Remembering… Ocean Software Ltd

This week, David Hayward takes a look back at a much loved software house

Last week, we took a look at one of the great videogame publishing houses from the 80s, Durell Software Ltd. But as great as that was, there another name that truly dominated the computer gaming scene in the 80s and 90s: Ocean Software Ltd.

The names of Jon Woods and David Ward are carved into the British gaming industry under the legend category, along with other such notable Ocean staff as Gary Bracey, Paul Patterson and Dawn Hollywood (nee Drake).

Top 5 Things About The Nokia 3210

Was this the best phone ever? Maybe…

1 Predictive Text

These days, predictive text has combined with autocorrect to become a technology that’s all too often the source of mirth, rather than admiration. People laugh at memes that show autocorrect making innocent messages sound rude or inappropriate. But back in the days of the 3210, predictive text was actually really useful. No longer did you have to press each number key several times to find the letter you wanted. Instead, you just tapped the key once, and as you progressed through the characters, the phone would guess what you wanted to type. It might seem run-of-the-mill now, but at the time, it was a huge time saver.

WavePad v6.8

If you need to edit audio files, clean them up and apply special effects, this editor can do the job

WavePad is an audio editor that runs in all versions of Windows from 32-bit XP up to 64-bit Windows 10. Aimed at both home users and professionals, it can be used to edit music files and podcasts, to clean up tracks converted from old vinyl records and to mix your own music.

Cocktail Audio Pro X100

A customised Linux-based media streamer with some interesting features

Just when you thought CD ripping had gone the way of the dinosaur, along comes a device that manages to combine it with network audio streaming.

The Cocktail Audio Pro X100 is an interesting marriage of technologies. It’s a compact unit measuring just 204 x 240 x 80mm, and it looks similar to the previous generation of Shuttle media cases.

Within its black chassis lies a 2GHz Intel Trial-D quad-core processor and 4GB of DDR3 memory. On its 1TB hard drive, you'll find a copy of Fedora 22 running in console mode, with a selection of pre-installed audio apps, Samba and a selection of other networking media programs.

NZXT Manta

Sleek lines and clever engineering abound in this marvellous PC case

We recently had the pleasure of reviewing a couple of NZXT cases: the Source 430 and H440. Both are superb and offer system builders a solid foundation on which to design their creations.

This week, we have a new case from NZXT to review, the Manta. This is a mini-ITX chassis that manages to pack in so many features you begin to wonder whether it's actually a full tower server chassis.

XMG P506 Pro Series Gaming Notebook

Mark experiences the pinnacle of portable gaming with the XMG P506

I’ve been hoping that the latest Skylake technology would filter down to Schenker, and here's proof it has arrived in the musclebound physique of XMG P506 (aka Clevo P651RE).

A bit like Dell’s website, Schenker’s allows you to specify exactly what goes in your P506 through an options process. Starting with a baseline cost of £952, you can then add all manner of exotic options till your current account or plastic can stand no more.

Brother ADS-2400N

In need of a networked document scanner for the office? Look no further

Brother's range of document scanners make for some interesting reading. There are portable document scanners, large professional scanners, high speed scanners and middle-ground office document scanners.

Each has its own unique set of specifications, with the ADS-2400N falling into the mid entry level for home offices or smaller workgroups.

Asus Chromebook Flip

Big performance from a small laptop

There have many attempts, by various manufacturers, to combine the best of both laptops and tablets. Some have been more successful than others, of course, but it's clear that there's interest in this market, and that's something that Asus is keen to exploit.

The Asus Chromebook Flip gets its name from the fact that the screen can rotate back over itself, much like the Yoga from Lenovo’s line of Chromebooks.