Re: Over the hills and far away
- To: "Luis Commins" <Luis@xxxxxxxxxx>, <misc>
- Subject: Re: Over the hills and far away
- From: "vic plichota" <atsvap@xxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Tue, 15 Jun 1999 15:14:25 -0400
Luis:
>We gotta get that gumption going again.
Well, I'm still good for my offer to buy a few T-shirts... I am at
my best messing with computers during the winter months; the summer
season demands that I concentrate on motorsports, and trying to make
money.
Like my brother Myron, I am focussed on real-time app's;
web-browsers, image studios, spreadsheets, and desktop publishing
bores me.
Like NASA, I am interested in "smaller, cheaper, faster" missions
that cost more to launch than they do to build.
My passion lies in sensor-intensive, up-to-the-microsecond
reflex-systems: ignition / fuel-injection controllers, portable
battery-powered instrumentation, remotely operated vehicles, theft
alarms... hell, even a little robot turtle that crawls around my
house, sweeping up the cobwebs, dust + pet-hair from the floor would
be great!
It is interesting to note that even the hugest and most sophisticated
projects that I have been involved in resulted in an executable core
of less than 64kB -- the rest of the mass was comprised of bit-maps,
databases, on-line help, etc... Obviously, I have absolutely no use
for a huge OS.
(I have to be careful here: as the original "object-oriented"
programming language system, FORTH blurs the line between code and
data -- but I am talking about the unique + irreducible set of
procedures that get the job done, NOT the repetitively-cloned spawns
or fancy boilerplate.)
In fact 90% of my coding time has always been spent on human factors
AKA user-friendliness, as opposed to actual computation.
The art of design is the art of compromise: mixing 4-bit opcodes
with 32-bit data within a unified address-space that can use BBRAM or
FPROM is not a trivial undertaking -- take your time, think it over,
and do it right? Or rush in, paint yourself into a corner, and wind
up looking like an idiot?
I frankly relish the diversity and imagination displayed (or even
merely pointed-to) in this forum (OK, not lately, but that's life).
My digital career started with wire-wrapping SSI NAND-gates on
perf-board... today's technology is astonishing, but daunting -- I
would prefer bringing back the cottage-industry flavor to the
business, if only because innovation tends to be suppressed when
big-$ get involved.
How's this for a challenge: how about a platform that allows even
first-time investors to have fun and get some new things happening
for less than $1000? All we need is some working silicon -- I mean
*100%*working*silicon*, no apologies, and no fucking-around? I don't
demand leading-edge (or even state-of-the-art) process tech, I just
want to to be able to hook the little fucker up, and have it perform
as advertised!
You'd be surprised what can be accomplished with even a measly +
pathetic 5 MIPS...
Ah, well; at least the MISC list is a freak-freely forum, not a
business consortium.
cheers - vic