MISC

[Wayne Morellini <waynem1@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

jfox@netcom.com (Jeff Fox) wrote:
>
>Dear MISC readers:
>
>Eugene states:

>At one point I put information from a local press release about iTV
>and i21 on my web page, and was asked the web site developers and
>marketing staff here to let them control the information release.
>I was asked to remove the page I posted with the image map showing
>how iTV, Offete, Computer Cowboys, and Ultra Technology were related
>as well as the link to the information I had posted about i21.

I used to check your page almost every day, then I took a week or two off and
then bang right into the image map and told the mailing list.  The local press
release was good (assuming this had been released) and we needed the
information.  Little information of the i21 came through the mailing list
here, I think I found out about it's existence from you or on the newsgroup,
in matter of fact I posted some info here but not much else existed to tell
us what was happenning.  I don't think the whole group needs to know
everything (I've been under NDA myself before aswell) but just the basics,
we're working together with a company, we have put this or that on hold, the
P32 won't be available in 1995, the company is developing a chip to do this
or that, we might be finished this year, etc.  Just really general stuff to
keep us going.  iTV must realise that out of the 100's of prople on this
list that there could be 20-30 potential developers.

>
>More information has been released publicly.  iTV now has glossies
>and is developing detailed specifications for the i21 and the
>iTV Pegasys box.

Well microsoft has gone to Windows CE, you might as well call it Pegagus;

>I feel vindicated by the size of the GUI module in the OS.  As I have
>said for years you only need about 1k of code to provide a multitasking
>multiwindowed graphic user interface extension to Forth.  We have not
>exploited some of the nice video hardware features, but we do use
>some of it in the GUI design.

Your right, I get really annoyed at windows. )  Off topic There is a version
of windows for embedded controllers called Win Light, just been released,
256k, www.winlight.com might be it, incase that might help anybody.


>>This will exclude the Forth option, but it will keept the product alive.
>>
>>> the page with I21 press release on Jeffs Web site that says it will be
>>> available for licencing etc, despite the denial of ITV when I enquired,

>
>I have the latest iTV glossies in front of me.  On the back it states that
>the i21 chip is not available for general purpose use, nor are the
>operating system, applications, programming languages and tools
>developed by iTV. However, iTV is interested in qualified partners to
>jointly develop other applications for the technology.

Well what does Qualified mean, I am in my last year of Information
Technology Bach Degree here, with some of the highest score of any IT
student, and where not talking about multiple choice questions here like some
of the American exchange students think, most are ex-industry proffessionals,
so I know that everybody has to serve there apprentiship in the real world. 
I also have completed an AD in Business (Computing) with some of the highest
marks again, plus Small Business Certificate and Retail.  I also may still
have a girl freind who wants to go to the States :).  I have been an
idealsit in the past, but that hardly helps with the negative attitudes
people and businesses have in this country towards doing anything new
(Australians tend to produce a dispriportunate number of inventions per
capita then other countries because they have to fight everybody and
everything to get there right from the start including taking a there
inventions oversease companies).  I am not though an Engineer (though one of
my best freinds is one of the top Engineering students in the state and
wishes to work in micro-electronics in a few years times, now he has got a
job in the General Motors design centre overhear designing car systems) and
lamentably have lacked the time to accumulate this talent and the
mathematical talent.  I have at least as much nouse as Chuck, I'm sure
Chuck, I, and many others in this mailing list stay awake at night dreaming
of things and ways of solving pratical problems that each other of us would
never dream of.  If we put our ideas together in a closed group as a team we
could really move some things, like you have done in iTV.  This is the
important point, that together we can archeive a lot more misc, because
normal business filters things from getting to the top. Anyway I'll
continue this in email at a later time.

>
>iTV is clearly thinking big, so if you own a chip foundry or your
>company makes millions of widgets you know who you are.
>

To be negative, it is a big world out there with a special grave yard for IT
companies, be cautious, even Sony spent over 500 Million in advertising to
crush 3DO, Atari, Sega and Nintendo.

>Ultra Technology will be doing some joint development with iTV and
>will offer some development tools when we have chips and systems.
>
>I would of course like to say we will have F21 working 100% on this
>date...  But the nature of this develoment is prototype and test and
>the develpment cycle is slow.  I still want to submit F21c in Nov
>to try to get it back by the end of Jan 97.  I have not been able
>to spend a million dollars on F21 development this year, so i21 has
>taken the lead, but I don't think it will have a signifigant lead
>in production.  I will say that I want to submit a new F21 design
>as soon as we can this year.
>
>But there is only so much that can be done.  I would like to be a
>little more careful to do more simulated testing this time before
>we do the fabrication run.  It is sad to find a crippling bug in
>the design while the non-refundable fab run is in progress.
>
>Chuck advised me years ago not to promote F21 prematurely.  Each time
>I have written technical documentation it was invalidated by Chuck's
>design changes.  For this reason some of the documentation on F21
>is now out of date.  But about the time I cross-check all the spec
>and make it public Chuck will give me a new design spec with
>different register locations etc.  I have felt it was too early to
>provide technical information when it cannot be accurate.
>
>One of the big problems with MuP21 was the way documentation went
>from Chuck to Dr. Ting and got published.  I don't want a half
>dozen different versions of F21 documentation that were each sort
>of right at the time they were published.  Aside from register
>addresses and token values or other details that may change in the
>F21 spec most of the design is pretty well frozen.  F21 is not
>going to get any major design changes.
>
>I am sorry if people are bitter about the slow progress of MISC
>chips in the last few years, but we do what we can.  At this point
>I am very pleased that it is still in progress.  After years of
>seeing Chuck, Dr. Ting and myself make sacrifices to keep pushing
>forward in the face of constant obstacles, criticism and ridicule

It has been well appreciated, I know you have been through a lot personally
and I know those obstacles well myself, and I as allways wish you the best.



>
>At times I have found it very discouraging to see so little
>confidence that MISC technology has any potential market share.

Beta Vs VHS, but with some good advise and good product you can slip in
there and developed it (the problem with Mup21, it wasn't to bad when it was
supposed to be released and time went on, and when it came out it wasn't as
good, now stacks of processors have the features needed on chip).  But at
least this Beta looks like a Hi-8 incomparison to VHS.

>I pushed the concept of a very cheap internet terminal based on
>MISC to a lot of people for several years before I ran into
>Gary and Joe.  They have show that they were able to convince
>the right people that there is some potential to be able to
>finance serious development of the technology.

This is a key, you should have talked to me, I was also interested in this,
like a proples computer, I also hads a freind that had a nice manufacturing
business in the Philipines, who wanted to get into computer manufacturing
before disaster struck and sent it broke. .((((

>
>I now think that iTV may develop that "killer app" that is needed
>to highlight the MISC technology and get some recognition.  It may
>in fact give a much needed boost to F21 before things are over.
>
Have fun mate.

>Jeff Fox

wayne.

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