26 Jun
1998
26 Jun
'98
2:40 p.m.
Apart from the ST, which has already been mentioned :
BBC Micro, Acorn Archimedes, many older portables (Tandy 100, HP110, HP71
and HP75 (almost), EPSON PX4 and PX8), there was a model of the Tandy
1000 with MS-DOS in ROM, one of the Torch machines had a CP/M a-like in
ROM, HP IPC, Tandy CoCo + disk controller (maybe this only counts as
Basic in ROM), and plenty more that I've forgotten about
I belive Apple's Newtons have the OSes in ROM. They certainly do boot
quickly and a chip swap is need to upgrade the OS.
Tom Owad
Sysop of Caesarville Online
Client software at: <http://home.earthlink.net/~tomowad/>
26 Jun
26 Jun
3 p.m.
On Fri, 26 Jun 1998, Tom Owad wrote:
I belive Apple's Newtons have the OSes in ROM.
They certainly do boot
quickly and a chip swap is need to upgrade the OS.
Later Newts, including the eMate, are flash upgradable. A quick boot
doesn't require a ROM OS, though. Windows is a slow booter even when
ROM'd, but battery-backed RAM gives many portables an instant boot even
with Windows.
Of course, if you have a GRiD Compass with bubble memory, you get an OS
that acts like it's in ROM, but bubbles are writable.
-- Doug
6:17 p.m.
Doug Yowza wrote:
On Fri, 26 Jun 1998, Tom Owad wrote:
Yes, and bubbles rival floppies for speed. There's a _reason_ why
that innovation didn't catch on.
--
Ward Griffiths
They say that politics makes strange bedfellows.
Of course, the main reason they cuddle up is to screw somebody else.
Michael Flynn, _Rogue Star_
I belive Apple's Newtons have the OSes in
ROM. They certainly do boot
quickly and a chip swap is need to upgrade the OS.
Later Newts, including the eMate, are flash upgradable. A quick boot
doesn't require a ROM OS, though. Windows is a slow booter even when
ROM'd, but battery-backed RAM gives many portables an instant boot even
with Windows.
Of course, if you have a GRiD Compass with bubble memory, you get an OS
that acts like it's in ROM, but bubbles are writable.
7:11 p.m.
New subject: Overhyped Innovations (was Re: OS's In ROM's (was: Re: Mac Classic prob (was Macintoshes..
On Sat, 27 Jun 1998, Ward Donald Griffiths III wrote:
Yes, and bubbles rival floppies for speed.
There's a _reason_ why
that innovation didn't catch on.
I think cost had something to do with it, too.
BTW, I enjoy collecting over-hyped innovations that never quite caught on
in the way they were supposed to: Bubbles. Pen-based computers. Touch
screens. Wireless networks. Bob. MSX. Robots. AI. Home automation.
The Z8000. The iAPX432. Parallel processing. Voice recognition.
What did I miss?
-- Doug
27 Jun
27 Jun
12:10 a.m.
New subject: Overhyped Innovations (was Re: OS's In ROM's (was: Re: Mac Classic prob (was Macintoshes..
I remember back in '98 when Doug Yowza wrote:
The Z8000. The iAPX432. Parallel processing. Voice
recognition.
^^^^^^^
So you actually posess a 432 based machine? Impressive. I have only
really heard about them in literature. Always sounded interesting.
m@
--
/* Matt Sayler -- mpsayler(a)zen.as.utexas.edu -- atwork?astronomy:cs
http://www.cs.utexas.edu/users/mpsayler -- (512)471-7450
Have you ever imagined a world with no hypothetical situations? */
9:03 a.m.
New subject: Overhyped Innovations (was Re: OS's In ROM's (was: Re: Mac Classic prob (was Macintoshes..
On Sat, 27 Jun 1998, Doug Yowza wrote:
BTW, I enjoy collecting over-hyped innovations that
never quite caught on
in the way they were supposed to: Bubbles. Pen-based computers. Touch
screens. Wireless networks. Bob. MSX. Robots. AI. Home automation.
The Z8000. The iAPX432. Parallel processing. Voice recognition.
What did I miss?
Its not what you missed, its what you included!
Voice recognition?? This is still evolving and has just become viable in
the last year or so. It works in a more than limited fashion, and is only
a few years away from being contrinuous without putting limitations on
how the speaker talks. Current state-of-the-art is speaker independent
with word dictionaries in the thousands to tens-of-thousands range. Right
now I'd say it is pretty much a reality. Check out the computer telephony
stuff.
Wireless networks exist today. Robots are in use in many applications in
many different fields. MSX was a standard that was around for a time in
Europe and Japan. Thankfully it didn't catch on in the U.S. or stick
around, but like CP/M it kinda faded. Home automation is an evolving art
as well. Voice activated home automation is here, but the good stuff is
still around the corner.
Sam Alternate e-mail: dastar(a)siconic.com
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Ever onward.
September 26 & 27...Vintage Computer Festival 2
See http://www.siconic.com/vcf for details!
[Last web page update: 06/11/98]
9:21 a.m.
New subject: Overhyped Innovations (was Re: OS's In ROM's (was: Re: Mac Classic prob (wa
BTW, I enjoy collecting over-hyped innovations that
never quite caught
on in the way they were supposed to: Bubbles. Pen-based computers.
Touch screens. Wireless networks. Bob. MSX. Robots. AI. Home
automation. The Z8000. The iAPX432. Parallel processing. Voice
recognition.
What did I miss?
You forgot optical media. Back when hd's were just a few hundred meg, optical
media, specifically MO, was touted as being our only hope of breaking the 1GB
barrier in a cost effective manner. Then there is always interactive tv. Or
CASE tools. Or the battle of the buses, MCA vs. EISA. To a lesser extent
RISC.
