jgd@Dixie.Com (John G. DeArmond) (02/09/91)
root@equinox.UUCP (Super user) writes: Rob Sez... >>This is a very sad story. The year 1990 was a very tumultuous one for >>Comtrol. And root@equinox.UUCP (Super user) Sez... >to a death in the family.". We had a good team at Arnet, too. We still stay >in touch, too. We're good friends from having worked 8-12 hours a day with >each other for a couple years. Even though we may work for competitors now, we >still are great friends. As the person who got this thread going, I just gotta state what jumps out at me as I read these tales. I went through the same thing here in Atlanta at a software company. World class development team, all good friends, great market but a bunch of upper management d*ckheads who could have killed Lotus 123 in their sleep and not even realized why. It looks like there is a super team of intelligent I/O card designers on this network. So why the hell don't you guys get together and do it right? That's what a few of my old crew are doing here. I'd imagine that between the group, someone could attract a marketing droid or 2 away from one of the dying companies. Contrary to media-induced beliefs, money is available. Hell, it's as close as your Visa/MC if you really want it bad enough. And hey, while you're at it, why not do some innovative things when you design the new card. With the cheap CAD/CAM software and hardware now available, you could try several configurations and go with the one that the test market indicates is most desirable. I for one would leap at the product from such a company assuming it offered the service that Comtrol used to offer and if the company could keep the product buglist down to just one page :-) So net, what say you? Anybody else think this is a good idea? John -- John De Armond, WD4OQC | "Purveyors of speed to the Trade" (tm) Rapid Deployment System, Inc. | Home of the Nidgets (tm) Marietta, Ga | {emory,uunet}!rsiatl!jgd |"Politically InCorrect.. And damn proud of it
chip@chinacat.Unicom.COM (Chip Rosenthal) (02/10/91)
In article <6801@rsiatl.Dixie.Com> jgd@Dixie.Com (John G. DeArmond) writes: >So net, what say you? Anybody else think this is a good idea? This has already been done. Steve Nuchia has put together (from what I hear) a nice little four-port dumb 16550 card. It is his project, but net.folks have had input and have played guinea pig for it. That might be a starting point. Steve - it's been a while since we've heard from you. How about a status report/availability info? -- Chip Rosenthal 512-482-8260 | Unicom Systems Development | I saw Elvis in my wtmp file. <chip@chinacat.Unicom.COM> |
root@equinox.UUCP (Super user) (02/11/91)
In article <6801@rsiatl.Dixie.Com> jgd@Dixie.Com (John G. DeArmond) writes: >root@equinox.UUCP (Super user) writes: > >Rob Sez... >>>This is a very sad story. The year 1990 was a very tumultuous one for >>>Comtrol. > >And root@equinox.UUCP (Super user) Sez... >>to a death in the family.". We had a good team at Arnet, too. We still stay >>in touch, too. We're good friends from having worked 8-12 hours a day with >>each other for a couple years. Even though we may work for competitors now, we >>still are great friends. > >As the person who got this thread going, I just gotta state what jumps out >at me as I read these tales. > >I went through the same thing here in Atlanta at a software company. >World class development team, all good friends, great market but a >bunch of upper management d*ckheads who could have killed Lotus 123 in >their sleep and not even realized why. > >It looks like there is a super team of intelligent I/O card designers >on this network. So why the hell don't you guys get together and do it >right? That's what a few of my old crew are doing here. I'd imagine >that between the group, someone could attract a marketing droid or 2 >away from one of the dying companies. Contrary to media-induced beliefs, >money is available. Hell, it's as close as your Visa/MC if you really >want it bad enough. And hey, while you're at it, why not do some innovative >things when you design the new card. With the cheap CAD/CAM software and >hardware now available, you could try several configurations and go with >the one that the test market indicates is most desirable. > > >John De Armond, WD4OQC | "Purveyors of speed to the Trade" (tm) Hey, sign me up ;-) The serial I/O board market is in contractions, as I mentioned in my first posting on this thread. Equinox's Bob Gintz was welcomed two years