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|    CBM    |    Commodore Computer Conference    |    4,328 messages    |
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|    Message 3,152 of 4,328    |
|    Tom Lake to Daniel    |
|    Re: Modern instant-on systems    |
|    21 Apr 20 09:56:15    |
      INTL 3:770/1 3:770/3       REPLYADDR tlake@twcny.rr.com       REPLYTO 3:770/3.0 UUCP       MSGID: <8041af35-ed7b-480e-af87-7985c7deef0c@googlegroups.com> d8e7ce47       REPLY: 3139:770/1.0 2303dac3       PID: SoupGate-Win32 v1.05       On Tuesday, April 21, 2020 at 4:15:02 AM UTC-4, Daniel wrote:       > Before saying anything, I want to point out that there is no pretense       > of expertise in this subject. I'm just a curious bean. As the growth       > of retro computing matures, projects to resurrect the platforms by       > building vice boxes gets more common. The C64-mini, the zx spectrum,       > sega.. Otherwise, the 8-bit guy is taking off-the-shelf components to       > build himself a modern juiced up Vic20 to sell at some point beyond       > vaporware. They're creating the basic interpreter and kernal for their       > system. All's well and good. This brought me to an interesting thought       > with a similar notion. What stops anyone from doing the same thing       > with a modern cpu and memory/bus system? Is it the complexity of the       > modern cpu? In retro systems, the developer controlled memory        > allocation such. I'd assume the difficult part would be to micromanage       > every bit of memory management on a complex system. Am I on the right       > track?       >        > I only ask these questions just to get a better understanding of it       > all. My daily laptop is a TRS-80 M200 laptop and, unlike any other       > system in the house, it's instant-on. It's ready to dance a moment       > after depressing the power button.       >        > It would be utterly BOSS if a modern system could be created in the       > same tact. Could someone enlighten me?       >        > ... Visit me at: gopher://gcpp.world              You can get almost instant-on by turning on a fast boot switch which is       available in most BIOS. Fast boot eliminates a lot of the checking (such as a       RAM test) the regular boot does. Remember, for the old systems, the ROM was       written for just that        particular hardware. There was no need to try to identify all sorts of       different hard drives, USB devices, etc. The ROM knew exactly what was there       and only needed to start BASIC or an rudimentary menu. Modern systems then have        to load a very complex OS        from some device. When everything is in ROM, there's no need to do that.              --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05        * Origin: Agency HUB, Dunedin - New Zealand | Fido<>Usenet Gateway (3:770/3)       SEEN-BY: 1/123 14/5 15/0 2 19/36 90/1 104/115 106/201 114/224 702       SEEN-BY: 114/705 706 116/18 120/340 601 123/131 140 128/2 73 187 253       SEEN-BY: 153/7715 218/700 222/2 226/16 30 227/114 229/101 275 424       SEEN-BY: 229/426 664 1014 230/150 152 240/1120 5832 249/1 206 307       SEEN-BY: 249/317 400 250/1 261/38 100 266/512 267/155 275/100 282/1031       SEEN-BY: 282/1056 291/100 111 298/25 305/1 3 310/2 312/2 317/3 320/119       SEEN-BY: 320/219 322/757 340/400 341/66 342/200 396/45 640/1321 712/848       SEEN-BY: 801/161 189 2320/105 3005/1 3634/12 5020/1042       PATH: 770/3 1 712/848 261/38 15/0 317/3 229/426           |
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