A trip down 16-bit memory lane – Commodore Amigai

Continuing with my trip down 8-bit memory lane, I’ll continue with the 16-bit computers and consoles I owned. First up, my favorite computer of all time…The Commodore Amiga.

I remember reading the reviews of the newly released Commodore Amiga 500 in the computer magazines of the time (Commodore User and Zzap64) and longed for the day that I could get my mitts on one. I think I even worked out the number of weeks i’d have to save my paper round/pocket money to make up the initial £799 asking price. Suffice to say i’d probably be still saving even now !

My older brother and wife had just brought their first house and I recall he’d been granted ‘permission’ to treat himself to an Amiga. I remember quite vividly, the night he called me to say he’d brought one and was just setting it up. I also remember overtaking cars as I peddled like mad on my bmx to get round to his house as quick as I could.

He had very little software at the time, but what he did have blew us away. I remember him letting me borrow it for for few evenings and being late for school the next day because i’d been playing games all night – Ikari Warriors, TV Sports Basketball and Operation Wolf (with real speech!).

Even though Commodore dropped the original release price, buying a brand new Amiga was still out of my price range. I used to scour the local classified ads in the hope that someone was selling one cheap.

Eventually I found one priced very low price because it had a semi-faulty keyboard. To make up for this, a huge and extensive software collection was included so I gambled, thinking i might be able to repair it and brought it.

I remember my hands shaking when plugging in the TV modulator, and connecting the PSU brick waiting for it to pop. It never did and the fault didn’t appear to be anything too drastic, maybe once a week the whole keyboard would lock up requiring a reboot at the mains. A bit of a pain but I could certainly live with it. Not long afterwards my brother blew his main board whilst attempting to fit a memory upgrade. The spares from his help me fix mine

A few month later, I’d finished school and was very lucky enough to land my first job as a trainee IT technician with IBM.  The salary was fantastic and I soon able to buy a whole heap of software and hardware devices. I upgraded the memory to 1mb (£34.00 for just 512k !!) and brought a new external hard drive.

Digital pop music seemed to be new thing at the time and I used to sample/remix old tunes using a sound sampler hooked up to the hifi. I remember mixing Guns n Rose’s ‘Sweet Child’ with ‘I’m singing in the rain’ :-p

A few years later the Amiga A600 was released but I skipped this model. The idea of having the option to install on on board hard drive was appealing rather than the huge external brick I had with my  A500 but my friends A600 was so prone to crashing and many of my games refused to work on it – comments that were often repeating in the computer magazines at the time.

Shortly afterwards, the fantastic Amiga 1200 was released and I brought one  as soon as they were out in the shops. Not long afterwards I added a 80mb 2.5″ hard drive and two external floppy drives.

Games written to take advantage of the new AGA graphics chips looked amazing in all 256 colour mode. I remember AGA versions of Alien Breed Tower Assault and Skidmarks being particularly good examples but the majority of games didn’t come with a hard drive installers therefore you still had to put up with swapping floppy discs. A real pain with some of the later graphic adventure games.

Over the years I’ve owned many Amiga’s, and fondly recall many happy hours with them. Sadly the last one I owned stopped working a few years ago. Thanks to emulation, via Winuae, I can revisit them again but I don’t think my wife quite understands !! Maybe one day I’ll buy another one – A1200 that is, not wife….although

In no particular order, here is a list of my favorite software titles that holds special memories for me –

• Stunt Car Racer – A fantastic game and I remember lugging my A500 around to my brothers/friends for 2-up action via a null modem cable. I guess this is why I like the modern Track Mania PC games.

• Xenon II – Not particularly a great game, but god, that theme tune was fantastic. I remember the computer store blasting it out on the PA system and buying a copy straight away.

Intro music link – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E6jNosHmHG8

• Lotus Esprit Turbo Challenge – A firm favorite on Saturday afternoons with my brother. I remember very sore wrists as he used ‘Competition Pro’ joysticks that were very…very stiff. I’m sure he used to adjust the tension chuck on mine when I wasn’t looking.

• Super Cars II – Likewise, another favorite 2-up game. Stick it to the man with a rocket up the rear!

• Flashback – One of my all time, personal favorites. Amazing when it was first released, equally playable today.  Level 3 ‘Death Tower’ was my favorite. Rotoscope-tastic.

