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

["sands-of-iowa" <sands@cableone.com>]

so you are thinking about something like the Classic  or tandys TOS
that would start from ROM?

Byron Desnoyers Winmill wrote in message
<9j0jbc$pog$1@nserve1.acs.ucalgary.ca>...
>Bob Retelle (bobr1@provide.net) wrote:
>: Allied Electronics doesn't even stock them any more, but for only $200
>: they'll order you a 33Mhz 68020 chip.
>
>That price is insane, and I suggest that you shop around more.  And focus
on
>the 68000, which I have seen in calculators costing about US$120.  I am
>quite confident that the manufacturer is not producing these at a loss, and
>likely have a healthy margin.  One of these calculators served as my
>inspiration, only with boosted I/O capabilities, much more open design,
>and with the OS in ROM where it can not be damaged.  (I pulled mine apart,
and
>it used a Motorola 68000.)
>
>I will not argue withthe PB100 hypothesis though, as I am a Mac user.
>
>It is worth noting though that only parts of the Macintosh and IIgs
operating
>systems are in ROM.  For the machine to be in a useable form, the rest must
be
>loaded from disk (the Classic was an exception, but even it does not spring
to
>life as an Atari ST would).  Indeed certain drivers required to access the
>original Macintosh hardware do not appear to be in ROM, including part of
the
>serial driver, the print manager, and the AppleTalk manager.  (From Inside
>Macintosh Vol. I.)  details are bound to be different for later models,
such as
>the PB100, but I would imagine that (proportionally) less was integrated
into
>later versions of the ROM.
>
>Now why is that relevant?  Well, I would want the whole OS in ROM.  That
way,
>if you goof up while creating patches, you simply reset the machine (or,
better
>yet, disable patches while booting in order to recover your data).  This
calc
>of mine (with the OS in flash memory) has given me a scare a couple of
times,
>and certain parts of its software do not appear to work correctly to this
day.
>It is, of course, poorly documented so that is a problem too.  Hopefully
the
>ROM would be socketed, so that the OS could be upgraded (or the patches
>incorporated in some optimised form).*  But that is not a huge issue.  The
>other reason for a ROM based OS is to avoid the lengthly process of
>reinstalling the OS, as I'm certain many of you Windows users enjoy.  ;-)
The
>patches would have to be reinstalled, but your machine wouldn't be in an
>unusable form without them.  If the patch installation system is sensible,
>they should be quite easy to copy from a floppy disk to a system folder
anyway.
>
>Byron.
>
>[*] Come to think of it, wouldn't flash memory have a write enable line?
If
>so, a manual switch or jumper on this line would be a suitable alternative.