Shepton-Digital-Arts Festival

A combination of Challenge Anneka and Location, Location, Location. We had two days to transform a disused warehouse into a 180 seat digital cinema complete with bar, cafe, sofas and illuminated cubes for sitting on. The first task we had to undertake was to sweep away the armies of dead flies that had accumulated over the summer and then all the lighting, sound, stage flats and projection equipment had to be carried up three flights of stairs.

With some amazing help (thanks Jenn, Zena, Rob, Cliff, Andy and all the other tireless volunteers) we made it happen. To see 120+ adults and children all busy making plasticine Gromits under the expert eye of Jim Parkyn on the Saturday (we almost broke the world record) was a sight to behold. Huge praise to the indefatigable Claire Sully for never ever letting go of the original vision and for attracting some world class talent. Sheptonians can be be really proud of such a fantastic Festival!

‘Early morning, semi-detached Highgate, London’ The received pronunication voice-over has BBC written all over it and in fact was recorded by the great Derek Cooper of the Food Programme fame. In the late sixties, the web as we know it wasn’t even a twinkle in Tim Berners-Lee’s eye, but already the idea of networking was starting to take shape, as this clunky teleprinter was connected to a ‘giant brain’ ten miles away. I remember the teleprinter from the Grandstand football results in the 1970s but had no idea they were quite as noisy. No wonder his wife sent him and his teleprinter to the spare bedroom. Fascinating glimpse too of what must be the first on-line diary held by ‘the brain’.

It is hard to believe these days that in the early 1980s you needed to connect your computer to a telephone line, using an acoustic coupler, in order to send an email. The coupler converted your electronic mail into a series of audio pulses.  This vintage BBC clip captures the early days of electronic mail, via an Apple II computer, with some seriously impressive floppy discs in support.

Binary Joke Department: There are 10 sorts of people in the world.  Those who can read binary code and those who can’t.