• The Secret of Monkey Island – One of the best and funniest graphic adventure games squeezed onto four floppy disks. (I was also a fan of Beneath a Steel Sky and Indiana Jones 3 and 4).

• Cannon Fodder – War is sooo much fun. I remember having a magazine cover disk containing a few demo levels and playing this for hours and days and w…you get the idea. I asked the local computer store to call me as soon as it arrived. I mourned my lost soldiers !

• Hunter – The first game I played that appeared to give unlimited freedom to roam around and do what ever you wanted. Very common now with the likes of GTA but back in the day, an amazing experience.

• IK+ – A C64 classic gets a fantastic update. Well worth a laugh with friends even today.

• Arcade Pool – Another classic which sits on my laptop at the mo.

• Super Skidmarks AGA – I think this was one of the last games I remember owning. A great little game with a huge fan base that released many custom created vehicles.

Deluxe Paint III – This edition contained the animation package allowing you to draw frame by frame animations. I would sit for hours animating everything from Star Wars remakes to Kung-Fu stick men fights. The number of frames were limited by the Amiga hardware, so i used to splice multiple animation sequences together on to VCR tape and record them as one continual mini film. Later on when I brought my first video camera, I used Deluxe paint to create intro animations and credits. I’m pretty sure i still have these tapes somewhere.

The Amiga is also famous for it popular demo scene which is still very much alive today. For me, my favorites were the Eric Schwartz animations, Jesus on E’s demo and anything that had animation/pictures relating to Star Wars and Blade Runner.

This list could go on and on.

Happy days !!

For more information and a great source of all things Amiga check out.

http://www.lemonamiga.com/

Retro Gaming Event – May 31st

The guys that run the Retro Computer Museum are having an opening day and aim to have all manner of classic computers and consoles setup for a day of retro gaming.

I came across this site by chance and noted that the event is not very far away. I’ve marked the event in my diary and will be taking along my camera too.

Sounds like I’ll be needing my custom Quickshot II joystick after all!!

I hope they manage to get a Vetrex setup.

http://www.youtube.com/user/RetroComputerMuseum

A trip down 8-bit memory lane.

I’ve just started to sort out my computer, console,  emulator and rom collections (I’m planning to setup a master retro gaming PC this weekend) and was just thinking about all the old computers & consoles we owned and the  games we used to play way back when. First up are the 8-bits.

My earliest recollection of our first home console was a Binatone TV Master. I remember using the light gun to shoot the white block that bounced around the  TV screen. The two player ‘Pong’ was also a firm favorite.

Our second console was the Atari 2600 ‘woody’. We didn’t own that many games for it as I recall the cartridges they were very expensive at the time – about £45 .

‘Combat’ was my favorite game, mainly because it was an amalgamation of 20 odd games in one cartridge and kept me and my brothers happy all Saturday morning.

I remember, begging Santa for ‘The Empire Strikes Back’ – I never got it

Early 8-bit computers were becoming increasingly popular and thanks to a school friend’s parent’s, who owned a computer shop, I had almost unlimited access to them all. We used to spend every night after school and weekends at the shop and became so knowledgeable of the computers and games that we were often drafted in as salesmen. Our reward, free computer games !!

Our first ‘proper’ computer was a Commodore Plus 4.  I think my parents brought it based on the educational titles available, me I just wanted to shoot things!

This was the first computer I  dabble with programming BASIC.  I recall many hours hunched over the keyboard entering line by line of code…and then days hunting out Syntax errors. Me and my older brother used to take it in shifts to write text based adventure games that were popular at the time.

Happy memories with my 1st Computer.

By the mid/late eighties, schoolyards would be segregated into three main groups depending on what computer you owned. These were the ZX Spectrum, Amstrad CPC-464 and Commodore C64 groups – I was in the latter group.  On the release of a new game, heated debates would follow about  which system said game looked better on. To this day I’ll still  argue until the cows come home that the C64 was by far the best, although astetically the bread bin design was horrible and the keyboard wasn’t the best for typing.

We recieved ours one Christmas morning, it wasn’t brand new but came with three huge boxes containing 100′s of game cassettes.

I remember having three paper rounds so I’d have enough pocket money to buy the latest release from Ocean or Imagine every Saturday morning.

Some of my favorite games were -

Californian Games

Blue Max

Leaderboard (broke my space bar with this one)

Bubble Bobble – Can’t get that tune outta my head.

