"To get people interested in computers and electronics" Then why not release the datasheet of the chips? A circuit diagram, full documentation too.
So that is a joke.
Sinclair came with the ZX80 in the eighties. It was all TTL chips, and a Z80 processor. Now that was something. The ZX81 had some of that TTL integrated. Diagrams were available, I even had the complete ROM disassembly commented by Dr Ohara. THAT is how you get people interested, BBC micro was just like BBC, a government sponsored disaster, It flipped. Sinclair became Sir Clive Sinclair, for his contributions to that what you now try to claim, I'd say to the youngsters: Get an old ZX80.
The whole thing from an educational POV makes no sense, as how many youngsters have a HDMI capable monitor? The thing has no VGA.
It is just a marketing thing, maybe it was only a Broadcom evaluation board, but then why not release chip data? Could help them sell chips.. So that does not make sense. Of course it bytes into the profit margin of everyone else that sells cheap single board computahs... Farnell only sells to companies, maybe be RS will sell to an individual... CHILD???? Oh man, for that to happen they must be in the shop window before Christmas... LOL and then it will be 70 $ plus a mouse, plus a HDMI monitor, plus a keyboard, plus an USB hub, plus plus... Oh, power supply too? Or does it come with one? Don't think so.
So, overall its hype, hype more hype, and did I mention HYPE?
The ZX81 was available from the supermarket here (V&D).
Why, the "datasheet" (more a complete library of documents for this sort of device) is available on the web, along with just about every other electronic component in existence.
So do you require a circuit diagram of your laptop in order to use it?
I haven't found the remotest need for a schematic for the embedded linux boards I use, the only hardware information that's at all necessary is the pinout for I/O. 99.9% of my documentation requirement is software related.
HDMI is pretty close to DVI. A conversion cable is enough to connect any DVI TFT monitor to it.
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Failure does not prove something is impossible, failure simply
indicates you are not using the right tools...
nico@nctdevpuntnl (punt=.)
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On a sunny day (Sun, 04 Mar 2012 14:23:33 GMT) it happened snipped-for-privacy@puntnl.niks (Nico Coesel) wrote in :
The ZX80 / ZX81 / ZXspectrum had RF out for connection to any teafee set at that time It also had a keyboard. And one of the best BASICs (Dartmouth) with syntax checking on entry of a line. You could program it in asm too. So the kids could connect it to the teafee in the living room and fight for access versus other shows. It would still work on 90% of the teafees out there today. It came with power supply. Within a very short time a zillion extension things were on the market, I had for example, a nice 64 kB dynamic ram module that plugged into it. The bus was accessible on the back side.
I am not arguing that that 100$ alias 35$ thingy is a real computah, I state that its educational value and especially its electronic educational value is zero compared to what Sir Clive brought, same from the value for money in that aspect POV. \They have been playing the press about it for many month now, plenty of time to make at least a decent diagram and provide links to or include the datasheets. Any twit can get a Broadcom chip in large quantities and install a Linux. It is all hype and not worth a dime.
On a sunny day (Sun, 04 Mar 2012 11:07:29 -0500) it happened " snipped-for-privacy@att.bizzzzzzzzzzzz" wrote in :
The datasheet or better full documentation of the Broadcom chip this thing is based on is only available under NDA, says their OWN site.
What else is there? They added a RAM chip. The Broadcom thing does everything else. Wow, such engineering!
There is very little difference between my old Linksys WiFi router and this, but of course the WiFi router has WiFi.... It has hidden RS232 and USB (IIRC) too. It sold or about 56 Euro. Runs Linux, but MIPS.
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If you open it up it has a Broadcom chip, RAM and FLASH. I have hacked it a lot.. Same thing, now Broadcom has added HDMI capable graphics. So, did anybody shout from the treetops that this is the next thing in teaching children about conputahs and electronics? You have to be pretty good in all that to begin with, plus in Linux, to even experiment with it.
It seems to be that if you go that route, then the OLPC (one laptop per child) was a better choice, display, keyboard, power, software all there for < 100$ IIRC. Plus WiFi.
I don't think there is anything on their website that can be had with out a NDA. Maybe some open source tools and related documentation, but that?s it.
