biling@ucscd.UCSC.EDU (Doug Rosener) (03/13/89)
In article <2140@cpoint.UUCP> die@cpoint.UUCP (David I. Emery) writes: > ... > > And if a few of us aged techno-hippies still think we can fix things, of >course there is no economic incentive for the manufacturer to support >such anachronistic nonsense by supplying the required information >since only a lunatic fringe minority would ever try such foolishness. >No, better that they protect their proprietary secrets (after all >what do they add to the basically Japanese engine anyway) from people >who might be intent on depriving them of their rightful revenue. > > We have passed into an age where even those of us with the >interest, training and talent to understand the mysteries of the technology >around us have to treat it as the same sort of black box that all the >rest of the rubes have had to from the beginning. Alas we have reached the >great leveling, everything is proprietary and even trying to understand >it (as in decompiling code) is illegal. We grant you a right to use this >magic on the explicit understanding that you regard it as magic and do not >attempt to plumb its mysteries ... you may not understand it, you must use >it exactly as we intended... > > Maybe we need the free hardware foundation .... I am of similar feelings. The only hope is standardization. And this will happen when the technology settles down. Notice that printer interfaces, memory, etc are all becoming identical or at least very similar. The other thing to do is design a hardware debugging port that all manufacturers would incorporate into their products, and make it an IEEE standard. This would lower design and repair costs for manufacturers. In any case, the "magic" will still have to be designed by someone, and people almost always talk even if the management doesn't want them to. I like the idea of a free hardware foundation. Doug Rosener
henry@utzoo.uucp (Henry Spencer) (03/14/89)
In article <6663@saturn.ucsc.edu> biling@ucscd.UCSC.EDU (Doug Rosener) writes: >I like the idea of a free hardware foundation. Besides, we certainly need free hardware -- specifically, free memory boards -- if we're to run the products of the Free Software Foundation... :-) -- Welcome to Mars! Your | Henry Spencer at U of Toronto Zoology passport and visa, comrade? | uunet!attcan!utzoo!henry henry@zoo.toronto.edu