Arkanoid – Brilliant !

As well as  an extensive range of software titles, I owned quite a few Action replay cartridges for peek/poking game cheats – I also used the infamous ‘DIY’ reset button method with a bent paper clip. One cartridge which was particularly fun was the Currah Speech synthesizer. It allowed me to incorporate speech into some the text adventure games…..and when, parents weren’t around, getting it to swear alot:-P

I think one of the most useful pieces of hardware I had for the C64 was a replacement datasette unit called a ‘Load It’. It was virtually identical to the Commodore tape desk but contained a thumbscrew and LED lights enabling you to tweak the tape heads to optimum read levels. As a result, it was like Christmas morning again with lots of games I could never get to work would now load perfectly.

I still own most of my C64 gear which is stored in my parents loft. I really must pop up one day and have a dig around. I’m sure my ‘custom’ Quickshot II joystick is still up there – I modified it to give myself a ‘competitive’ edge on joystick waggling sports games

In the late eighties, Sega released the Sega Master System and at the time offered the best looking arcade quality coin-op conversions. I saved up enough money to buy the basic package which came with one game – Hang-On.

The cartridges were so expensive and ranged from £50-£75 which was way out my price range. Fortunately, as the console became popular  to compete with Nintendo’s NES,  prices dropped enough for me to acquire a small selection. Trading in the schoolyards was the best way to gain new games and I remember getting three new titles for trading Outrun (which i regretted later).

Of the few titles I did own, my favorites were-

Afterburner

Enduro Racer

Outrun – At the time, the best home conversion!

My older sister owned a Nintendo NES which, at the time, I didn’t think much to (this was before Mario III) Going back via emulation a few years ago shows how great this little box of tricks was. At one stage I was thinking about attempting the NES PC project -

NES – PC http://www.lofi-gaming.org.uk/nespc/index.php

The only other 8-bit Nintendo systems I owned was a Nintedeo Gameboy. Both my younger brother and I received one each for Christmas in the early Nineties and played 2-up Tetris via the link cable. Beside Tetris, my other favorites were Double Dragon, Nintendo Golf and Mario Bros.

16-bit trip…. TBC

Public release of Windows 7 RC

Microsoft have updated their website indicating  the public release of Windows 7 RC build will be available for download on 5th May.

I also read about an interesting Windows 7 feature this evening and just tried it out on my test build –   If like me, you have multiple windows open all over the desktop and want minimise them all bar the one you want to use, simply move the mouse to the top of the window you want to focus on, hold down the left mouse button and ‘shake’ the window. This will minimise all other windows to the Taskbar. Shake again to maximise them all again.

Granted it’s a bit of eye candy but damn useful. Now…if only Curstie would let me buy another TFT monitor I could have a dual screen setup and wouldn’t have to have a cluttered desktop

MS should implement virtual desktop routines similar to most Linux distros.

Printing my Photo collection.

I’ve just been sorting/archiving my digital photo collection which is growing rapidly since I brought my Canon DSLR. Up until this time I only had about 4GB of photo’s, it’s now over 35GB.

I usually only print the odd one here and there mainly because ink cartridges are so expensive. My father uses digital print services offered Kodak, Jessops and Boots so I might give them a try. Certainly a lot easier that spending a day next to the printer churning out page after page.

My ISP appears to have teamed up with Photobox, an online printing service who are offering discount to it’s customer base. I’m just playing about with their java based photobook wizardy thing. I think I might treat myself to one (or four!) later this year – Sort of a yearly record of my best photos?

I know these have been out for a while now but i didn’t realise how customizable they were. You can choose from a variety of styles, colours, add custom text, page layouts and come in a variety of sizes from 5-7″ flick books to A4 and A3 coffee table books.

An unlikely place for a PC Wallpaper.

Curstie often goes into town with ‘the ladies’ (her mum Pauline and Auntie Betty) on Saturday mornings and this time I tagged along to pick up a few garden supplies. They split up for half an hour as Curstie needed to visit the opticians and her mum wanted to shop for curtains. Not much of a choice for me but not wanting to split the party into three, I went with Pauline.

