Apple iPhone X 64GB Space Grey Unboxing

It’s taken a while, and although I’ve loved my iPhone 7 Plus, upgrade time has finally come around.  Now I know there are gonna be two or three new iPhones next week, but the monthly charge of those on a UK cellphone contract would have been astronomical.  Made perfect sense to upgrade to an X now (skipping the 8 completely), and then in between one and two years’ time, I have the option of upgrading for free (again) to whatever is the latest phone at that particular time.

I unboxed the phone this morning, but I don’t want to use it yet as I’m still waiting for a soft cover to arrived for it, so I haven’t even switched it on yet!  As usual, you can click on each picture a couple of times for a larger image.  I’ve edited them in Photoshop to make the physical file size a lot smaller.  Also airbrushed out a lot of anomalies.  The pics were taken with my old iPhone 7 Plus, which is currently on eBay until tomorrow.

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Aphex Twin – Collapse EP Unveiled

So THAT’S what the strange Aphex logos were about!

Warp have just announced Aphex’s Twin’s new Collapse EP.  Collapse indeed.  Once the pre-orders were announced, the internet collapsed.  Bleep Store went down, Warp went down, and Twitter and Facebook went into a frenzied meltdown.

After a two hour wait, refreshing, cursing, pacing, refreshing, cursing (repeat to fade), FINALLY got confirmation that my order for a cassette had been successful.

The EP is available on a limited “Procede Heliophore Silver Foil Sleeve with download card insert – only one per customer.  There’s also a standard vinyl EP, CD in a 4-panel wallet and the cassette.  FLAC and 24-bit WAV downloads are also available.

1. T69 Collapse
2. 1st 44
3. MT1 t29r2
4. abundance10edit[2 R8’s, FZ20m & a 909]
5. pthex

Released on 14 September 2018.

Aphex Twin mystery Poster at London’s Elephant & Castle Underground Station

I took a quick jaunt on the Tube to Elephant & Castle to have a look at the Aphex Twin poster that popped up sometime over the weekend and was driving social media nuts with speculation.

I wanted to get a long-shot of the tunnel with both posters in the same picture, but there was someone sleeping in the corner and didn’t want to ruin it!

No idea what it’s meant to depict, but rumours persist of new material in the form of an album, or maybe live dates etc.

Watch this space.

ODOROID-GO Unpacking Photos

Odroid-GO is a miniature handheld game kit, basically.  Now celebrating its 10th anniversary, a special board has been produced together with all the parts you need to snap together your very own handheld games console.  Not just a fun assembly project, but also a quite serious educational tool to learn all about the hardware and software that goes into building such a device.

Games can be downloaded from various sources online and stored on a (not included) micro-SD card (8GB or greater).  The emulator supports Game Boy, Game Boy Colour, Game Gear, NES and Sega Master System.

Here’s some photos of the unpacking and individual parts:

 

The quality is very good indeed.  The package includes the 10th Anniversary ODROID-GO board, front and back enclosures, 2.4″ LCD display, four rubber buttons, a half-watt 8 ohm speaker, 10-pin male header, 10 screws, an LCD window, set of buttons, micro USB cable and a 1200mAh Li-ion battery.  All housed in a sturdy card box with more ziplock bags and pieces of bubble wrap than you can shake a stick at.

With VAT, the ODROID-GO will cost you a bit over forty quid.  Delivery was within a couple of days – not bad at all really.

The website has full assembly instructions, and the Good Doc Andrew Armstrong has an excellent ‘BackOffice’ video over at YouTube – well worth a look.

You can buy your own ODROID-GO here.

Pet Shop Boys – final ‘Catalogue’ releases announced.

Pet Shop Boys have announced the last set of ‘Catalogue’ reissues, ‘Behaviour’, ‘Very’ and ‘Bilingual’.  The albums are released on CD and download.  Remastered original albums are also available on heavyweight vinyl.

Behaviour
CD1

Being Boring
This Must Be The Place I Waited Years To Leave
To Face The Truth
How Can You Expect To Be Taken Seriously?
Only The Wind
My October Symphony
So Hard
Nervously
The End of The World
Jealousy

CD2

It Must Be Obvious
So Hard (Extended Dance Mix)
Miserablism
Being Boring (Extended Mix)
Bet She’s Not Your Girlfriend
We All Feel Better In The Dark (Extended Mix)
Where The Streets Have No Name (I Can’t Take My Eyes Off You) (Extended Mix)
Jealousy (Extended Version)
Generic Jingle (Previously Unreleased)
DJ Culture (Extended Mix)
Was It Worth It? (Twelve-Inch Mix)
Music For Boys (Ambient Mix)
DJ Culture (Seven-Inch Mix)

 

Very
CD1

Can You Forgive Her?
I Wouldn’t Normally Do This Kind of Thing
Liberation
A Different Point of View
Dreaming of The Queen
Yesterday, When I Was Mad
The Theatre
One and One Make Five
To Speak is a Sin
Young Offender
Go West

