I bought a fully working//c last year for £120. Unboxed though. (And a working Apple II euro the year before for about the same) If you look about, then most of these old ones don't go for much at all really.
The esoteric ones sometimes do. e.g. check old ebay listings for the MK14 and Jupiter Ace...
Apple/// and Lisa... Now they'll be worth something...
-Gordon
The "Input and Validate"
The "Update"
and the "Print"
At least that's what a lecturer told me many years ago when I did COBOL at uny. I didn't get on with it initially, then I got bored and opened the book... Then I learned that what the lecturer was telling me was his idea of what COBOL ought to look like and not generic. It got a little more interesting after that (along with the student competition to see how many errors we could make the compiler generate with the minimal amount of syntax errors - one mis-placed full-stop managed to get it to the limit of 999 once)
I've not written a COBOL program for over 30 years now. I don't miss it.
The price is affordable for "carriers" (ie. telcos and thererfore peanuts for mlitary), and you can buy true 1GHz full duplex units off the shelf today.
There is a problem with 60GHz though - range. It's the O2 absorption frequency, so max is 1-2Km...
However there are other frequencies in that area of the spectrum which I know are being investigated/used...
I recently bought an old Apple II.. And tried out some of the 30+ year old 5.25" floppies I had in storage all these years (I've got 100's). Most of them still work!
I'm suspecting that the bit-density is so low that it's hard for them not to work, but I was still plesantly surprised.
Now all I need is an Apple II serial card so I can get some of the source code for stuff I write way back then off the floppies onto something else...
So you're the getaway driver sitting in the stolen Merc - your partners in crime are runing towards you. You hit the 'start' button...
"Please wait while we install the latest software update. This process will take approximately 5 of your finest German minutes."
Fantastic!
Maps aren't critical at all, however I just want to carry one device - not a separate GPS, phone, etc. If Nokia released OVI maps with turn by turn directions for the N900 then I'd be really happy.
I too am an N900 user... However after seeing my wifes HTC Desire, I suspect my mext phone might be the Desire with the keyboard... (HTC Vision)
I've been a Nokia communicator user from day 1, but I think Nokia has somewhat lost the plot now - I miss the maps on my old N90 (the 3.5 year license expired!) and there isn't anything bundled with the N900 and it looks like there never will be. My wife seems to get on OK with Google maps on hers....
But it'll be a year or more before I'm ready for a new phone, so who knows what'll be out there then...
G
I'm sorry that your country can't cope with 30GB a month per user. That's a fairly standard offering where I am in the UK, and of-course, at least 8 hours of that will be in off-peak and unmetered time (depending on the ADSL package you have)
A Pair of Grandstream video phones will fit the bill (although they're not Wi-Fi - so run a cable), however can you afford the bandwidth? You're talking about 250Kb/sec each way more or less 24/7... That's close to 500MB a day, each way. OK if you have unmetered access, but I've really no idea what your internet conneactions are like... If they meter both ways, budget for one GB a day...
You'd need to do some port-forwarding in each router (UDP 5060 + the RTP ports) and 'dial' the other site by IP address - it's not hard on the GXV phones and it saves setting up proxys/sip servers/asterisk, etc. If you set each phone to auto-answer then it's not hard to re-establish the link if it fails for whatever reason.
Failing that, if you want to be PC/Laptop based - look for Ekiga...
I use a combination of GXV3000 video phones, Ekiga and my Nokia N900 to make/take video calls from my family and in-laws, although I use an Asterisk server to co-ordinate everything and we don't stream 24/7!
Great if you can get Be LLU - but for others who have no choice of LLU, (like myself in a rural area), it's important to know that there is still a choice of over 100 ISPs other than BT retail!
The 50:1 (and 20:1) contentions were dropped some years back. BT Wholesale now give speed guarantees over the wholesale network at 2 service levels (standard and elevated) IIRC Elevated is 3Mb/sec or higher for 90% of the time (assuming you can get 3Mb/sec)
The real contention starts when BT wholesale pass feed it into the retail ISPs - such as BT retail who have a grossly overloaded network.
But you get what you pay for. I pay for a business service and get 8Mb in and 800Kb out 24/7.
There's a lof of mis-conceptions about the way BT works and it's looks like you've been misled by the BT propoganda...