This post at their site has a nice diagram showing what's open and what's not, which to me tells more than 1000 words.
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Nice design and very tempting price, but I wouldn't use it for anything serious nor for teaching. I'd rather wait for the inevitable answer by competitors, in the hope they won't use the same dreadful Broadcom chipset.
You are rewriting history. Sinclair's first computer kit was the DIY assembly MK14 based on the SC/MP microcontroller and launched in 1977.
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It started Chris Curry on a trajectory with Herman Hauser that would result in the formation of Acorn, the Atom. the BBC Micro (aka Proton) and indirectly ARM. Raspberry Pi follows a long tradition.
Rubbish. It was extremely successful and found everywhere. So much so that there were third party hardware and ROMs to allow it to be used as smart terminals, IEEE bus controllers and sundry other things.
The BBC Micro graphics hardware at the time was so advanced that export of them to Russia and East Germany was against COCOM rules!
Sinclair's products were mostly noted for their naff keyboards starting with the MK14 and getting worse and the dreaded QL microdrives which would trash all your work in an instant given half a chance.
We made addons for both the BBC Micro and the QL. The latter never managed to sell the whole of the first production run of anything. It wasn't as bad as the C5 which required application of C4 to make it go.
I suspect there are still C5 body shells dumped in a yard somewhere.
On a sunny day (Mon, 05 Mar 2012 09:21:25 +0000) it happened Leroy Brown, the baddest man in the whole whole town, misspelled:
No, I am talking bout the ZX80 and ZX81. Not about how the wheel was invented.
As far as I remember there was one person who had one in my country and he did not know how to use it ;-)
LOL, probably because it was virus infected.
The ZX80 and ZX81 used a cassette tape drive to load programs. Did you ever own one? Does not look like it.
Yes the foil keyboards were fragile, but not so fragile that I could not write a CP/M clone on it in asm, using a Sony cassette drive as storage, then I added IBM PC keyboard drivers.. That foil keyboard was probably better for programming development than those rub screens you see nowadays, not to mention my 1000 Euro Samsung laptop keyboard where the space bar only works if you hit it in the middle. So Sir Sinclair really did a very good job compared to the crap that is made these days by clueless South Korean designers in half an hour before lunch time.
You are just pissed because the BBC micro was such a flipping flop :-)
Yes, must have been you....
The latter never
No idea what C4 and C5 is, I was talking about the ZX80 and ZX81 design. Absolutely revolutional.
That ZX80 ZX81 came with a very nice manual too, nice book. DOCUMENTATION, if you want to teach kids, that is where it starts,
But I guess for some British gov peddler it is more falsifying news, that is where the BBC word comes in. Blairing Tony made it even worse. Then they started their own Al Jazeera...
When I was still very young propaganda had me convinced the BBC was really good. I have been there, talked to their technicians, looked in their 4 tube cameras. When I got older and learned looking from different points of view I learned how sad an instrument it is, A BBC coNputah, just imagine, wonder if it would modify code you typed. . No export to the USSR what???? Most fortunate they were! They got Sputnik up without any BBC crap helping them. Now they are re-stabilizing Syria.
OK, let's carry on a bit, I am very happy Putin won the fair elections by a large margin.
Obanana the hypocrite, 'we will fight high oil prices with all we can', supported the Arab spring, in fact organized it, with support from its slave the UK who with their little atomic submarines shot missiles at innocent people in Tripoli. So now Obanana finances all his 'alternative energy' projects so to look good to his fellow DemonRats. Obanana CAUSES the high oil prices, now by constantly threatening Iran, before the Iraq, where his predecessor GWBushman sold pictures of Iraqi mobile fish and chip shops as mobile laboratories containing weapons of mass destruction. (of course in a way the fat in yoiur fish and chips will do that :-)) Mr Brown, brown brown, you and your club are the baddest people in town. To make a 180 degree turn., Her Majesty was RIGHT in knighting Sir Sinclair for his great contribution to mankind and the British economy, and education of its people.
LOL We need more people like Sir Clive. I want to thank him here for the great time I had playing with the results of his pipe dreams. And you, for heavens sake, design something, lets see it.
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