Netscape Cool Web Site

[jfox@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx (Jeff Fox)]

Dear MISC readers,

I am pleased to tell you that I learned yesterday that Netscape had
designated my web site as a cool web site and placed it at the top
of their list of sites in Computers/Programming_Languages/Forth.

http://directory.mozilla.org/Computers/Programming_Languages/Forth/

I placed a link at the top of my web page.  The link at mozilla directs
people to read the Low Fat Computing article.  I posted the article just
after I posted the partial transcript to Chuck's fireside chat and just
before I paid for the F21d chips.  The article gets about ten hits a day
so it is second after the index which gets about fifty hits a day. 
About 20% of the visitors read the low fat article and about 10% read
the fireside chat or visit the store.  I don't know if the article is
the most popular or unpopular popular page that I have yet posted but it
seems to be the most read.

I registered the UltraTechnology.com domain name in 98 and opened the
online store in mid 98.  I am pleased to announce that we sold the first
Design Your Own Processor in FPGA lab although there was a problem with
the order.  Because it was more money than the estimated monthly business
at the UltraTechnology store a program somewhere generated an automatic
hold on the funds.  Since that purchase people have been able to make
more purchases but no funds have actually been transfered to the Ultra
Technology account yet.  I appologize for the fact that I did not fill
and ship any orders in December.  I was first dealing with survival of
Ultra Technology and the possesion and testing of F21 prototype chips.

I did send out a number of copies of the tapes that I have made of Chuck
over the years through the store before December.  One of the things that
I noticed was Chuck's comments about how proud he was of having stuck it
out through the tough times and how resources had been strainded beyond
belief.  That was 1993 and before most of the other people funding MISC
development dropped out and I went through the bankruptcy.  In 1995 iTV
appeared and generated development funding or things would have never
have come this far.

iTV has been quite an adventure.  Being asked to work hundred hour weeks
(at your first job) and being asked to go for weeks for sometimes months
between paychecks has also strained resources beyond belief.  Then of course
I do about thirty jobs at Ultra Technology in my spare time and I spent
all of the money that I make at iTV in funding Ultra Technology. But these
are the kinds of sacrifices that I have been willing to make to be able to
live my dreams.

I was very pleased to announce that after unexpected difficulties in
actually getting and testing the F21d prototype chips that they passed
the initial tests and worked as expected.  The boot code, CPU tests, and
parallel port tests have all gone as expected.  This means that the
chips appear to work well enough to test the I/O coprocessors unique to
F21.

Very exciting things are going on at iTV these days.  It has been a lot
of fun playing with the iTV LCD, NTSC, and PAL handheld, settop, and
internet ready TV prototype products.  It is fun to surf the internet
and read web pages about MISC technology using MISC techology.  It is
fun to put Forth source on web pages and do with it what other people
do with Java.  It is fun doing email and chat and web browsing on these
cheap appliances.  My favorite is the 5" B/W TV/FM w/ iTV internet 
appliance.  I want to paint one green so it will look like a miniature
iMac. 

John Rible didn't get enough students to sign up in October to hold
his class so he got a quarter off.  I still want to participate in
the next class that will start this month.  I plan to post regular
reports about the class to this group just as I did when I planned
to sign up in October.  I will also get more involved in the DYOP
project than I have so far which is basically posting the information.

I found myself terribly overextended through most of 98 and because
I simply was not able to participate or contribute to the FIG board
I resigned to let someone who could contribute do so.  My first
effort has always gone to supporting Chuck's research and development.
This meant that I was willing to work those long hours at iTV and
deal with long commutes and then more long hours for Ultra Technology.
I consider 98 to have been a big sucess now that I have my own working
MISC chips with Ultra Technology label or the first time.  In many
ways it was the most difficult and the most productive year of my life.

Thanks to all in the this group for the interest and positive feedback.
Due to changes in server configurations I lost write permission to
newsgroups for some time before I found access though the web at dejanews.
In the time when I had no write permission to c.l.f I was really amazed
by some of the things that were posted there.  But I guess that is 
newsgroup culture.

I think that with the cross links at Mozilla and the upcoming articles
that will mention the site in some press that more people will visit
the Ultra Technology web site.  I hope that 99 will be even more fun.

Jeff Fox