I found myself in the corner of the shop where they has rolls of fabric on display and one in particular caught my eye. I had my camera with me (see yesterdays tilt-shift post) and whipped off a few shots whilst no one was looking -  thinking I could show Curstie later on because I know she would have liked the design and the fact she was having new contacts fitted therefore probably couldn’t see anything!  It wasn’t until this evening whilst transfering my photos to PC, I thought how cool it looks as a desktop wallpaper.

Here it is -

Lazy Sunday morning….in cyberspace!

Now this is what I’ve needed…a few hours away from the tussle of daily life sitting in my big fat comfy chair losing my myself in a great book.

Currently I’m reading Neuromancer, a SciFi cyberpunk novel by William Gibson and one of my favourite books. I must have read it at least 20 odd times and it’s really starting to look a little battered – the way a good book should look!

This is the 1995 edition I’m currently reading. A quick google shows there’s been well of eighty different covers!

Here’s a copy of the 1st paperback edition. I wonder if I can find it on eBay?

I won’t go into the plot lines as there are may more websites and blogs dedicated in full to this and many more of Gibson’s books (although I’d recommend the fantastic entry at Wikipedia).  All I can say is, for those who haven’t encountered this author before, I highly recommend giving Neuromancer a spin.

I hoping that, if rumours are true about a possible screen adaption, they don’t waste it like the gawd awful Johnny Mnemonic movie.

Mame Multiple control panels – idea sketch.

Here’s a very rough sketch I knocked up during lunch to illustrate my idea of using a network patch panel and Cat5e cables for  hot swappable Control Panels on my Mame cab.

The left hand diagram show the usual way to wire a CP into a PC using an Ipac interface board.

• You wire the Joystick and Button microswitch  ‘+’ terminals to the IPAC
• You daisy chain all the Joystick and Button microswitch ‘-’ terminals to the IPAC
• You plug the Ipac device into the PC keyboard socket (there’s a through-port on the Ipac allowing you to connect a keyboard too)
• You configure the controls through Mame/Mame Frontend and /or Ipac mapping software.

The downside is that the  CP is wired permanently  to the Ipac and the only way to change CP’s is to unsolder the wiring.  i.e not a practical solution to have swappable CP’s.

On the right hand diagram shows my new idea.

• For each CP, you wire the Joysticks and Button microswitch ‘+’  terminals using Cat5e network cable.
• For each CP, you daisy chain the Joystick and Button microswitch ‘-’ terminals using Cat5e network cable.
• You terminate the other ends of the the network cables with Rj45 plugs.
• You note down every cable connection. So for example ‘green cable on Cat5e cable no.1 is wired to fire button 3
• Using the wiring notes, you wire the Ipac to the patch panel rather than the CP As long as the wiring is consistent you should be able to swap multiple  CP’s at leisure by unplugging the network cables (which have rj45 plugs on the end) from the patch panel, grab the the next CP, plug it into the patch panel and hey presto – as easy as connected/disconnecting a network cable in your home PC/Router….so i think !!

I think the trick is to ensure that the wiring is correct so for example  pressing down on Joystick One has the correct wiring all the way through to the Joystick One ‘down’ pin on the Ipac.

Will it work, not sure but I’m certainly going to give it a go.

Idea for multiple Mame Arcade control panels?

I was thinking on the way home this evening about  my MAME arcade build. Specifically I’ve been trying to come up with a solution to enable me to have interchangeable control panels (CPs) without the cost of buying multiple PC interfaces boards (I’m using an Ipac)

I intend to have one CP that contains a central mounted single joystick and buttons (plus maybe a trackball) leaving lots of elbow room. The second would contain two joysticks and buttons for playing with friends – Double Dragon is not nearly as much fun when playing 1-up

As i mentioned earlier, I’m using an Ipac board to wire the controls to the PC but these are quite expensive and i don’t want to buy one for every CP build.

Ipac interface board for connection Arcade joysticks/buttons to a PC via the keyboard port.

So…back to the idea I had on the way home. I’ve been taking some old kit out of server rooms at work which include a couple of faulty network patch panels. If I fitted the patch panel into Mame cab and wired the Ipac to this instead of the CP, I could wire each CP to the patch panel using standard Cat5e network cable.

By doing so, only one Ipac is used and the patch panel could be used to support many CPs. Even better, the network cables will be terminated with standard rj45 plugs so all i have to do swap CPs over is unplug the network cables, swap CP’s and plug it in. Cat5e contains eight wires per cable so i’m only looking at around 3-4 network cables per CP (each button, joystick movement requires one positive connection and one negative connection, although negatives can be daisy chained together as one.

