Optron #15 24 июля 1998

Железо

Opinions - Standards: Restin Peace? ..

        Standards: Rest in Peace? ..



(C) Maxim Isayev


               Preface


  The impetus for writing this article was material from Andy 
Nelson (as in passport Smolsky Andrew) in the 14 th issue of 
"Optron. My first impression from the article by Andrei

was: "lol .. Where's my soldering iron?" But
slightly cooled down, I wondered: "And if
I need it? ". After thinking a little more
("I thought I liked and I thought
yet), I decided navayal, in fact, this
article.

  What follows should not be construed
as hitting or even worse - as a personal insult. This is just 
my personal opinion about what is happening around them. The 
article is intended not only to Andrew, but all the developers 
of the new, "cool" iron. And, perhaps, attempt to answer the 
questions "What should I do?" and "Who's to blame?". I would 
like to Andrew took my thoughts are not as trite knocked down, 
but as a desire or even as a guide to action.




  It seems, Andy decided once and for all bury a very important
thing as a standard. And it is not good.
Why? Because there is a perception that
a large number of gadgets, especially the lack of uniformity of 
standards for the same external devices that can "kill"

Spectrum.

  After reading the first paragraph, you might think
I blame Andrew almost all
mortal sins, including the death
Spectrum. I reply that he was wrong in
that, like many other "zhelezyachniki, throws off the head of 
the new users pile of" cool "equipment, with which offers the 
same, if not bigger pile standards.


  Let's start from the beginning.

  The notorious dispute over the fact that all
is better: Standard Spectrum or homegrown "standard" Pentagon. 
How much can you! I now Matyuk punch!


  Uninformed user might ask, what is the
"Pentagon" better than well "Lviv varianta. My answer: nothing, 
only eight rows wider screen and no inhibition lower

memory. Inhibition of memory - it is a problem
programmer who can not properly
allocate memory for the program. And with
wider louver similar - if you
unable to make its effect on 2000
beats faster, what you're after
coder? And many of these coders still call themselves "sceners" 
(the essence of this concept I try to explain as anything the 
next time, because the content of this sti it has nothing to 
do). As For example, Enlight is 96. Yeah ... On

97-m if I'm not mistaken, coders understand
what to do, and outrageously buggy dem in the "troika" We have 
not seen, except that, "EYE ACHE 2. Code Busters would like to 
slam the door. Not Timeout. I believe that a mental illness 
when the user is tormented by the thought that his comp is bad, 
and her uncle, who wrote prog good. PEOPLE! When you learn to 
appreciate given you by God, and Sir Clive? Your

component of good health for all 100! They are sick of
"Cool" uncle, writing Curves program.
By the way, finishing the thought, I want to see
that the 320 lines in a raster is a gross error, which goes 
counter to the television standards. And is such a "surrogate" 
for all of us imposed! I do not want to take too

many, but all the same will express a thought: if
people easily steps over a single standard, it can transcend 
through all others. You do not have excuses like "it

same as running ": hunting Television rape - violence, but 
others do not offer. 

  Okay, the "old" dust-passed.

  And what next? New standards.
How many ports already # xxFD "raped"? Now began juzat # xxF7, 
and especially # EFF7. Well, it is reasonable. By themselves 
only tell D7 that port - it is allowing access to

CMOS-clock on the m / 512VI1, and D4 - on / off such 
improvements as Gigascreen (the scheme was to echo ZX.SPECTRUM, 
I tried to "Snap" to it, "Lvov option" - did not work, can 
anyone help?) against the use of port # EFF7 I do not I have 
just wanted to ask the author article, as he did decoding port:

by LL1 or ID7? Why do I say? Yes, because if you do decryption
any one discharge port, it is very
You can easily lose the right _vosmi_ "contiguous" with the 
ports and through ID7 of three digits can be "pulled" all eight

ports, for example, as follows:



   A12 A0 DC 0o # 8FF7

   A13 A1 1o # 9FF7

   A14 A2 2o # AFF7

               3o # BFF7

               4o # CFF7

    A3 oE1 5o # DFF7
 / OIRQ oE2 6o # EFF7

   A15 E3 7o # FFF7



  Immediately asked for all kinds of "radiokohantsyam": Do not 
touch the ports # BFF7 and # DFF7 - they are already engaged in 
CMOS-clock, and personally I do not I would like to have a 
problem with it. From Port # EFF7 I would also advised to 
remove all these Virtual ROM, latches, etc. translate them

at any other port.

  Okay, with the ports, like, clear. So the author of said 
article also garbles terminology. Misname

crafty Virtual ROM in the upper pages of memory
- Pseudo-ROM. Pseudo-ROM - is the RAM from 2
up to 16 kilobytes, substituted in place
ROM interface ZX Lprint.

  Conclusion. Who is to blame for that
such situation? Many blame.
What do we see? Another handy throws
the crowd of his scheme devaysa. The crowd, without thinking, 
starts his own doing, and then It turns out that the next crowd 
to those same ports depends entirely different device. AND

now only if the author of the scheme
instead of a modem is included hard drive, he begins to think 
(advice - sometimes it helps:)). And when the crowd and that 
made (bought the) such a device starts the same glitches ... I 
sympathize with the author. All these problems could be avoided 
(or at least try to avoid) if representatives of two different 
crowds consulted, and whether they should all hang on one port. 
Just ask a neighbor! And do not sit in its shell, and then get 
offended ... 

  And what do you do?

  For existing alternatives glands
small. I offer two: autodetect
and driver. Auto and driver!
What many people forget and hammer. Coder, if you write prog 
for equipment that can have multiple standards, do not be lazy, 
and do any external driver or AutoCheck all

standards known to you! Is that so
difficult? And then sometimes comes to senility -
a "meter" memory, the program sees only 128K, since the author 
did not bother make the driver or literacy definition

the size of the machine's memory.

  But the authors of the new bells and whistles that
they want to share with the world, ladies
one piece of advice: Before you offer, ask, and will not 
prevent it people? 

  And personally for the author of the article: I understand,
You want to pick up SIMMs and HDD? If you do for yourself - 
please this is your thing, but if for all, then please,

refer to existing standards
for these devices.

  That's all what I wanted to tell readers "OPTRON.



             P.S. by rasp



  Yes ... Interesting article. In some ways contradictory, but 
in something and truthful. Think not a bad excuse for 
_zdorovoy_ discussion. Intrsno that thought about our

readers.


                              Sincerely,

                            Hacker Rasp,

                          Klimus Vladimir

                  Editor of "Optron"