Internet Explorer 9 - The FishIE tank test!

I thought I'd give Internet Explorer 9 (IE9) a try and test out its claims of faster performance and hardware acceleration.

Microsoft's FishIE tank demo uses the canvas element to draw fish swimming in a fish tank. With IE9, hardware acceleration is used to speed up drawing with the canvas element. An FPS counter tells you how many frames per second the browser is able to draw.

My test system is a Core i5-430M (2.26GHz) with 4Gb RAM, running Windows 7 64-bit with IE9 32-bit. Since there is no Adobe Flash player for the 64-bit version of IE, I always use the 32-bit version, so did so for this test too. The graphics adapter is an ATi Radeon 5450 with 512Mb DDR3.

IE9 versus Firefox 3.6.15

We start with 20 fish and Firefox is unable to draw at the full 60 FPS, managing 48 FPS.

With 50 fish, IE is still at the full 60 FPS and Firefox has dropped to 35 FPS.

Let's try Chrome...

IE9 versus Google Chrome 10.0.648.133

We start with 20 fish and this time the rival browser is able to keep up with IE, drawing the full 60 FPS.

With 50 fish, Chrome is still pushing out 60 FPS.

On to 100 fish and Chrome now starts to show signs of breaking and drops 4 to 56 FPS.

With 250 fish, Chrome is still plugging along, managing 28 FPS.

Move on to a whopping 500 fish and Chrome is starting to chug, at 15 FPS. IE9 meanwhile is still pushing 60 FPS.

Is there any stopping IE? Well, yes. At 1000 fish on this modest test system it is finally losing some frames at 41 FPS.

Try the FishIE tank at:
http://ie.microsoft.com/testdrive/performance/fishIETank/default.html

Anita

This is Anita! I found her at a car boot sale and after some haggling and transfer of funds she was allowed to come home with me.

British made by the Bell Punch Company, the original model of Anita was the world's first all-electronic desktop calculator. Obviously this particular one is a slightly later model, released in 1971 - 10 years after the original.

Anita speaks in Reverse Polish when it comes to calculations, so my initial attempts at communicating with her resulted in some confusing exchanges. Luckily she came with the original instruction manual and I soon had her behaving properly. You must enter one number, press the ENTER 1ST NO button, enter the second number and then press the button for the operator (PLUS, MINUS etc).

The display is made up of 10 Nixie tubes. These are like vaccuum tubes; glass tubes filled with an inert gas. Each contains a wire mesh anode and 10 cathodes that light up to form the digits 0 to 9. The decimal point is represented by separate lamps, one between each digit, although sadly one of them doesn't light up any more. In fact, one of the other ones lights up instead, so it may be that the lamp works but there is a short circuit in there somewhere.

The LSI in the name stands for Large Scale Integration. Yes, this thing is old, but it actually contains integrated circuits! 1000s of transistors forming a miniaturised circuit in the surface of a thin layer of semiconductor material. I must admit I didn't know that integrated circuits were available in consumer products as early as 1971. When I first saw this thing, I was sure it must be late '70s.

Although Anita can count, unfortunately she is a bit poorly and has some trouble with her tubes. Displaying either a 4 or a 7 results in both the 4 and 7 cathodes lighting up simulateously, which makes understanding her answers slightly tricky! This affects each of the tubes, so I think it's a problem with the circuitry driving them rather than something wrong with the tubes themselves.

I don't know if Anita is worth much. There are certainly none on eBay, so she's a rare find that's for sure. I have a sneaky suspicion that her organs are worth more on the black market than she is as a whole. The Nixie tubes are quite sought-after by retro boffins who make them into clocks and other gubbins.

Project Amiga - Part 2

It turns out it's easy to get files from the PC file system to the emulated Amiga in WinUAE. There is a feature to create a virtual hard disk from a folder on the PC - perfect!

I've decided that I will need an easy way to move further files between the Amiga and PC in the future. Browsing eBay revealed a PCMCIA to Compact Flash solution that comes with the relevant software on an Amiga floppy. This is mightily tempting, but a) it's a bit of a cop-out to let someone else do the hard work and provide a ready-to-use disk and b) I am loathe to spend the £15.99 including shipping considering my whole set up so far has cost only £8.48!

Instead, I've ordered a PCMCIA to Compact Flash adapter from a seller in China for the whopping sum of £2.36 including delivery. How can they make any money selling this so cheaply?!!! I just hope that it's a classic 16-bit PCMCIA device and not 32-bit CardBus only.... My research leads me to believe that it is.


