Seiler@mit-xx.arpa (01/17/83)
From: Larry Seiler <Seiler@mit-xx.arpa> Re DMA on the Professional: I heard from a DEC person that the private bus does allow DMA, it's just that the disk controllers don't use it. So there's hope for the future, especially if DEC gets lots of complaints about this (like any intelligent company, they tend to do what the customers want). As for the Professional being intended as a smart terminal, rather than a personal computer, well, that is the mode in which computer illiterates would use any personal computer. But several languges are now (or will soon) be available that run directly on it (including C and Pascal), and I think the number will increase. If I had a choice, I'd rather do software developement for personal computers on a large computer, so it makes sense for DEC to offer cross compilers and the like. Larry Seiler PS - I heard that the ComputerLand stores finally have the DEC PC's in stock. -------