Re: New I21

[znmeb@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx (M. Edward Borasky)]

>>At 10:44 AM 11/07/96 +1000, you wrote:
>>>Hi, check out Jeff's home page, there's info on the new I21 used by iTV,
>>>who Jeff, Chuck and Ting are working with.
>>>
>>>(Note the page has finally been updated).
>>>
>>>Wayne.
>>>
>>>waynem1@cq-pan.cqu.edu.au
>>>-- 
>>And what happened to the F21?
>>Eddie,
>>Edward Matejowsky - Queensland University of Technology (Brisbane, Australia)
>>
>
>Good question, I heard end of this year.  Most likely they will both hit at
>the same time, the I21 is by the looks of it prototyping now, there is
>updated info on the F21 in the list at the bottom of Jeffs page.
>
>What I would like to here about is the P32, Jeff's site still says due end
>of 95.
>
>It is interesting that the I21 is supposed to be used in a internet box
>(answering the desires of a few of us on the list), if so it would need more
>than 16 colours to do the WEB justice.  We can only hope.
>
>Wayne.
> 
>-- 
>

1. Will an Internet box containing the I21 allow user programming of the I21 in
Forth, or will it strictly be an embedded machine to browse the Web?

2. If the I21 is programmable, does it have the high-quality audio of the F21
or is it some lame subset?

One final note: I'm not the kind of guy who likes to rain on peoples' parades,
but a number of years ago, I worked in a marketing organization.  One of the
things we did was a study of what it took for a special-purpose computer, in
this case supercomputers, to compete successfully in the marketplace against
general-purpose computers.  We determined that the threshold was about 10x
price-performance!  In other words, the "Internet box" will have to cost less
than 1/10 of the cost of a standard desktop PC while delivering the same high-
quality graphics, video and audio that a modern PC delivers when surfing the
Internet.  That puts the price of the Internet box -- *list* price, not
manufacturing cost -- somewhere between $200 and $300.  Curiously enough, I was
in Office Max the other day and a special-purpose word processor is in the
same price range.  Perhaps closer to the spirit of the Internet box, special-
purpose game machines like Sega and Nintendo also fall in this price band.
--
M. Edward Borasky

There are three kinds of people: those who are good with mathematics and those
who aren't.