Micro$oft Biz'droid Lusers (was: OT email response format)

From: Richard Erlacher <edick_at_idcomm.com>
Date: Sun Apr 21 12:38:10 2002

I'm not sure I'm following you here, Ben.

more below ...

Dick

----- Original Message -----
From: "Ben Franchuk" <bfranchuk_at_jetnet.ab.ca>
To: <classiccmp_at_classiccmp.org>
Sent: Sunday, April 21, 2002 10:47 AM
Subject: Re: Micro$oft Biz'droid Lusers (was: OT email response format)


> Richard Erlacher wrote:
> >
> > You can get the same software for UNIX, if you don't mind the $250K
pricetag.
> > You won't get the source code there, either, of course, but I doubt you'd
> > expend 200 man-years developing a piece of software at your expense and
then
> > give away the source code. If you did, your shareholders would tar and
> > feather you.
>
> That is not what I asking for. Once I developed a design (using undefined
> software) I don't want have a $2,000 computer running windows 2022 to
> re-program my chips from a printer port that developed in 2002 as the
> chips only have a 20 year life span, from data files that have been
> sitting on a floppy for years.
>
A $2000 computer, unless it's a notebook, is a pretty fancy system. I saw an
ad on the TV yesterday from a local dealer for a complete Pentium box at just
under a GHz with a large (40GB) HDD, plenty of RAM, USB, modem, ethernet, and
17" monitor for < $600.
>
> > People like the software for FPGA's and CPLD's because it's either free or
> > under $100 US.
>
> It is getting a FPGA programmed that is the problem. I found this out
> the hard way, as they don't make under $500 programers for the serial
> FPGA proms and very few people even publish a J-TAG interface for a
> printer port for the stuff that can be programed that way.
>
Altera and Xilinx have published parallel port JTAG programming interfaces for
their devices.
>
If you attach the EPROM/EEPROM that contains the configuration file for an
FPGA to the appropriate pins on the FPGA, it programs itself each time the
power is applied. FPGA's are generally RAM based and "forget" what they are
when they're powered down. Programming the PROM that configures them is quite
straightforward with nearly any PROM programmer, and the mfg's don't make
requirements for programming them a secret.
>
> > There are so many high-quality 805x compilers that are
<snip>
> > better than the comparable freeware product.
>
> Funny what ever happened to assembler programing???
> I know, I know ... managment never tells a programer what to program
> until a week after it needed in the field.
>
Programming most of the logic in 'C' is pretty well accepted practice since
EPROMS are as big and inexpensive as they are today. Critically timed code
has to be written in assembler, and people often forget that. Many designers
compensate for code that is inefficient, slow, and large, by using a
controller chip that has WAY (20x) more code space and performance than
needed. The coders will use it all.
>
> > There is a demo version of nearly every high-cost ($2000 isn't that high,
btw,
> > though the Windows environment has made it so.) Get a comparable product
for
> > UNIX, and you'll get no improvement, nor will you get source. All you'll
get
> > is a bigger bill.
>
> LINUX != UNIX. ( But you are right )
> --
> Ben Franchuk - Dawn * 12/24 bit cpu *
> www.jetnet.ab.ca/users/bfranchuk/index.html
>
>
Received on Sun Apr 21 2002 - 12:38:10 BST