response 3 of 27:

Apr 16 04:04 UTC 2000

I looked into the price of Yapp.  The Yapp homepage is at
http://armidalesoftware.com/yapp/yapp.html

The prices are positively humorous.  Version 3.0, the web version, can
be had for a mere $3,000.  But Backtalk is better and costs less, so we
don't need that.  Version 2.3, the command-line version that clones
picospan, costs $9,995 for a unlimited license. (Yes, version 2.3 costs
more than three times as much as version 3.0, but you get a measly 45
hours of support with 2.3).  We could probably get by with the 128 user
license, which is only $5,550.  We'd probably qualify for a 15%
non-profit discount so it'd only be $4,717,50.  Maybe we could save a
few more bucks if we pass on the support contract, though it's not clear
that that is possible.  If we decided we really wanted it, we should
talk to Dave Thaler and see if he is serious about these prices.

response 5 of 27:

Apr 16 04:32 UTC 2000

Yeah, but I see NETI every time I start up Picospan.

response 7 of 27:

Apr 16 07:22 UTC 2000

I was a notable no-show at the board meeting - sorry (:
Especially to Rye (mermaid)!

response 9 of 27:

Apr 16 17:49 UTC 2000

Mic, you're the one who missed out, not Rye!  ;)

response 11 of 27:

Apr 17 01:52 UTC 2000

Grex is planning to sponsor a movie at Top of The Park (TOP).  This has 
absolutely nothing to do with the system command top which shows Memory 
Usage (if I'm not mistaken).

As far as replacing picospan, I think that's more an issue of being able 
to get/modify the source to picospan than the functionality of Picospan 
(which seems fine to me)

response 13 of 27:

Apr 17 02:11 UTC 2000

I think it was the discussion of perceived problems with the way scribble
works (or doesn't).  And, as noted, there are other improvements possible.

I think there is already an item for discussion of the license of Picospan.
Perhaps it would be best to continue the discussion there?

response 17 of 27:

Apr 17 23:30 UTC 2000

In resp:0 there is a topic "Pico License".  I don't think there's a
question about our license to use the PIne COmposer, a text editor that is part
of the pine package.  Picospan the conferencing software is a different thing.

Regarding resp:12, if you want threaded discussions, there are plenty of
places you can go.  Most people in the grex conferences prefer the item and
response scheme as is.  And you can use a twit filter to ignore posts from
user x without any modification to Picospan.

response 19 of 27:

Apr 18 20:23 UTC 2000

A computer without OS is still a computer.

response 21 of 27:

Apr 18 23:50 UTC 2000

Sure I could come in & look at it sometime.  All suns came with rom boot
code; this is a very crude OS but an OS nonetheless.  On the newer suns
the boot code even understands forth so you get a "higher level"
language for free, just by having the hardware.  Even on the older suns
the boot code was smart enough that you could enter & run machine
language programs.

The very simplest computer system I've ever heard of is the RCA Cosmac
(CDP1802) microprocessor, some LEDs, wiring, & a battery.  The Cosmac
was not a really brainy microprocessor - even a Z80 makes a Cosmac look
pretty dumb.  The Cosmac did however have several interesting features.
One was that it didn't need much external logic to run.  Another was
that there was only 1 "halt" opcode; the other 255 possible bytes values
all corresponded to legal instructions.  The external wiring merely
connected the address lines to the data lines, in such a way that the
one invalid opcode could never happen.  The result is that the cosmac
would "see" a rom containing 64k of "random" but legal instructions,
which it would execute.  The LEDs were hooked up to the address lines,
and so would flicker in a pseudo-random sequence which was long enough
to look "random" to people.  Since the COSMAC had about 16 bytes (128
bits) it was pretty likely it was going to be looping for a very long
time before the pattern started to repeat.  So, basically, this whole
deal was a microprocessor driven "random" light flasher.
        Input: 1 (the power switch)
        Outputs: up to 9 or 16 LEDs
        RAM: 16 bytes (the register bank in the MPU)
        ROM: 64K of "wire" programmed data.
        Chip count: 1

response 23 of 27:

Apr 19 02:58 UTC 2000

So does grex want this machine?  Or does a grexer want it?  Free to grex.
How would this compare to a PC computer in speed?

response 25 of 27:

Apr 26 03:46 UTC 2000

I have a SPARCstation SLC, so I can give you a little info.  It's a Sun 4/20
architecture, meaning it's a SPARC processor running at 20 MHz.  It has no
built in disk of any kind; they were meant to either be connected to an
external SCSI disk or (more commonly) network booted off a central server. 
Video is a black-and-white framebuffer driving the internal 17" monitor.  It
also has 12-bit uLaw sound, two serial ports (on one DB-25 connector), and
an AUI network port.  16 megabytes, in the form of 4 4-meg parity SIMMs, is
the maximum amount of RAM.  The serial port pins are configured so a normal
cable plugged into the DB-25 port will connect to the proper pins for port
A.  Port B requires a special splitter cable.

IIRC this was Sun's first computer that sold for under $6,000.  It features
completely silent operation.  (No built-in disk, and no fan.)

It will run Linux, NetBSD, OpenBSD, or SunOS 4.1.4, all of them slowly.

No, I don't want another one. ;>