From: rcskb@minyos.xx.rmit.oz.au (Kendall Bennett) Subject: Re: Gnu hardware Date: 28 Sep 1992 04:56:10 GMT
dmiller@beta.tricity.wsu.edu (David L. Miller) writes:
>I have been seeing some interesting ideas floating about on this thread.
>I may have time to do some design work on this hardware after the first of
>the year. What I would like to see before I start though is some coordination
>and detailed specifications. If there seems to be a consensus by the time
>I get started, I will probably design to it.
Ok, now we are getting down to the nuts and bolts of the issue. We have
decided that this might be a _good idea_, so the next step is to work out
how to do it. I have some background in hardware, but only enough to
possibly understand the design :-) My area is software, especially graphics
programming (I have done a lot of low level programming for the PC
graphics adapters), so I am very interested in the software specification
for this device.
Some people have been saying that it will cost too much to produce, and
you may as well go and buy a card for US$200 instead. Well personally
I believe that this is possible. If we have enough people interested in
the project, we could scrape together enough money to design and build
a prototype (probably the most expensive part of the process). Once this
is done it could be bulk produced and would be a lot cheaper.
The thing is, if _we_ the users do this, we will be building the card
at cost price - there will be no middle man between the manufacturer and
the user. Alternatively it could be made available in kit form, but if
the device is going to be good enough, a kit will probably be too hard
to assembler (ever tried soldering surface mount resistors and caps?).
We ned to fighure out how all of this will be coordinated? Maybe a mailing
list should be set up for the purpose? In order to solicit more interest,
maybe a proposal should be cross-posted to a number of other groups on the
net?
Anyway, this sound like great idea to me, so count me in...
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