploaded all other sam pics and stuck them in [1]. Please label them as you know what they are. None of the spectrum pics were useable alas. Secretlondon 23:30, 28 December 2005 (UTC)

Just a quick note to say that in response to your comment, I checked out some official literature (in this case an old advertising pamphlet with surprising technical detail) and had forgotten the dual functionality of the stereo output/lightpen input and switched round the order of that and the mouse socket in my head. Fixed now! ThomasHarte 03:05, 19 January 2006 (UTC)

Framebuffer

User Swaaye and I may have come to a solution on the discussion of merging the Framebuffer and Video RAM topics. If we could get you to weigh in, we may end up with a concensus on the issue. Thanks for driving that, BTW. The Video RAM page was definitely in need of some sort of change. --Jbanes

Recent categorization of screenshots

I would like to complement you on your work with Category:ZX Spectrum game screenshots, Category:Commodore 64 game screenshots and Category:Amstrad CPC game screenshots. Though, I was wondering why you didn't make a template like Template:Nintendo-screenshot instead? Couldn't that remove the categorized screenshots from the overcrowded Category:Screenshots of computer and video games?

Thanks! The game-screenshot license text isn't always appropriate, but I'm sure that can be dealt with manually when needed. The only question is what to call the templates? "game-screenshot-c64", "game-screenshot-zxs", etc? I wasn't sure whether removing screenshots from Category:Screenshots of computer and video games would be welcomed. If that's not a problem, I'll add templates for loads more machines. --StuartBrady 13:47, 12 February 2006 (UTC)

WikiProject C++

The WikiProject C++ aims to increase the quality of C++-related articles on Wikipedia, and has discovered that you have participated in the editing of them! So don't hesitate, join us! --Deryck C. 16:13, 11 March 2006 (UTC)

2006 FIFA World Cup

Due to rapid updates, I inadvertandly overwrote an edit by yourself while attempting to correct version 62250680. It seems we both submitted the same correction at roughly the same time. To top it off I rather embarrassingly made an error in the linking of the Portugal football team. Apologies for that blunder and thank you for rectifying it all! ~xenc. 21:20, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

Don't worry. It took me two attempts to get the fix right anyway! Cheers, --StuartBrady (Talk) 21:24, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

Z80 picture comment

Hello Stuart

It was me that wrote "the date stamp says well before July 1976" comment; according to you, that was no great wording... ;) Could you please help me enhance my English a little by giving me some clue as to why that was not great, or which parts could be better? I am a swede trying to get a better grasp on your native language (relying on the "parrot" method mainly).

BTW July '76 is mentioned in the article, and those four digits (for year & week) is a de-facto standard since long used by IC manufacturers (in case you didn't know that already).

Thanks on beforehand. -- HenkeB 22:17, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

Ahh. You caught me — I didn't say I could do any better. Seriously though, "says" probably isn't the right word to use (but it's perfectly fine in casual conversation). Maybe "the date stamp is from well before July 1976". Does that sound better to you? Also, what's wrong with "the date stamp is from June 1976" — would that be correct, or not?
I was aware of the four digit convention... but I didn't want to sound too authoritative, as I don't know how long it's been in place. BTW, it does seems reasonable to me that this particular Z80 could have been manufactured before Zilog actually started selling Z80s.
Thanks! --StuartBrady (Talk) 00:16, 8 July 2006 (UTC)


Isn't Wikipedia very much about sounding authoritative, even (or especially so) on the discussion pages...? A degree of humbleness is always nice, however!
But seriously - I must say I find it somewhat difficult to appreciate just how "casual" one should sound/write on Wikipedia.
Now to something completely different: Regarding your 6502 and Z80 comparison remark on the RISC discussion page (which I couldn't help noticing), let me show you an example, a 16-bit addition, which, on the 6502, is a pretty heavy task:
6502:		; Add 16-bits numbers at B0H and C0H, result at C2H
	LDA $B0		; [3] Get LSB of number at B0H
	CLC		; [2] Cy:=0
	ADC $C0 	; [3] Add LSB of number at C0H
	STA $C2		; [3] Store LSB of result at C2H
	LDA $B1		; [3] Get MSB of number at B0H
	ADC $C1		; [3] Add MSB of number at C0H (+Cy from LSB)
	STA $C3		; {3] Store MSB of result at C2H
			; Total: 20 cycles (@1MHz)