On the software front, I've downloaded a number of tools from Aminet that will hopefully get this thing working. Firstly the compact flash driver cfd.lha, which allows the Amiga to see the compact flash card. Secondly, FAT95, which allows the Amiga to read a Windows formatted file system. Finally, ADFBlitzer, which lets you write ADF files to real Amiga disks.

I also need to check out a tool called WHDLoad, which allows you to run many Amiga floppy games from the hard disk.

Project Amiga

Last weekend I had the good fortune to pick up a Commodore Amiga 1200 with Commodore 1084S colour monitor from a car boot sale for the princely sum of £5. The computer and monitor both worked well enough, so naturally the next thing to do was take the 1200 apart!

My plan was to install a 2.5" 1.2Gb laptop drive that I have lying around into the Amiga. This drive is no use to man nor beast when fitted to a PC nowadays, but in the Amiga 1.2Gb is plenty for a Workbench 3.0 install and a bunch of apps/games. The little metal cradle that the drive fits to was present inside, but not the 44-pin cable necessary to connect the drive to the Amiga's IDE interface, so it was onto eBay to buy one (£3.48).

While waiting for this to arrive I've been thinking about how to actually go about installing Workbench. When I had my original A1200, it was a hard disk model with a 20Mb(!) drive installed. Of course this had Workbench on it already, so I have no experience of actually installing it myself. I had used CrossDOS to get files between Amiga and PC on a 720Kb MS-DOS formatted disk, but this was before the days of emulation and ADF images so I have no experience of getting an ADF image from the PC to a real disk on the Amiga.

In readiness I've borrowed some Workbench disks from a friend who still has his A1200, however his is not a hard disk model and does not include the Install disk - just the 5 other disks (Workbench, Extras, Storage, Locale and Fonts). I read somewhere that the HDD tools are on the Extras disk, so I might be able to partition and format the drive in the Amiga using that. Then, to install Workbench it may be possible to simply copy the relevant files from the floppies to the right location on the HDD.

I then started reading about a feature in WinUAE that allows you to mount a real Amiga hard drive inside the emulator. As I have an IDE to USB adaptor for my PC, I can simply connect the 1.2Gb drive to the PC, mount it in WinUAE and install Workbench from there. Experimenting with WinUAE however revealed a problem - the "Add Hard Drive" button was greyed out. More reading and I found that WinUAE must be started with the -disableharddrivesafetycheck parameter, otherwise the emulator refuses to look at any drive that has an existing partition. I went to the command line and launched WinUAE with this parameter, but it made no difference. It turns out that you must also run WinUAE as administrator, so you need to be running your CLI as administrator or create a shortcut to WinUAE and right-click "Run as administrator".

The only thing I haven't figured out is how I will actually copy ADF images (or indeed any files) from my PC to the newly formatted Amiga hard drive. I will have to investigate how to get files from the PC's local file system to the attached Amiga HDD...

Once Upon A Time In America

I bought this on DVD the other day and having now watched it felt compelled to write something as it’s the best film I’ve seen in a while.  There are spoilers in what follows, so don’t read this if you haven’t seen it and plan on watching it.

Once Upon A Time in America is a truly epic movie, not just because it’s almost 4 hours long but because it is one spectacular work of cinematic art.  Directed by Sergio Leone, who spent years making this film happen, it is a story of gangland America set over a period of 40 years or more from the prohibition era of the 1920s and early 1930s through to the late 1960s.

 
Influenced by the novel The Hoods, written by Harry Grey, the tale is told through a series of flashbacks and flashforwards between the eras.  Stories that are told in this manner and span whole lifetimes can give the viewer a powerful sense of realisation and wonder as the ways in which events, people and lives piece together become apparent.  Done really effectively, as is the case with Once Upon A Time In America, it can give a sense not dissimilar to nostalgia as you watch characters visit their old haunts and observe how times and people have changed or stood still.

Director Sergio Leone assembled a brilliant cast, with Robert DeNiro, James Woods, Elizabeth McGovern and a young Jennifer Connelly in her first feature film role to name but a few.  The sets and locations are equally impressive, giving an authentic portrayal of early 20th century New York.

The protagonist is David “Noodles” Aaronson, played by DeNiro in the 1930s and 1960s scenes and by an unknown (to me anyway) actor for his childhood years.  He and his gang of street kids survive through small time crime, but following an altercation which results in rival “hood” Bugsy getting stabbed to death, Noodles is incarcerated for 12 years. We see nothing of his time in jail and the story picks up again with his release, by which time his old gang have risen to power in the criminal underworld of the prohibition era.

The film actually begins at this point in the 1930s with the killing of Noodles’ gang, before flashing back to events of the preceding days.  So even within the 1930s era the events are not played out in chronological order.

