pjd (12/30/82)
Here are the replies that I've received on Forward Technology. ***************** Forward is one of the original Stanford licensees of the Sun board set. They have a license (originally from VLSI Systems, which merged into Sun Microsystems Inc) to reproduce the original 8MHz Sun board and video/rasterop board. I don't know if they have evolved the design since then but the [Sun people considered] the Forward people not up to par in technical competence. (I don't know, from personal experience, either way, I just picked up the feeling.) [[] - denotes editor's changes or comments.] ***************** We have 10 or so of them, each with 1 ** 10 MHz ** 68000 and use them as UN*X (Xenix) boxes for developemnt. I would wait for their new hardware which will be able to do DMA into the main memory. The graphics card is interesting, but no BLIT. We don't have the Core graphics, I here it is good. ***************** We are buying 2 Forward systems under the Spectrix (Canadian) label. Forward says we can buy a mouse if we insist, but they may never sell another one. They are going over to data tablets instead. We are buying mouses (mice? meese?). [On December 21, a salesman for FT mentioned that they are experimenting with an optical mouse. Earlier experiences with mechanical mice were disastrous.] [FT offers a 20% "total" discount for universities.]