1 Jan
2006
1 Jan
'06
4:38 a.m.
In message <m1Espze-000IyHC at p850ug1>
ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) wrote:
I feel the same way about hardware, which is probably
why I feel nauseous
when I look at the Apple ][ (and peripherals) schematics.
That thing is one gigantic hack after another. It's great how Woz managed to
get the chip count down (especially on the Disk II), but I still consider the
Apple II to be a horrendous hack. Not to the level of a Sinclair ZX81, but
still a hack.
I'd still like to get an Apple II to play with though. They look like pretty
fun machines to play with, especially on the I/O side.
On the other
hand I love elegantly designed hardware (which may also be complicated
and ingenious) like the HP9100.
I kinda like the Atari vector generators. From a technical standpoint, they
aren't that special, but the way they were implemented was pretty neat. I've
stuffed a DVG into a CPLD, but I'm still working on actually building the PCB
board and testing the thing...
208-pin PQFP chips are NOT fun to design PCBs for.
--
Phil. | Acorn RiscPC600 SA220 64MB+6GB 100baseT
philpem at dsl.pipex.com | Athlon64 3200+ A8VDeluxe R2 512MB+100GB
http://www.philpem.me.uk/ | Panasonic CF-25 Mk.2 Toughbook
... Happiness: a perfume you can't give away without getting some yourself.