webpal

Car Boot sales are facinating places where you can get the strangest bargains. Te device in question cost me £3 and looks new, boxed and ready to go. It is a set top surfer similar to my Bush internet box and plugs into a standard phone socket and television (or, a CVBS or vga monitor). Unlike my Bush unit, this device has audio capability, and can be switched to any Internet provider. A nice full sized keyboard and aditional remote control, instruction manuals and a wall wart psu are also supplied (thankfully with a 13A BS 1363 style english plug)It looks like a very stylish and innovativ way to surf the net and it is, according to the handbook, fully upgradeable. All this in its own original packaging as if hardly used.I tried to locate the manufacturer using my own web box but alas it appears that the manufazcturer has gone bust... not through any product problems but through shady business dealings by the board of directors.Has anyone took on the support and manufacture of these devices? If you know, post an e-mail to my private message board or e-mail me direct on [email protected] .I bought the box to get a friend on line and thn he can communicate using e-mail.I shall probably get my friend started by setting thge box to run on the Bush Internet service provider, which I use as my portal.Anyone willing to help, please post here...Matt

Does your webpal look like this: ?


If it does the following sites may be of interest :

Facts about webpal

A BBS with a webpal forum

General webpal related links

Thanks x ray! I'll look up the links...

matt

As a matter of interest are there any CPFers surfing and reading this board using a webpal?
If it works as planned, I've gotten a lot for my £3! This should have been serious competition to the Bushinternet web box, and would have prompted Bush to make thier web boxes upgradeable. The ability to play sound would be very useful (even, as they say, though the pitch of the sound might be slightly out!) Better to have some kind of sound than no sound at all! It certainly has a lot of features that the Bush unit just doesn't have, like the ability to plug in a mouse and keyboard, as well as a VGA monitor, turning it into "almost a computer".
I suppose the business problems that the manufacturer had led to web pal losing out to Bush internet here in the UK. This is almost like the time during the videotape wars of the eighties when VHS won over Betamax in popularity, even though Betamax was the technically superior format.
In the future, pending licencing laws etc, I can't see any reason why a company cannot produce a similar product... a plug in, upgradeable web surfer device with multimedia capabilities which can connect to a TV and/or a hi fi. After all there are 100's of internet radio stations out there, such as intenseradio.com that are only available on the Internet... the great thing being that the station can broadcast worldwide! And with the introduction of Broadband the possibilities for internet radio and TV could be immense!

EMPOWERTORCH,
Not exactly on topic here, but how do you pronounce "Leicestershire"?
The reason I ask is that I used to live on a Liecester Street years ago and there was much disagreement over the correct pronunciation of it.
Some said "LIKE-es-ter", some said "LEE-ses-ter" and others said "LIE-ches-ter" and other variants.
Is the "shire" part pronounced "shur", "ser", "shi-er", "sheer", etc?
Im not trying to be a wiseass, just curious...
So how do you say it?

I think the biggest problem is that websites simply arent designed to be veiwed at the crappy resolution our TV system runs at, causing a chronic case of "squints" when trying to read small-ish fonts. Maybe the US has better luck with their HDTV (no similar system due for release here anytime soon).

AlphaTea : I pronounce it Lester-shur, although all the other pronounciations of "shire" you list are widely used also. I guess us brits are just as confused as you.

An HDTV would make text easier to read, in fact many HDTVs can accept a direct, digital, VGA type input from a computer. Ask how many of us over here actually have a HDTV though. I know we don't in my house...

Alphatea, we pronounce it "Lester sheer" in Leicestershire!
The people in the county capital generally say LesTER, with the emphasis as much on the second syllable.
There are a number of Shire counties in England, Scotland and Wales... it is the most common ending for couny names. Most are derived fvrom thier principal town name, but a few such as Hampshire and Shropshire have been further abbreviated.
It gets more complicated when you reduce the cxounties to thier official abbreviations.
Hence Northamptonshire becoms Northants.; Hampshire (Southampton county) becomes Hants.; and Shropshire (Shrewsbury county) becomes Salop.
Most other English, Welsh and Scottish shire Counties are abbreviated by the first four letters of the town name followed by "s" so Leicestershire becomes Leics.

Back to the Web Box...
The English TV system has 100 more lines than the American system giving it about 20% more vertical resolution. It is remarkable how clear web sites are on the 625 line system. I get incredible performance out of a 20 year old Philips BM7502 monitor which also doubles up as a TV via a freeview Digital Tuner Box. It's not as good as VGA but is superior to a standard TV whether or not you are using its scart or are modulating your video signal to UHF and feeding the signal into the television set's aerial socket. Monitors are built to a higher spec than TV's and even old ons like my Philips continue to give a very high quality picture. Even VCR pictures seem to be better! And these old CVBS monitors can be picked up so cheaply now!
As to the future, I can' see why thy cannot adapt VGA video technology for broadcasting. You have a ready-made video format. millions of capable monitors and vga projectors available to accept the signal. Maybe the difficuly lies in the tranmssion of the signal for continuously moving pictures. Cameras would also have to perform at VGA resolutions! I'm sure it is possible if a bit expensive! For now I'm happy with my 20 year old Philips.