We then flash forward to the 1960s with Noodles, who has been living in self-imposed exile, returning to New York for the first time in over 30 years.

It may sound confusing but it’s easy to follow because the way in which the actors are aged between the 1930s scenes to the 1960s scenes is very well executed, particularly in the case of Robert DeNiro.  The transition between these eras is also handled brilliantly.  For example, as we move between the 1930s and the 1960s, we see Noodles leaving from and returning to the same bus station in one seamless scene, with a change in music (to The Beatles’ Yesterday) and of course DeNiro’s makeup signifying the change.  The characters in the 1920s and earlier are played by an excellent ensemble of young actors, who look enough like their adult counterparts to be believable and easily recognisable.

Due to the length of the film, the original US release was heavily cut, dispensing with the flashback/flashforward format and instead relaying events in chronological order. Having seen how effective the full release is, this trimmed down version must have been far less impressive and indeed it was a critical and box office flop.

There is one exception to the brilliant contrast between the eras and that is the character of Deborah as an adult, played by Elizabeth McGovern, who appears to have received very little attention from the effects department and looks almost exactly the same in the 1960s as she does in the 1930s.  This is confusing, as such as brilliant job was done in all other aspects, particularly as Jennifer Connelly who plays the young Deborah bears a convincing resemblance to Elizabeth McGovern.  Upon reading IMDB though, one theory suggests that this is in fact intentional and lends credence to an alternative interpretation of the whole story.  I won’t reveal anything further, but you can read it for yourself amongst the trivia in the IMDB entry for this film.

There are a couple of scenes throughout the film that some people may find uncomfortable.  As well as some quite graphic killings and beatings, Noodles rapes two women which you might expect would alienate the audience from the character; yet somehow it doesn’t, perhaps because of the exact circumstances, perhaps because of the way in which it is handled and perhaps because of the fact that Noodles basically comes across as a decent guy in spite of everything he does.  At least the film doesn’t pussyfoot around these issues and succeeds in creating a believable portrayal of the era.

The ending of the film is ambiguous, both in terms of the final scene in the 1960s and the actual final scene of the film, which is set in the 1930s.  There are a few unanswered questions, such as did Max jump in to the garbage truck, or was it just a smokescreen for another elaborate disappearing act?  And, more importantly, why does Noodles have a big grin on his face at the end of the film?  At this point (in the 1930s) it’s either just after he’s learned of his gang’s death, or just after he’s informed the police of their plans. Either way, despite the fact he’s high on opiates, would he be grinning?  Perhaps this also supports the alternative interpretation of the story.

Also what remains unexplained is what Noodles has done with his life in the years between 1933 and the late 60s.  When asked that very question by Fat Moe, he replies simply “Going to bed early”!  It is actually testament to the effective script and story that, despite the length and depth of this film, it still leaves the viewer to imagine and ponder these details.

This review would not be complete without mentioning something of the score.  The music was composed by Ennio Morricone who produced the soundtracks for a number of Leone’s films.  His work here is excellent and fits the period very well, with a gentleness to the melodies that helps the viewer to sympathise with the characters.  There is a sort of theme tune, for want of a better description, that runs throughout and in one scene the young gang are heard whistling it as they attempt to look innocent while preparing for mischief.

As well as Morricone’s score, the film uses several other pieces of existing music.  Rossini’s The Thieving Magpie is very fitting during a baby-switching scene in a hospital and other recognisable pieces include God Bless America and Lennon and McCartney’s Yesterday which I mentioned earlier.

In summary, Once Upon A Time In America is one of those films that should be on any film enthusiast’s list of essential viewing.  Just make sure that you see the full-length version to appreciate this masterpiece as it was intended.  The Warner Home Video 2 disc special edition will have pride of place in my DVD collection for many years to come.

Windows 7

My copy of Windows 7 arrived yesterday afternoon, so I decided to waste some time this morning installing and playing with it.

The Package

Thankfully Tesco had used CityLink to deliver it, so no worries about it getting caught up in the current Royal Mail industrial action.  It came in a stupidly large ‘envelope’:

Inside was the full retail version of Windows 7 Home Premium, which now costs twice what I paid for it on pre-order :)  I only wish I’d bought several of them…

Both 32-bit and 64-bit editions are included on separate DVDs.  I decided to install the 32-bit version because I don’t think I would currently benefit from using the 64-bit version.  With 4Gb RAM and only 3.25Gb available to a 32-bit OS, I could have reclaimed the extra 768Mb but the additional overhead of 64-bits would more than wipe that out anyway.

