Many moons ago there was a little machine that dominated the rooms of young boys (and girls although predominantly male) named the ZX Spectrum; from this little machine came the dreams of a generation. Every conceivable childhood fantasy could be lived out without ever leaving the comfort of their bedrooms; with the peace of mind that it’s only a game.

For those that created and programmed the games for the ZX Spectrum, a life of riches awaited. Prior to the revolution and explosion in computer software it would have been inconceivable for an individual aged only 23 to become a millionaire on the back of a legitimate business. This was the case for Mark Butler one of the key founders of the software company Imagine. However this was short lived and Mark eventually went to work freelance with other core members of the Imagine team for one of his company’s closest rivals, Ocean Software.

Thanks to the wonderful world of the web a documentary that first appeared in 1984 on BBC 2 shows this demise from multimillionaire to nothing as it happened. Fortunately for the documentary makers, Imagine Software and Ocean Software where both going head to head in an attempt to secure the Christmas number one in the software charts. Imagine with its young minded entrepreneur way of business Attempting to re-write the rule book with its daring game Bandersnatch, which was to include additional hardware to support the 48K Spectrum. Never released on the Spectrum Bandersnatch was finally renamed and sold as Brataccas on the more powerful Atari ST, Amiga and Macintosh Computers.

Imagine’s exciting and new approach to software was up against against the old head of Ocean’s management, who opted for a safe sequel to its previous years hit Hunchback.

An absolute must for any retro gamer and just as important for businesses that ride the current financial waves of the internet.

See the show Commercial Breaks

Had it been April 1st you may have passed this news off as an April fool’s joke. It is true however that Facebook has introduced a Lite version of its popular social networking site.

The company claims to be aiming at developing countries where connections and computers are still slow. The site itself offers a cut down version of the original Facebook site, and has a twitter-like look and feel.

This may yet offer an alternative platform to Twitter, who itself is currently having an identity crises when considering ways to fund itself without deterring the current user base.

What seems a very thoughtful gesture by Facebook allowing all users regardless of their connection speed and computer power access to the social network revolution; may yet become another competitor for Twitter.

Being a conscious web developer, seeing designs that work on any conceivable devise that can view web pages is a goal set as standard on any design project. However it seems a shame that the unwillingness to allow Flash on Iphones is not favoring the designer or arguably the consumer. In an earlier post I suggested that Flash may see difficult times ahead with HTML5 already emerging in some popular browsers. So the lack of support on Iphones does not help either.

There may however be some good news on the horizon for Adobe on the mobile front. The extremely popular business phone Blackberry has announced a deal that will see Flash on their devices.

However reports suggest that Microsoft have sealed rights to develop Silverlight for use on Blackberry phones as well. This should prove an interesting pairing as Microsoft show no signs of slowing down with Silverlight; details have already beginning to emerge on what will be in Version 4. One thing that seems to be in Microsoft’s favor is their determination to create a Flash type of application that is also SEO friendly.

Something that people should be aware of is that Microsoft has invested heavily in the Search Engine aspect of the internet. If they do succeed in making a sandbox format application SEO friendly, then they are in a powerful position to force the likes of Google to conform to the standards it decides to implement. Not doing so would leave Bing in an unusual position of being able to locate aspects of the internet that Google can’t.

Returning to the Iphone, as Apple seems in no mood to change its market position regarding Flash support; it will just have to hope that the market continues its love affair with the device. From a web design perspective the Blackberry looks the most promising, as it intends to leave the choice of what technologies to use down to the client and developer.