BT are many companies - BT retail - the ISP in this case is just one of over 100 ISPs who use the BT Wholesale network.
The BT wholesale network is actually relatively good - it's when BTW hand the data over to the retail ISP that things go wrong. BT retail in this case are a very large ISP, therefore have a lot of clout. They also have a grossly overloaded network.
So just pick another ISP that uses the BT wholesale network and you'll get an almost instantly better service.
Not tried it - the board I'm using is the PC Engines one - supported in the depreciated V3 of the code.. (which means it'll be back-ported to the supported V2 version eventually according to the site)
I currently use the on-board "BIOS" to PXE boot them first time round which I then use to write the image to the compact-flash card, so keeping that around is handy.
However, I can live with the boot time of my units - little Linux/Asterisk boxes. They boot fast enough for this purpose, ta!
I'm not convinced it's that big a deal, although if they can sell it for £5K then good luck to them!
I build little embedded(ish) systems myself - AMD Geode boxards (ALIX) and my custom compiled kernel boots in 1.08 seconds (according to kernel output) If I didn't compile in networking and USB, I'm sure it would be under a second.
The biggest time is the boards BIOS (5 seconds), then loading the image off flash then the kernel uncompressed and boots - 1.08 seconds.
If I had more access to the board and had 4MB of flash ram as part of the memory map, then I could eliminate the long BIOS + Load times and jump into kernel on cycle 0. That's where the trick is, I guess - a fast load of the kernel into RAM, or keep it in FLASH that's part of the memory map.
After the kernel is loaded it's just userspace - I run a cut-down system, but it still takes another 15-20 seconds or so to get time, dns, networking, apache, etc. going. You're probably not doing that with an in-car device or a camera, etc.
So it's not really hard to make a kernel boot fast and possibly even launch one application - the big savings are going to be on the hardware when you can eliminate BIOS and load times, and the amount of userland you then have to load - which is the real difference between "embedded" and general purpose (e.g. desktop)
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I bought a fully working //c last year for £120. Unboxed though. (And a working Apple II euro the year before for about the same) If you look about, then most of these old ones don't go for much at all really.
The esoteric ones sometimes do. e.g. check old ebay listings for the MK14 and Jupiter Ace ...
Apple /// and Lisa... Now they'll be worth something...
-Gordon
He just needs an amusingly short French manservant. That way he can be both Ricardo Montalban AND Scaramanga.
Or a fluffy white cat...
The "Update"
and the "Print"
At least that's what a lecturer told me many years ago when I did COBOL at uny. I didn't get on with it initially, then I got bored and opened the book... Then I learned that what the lecturer was telling me was his idea of what COBOL ought to look like and not generic. It got a little more interesting after that (along with the student competition to see how many errors we could make the compiler generate with the minimal amount of syntax errors - one mis-placed full-stop managed to get it to the limit of 999 once)
I've not written a COBOL program for over 30 years now. I don't miss it.
-G
There is a problem with 60GHz though - range. It's the O2 absorption frequency, so max is 1-2Km...
However there are other frequencies in that area of the spectrum which I know are being investigated/used...
-G
I'm suspecting that the bit-density is so low that it's hard for them not to work, but I was still plesantly surprised.
Now all I need is an Apple II serial card so I can get some of the source code for stuff I write way back then off the floppies onto something else...
Try this: http://shop.ciseco.co.uk/slice-of-pi/
Or this: http://www.skpang.co.uk/catalog/raspberry-pi-cover-with-breadboard-area-red-p-1071.html
etc. I currently have the SKPang one for my Pi.
So you're the getaway driver sitting in the stolen Merc - your partners in crime are runing towards you. You hit the 'start' button... "Please wait while we install the latest software update. This process will take approximately 5 of your finest German minutes." Fantastic!
Of-course someone might argue that needing the shift key is really another keypress, but they're probably emacs users... ;-)
ZZ
even with multiple arduinos, there's only so much you can do.
What about Arduino plus a propellor? http://www.xgamestation.com/view_product.php?id=51
Looks fun - wish there was more time to the day to play with these things...
Eliza, is that you?