Z80:	ADD HL,BC	; 11 cycles (@4MHz) - 7 times as fast
I suppose this is nothing new to you, but it's nevertheless interesting to note that a 4MHz Z80 (despite its 3..5 states for every machine cycle) in some cases could be 7 times as fast as the quick 6502, even if they often were (are) on pair with each other.
Thanks! -- HenkeB 03:52, 8 July 2006 (UTC)
Yeah, Wikipedia is about being bold... If I know I'm right about something, I certainly won't back down without arguing. See Talk:PDP-11 and Talk:Framebuffer — I still mean to do something about those articles, but I just felt I had to give up because I clearly wasn't getting through. I'm not really very good at the softly-softly approach, unfortunately... If I disagree with someone, I'm rather direct in my appoach, which probably gets peoples' backs up. :( I certainly don't set out to cause offense.
There's no point in being overly formal... but anything "chatty" is definitely worth avoiding. Wikipedia:Manual of Style is mainly common sense. I think the difficulty is knowing exactly what phrases to avoid... but thankfully there are lots of other editors who'll catch any mistakes. IMO, grammar and spelling should never stop anyone from editing.
I do think the 6502 fans have a point... but I don't think it's fair to say one is faster than the other. I hadn't actually realised that a 16-bit add on the Z80 just over half the number of cycles, though! --StuartBrady (Talk) 20:21, 8 July 2006 (UTC)
Regarding the frame buffer article and discussion, if I understand it correctly, the "Sun-people" would call the whole package consisting of dual ported RAM, CPU/GPU, D/A converter, synk-generator and so on, a framebuffer? That makes no sense, and must be either a sign of insufficient language skills or plain arrogance (my native language is sufficiently similar to English for me to be that bold regarding a language-usage dispute).
Regarding the PDP-11 and C discussion, what I have heard (third hand or so) is that the += and -= operators were choosen so that simple compilers didn't have to optimize x = x + y into x += y in order to generate something like ADD x,y, but this may certainly be wrong.
While we are at it (i.e. syntax, semantics, and C), I must mention one of my personal pet hates (thanks for that):
... No, that would become far to long (it's about = versus ==...)
Cheers, -- HenkeB 23:49, 9 July 2006 (UTC)
WRT the framebuffer article... I have no idea. I'd appeciate some help with that one — it really needs half a dozen users to say "no, that's wrong". I had no idea the problem was Sun marketing. WRT C, there might be some truth in that for really early compilers... but the whole "<x> is inspired by <y>" thing often goes a bit too far. As for = versus ==, I'd have gone for ":=" AND "==". I'm sure that would save more time in debugging than it'd cost in typing. :) Cheers, --StuartBrady (Talk) 00:01, 10 July 2006 (UTC)
WRT ":="; you should be programming in Ada! :-) ---Frodet 11:15, 10 July 2006 (UTC)
Still need to learn that. ISTR reading that it's rather bloated, but it can't be as bad as C++. ;) --StuartBrady (Talk) 18:44, 11 July 2006 (UTC)
It's never too late, you know. Ada is designed to be written once and read often, hence it's verbose - not bloated. Parameter assignments even use "=>". Nothing can be as bad as C++.  :-) --Frodet 22:13, 11 July 2006 (UTC)
WRT framebuffers; After reading some of the external links I've realized that this perverse meaning of "framebuffer" is indeed very established in some circles, a change may unfortunately be to late, but there is certainly nothing that prevents a word from having more than one meaning! Maybe the best would be to create a disambiguation page for "framebuffer" so that people from both planets could have their own story. The reader may then decide which of them feels most natural: framebuffer is a buffer containing picture data, or alternatively, a frambuffer is the graphics hardware and video circuitry in a computer.
Regarding C-syntax, I appreciate that you would meet me halfways :), but what's wrong with "=" for equality? In order not to fragmentize different (scientific) notations more than necessary, I find it very reasonable (and beautiful) to keep traditional notations as far as possible (i.e. using well established symbols for purposes close to their original meaning) — it really bothers me when young people state that a = b says something different than does b = a.
If you have even the slightest sympathy for this point of view, let me know — otherwise, I will just assume you are less than 30 years old ;)
Cheers, -- HenkeB 17:53, 11 July 2006 (UTC)
You're right, of course, but in that case assignment should be something that doesn't contain "=" at all, such as "<-". I am less than 30, but that's no excuse! --StuartBrady (Talk) 18:44, 11 July 2006 (UTC)
You have a point, and arrows has actually been used extensively in pseudo-code since the sixties (when I was born) but they have a small problem of their own (skip this if you are not interested):
If, in some language (with tuples or lists), we update variables with a syntax like A <- (1,2), this suggest thinking along the lines of "(1,2) is put into a box named A". However, if A represents a point in a coordinate system (or any n-dimensional value) the form A -> (1,2) would be more intuitive, saying "A is moved to the point (1,2)". In many OO-languages, where assignments often update references to objects instead of copying them, the form A -> old_object would also be more natural than A <- old_object, as A actually points to (or references) old_object after the assignment. The symbol ":=" does not have this strong "duality".
OK, enough cluttering on your discussion page (I'm 40, and that's an excuse...), -- HenkeB 21:44, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

