P21 experiences

[klausb@xxxxxxxxxx (Klaus Blass)]

I just have received my P21 development kit and was browsing through 
previous MISC postings. 
On Thu, 16 Feb 1995 Penio Penev wrote:

>Then I had Jeff Fox'es eFORTH. It came on a disk, with utilities to produce a
>binary image, ready to burn to EPROM. Since I have neither an EPROM, nor a
>burner, I didn't get to testing it.  It promisses an easier hook up, though.
>It is supposed to be connected to an ASCII terminal, which is much easier to
>find, but it still comes without the necessary cables and connectors. 
>

Well, I could accept the soldering part, even made a rudimentary 7-key
keypad from a piece of wood, a flattened tincan and 8 screws, but I didn't
expect that I had to have a Prom-burner i.o.t. start using P21FORTH 
(I don't have one). After contacting Jeff Fox and Dr. Ting, Jeff told me, he
thought it would be shipped with a ready burnt Eprom, but Dr.Ting told 
me that this was not practical, - maybe I should include the full text of his
reply here:

>I agree that it is inconvenient to the user in not supplying an EPROM with 
>P21FORTH.  However, there are logistic problems.  The obvious one is the 
>FASTKIT and SLOWKIT.  Which one should I supply?  50% of the customer will be 
>upset because they get the wrong EPROM.
>P21FORTH has always been thought as a software release.  We hind of assume that 
>the user has the capability to program EPROM from a binary file.  It is much 
>more convenient than asking people to program PCMCIA cards, as we originaally 
>made people do.

So, right now I am looking for someone in my neighborhood with a 
PROM-burner, or someone to bring me one from overseas, as I am living
in Brazil. 

My experiences with P21 sofar are therefore restricted to running the 
Offete demos off the installed Prom (why not include P21Forth on the
same type of Eprom as the demo (slow version probably) ???).

Regarding the video quality I don't get any real red, it is more of a pale
pink. Is that just my TV set, or do others observe the same thing?

By just looking at the demos I have a good feeling as to the potential use
of the chip. However, without trying to program it myself I can't really say
a lot about it yet.

There should be quite a few people with the kit now. Let's have some more
feedback, including projects and ideas about what to use it for!

Regards,
Klaus Blass             klausb@ax.ibase.org.br