Maps aren't critical at all, however I just want to carry one device - not a separate GPS, phone, etc. If Nokia released OVI maps with turn by turn directions for the N900 then I'd be really happy.
I too am an N900 user... However after seeing my wifes HTC Desire, I suspect my mext phone might be the Desire with the keyboard... (HTC Vision) I've been a Nokia communicator user from day 1, but I think Nokia has somewhat lost the plot now - I miss the maps on my old N90 (the 3.5 year license expired!) and there isn't anything bundled with the N900 and it looks like there never will be. My wife seems to get on OK with Google maps on hers.... But it'll be a year or more before I'm ready for a new phone, so who knows what'll be out there then... G
I'm sorry that your country can't cope with 30GB a month per user. That's a fairly standard offering where I am in the UK, and of-course, at least 8 hours of that will be in off-peak and unmetered time (depending on the ADSL package you have)
You'd need to do some port-forwarding in each router (UDP 5060 + the RTP ports) and 'dial' the other site by IP address - it's not hard on the GXV phones and it saves setting up proxys/sip servers/asterisk, etc. If you set each phone to auto-answer then it's not hard to re-establish the link if it fails for whatever reason.
Failing that, if you want to be PC/Laptop based - look for Ekiga...
I use a combination of GXV3000 video phones, Ekiga and my Nokia N900 to make/take video calls from my family and in-laws, although I use an Asterisk server to co-ordinate everything and we don't stream 24/7!
Example of a bit of email they sent me:
Once again I am very sorry that you feel that I haven't been of service to you and that you feel really angry, upset and disappointed.
What I sent them: You haven't been of service to me and now I'm really angry, upset and dissapointed.
In response to their: Thank you for allowing us to be of service to you.
BTcare - what a joke.
A quick google finds this 50 million texts an hour sent in the UK:
Great if you can get Be LLU - but for others who have no choice of LLU, (like myself in a rural area), it's important to know that there is still a choice of over 100 ISPs other than BT retail!
The real contention starts when BT wholesale pass feed it into the retail ISPs - such as BT retail who have a grossly overloaded network.
But you get what you pay for. I pay for a business service and get 8Mb in and 800Kb out 24/7.
BT are many companies - BT retail - the ISP in this case is just one of over 100 ISPs who use the BT Wholesale network.
The BT wholesale network is actually relatively good - it's when BTW hand the data over to the retail ISP that things go wrong. BT retail in this case are a very large ISP, therefore have a lot of clout. They also have a grossly overloaded network.
So just pick another ISP that uses the BT wholesale network and you'll get an almost instantly better service.
I prefer imperial units. I know metric units are more simple and logical, but... "A pint's a pound the world around."
Pints are 20 oz where I am. Pounds are 16. Remind me to never order a pint of beer in your country.
I currently use the on-board "BIOS" to PXE boot them first time round which I then use to write the image to the compact-flash card, so keeping that around is handy.
However, I can live with the boot time of my units - little Linux/Asterisk boxes. They boot fast enough for this purpose, ta!
I build little embedded(ish) systems myself - AMD Geode boxards (ALIX) and my custom compiled kernel boots in 1.08 seconds (according to kernel output) If I didn't compile in networking and USB, I'm sure it would be under a second.
The biggest time is the boards BIOS (5 seconds), then loading the image off flash then the kernel uncompressed and boots - 1.08 seconds.
If I had more access to the board and had 4MB of flash ram as part of the memory map, then I could eliminate the long BIOS + Load times and jump into kernel on cycle 0. That's where the trick is, I guess - a fast load of the kernel into RAM, or keep it in FLASH that's part of the memory map.
After the kernel is loaded it's just userspace - I run a cut-down system, but it still takes another 15-20 seconds or so to get time, dns, networking, apache, etc. going. You're probably not doing that with an in-car device or a camera, etc.
So it's not really hard to make a kernel boot fast and possibly even launch one application - the big savings are going to be on the hardware when you can eliminate BIOS and load times, and the amount of userland you then have to load - which is the real difference between "embedded" and general purpose (e.g. desktop)
Saw this some years back on the Christmas Lectures that the Beeb run... They did it wih a tray of marshmallows... Can't find a link to that though, but did find this one: http://www.physics.umd.edu/ripe/icpe/newsletters/n34/marshmal.htm