J.A. Watson

I started working with what we called "analog computers" in aircraft maintenance with the United States Air Force in 1970. After finishing military service and returning to university, I was introduced to microprocessors and machine language programming on Intel 4040 processors. After that I also worked on, operated and programmed Digital Equipment Corporation PDP-8, PDP-11 (/45 and /70) and VAX minicomputers. I was involved with the first wave of Unix-based microcomputers, in the early '80s. I have been working in software development, operation, installation and support since then.

Latest Posts

VoIP to PSTN Calling - Costs

Last week I wrote about the technical aspects of dial-out to PSTN phones, now I would like to take a look at the costs of such calls. Of course, these vary widely based on where you are calling to, and in some cases where you are calling from, so I will just use a few simple cases to get an idea of how the programs compare.

February 21, 2008 by

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Gizmo5 Cross-System Chat

I've been experimenting this week with Gizmo5's ability to set up chat contacts not only with other Gizmo users, but also across different systems and networks. After figuring out that I was being quite naive about how to set it up and what it could do, I now have it working, and I am quite pleased and impressed with it.

February 13, 2008 by

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The Week In Review

Wow, what a week we had last week! It started first thing on Monday with an excellent new release from ooVoo, followed on Tuesday by Skype blundering through an attempt at a new release, and finally on Thursday Gizmo5 also made a very nice new release.

February 10, 2008 by

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Typical - Skype Version Confusion

In a typical show of carelessness (or incompetence), Skype has announced that they have a new version available for download, and someone from Skype Staff has suddenly appeared in their User Forums, telling people to download it to solve problems. BUT, when the poor users download what should be 3.

February 5, 2008 by

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