Installation

I installed it to a separate 500Gb hard disk, leaving XP on the other disk so I can simply choose which OS to boot using the BIOS boot menu.  In any case, Windows 7 won’t do an in-place upgrade from XP; you have to back-up all your data, do a fresh install and then use Windows Easy Transfer to restore your files and settings if you want to completely replace your old OS.

Installation was seriously quick – it took only 19 minutes!  This has to be faster than any version of Windows on the same hardware. All my hardware worked out of the box with the exception of an ancient Canon BJC-250 inkjet printer.  To get this working, I downloaded the last driver Canon made, which was for 2000/XP, and ran the installer in XP compatibility mode.  This worked fine and I can now print.  Nothing new here though, as this trick would have worked in Vista as well.

Performance

Windows 7 boots up pretty quickly, but then it is installed onto an empty drive.  This drive is also a newer generation and therefore a bit quicker (by up to 20Mb/sec) than my other 500Gb drive which has XP on it.  From the end of POST to the login prompt takes 29 seconds, with a further 4 seconds after logging on before the Start menu (now the Windows blob) is available.

By comparison, XP boots up in 22 seconds to the login box, but after logging on there’s a delay of 12 seconds before the Start menu is available.  It is still loading system tray programs at this point though.

It’s difficult to make a comparison as XP has all my programs installed whereas 7 is a clean install apart from AVG Antivirus.  Overall it’s likely that 7 is faster to boot up than Vista, but roughly the same as XP.

It certainly shuts down more quickly though, taking around 14 seconds to switch off compared to a good half a minute for XP.

Cool Features

If you’ve already used Vista then the interface is very similar.  Aero has been updated to include some new effects/features.  Aero Snap is probably the most useful, where dragging a window to the far left or far right of the screen causes the window to fill that half of the screen.  This is great for placing two documents/web pages side by side so you can compare them.

One or two other things immediately stand out as particularly useful. The first is the addition of recent file lists for individual applications.  Click the arrow to the right of them in the Start menu and you get a list of recent files used in that app.  Very handy indeed.

Next, system tray icons are customisable.  You can show only notifications, hiding icons that aren’t displaying anything useful, or completely hide icons that you’re not interested in.

Omissions

Quick Launch has gone, which is bizarre as it’s an extremely useful way of putting shortcuts to frequently used things on the taskbar.  Luckily I found a way to put it back.  Quick Launch lives in

%userprofile%\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Quick Launch

All you have to do is right-click on the taskbar and choose Toolbars –> New Toolbar and you can pick the Quick Launch folder above.  Then you can fiddle with the settings to get rid of the title and text captions, unlock the taskbar and drag the pinned programs over to the right so that Quick Launch is back where it belongs at the left.

There’s a couple of things you won’t necessarily need in Quick Launch any more and those are Internet Explorer (which is now pinned to the taskbar by default) and the Show Desktop feature (which can now be accessed at the far right of the taskbar).

Rather than use Quick Launch, you could just pin everything you use frequently to the taskbar.  However, there’s two reasons why this doesn’t work for me.  The first is that the icons just take up too much space, whereas Quick Launch icons are tiny.  Secondly, it just doesn’t work for “My Computer”.  No amount of pinning would get it to stay there and I like to be able to access hard disks / removable drives quickly via My Computer.

Another fairly significant omission is Windows Mail.  This has been removed completely, but you can download a new version from Windows Live Essentials.  This is accessible on the Start menu under Getting Started.

The new version, called Windows Live Mail, seems to do everything Windows Mail in Vista did, but it does look rather bleak:

 
There’s a severe lack of any icons/graphics and I find the absence of the File/Edit/etc menus as annoying as their absence from the Office 2007 apps, although they are at least accessible by pressing ALT.

One huge bonus though is that your account usernames are now remembered.  With Windows Mail on Vista, unless you entered both username and password it would not save them for next time.  I like to have the username saved, but still have to enter the password each time the program is started.

Windows Live Essentials also contains a useful freebie called Windows Live Writer.  This is a WYSIWYG blog editor app which allows you to submit to various blogging services including Blogger. 

 
You can save local drafts while composing your entries, which is far more reassuring than working directly in a browser.  There doesn’t seem to be any way to save your submissions to somewhere offline though, apart from changing to the source window and manually copying & pasting everything out into an HTML file.

Conclusion

Windows 7 is a decent OS.  It’s fast, looks nice and has some useful features.  At the discounted pre-order price it was a real bargain, but at full price it doesn’t necessarily represent such good value.  If you have a fast PC and already have Vista, it’s only a minor upgrade.  It is probably more relevant for people who finally want to replace their ageing XP, or when buying a new PC of course.  I’m sticking with Vista on my laptop as I’ve never had any complaints with it, but 7 is a worthwhile update for an XP desktop.