C language ++/-- operators

As your reference noted, they probably date from the PDP-7 rather than the PDP-11. I simply didn't see the reference. You are correct, I was wrong, and I apologize. -- Gnetwerker 19:25, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

Thanks. Sorry if I whined too much... Looks like we're left with a larger problem now, though — a rather misleading and non-notable paragraph, that I don't know how to get rid of. :( --StuartBrady (Talk) 23:38, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

footballbox

Yes, they're on the list but I had to stop for a bit to go out :) ed g2s • talk 23:27, 14 July 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for that! BTW, something similar applied with me adding infoboxes to 1998 FIFA World Cup, which I've now finished. Fortunately, there's only the 1994 FIFA World Cup left to do. --StuartBrady (Talk) 00:06, 15 July 2006 (UTC)

Football

Thanks for all your good work on football world cup articles. --Guinnog 22:39, 16 July 2006 (UTC)

Cheers! — and thanks for all the great work you've done, too! If there's anything I can do better, do let me know. --StuartBrady (Talk) 22:46, 16 July 2006 (UTC)

adm3a keyboard layout

hi stuart,

i recently found out that wikipedia has no keyboard layout picture of a lear-siegler adm3a (scandal!! ;), and uploaded a picture; however I'm not sure of the copyright question, so i thought about creating a .svg of the thing. that's when i found out that i don't have a working vector editor on my system, and am not likely to get one (old half broken suse, no time to install new system, no way to install inkscape). so i thought, maybe you're interested in creating such a file? the adm3a was used to program vi, and the escape key is just in the right place (where the tab is today), and it has arrows on the hjkl keys, so i think this would be very neat for the vi page :)

cheers --Sarefo 21:47, 10 August 2006 (UTC)

Sure. I'll probably do some other layouts first, but I will do that one. I didn't know where H, J, K and L for movement came from until now! Thanks. --StuartBrady (Talk) 22:29, 10 August 2006 (UTC)
Uploaded as Image:KB Terminal ADM3A.svg. --StuartBrady (Talk) 21:45, 12 August 2006 (UTC)
Whee!! I love wikipedia :) thanks a lot! --Sarefo 22:23, 12 August 2006 (UTC)

Single-handed Dvorak keyboard layout

hi, on the Dvorak page, did you find out what's the deal with the single handed version? thx. 69.236.84.251 00:45, 15 August 2006 (UTC)

Sorry, I didn't. About the only reference to the "other" single-handed version I could find was here. My guess is that these are older versions of the single-handed layouts. I will try to find out more. —StuartBrady (Talk) 01:07, 15 August 2006 (UTC)

ZX Spectrum GA-nominee

You nominated the ZX Spectrum with the comment "Nominated for Good Article status (arguably needed for cvgprog A-class)". But as stated in Template:Grading_scheme (the GA criteria), this is not a requirement. Not to say that this nomination is a bad thing. However, shouldn't we be aiming for FA? We can't let the Commodore 64 get the upper hand for too long....? :-) --Frodet 19:15, 25 August 2006 (UTC)

I honestly don't know whether it's good enough to be a featured article (the main thing I'm worried about its length...) but I'm hopeful that it'll attain Good Article status without much trouble. —StuartBrady (Talk) 20:50, 25 August 2006 (UTC)
BTW, I read the description for 'A-class', found no mention of Good Article status, and assumed it just didn't say. I simply didn't expect to find information about A-class status in the description for Good Article status! —StuartBrady (Talk) 20:53, 25 August 2006 (UTC)

dashes and spacing

Hi again Stuart!