ago by Jeff Pack (then of Arnet, now of Chase) with "Welcome to the marketplace, you're #34!". Now if there are thirty-four manufacturers of I/O cards, they're certainly not going to exhibit at Trade Shows. Only a handful still do. And among that handful, there may be some fallout over the next year. Some of the older, successful I/O companies may have had growth problems. They were at the right place, at the right time, but now competition is rough. (As I'm sure most readers of USENET know by the 'wars' on 'what serial io card is best?"'). Living in Florida, I'm not afraid to swim in the lakes where the possibility exists of alligators (very real, or so I'm warned). The reason, I work in the multiuser board market, dammit, i'm used to it. Sometimes, companies concentrate on profit so much they start cutting the things that will contribute to future growth. Like R&D. Or Support. I think this tends to happen when a company starts to 'mature', when the growth rate slows down. When the accounting people start to flex their muscle. "We have GOT to have 20% profit this year!" this comes before "Firings will continue until morale improves...". Overall, I've heard the Unix market for io cards is growing between 15-35% a year. The recession has probably slowed the growth down this year. It's a good marketplace, a nice niche. Everybody I've met is real nice. Rick Freedman, of Specialix, even gave me and another Equinox employee a ride back to the hotel in the Specialix limo! Stallion people are real friendly, too. (Stallion - people -- sounds like a hybrid animal doesn't it??). Nina, of Stallion, has the such a great personality and the cutest Australian accent.... and Shawna of Stallion Nashville has a great personality and a wonderful Southern one.... . Well, anyway, the views above are solely my own, and are not (necessarily) shared by others (standard disclaimer). Wolf
steve@nuchat.sccsi.com (Steve Nuchia) (02/14/91)
In article <1844@chinacat.Unicom.COM> chip@chinacat.Unicom.COM (Chip Rosenthal) writes: >This has already been done. Steve Nuchia has put together (from what I >hear) a nice little four-port dumb 16550 card. It is his project, but >net.folks have had input and have played guinea pig for it. That might >be a starting point. Steve - it's been a while since we've heard from >you. How about a status report/availability info? Whimper. Whine. Leave me alone! :-) What's happening is I'm trying to graduate in May. I made 12 cards and sold them all, as far as I know they're all working. I don't want to sell any more of the original design for several reasons, and the redesign is held up waiting for me to get time to play with it. I do have a spring break coming up, and if all else fails it will be my first project starting 19 April. All my hardware designs for the forseeable future will be sold as kits. I'm trying to meet the needs of the Unix and post-unix hobbyists: low cost, featurefull and completely documented hardware. The serial board is a 4-port design using the NS16550A chips and the rj45 type jacks with 3B2 pinout. Status port, addressing matrix, and IRQ sharing matrix is all the logic on the board, but there are a boucoup of traces to make all that go. Rev A used a handful of standard TTL and some PALs, rev B looks like it will be all pals (except for uarts and receiver/drivers). Its most exciting feature, other than working well with FAS and telebits, is that it has access to the high-numbered IRQ lines, relieving crowding on the low ones. After that will be a parallel port with DMA support, configurable as a centronics output (or input, for that matter), bidirectional or bussed packet exchanger, or whatever. Should be just the thing for some plotters, and it would fill a niche for high throughput low cost data exchange and hardware hacking. It also happens that I know somebody trying to drive a nearly-but-not-quite centronics plotter in real time and the handshaking is eating way too much cpu. After that come a system monitor board, some power management kits, and a logic analyser. Suggestions are welcome too. Also if anybody wants to get prereleases of the logic analyser specs to start developing the software (this is going to be a group effort, guys) let me know and I'll start a mailing list. -- Steve Nuchia South Coast Computing Services (713) 964-2462 "Innocence is a splendid thing, only it has the misfortune not to keep very well and to be easily misled." --- Immanuel Kant, Groundwork of the Metaphysic of Morals