Re: [NTLK] [ANN] Newton Connection for Mac OS X

From: James Wages <james_at_kiramek.com>
Date: Tue Jan 02 2007 - 02:15:58 EST

I was saddened to see a complete absence of posts on NCX over the last
several days. Sad because NCX, in my opinion, is one of the biggest new
software contributions to the Newton community in years. NCX's author,
Simon Bell, is to be congratulated for his outstanding programming effort.

Now, as to my personal comments on the current version of NCX...

Simon, I must say that I would be willing to pay extra for your time to
expand the current 38400bps serial speed, even if you were only able to
boost it to half the theoretical limit of 230kbps.

As I mentioned to you offllist, there are distinct advantages to using
serial over wireless or Ethernet. Namely, you don't need any added hardware
with serial -- just use the adapter that came with the Newton or a SER001
board and cable. You don't need to fiddle with Ethernet or wireless
drivers, which, in the case of the wireless, is not free. You don't need to
yank out a card to put in the Ethernet or Wireless card -- which is nice if
you are like me and use two linear cards at all times. Indeed, the main
reason we all don't use serial is simply one of speed. And I am sure that
if you were able to program in compatibility with 230kbps speeds, even if
such was slower than Ethernet, it's still lightning fast relative to the
base speed of 38400bps. Indeed, I still find myself wanting to boot into OS
9 to run Apple's NCU in order to get 57600bps speeds (patched version),
despite the fact it is only a marginal boost over the standard 38400bps
speed.

How much would I pay for a 230kbps version of NCX? Well, if the serial
connectivity works bug-free, I would pay upwards of $50 for it. Certainly,
my contribution alone would not adequately compensate you for the
programming effort, but it is highly likely that others on this list would
be willing to pay for the additional speed just as I would.

For me, faster serial connectivity is far more important that improvements
to Ethernet or wireless or even synching (and yes, I have an Ethernet and a
wireless card for my Newton, and I would benefit from synching). And as I
mentioned before, I am happy to pay you a reasonable fee for faster serial
connects.

Hopefully others will chime in with their thoughts on improving serial
connectivity.

Best,

James Wages

-- 
This is the NewtonTalk list - http://www.newtontalk.net/ for all inquiries
Official Newton FAQ: http://www.chuma.org/newton/faq/
WikiWikiNewt for all kinds of articles: http://tools.unna.org/wikiwikinewt/
Received on Tue Jan 2 02:16:06 2007

This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.8 : Thu Jan 04 2007 - 15:30:00 EST