On Oct 10, at 09:43 | Oct10, Stephen Usher wrote:
> On 09/10/2011 23:37, Tony Firshman wrote:
>> Nope - all they needed to do was to program it better. Laurence
>> Reeves proved with Hermes you could get working code with the 8049.
>> It's only issue was it was not fast enough to get a true 19200 input
>> throughput. Ok it was a relatively slow serial port but perfectly
>> good enough at the time when BBSs were V23. It even coped with V22bis
>> perfectly well a few years later (at 2400).
>
> Except when the chip had to do sound as well.
Indeed, but the QLs sound was never worth listening to (8-)#
>
> Putting a dedicated chip in there would have made the system far more
> flexible and able to go way beyond 19200 baud. Not only this but a proper
> serial chip would have had hardware buffering and would have been able to
> have been fully interrupt driven rather than polling.
>
>>> Steve Jobs also had his flaws, we all do, but putting half-baked
>>> ideas into market wasn't one of them.
>>>
>>>
>> … but his philosophy with *all* his products was not to aid
>> tinkering. Iphone especially is very very difficult to modify at
>> firmware level. He even up to recently made it a puzzle even to
>> *open* the products. It is a great step forward that not only are the
>> Macbooks now openable, but there are official instructions on how to
>> replace RAM and HD. Battery though has dire warnings not to meddle,
>> even if one removes the screwed on back. The QL was quite the reverse
>> - it was so trouble-prone it *demanded* tinkering at every level.
>> That is what made (and makes) it so attractive, and gave Quanta its
>> name - Isn't QL Users and Tinkerers Assocation?
>
> This is indeed his biggest flaw, and it started with the Macintosh.
>
Mind you 'flaw' depends on where you are standing.
>From his point of view it was the key to success.
It meant people were sucked into a Mac only environment.
It happened to me.
I bought an HTC Desire as Iphone had no hardware radio. It has internet radio
of course, at maybe 30mb plus per hour!
The irony is that Iphone has the same broadcom chip with radio hardware, but
Apple did not implement FM.
"It is for Macbook use" and I even took my Macbook. Of course it failed - the
Mac could not use the HTC modem at all.
"What phone will be compatible for my use" - "none" was the reply, so I got my
money back and bought an Iphone.
The irony is I am pleased, even without an FM radio. Steve Jobs won. They make
supremely good products both at hardware and OS level.
I can't easily tinker (but I do of course!).
… and I run the QL on my Macbook, via VMware XP and Qemulator. Qemulator
successfully reads the USB floppy, once I realised it was B: (8-)# Mind you it
is confusing, as XP *seems* to access the drive as A:, much as it does with a
standard floppy cable. I must try the native OS X application!
Tony
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