The critical factor is ensuring wiring consistency between  each CP’s, i.e the connection for example on joystick button 1 is constant across all CPs.

I think I’ll draw out a few plans tomorrow lunchtime and see if this idea really would work. I’ll post my sketches tomorrow.

Server Quest II

Remember the fantastic Sierra Quest adventure games from the eighties and nineties? Microsoft have released ‘Server Quest II’, a spin off to these great games about the life and troubles of a hapless IT technician – for which I can personally sympathise. It’s a bit cheesy in places and totally created to advertise Microsoft’s wares, however it’s a bit of retro fun well worth checking out.

Here’s the link (you’ll need to install MS Silverlight plugin)

http://www.microsoft.com/click/serverquest/

Mind that fibre !!

Notice the ‘I’m a PC’ box

This brings back so many happy memories of lost hours hunched over my Commodore Amiga playing Police Quest 1 and the Space Quest series (I never liked Leisure Suit Larry).

I thinking an evening with Dosbox is in order!

http://www.dosbox.com/information.php?page=0

HTPC v3 update

We decided to test out the new Media Centre PC last night by moving it from my study into the living room and connecting it to the TV.

I think I might have to perform a few tweaks, some I’ve already done but others  may be due to the beta release of MS Windows 7.

The driver and utility software for the RealTek 8185 wireless Lan card wouldn’t install without minor adjustment. I had to use Windows compatibility mode to fool the application into thinking I’m running MS Vista SP2 (shudder). Everything works perfectly but the graphic icon for signal strength didn’t show any green bars even though right clicking the icon shows an ‘excellent’ connection. A minor niggle and one that was expected, but at least I can browse the net and join our home network.

The second issue might be my TV rather than the PC. All my previous HTPC’s have been connected to the TV via a standard VGA cable/port. With this, my maximum desktop resolution is 1360 x 768. The new GFX card has HDMI output therefore I can now select higher resolutions including HD standards such as 720p and 1080p. However, with these resolutions selected my TV doesn’t seem to auto adjust the picture to fit perfectly. It’s about 1″ off resulting in the Windows task bar being hidden from view at the bottom of the screen. It seems that using the HDMI input disables the screen adjustments options within my TV which are usually active when using the VGA/PC input. Thankfully the nVidia GFX card has is own set of utilities so I was able to adjust the picture to make it fit. Again, minor issue.

Interestingly enough, I thought that HDMI cables carry both video and audio? It seems that mine doesn’t carry audio, unless this is a PC thing? No matter, I usually connect the PC audio out to my 5.1 system anyway.

The third issue is audio lag when playing video files within MCE. It’s seems to be out of sync by about a second. Strange really as the beta build is using Windows Media Centre 11, much the same as my Windows XP based HTPC. Again, it is a beta release with limited driver support.

Fourth issue is the VFD display on the front on the HTPC case which doesn’t display any media content unlike my XP HTPC. I’m thinking again this might be a driver issue.

The wireless keyboard and MCE remote work almost perfectly. Under XP, using the volume buttons on the keyboard displays a graphical overlay on the TV. In Windows 7, nothing is displayed although the volume is still adjusted. Also, under XP MCE, the screen aspect button on the remote control selects 1 of 4 aspect ratios i.e. 4:3, 16:9, zoom. In Windows 7 MCE, the function is the same but it displays a menu overlay which remains onscreen until you press the ‘back’ button on the remote.

All in all, Windows 7 is shaping up very nicely o/s and I can see a lot of people might jump from XP and bypass  MS Vista altogether (which in my book is no bad thing!).  A side from the audio lag, the subtle tweaks to MCE look to be a huge improvement over  Vista MCE, especially with native support for H.264, Divx and Xvid file formats -  No more d/loading codec packs and screwing up playback – although it’s always handy to have VLC installed as a backup !!

Here’s a few desktop screen shots I took this afternoon.

A huge improvement to Vista’s desktop and a joy to use. The picture is of Rosie, one of our two cats.

MCE ‘my picture’ – not much has changed.

I do like the improved, much larger, movie covers.

Playback of my favorite IPTV show – Tekzilla, in all H.264 glory.

HTPC v3 build begins.

I’ve started on my third Home Media PC  build today.

