4 Dec
2008
4 Dec
'08
2:01 p.m.
On 4 Dec 2008 at 21:17, Tony Duell wrote:
This makes no sense commerically, I agree. If I was
going to make this as
a product, or part of one, I'd use a microcontroller. Period. But classic
computign is a _hobby_ for me, and darn it, I get to do it the way I
enjoy. And if that means a board of TTL chips. that's my business.
Perhaps a good place to start would be to replace that pesky uC in
the keyboard itself with a bunch of TTL--if you could still get the
result inside the enclosure.
This is very similar to the engineers who resisted using LSI (then)
ICs. I recall having a long conversation with an engineer who was
designing a serial interface (nothing special) for an existing mini.
I pointed out that there were MOS UARTs available that would do the
job just fine, but he inisted on designing his own UART using some
flavor (DCTL, ECL?) of SSI--and taking 6 months to do it at company
expense.
Before that, there were those who mistrusted ICs and prefered to roll
their own using discretes.
When I was working instrumentation in the steel mills, there were
many who distrustred transistors and insisted on the the reliability
of vacuum tubes.
The beat just goes on...
Cheers,
Chuck