CD2

Go West (1992 Twelve-Inch Mix)
Forever in Love
Confidential (Demo for Tina)
Hey, Headmaster
Shameless
Too Many People
I Wouldn’t Normally Do This Kind of Thing (Seven-Inch Version)
Violence (Haçienda Version)
Falling (Demo for Kylie)
Decadence
If Love Were All
Absolutely Fabulous (Single Version)
Euroboy
Some Speculation
Yesterday, When I Was Mad (Single Version)
Girls and Boys (Live in Rio

 

Bilingual
CD1

Discoteca
Single
Metamorphosis
Electricity
Se a Vida é (That’s The Way Life Is)
It Always Comes as a Surprise
A Red Letter Day
Up Against It
The Survivors
Before
To Step Aside
Saturday Night Forever

CD2

Paninaro ’95
In The Night (1995)
The Truck-Driver And His Mate
Hit and Miss
How I Learned To Hate Rock ‘n’ Roll
Betrayed
Delusions of Grandeur
Discoteca (Single Version) (Previously Unreleased)
The Calm Before the Storm
Discoteca (New Version)
The Boy Who Couldn’t Keep His Clothes On
A Red Letter Day (Expanded Single Version)
The View From Your Balcony
Disco Potential
Somewhere (Extended Mix)

All albums released on 31 August.

APPLE AIRPODS UNBOXING

It’s always a pleasure to get to unbox a new Apple product.  This time it’s a pair of the latest AirPods.  As usual, the attention to detail in the packing is as startling as the item itself.  There seems to be something oh-so satisfying about unwrapping that shrink-wrap that encases the box.  The AirPods need no further explanation: enjoy the pictures and remember to click on the images for a larger view.

JOHN FOXX – METAMATIC 2018 DELUXE 3CD BOX SET, SIGNED, WITH PRINTS

Well, it’s here.  After what seemed like an eternity, my Metamatic Box Set arrived!

I’ll get some scans once the initial excitement has worn off a little.  The details, though:

• 3 Remastered CDs, containing the original studio album plus two discs of extra tracks, alternate versions and unreleased material.
• 6 square ‘art cards’ featuring album artwork and ARP Odyssey patches, one of which is boldly signed by the man himself.
• Booklet containing lyrics, unreleased images, more ARP Odyssey patches from samples used on the Metamatic tracks.
• Limited Signed Edition of 750.  These sold out pretty damn fast.  Only the non-signed editions are available now.  Scalpers on eBay are selling them for three times what I paid (£12.49 can you believe).

Tracklisting

CD1

1. Plaza
2. He’s A Liquid
3. Underpass
4. Metal Beat
5. No-One Driving
6. A New Kind of Man
7. Blurred Girl
8. 030
9. Tidal Wave
10. Touch And Go

CD2

1. Film One
2. This City
3. To Be With You
4. Cinemascope
5. Burning Car
6. Glimmer
7. Mr No
8. Young Love
9. 20th Century
10. My Face
11. Underpass (Radio Edit)
12. No-One Driving (Single Version)
13. Like A Miracle (Alternative Version)
14. A New Kind of Man (Alternative Version)
15. He’s A Liquid (Alternative Version)
16. Plaza (Extended Version)
17. Underpass (Extended Version)
18. Blurred Girl (Longer Fade Version)

CD3

1. A Frozen Moment
2. He’s A Liquid (Instrumental Dub)
3. Mr No (Alternative Version)
4. The Uranium Committee
5. A Man Alone
6. Over Tokyo
7. Terminal Zone
8. Urban Code
9. A Version of You
10. Glimmer (Alternative Version)
11. Fragmentary City
12. Metamorphosis
13. Approaching The Monument
14. Critical Mass
15. Alamogordo Logic
16. Touch And Go (Early Version)
17. Miss Machinery
18. No-One Driving (Early Version)
19. Burning Car (Early Version)
20. Like A Miracle (Early Version)
21. No-One Driving (Alternative Version)

Like I said earlier, more pics of this lovely, lovely item to come.

SHARP PC-1246 POCKET COMPUTER

Haven’t done a tech thingy for a very long time.  And I should …

The Sharp PC-1246 was released in 1984.  This pocket computer had 2k of RAM and an 18k ROM.  The CPU is a 4-bit CMOS affair (SC61720D03) running at 1Mhz, and had a single-line 16-character LCD text screen.  Running on two CR2032 batteries it measures 135x70x10mm and weights around 95g.

It has a contrast wheel, side I/O expansion slot for peripherals such as thermal printers, external tape interface, integrated micro tape and tape recorders.  It has a BASIC entry method with Exp and Log advanced functions and a continuous memory.  Programming features include branching, conditions, subroutines, labels and indirect addressing.

I found this lovely working example online for a reasonable price.  I did note these units don’t like cheap Poundland batteries, and was only satisfied with a couple of eye-wateringly-priced Duracell efforts running to about four pounds.

Eno at 70

Wishing a very happy 70th birthday to the remarkable Brian Eno.  Brian Peter George St John le Baptiste de la Salle Eno, for the uninitiated, is a composer, record producer, writer, singer and visual artist, who discovered ambient music and describes himself as a ‘non-musician’.  He has frequently produced and collaborated with such artists as Bowie, Devo, Robert Fripp, Cluster, Harold Budd and David Byrne, and latterly U2, Damon Albarn, Coldplay, Grace Jones and Laurie Anderson.