The first one I built was a very basic affair using available spare parts I cannibalised from various older PC’s and my ever growing spare parts box. It was a standard beige box PC containing a P4 2.0ghz, x1 80gb HDD, x1 40gb HDD, 512mb ram and little else. Sound and GFX were provided by the onboard components and networking was achived by using a USB Wifi dongle. This served as a basic PC to watch the VOB files I’d taken from our DVD collection but that was about it.

I was using a standard def TV at the time therefore web pages were barely readable (this was also prior to Firefox’s handy CTRL ‘+/-’ zoom function). I was also using a wired keyboard and mouse so it wasn’t the most comfortable to use  on the sofa.

Fast forward to Christmas last year and our TV died so we decided to replace it with a new flat panel HD TV. As picture quality was increased I thought I’d build V2, making it more fun to use , aesthetically pleasing and quieter.

V2 was a much beefier P4 2.8, 1gb ram, x1 80gb HDD (o/s) and x1 500gb HDD (media). It was a very slim form factor PC which fitted very nicely amongst the DVD Player, Surround Sound Decoder and Cable TV box. Added to the PC was PCI wireless card and TV card for recording shows.

I selected Windows Xp Media Centre 2005 for the o/s because at the time, MS Vista was pre SP1 and had experienced how slow Vista was at copying files over the network using my work laptop. In addition, with only 1gb ram, Windows XP zipped along, Vista didn’t. I was still using onboard GFX therefore Aero sleekness was out of the question too.

To accompany V2, I purchased a Win MCE remote and a wireless keyboard. If you’re thinking about building a Media PC I highly recommend this keyboard from Trust. It features a built in trackball, integrated scroll wheel, is shaped to sit easily on you lap and at £19.00 is a steel compared many others I looked at. I can tell you that our gets some pretty heavy use and the batteries (x4 AA)  have only been changed once in 12 months.

I don’t have a picture on file but here’s one via Google. Mine is almost identical to apart from the one pictured appears to have a Blue trim, mine is silver. The trackball has a handy on/ off button and the ball surround  lights up when in use i.e A good visual aid in case you’ve left it switched on when not using it.

We’ve been using V2 for just over a year now and although It’s not perfect, it’s certainly the most used PC in the house. The MCE 2005 default frontend skin is a bit garish so I’d modded mine to look something a little more pleasing. I think the theme I adapted was based on Apple’s ‘Frontrow’.

Whilst testing a beta copy of  MS Windows 7 and noticing the overhaul to Media Centre, I’ve decided to upgrade the equipment again. I’ve been collecting the various parts every since and today was time to put it all together.

V3 starts off with a new HTPC case. It’s an Antec Fusion HTPC case with LCD front panel.

Here are the hardware specs

• Athlon 64 3800 dual core processor
• 2Gb ram
• 120gb HDD (for MS Windows and Software
• 1 Terabyte HDD for media storage.
• TV card from v2
• Wireless card from v2
• Nvidia Geforce 8400gs – fanless to keep everything whisper quiet and HDMI output (really looking forward to this because I’ve been using VGA in v1 & v2)

At present I have the hardware configured, the O/S installed (no problems with any drivers….that’s a first!) and have started to copy over a few media files from V2. I’ve setup access to my network shares and also to my home NAS server.

I haven’t taken any pictures yet, but will do once everything is complete, up and running.

Software list-

• Windows & Beta Build 7057
• Firefox 3 (with NASA black theme, IE tab and Ad-block addons).
• Juice (for auto downloading IPTV shows – See Revision3 link on my blog)
• Yahoo Weather and Gorgy Clock desktop widgets
• VLC media player (just in case I have a file that WMP doesn’t like)
• ImgBurn
• Foxit .pdf reader
• AVG Antivirus
• BBC iPlayer

Rock on!

Get ready to rock out at the 43 second mark – I bet you can’t keep your feet from tapping.

Windows 7 product edition comparison.

Paul Thurrott over at the SuperSite for Windows has produced a comparison table of available features within the proposed five editions of Windows 7. Quoting Paul’ Things will no doubt change’ however it’s certainly an interesting read for those wanting to know a little more about Microsoft’s next o/s.

http://www.winsupersite.com/win7/win7_skus_compare.asp

Also, I’d recommend taking a look at his Windows 7 section where you can browse screenshots of the various beta builds.

Currently I’m running beta build 7057.