Re: If you could design a $300 homecomputer today, what would you choose?

[Darren Salt <news@youmustbejoking.demon.cu.invalid>]

I demand that Bob Retelle may or may not have written...

[snip]
> Having lived through the "OS in ROM" with the Atari ST, it can be a "double
> edged sword".   It WAS great to have the OS boot almost as fast as you
> could blink.

That's easily enough done on this Risc PC, should I need to do so. However,
it's better to let it run its boot sequence so that disk-based resources can
be located and initialised.

> Unfortunately though, if there were any bugs in the code, (HA.. IF) you
> were stuck with them until the manufacturer could get around to first
> finding them, then fixing them, then finally producing a new version, then
> distributing them, then finally you get to open your machine and manually
> replace them.

Or you might be able to load patches or replacement modules or even a whole
ROM image. Two of those apply to this machine, and yes, there was a short
while before I got hold of RISC OS 4 ROMs when I was softloading a version of
the OS...

[snip]
> (Of course, it DID generate a nice little "cottage industry" for
> programmers to come up with fixes and patches while waiting for the
> "official" ROMS to finally appear.)

That happens in the RISC OS market to a small extent. Of course, it helps
when the OS supplier can and does release patch archives (or "service
packs").

> Do you really want "Mom and Pop"  $300 computer buyers to have to be prying
> ROMs out of sockets and jamming new ones in?

Probably not... flash ROM is finding its way into new machines and onto some
hardware upgrades; there is a StrongARM processor card which has this.

> Actually what I always thought Atari should have done with the ST was to
> put the OS on a cartridge.

Maybe...

> That way they could issue updates which could be swapped as easily as
> changing a game, and the old cartridges could be returned in the same
> shipping box for a credit.  Sort of like deposit soda bottles.

Or you could keep it and sell it on to somebody who hasn't upgraded to *that*
version, never mind the current one. Although that's almost as easy with just
the chips themselves :-)

[snip]
> FLASH RAM would be workable, but...

Flash ROM, surely.

> you'd also need a boot ROM with the read/write routines for the FLASH
> update in it.

True...

> Otherwise, one hiccup and your computer's OS could be toast with no way to
> fix it. Just like blowing away a motherboard with the wrong BIOS upgrade.
> And of course, add the cost of the boot ROM and interfacing.

Not to mention if you have your mass storage on a third-party interface card
which has its own on-board firmware, which the OS will softload or access
directly and which is probably itself in flash ROM... although in this case,
a floppy with the firmware and, optionally, a flash programmer for that card
would do.

-- 
| Darren Salt  anti-UCE  | d youmustbejoking,demon,co,uk | nr. Ashington,
| Spec+3, Risc PC, A3010 | s zap,tartarus,org            | Northumberland
| BBC M128, Linux PC     | @ retrospec,co,uk             | Toon Army
|   We've got Shearer, you haven't

Today is cancelled due to lack of interest.