Regarding the ZX81/ZX80 articles, I certainly agree with you that 0–63 looks better than 0-63 does (I was contemplating 0..63 when I wrote it, as that notation slowly has become widely accepted). But what is the meaning with 32&nbsp;kB instead of 32 kB? As it gives the same result/output, at least on my browser (firefox 1.5.0.6), and only makes the raw source text harder to read, it seems a little pointless.

I'm sure there is a reason though :)?

/HenkeB 11:45, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

Right. :) &nbsp; is a non-breaking space. This prevents word-wrapping from placing the '32' on a different line to 'kB'. From WP:MOSNUM#Units of measurement: Put a space between the value and the unit symbol, for example "25 kg" not "25kg". Preferably, use &nbsp; for the space (25&nbsp;kg) so that it does not break lines. So while it's not essential, it's good practice. Cheers. --StuartBrady (Talk) 12:45, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

Mediation case / WRC

Hi, for your mediation case request regarding the World Rally Championship-related articles, could you give a few examples of WHICH articles exactly please? Just saying it is related without giving a few examples is a little too vague for an effective mediation. Thanks. Jsw663 20:48, 24 September 2006 (UTC)

Okay. I've added some examples. It's really easy to find more though. Most of their contributions are broken, IMO. It feels like we need a WikiProject SndrAndrss to keep track of it. (I am seriously thinking about something along those lines as a last resort.) --StuartBrady (Talk) 00:18, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

i sent you both an e-mail. David D. (Talk) 18:55, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

Why shouldn't I remove the tags? After all, the particular screenshots I edited already were in the subcategories for screenshots for particular consoles. You wouldn't put, say, an image of a video game cover for the GameCube in both the category for video game covers and the category for GameCube covers, would you? Besides, the category for screenshots of computer and video games is getting quite stuffed. I'm going to create categories for screenshots of the other consoles later. N. Harmonik 14:54, 18 October 2006 (UTC)

Well, then, what if I put templates for copyright tags in the console-specific screenshot categories - just like the NES Screenshots? Would I then be able to remove the category for screenshots of computer and video games? N. Harmonik 14:15, 19 October 2006 (UTC)
I meant creating new templates, like what you did with the Atari 2600 game screenshots category. N. Harmonik 17:00, 19 October 2006 (UTC)


DSK Template

Thankyou for your template - about time. Trouble is, I'm having some difficulty adding it. Every time I enter it it falls to the left, away from my other userboxes. Are you able to help me fix it? If you check my userpage history (the one before "rv") you will see what I mean. martianlostinspace 17:28, 11 November 2006 (UTC)

Thanks - it worked. martianlostinspace 17:42, 15 November 2006 (UTC)

SVG keyboards.

I just turned up this talk again, and it turns out that most of those questionable images (Which are infact were listed on WP:CP[!]) are now on Commons. Since you offered to make some replacements from your SVG images and skills, can I request you look at these images and see if you can make replacements?:

Thanx. 68.39.174.238 00:57, 15 November 2006 (UTC)

Hi. I did create Image:KB United States Dvorak.svg, Image:KB Dvorak Left.svg and Image:KB Dvorak Right.svg. Image:KB United States.svg was already done. This leaves Image:Hcesar.png and Image:Dvorak keyboard classicnum.png. HCESAR is already on my TODO list. I'm not sure the classic numbers are really worth bothering with. Btw, I did attempt to get the questionable images deleted from commons — see Commons:Deletion requests/Archive/2006/07#Image:Dvorak keyboard fi.png. --StuartBrady (Talk) 12:42, 15 November 2006 (UTC)
Argh! Commons is setting themselves up for something. Those little "shift key" icons are, if nothing else is, definately Apple unique and copyrightable. 68.39.174.238 14:50, 16 November 2006 (UTC)

Women's football (soccer)

Hi... I notice you've made several contributions to the article Women's football (soccer). This article was recently edited from an anonymous ip which has in the past been a source of vandalism. Could I ask you to review these recent changes for accuracy? Cheers. --Rrburke(talk) 01:34, 22 November 2006 (UTC)

WRC event results

Hello! Can your page write down more WRC results in the years between (1982–1991). This results are important because of clarity reasons.

SndrAndrss December 4, 2006 17:41 (UTC)

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