Re: questions (about x21)

["mlosh" <mlosh@xxxxxxx>]

-----Original Message-----
From: Greg Alexander <galexand@acm.org>
To: Soeren Tiedemann <tiedema@mail.uni-freiburg.de>;
MISC@pisa.rockefeller.edu <MISC@pisa.rockefeller.edu>
Date: Sunday, May 28, 2000 12:47 PM
Subject: Re: questions (about x21)


>>Dr. Ting provides best service, talk to him! The MuP21-manual covers a lot
>>of stuff and covers different versions of chips and testboards. It maybe
>>very confusing when studying the manual on its own.
>
>Does the manual include all of the information I'm after? (current draw,
>pinuot, instruction set)  If so, I'll just buy that and consider myself
>dealing with your commmon semi-proprietary company that proudly
>misunderstands the hobbyist customer base.  (even Intel publishes data
>sheets online for free!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!)  !!! !!! !!! !!!! !!! JEFF
>FOX READ HERE EVEN INTEL PUBLISHES DATASHEETS FOR FREE (and I'm not
>talking about tshe F21 here!)!!!  I've not even had too much trouble
>finding them.  If I'm not going to get the level of developer support
>for a develooper-only chip like the P21 that I would get from a consumer-
>targetted chip for the x86, then I don't know what yuo're thinking.
>

Jeff did not develop or market the P21 chip!  That was a joint effort of Dr.
Ting and Chuck Moore.  Please don't criticise Jeff for things Dr. Ting has
or has not done!  Jeff did develop a P21-specific version of Forth for P21,
but it was a fairly loose business relationship from what I have heard about
in this email list.  Jeff has done a lot of FREE documentation for his F21
considering it is still at a pre-production stage.  Please remember that P21
and F21 are different chips commissioned by different people.

I was interested in the design of P21 when it first came out, so I bought
the manual to study it.  It's been a while since I looked at it, but I'm
pretty sure you can get from it all the info you are looking for.  Also
review all of the archives of this mail list.  Sure, it would be nice if the
manual was free for MuP21, but I assume Dr. Ting is trying to cover his
engineering and documentation production costs.  Even if you don't use MuP21
in your projects, the cost of the manual is not that high and you might
enjoy studying it for ideas like I did.

I recommend you get Dr. Ting's contact info from Jeff's site then contact
Ting directly to ask a few questions in order to make your decisions.  Good
luck and have fun!

Mike Losh