Re: Over the hills and far away

["vic plichota" <atsvap@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

Luis:
>We gotta get that gumption going again.

Well, I'm still good for my offer to buy a few T-shirts...  I am at
my best messing with computers during the winter months;  the summer
season demands that I concentrate on motorsports, and trying to make
money.


Like my brother Myron, I am focussed on real-time app's;
web-browsers, image studios, spreadsheets, and desktop publishing
bores me.

Like NASA, I am interested in "smaller, cheaper, faster" missions
that cost more to launch than they do to build.

My passion lies in sensor-intensive, up-to-the-microsecond
reflex-systems:  ignition / fuel-injection controllers, portable
battery-powered instrumentation, remotely operated vehicles, theft
alarms...  hell, even a little robot turtle that crawls around my
house, sweeping up the cobwebs, dust + pet-hair from the floor would
be great!


It is interesting to note that even the hugest and most sophisticated
projects that I have been involved in resulted in an executable core
of less than 64kB -- the rest of the mass was comprised of bit-maps,
databases, on-line help, etc...  Obviously, I have absolutely no use
for a huge OS.

(I have to be careful here:  as the original "object-oriented"
programming language system, FORTH blurs the line between code and
data -- but I am talking about the unique + irreducible set of
procedures that get the job done, NOT the repetitively-cloned spawns
or fancy boilerplate.)

In fact 90% of my coding time has always been spent on human factors
AKA user-friendliness, as opposed to actual computation.


The art of design is the art of compromise:  mixing 4-bit opcodes
with 32-bit data within a unified address-space that can use BBRAM or
FPROM is not a trivial undertaking -- take your time, think it over,
and do it right?  Or rush in, paint yourself into a corner, and wind
up looking like an idiot?


I frankly relish the diversity and imagination displayed (or even
merely pointed-to) in this forum (OK, not lately, but that's life).
My digital career started with wire-wrapping SSI NAND-gates on
perf-board...  today's technology is astonishing, but daunting -- I
would prefer bringing back the cottage-industry flavor to the
business, if only because innovation tends to be suppressed when
big-$ get involved.

How's this for a challenge:  how about a platform that allows even
first-time investors to have fun and get some new things happening
for less than $1000?  All we need is some working silicon -- I mean
*100%*working*silicon*, no apologies, and no fucking-around?  I don't
demand leading-edge (or even state-of-the-art) process tech, I just
want to to be able to hook the little fucker up, and have it perform
as advertised!

You'd be surprised what can be accomplished with even a measly +
pathetic 5 MIPS...


Ah, well;  at least the MISC list is a freak-freely forum, not a
business consortium.


cheers  - vic