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I hadn't realised Colin Pillinger had died. I've found the news oddly affecting considering I never met the guy. :(

(For anyone interested in the background to the Beagle2 probe, 'Backroom Boys'[1] includes a great chapter on it, and Prof Pillinger's involvement .)

[1]: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Backroom-Boys-Secret-Return-British-...

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Thumbs up for that book. The section about the development of mobile telephony is great.

The section on Elite was pretty interesting as well - I can remember being amazed playing it on an Acorn Electron in '84/'85.

Colin Pillinger seemed like a great bloke though, I really did feel sorry for him when the probe failed.

Yes, I loved the Elite section - I bought the book after reading an excerpt from the Elite chapter in the Guardian [0] - and the Concorde section.

I had also missed the news of Colin Pillinger's death; RIP.

[0] Probably this one, should anyone else be curious: http://www.theguardian.com/books/2003/oct/18/features.weeken...

Yes, great chapter. I like the bit about after the fall of Soviet Union the KGB tries to sell satellite images of Great Britain to be used by Vodaphone for radio planning.

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