The Future End of Classic Computing

From: Douglas H. Quebbeman <dquebbeman_at_acm.org>
Date: Tue Apr 2 10:32:12 2002

> >The reason why something is developed is really not that relevant to how
> >it may ultimately be used
>
> So, according to you... if someone can find an illegal use for an
> otherwise legal item, that item should no longer be available to ANYONE,
> regardless of if it has legitimate legal uses?
>
> That being the case... please IMMEDIATELY surrender ALL your computers to
> me, since they are potentially capable of pirating software, which
> according to your logic, means you can not legally have said computers.

FYI...

John Draper was arrested and convicted in Pennsylvania in '77 or '78
for "possession of a device capable of defrauding the telephone company
of its rightful tarrifs". I met him on his journey back to the left coast after
he got out.

The device in question? The Apple (autodialing) Modem, which he was
developing for Woz.

Why? Well, Woz doesn't like to do too much in hardware; he always
like to minimize the logic design and use software to do the job
(a great philosphy for controllers, a louosy one for general purpose
computers). So rather than design the hardware to have fixed-frequency
tones, the software could determine the tones to be used. Of course,
that meant you could select the ESS interswitch "MF" tones instead of
DTMF.

Today, virtually every modem with a Rockwell chipset has this feature.

Has Rockwell been locked up? Unlikely...

-dq


-Douglas Hurst Quebbeman (DougQ at ixsnayamspayIgLou.com) [Call me "Doug"]
  Surgically excise the pig-latin from my e-mail address in order to reply
  "The large print giveth, and the small print taketh away." -Tom Waits
Received on Tue Apr 02 2002 - 10:32:12 BST