Post by blogmywiki / Redsky

Pretty sure the Sinclair ZX-81 didn't have Microsoft BASIC, so those talks were imaginary or went nowhere I guess. (Printout magazine gossip column, September 1980),

aug 29, 2025, 8:07 am • 0 0

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More baseless rumours in Printout magazine (October 1980) about a supposed new Commodore 'VIC' computer. Can't see that getting to market.

Now the Stateside press item, which we again stress seems to be speculative journalism at its best. It appears Commodore showed

aug 29, 2025, 10:26 am • 1 0 • view

So Julian Allason, founder of Commodore PET Printout magazine, had quite a life. - Became a photographer in the 60s after snapping Keith Richards & Anita Pallenberg in the street - Helped found the Anthony Powell society - Wrote the FT 'How to Spend It' column - Worked as a magistrate and for NACRO

aug 30, 2025, 7:32 am • 4 1 • view

- Later became a CBT therapist - His brother was Rupert Allason (aka Nigel West) - Died in 2015 aged 67

Colour photograph of Julian Allason in later life, a smiling white man wearing a black jacket and blue tie

Presumably one of his 1960s photographs, it's uncaptioned. Black and white. A young woman in a very short mini dress sits on the bonnet of a Mini car painted with groovy patterns and his name.

aug 30, 2025, 9:10 am • 1 0 • view

Never mind AI, Commodore PET computers are coming for your job. (Printout magazine, June 1981).

aug 30, 2025, 9:14 am • 1 1 • view

Printout's gossip column in June 1981 taking a pop at the journalist Duncan Campbell (not to be confused with the journalist Duncan Campbell.) While the calls may not have been automatically transcribed, is it not interesting that back then phone calls were being routinely tapped & digitised?

Duncan Campbell's New Statesman story about computers at the Government's phonetapping centre automatically transcribing intercepted calls caused a political storm last year. It was all non-sense, of course, despite endorsement by such luminaries as PW's Guy Kewney. What actually happens is that calls are intercepted at the subject's local exchange and routed to the Pimlico centre. There the speech is digitized and stored on disk. This means that calls can be retrieved instantly for playback without having to wind through miles of tape recordings. Transcription is via the time honoured method of headphones and typewriter. Ironically it has been Campbell's own friends on the Loony Left who have been most inconvenienced by his

aug 31, 2025, 8:05 am • 1 0 • view

Yes, I rather think that story misses the point, in its keenness to bash Campbell (the Secret Society/Zircon one, not the one who married Julie Christie).

aug 31, 2025, 8:12 am • 1 0 • view

Rupert Allason who brought numerous libel actions and lost them all, you mean?

aug 31, 2025, 8:10 am • 2 0 • view

According to wiki he got a retrial for the Alastair Campbell / Daily Mirror one and got 75% of his costs.

aug 31, 2025, 8:29 am • 1 0 • view

He also once drove his car into a pram containing a Swiss baby and when the police turned up his passenger said "What's the big deal? The kid's not dead and besides which it isn't even English." Seems nice.

sep 2, 2025, 9:54 am • 1 0 • view

Wow.

sep 2, 2025, 10:25 am • 1 0 • view