Survey posted 2005-04-19 18:01 by Jon.

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Different CPU, of course! ~V~

Why? We would need a lot of work to get assembly up and running on a new processor, whereas with z80 there are tons of applications already put together for easy asm development, and for 68k we even have TIGCC, which could fairly easily be modified to accomodate a new 68k calc.

It doesn't have to be THAT different - A Z380 (my personal preference for a new processor) would be much faster and generally more powerful than a Z80, but maintain complete backwards compatibility.

Yes, we should get dual Intel Xeon processors on the calculator with 4GB RAM (DDR2), equipped with a color TFT screen =] Ok, nvm... That would cost about $700 to get into a desktop, don't even want to think about the price to compress it into a calc, lol.

But I still think that a new processor would be a good idea... If not, I'd prefer z80 over 68k cause I can actually program asm on z80, lol

On 68K, nobody needs to program ASM!!! 68K C and BASIC are both pretty fast, and probably almost as fast as ASM.

<off topic>
COBOL should be implemented in whatever OS is written for the new CPU because COBOL would bridge the gap between BASIC and ASM. It is as efficient as BASIC and as easy-to-program as ASM!

>> It is as efficient as BASIC and as easy-to-program as ASM!

You're being sarcastic, right?

Of course he is! But I think the next calc should have a punch card reader, but who cares what I think? :)

I'd go for that. Anything to save memory space. (I'm the dude who wants a slide rule and a handheld mechanical adder.)

No, he isn't. Look again more carefully - the "efficiency of BASIC" (Which is not very much...) and the "ease-of-use of assembly" (Which keeps many people programming in BASIC...). ;-D

TI-BASIC? Fast???

ya, dual 3.8GHz Xeons with EM64T and way more than 4GB ram cuz you can!

Nah, get one of the hot new dual core Opterons that's coming out pretty soon from AMD...

Might as well stick in a hot-swappable RAID array of 200 GB drives while you're at it...

I laugh in your face! 200GB hard drives? You're so outdated... Get an array of 400TB hard drives.

You know, I never realized that calcs had CPUs! I also can't believe that anything doesn't run windows!!!

Restraining several mean and derogatory comments.

Keep your mouth shut.

I was referring to the Windows comment; it took me six months or so to realize they had CPUs, too.

And while I'm in rant mode, learn to capitalize proper nouns like "Windows".

I was just kidding, and since windows is not capitalized, that means that i cant believe that anything wont junp out a window :)

Don't worry, I think everyone else knew you weren't serious.

Wait, he wasn't serious? I thought everyone who talked about Windows liked it. I mean, it comes with IE...how can you not like it?!?!?!

I was getting worried

You meen everything doesn't run windows, because windows doesn't run at all ;). Windows really sucks, especially XP. I have it on both of my computers, both fairly new, and still have problems. Both of my computers crashed within these two weeks, Have my desktop working right now (on the internet), and my laptop has issues with it like no sound, video problems, and other driver related issues. I hate Windows, and want to go to Linux, but I would have to sacrifice all of my precise games, programs, and other things with Knopix.

It's weird that WinXP seems to die withing the first month. With two installations of XP (two different computers), they've died a total of at least five times, mostly because their registries get corrupted (what's up with that??). After the first month, they run more or less smoothly (though with other problems, of course).

I say it's better to lose your precious games, programs, and other things intentionally (and only once) by going to Knoppix than to lose them accidentally because Windows trips over itself again and again. :)

You don't necessarily have to give up everything, though, if you can get Wine and other emulators working well enough. I use VTI using Wine. I downloaded DOSEMU (a DOS emulator, http://dosemu.org) so I could run my old DOS games and a DOS CAD program my dad uses. It works a lot better than I expected, and the CAD program runs under DOSEMU but doesn't even run under WinXP! Similarly for my Apache game, which works in DOSEMU but not in Win98.

You don't have to run VTI under WINE, you can use TiEmu (68k) or TiLEM (Z80) instead.

I know, but it's what I have, so I'm sticking with it for now (at least until I install GNU/Linux).

There's no need to sacrifice your games. You can run Windows and Linux on the same machine.