I think a few people have mis-read what you said. You state "innovations that
never quite caught on the way they _were_supposed_to". Not that those
innovations aren't still around and doing well, it's just that they didn't
become
the "new paradigm" that their inventors (and/or the press) were originally
touting. Pen based computers are an excellent (and recent) example. Back
when the first units were coming out, the pen was going to become the input
device of choice for all computers, that is if you believed the hype being spewed
out by the computing press.
I do however don't necessarily agree about touch screens. Mainly because I
don't ever remember it being that overly hyped (not that it wasn't, I just
don't
remember) or anyone thinking that it would become something more than what
it really was.
George
10:01 a.m.
New subject: Overhyped Innovations (was Re: OS's In ROM's (was: Re: Mac Classic prob (was Macintoshes..
On Sat, 27 Jun 1998, Sam Ismail wrote:
Its not what you missed, its what you included!
Another believer!
Voice recognition?? This is still evolving and has
just become viable in
the last year or so. It works in a more than limited fashion, and is only
a few years away from being contrinuous without putting limitations on
how the speaker talks. Current state-of-the-art is speaker independent
with word dictionaries in the thousands to tens-of-thousands range. Right
now I'd say it is pretty much a reality. Check out the computer telephony
stuff.
Promise: revolutionize human-machine interaction. Delivered: telephony
niche that allows you to speak rather than press "one". Your vision of
the future: everybody is walking around mumbling into their collars (I see
a lot of people doing this now in Berkeley, but they don't look like
researchers).
I find this stuff very interesting, and that's why I collect it (Kurzweil
was one of my heros when I was in school), but the common thread of all of
this stuff is that they were so cool that they'd blind you with optimism.
Wireless networks exist today. Robots are in use in
many applications in
many different fields. MSX was a standard that was around for a time in
Europe and Japan. Thankfully it didn't catch on in the U.S. or stick
around, but like CP/M it kinda faded. Home automation is an evolving art
as well. Voice activated home automation is here, but the good stuff is
still around the corner.
You won't find anybody more wireless (less wired?) than me, but this stuff
has not displaced wires by any means. I'm a huge fan of robots, but
they've been supposed to vacuum my floor for me since the 60's. MSX was
part of Microsoft's grand plan to displace Nintendo, and never came close
to doing that anywhere. My house has got X-10 stuff everywhere, but it's
a toy.
Some of these things were just illconceived, and the ones that were good
ideas failed because they weren't (and for the most part, will never be)
cost effective.
Some other lesser boondoggles (that I don't collect): CASE tools, hardware
MPEG decoders, MMX, provably-correct programming, ergonomic keyboards,
paperless office.
-- Doug
7:24 p.m.
At 07:40 PM 26-06-98 -0700, Tom Owad wrote:
I belive Apple's Newtons have the OSes in ROM.
They certainly do boot
quickly and a chip swap is need to upgrade the OS.
Indeed they do, and yes, OS upgrades are ROM swaps which require a return
to manufacturer.
Most (all?) WinCE HPCs boot from ROM. OS upgrades require a ROM swap which,
in the case of my HP320LX was a user action, easy too. Of course, this is
somewhat off-topic :-) though I'm looking forward to my Newton becoming a
classic so I can recoup some of the vast sums of money I spent on it :-) It
now lives in the same cupboard as my Osborne....
Huw Davies | e-mail: Huw.Davies(a)latrobe.edu.au
Information Technology Services | Phone: +61 3 9479 1550 Fax: +61 3 9479
1999
La Trobe University | "If God had wanted soccer played in the
Melbourne Australia 3083 | air, the sky would be painted green"
9:06 p.m.
New subject: Heathkit ET-3400
I picked up an ET-3400 6800 CPU trainer today. It was obviously abused by
several students in a past life. I've resoldered its broken connections,
and it seems to work OK, but I can't fully test it yet because I'm missing
the seven-segment LEDs and the monitor ROM.
I happended to have the manual for a 1977 version of this trainer, but my
trainer appears to be from 1987 or so and has a few differences (for one,
it uses a 6802 rather than a 6800). Luckily, the manual has a listing of
the monitor ROM. But I don't have a 6800 assembler.
So, does anybody have any of the following:
1) A monitor ROM image (preferably for a 1987 model)
2) A 6800 assembler (preferably Linux-hosted, but DOS will work)
3) The EPROM part number for this board (the man. mentions MCM6830A, but
that doesn't ring a bell with me)
4) Part numbers for the 7-segment LEDs (I only have Heathkit part nos.)
5) A spare "1" key for my keypad :-)
-- Doug
7 Jul
7 Jul
8:16 p.m.
New subject: Heathkit ET-3400
My ET-3400 is 99% on its way to living again. I found some 7-seg LEDs
that seem to work, and I've done some simple logic tests that check-out
OK. I still have no ROM for the thing, but that didn't stop any of the
old Altair hackers, so.... How hard would it be (for a software guy) to
replace the ROM with something else, say, a parallel cable from a PC that
fed data through the ROM socket?
The clock is already very slow, 500KHz, I think, but I could slow it to
1HZ if it would help. Could I software decode the address, do whatever
handshaking I need to do from the TTL-levels on LPT1, and emulate a ROM
without buying a ROM emulator?
-- Doug
8 Jul
8 Jul
5:47 a.m.
New subject: Heathkit ET-3400
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ard＠p850ug1.demon.co.uk -
dastar＠ncal.verio.com -
g＠kurico.com -
gram＠cnct.com -
H.Davies＠latrobe.edu.au -
mpsayler＠zeke.as.utexas.edu -
tomowad＠earthlink.net -
yowza＠yowza.com