Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!wuarchive!brutus.cs.uiuc.edu!apple!mattd
From: mattd@Apple.COM (Matt Deatherage)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.apple
Subject: Re: 10 mhz chips
Message-ID: <36424@apple.Apple.COM>
Date: 13 Nov 89 14:52:06 GMT
References: <2473.cortland.info-apple@pro-houston> <36403@apple.Apple.COM> <4518@ncsuvx.ncsu.edu>
Organization: Apple Computer Inc, Cupertino, CA
Lines: 36

In article <4518@ncsuvx.ncsu.edu> rnf@shumv1.ncsu.edu (Rick Fincher) writes:
>
>Why not have both?  Maybe you could have the existing slots and a few faster
>ones or perhaps a control panel setting that would let you set slots to fast
>or slow (normal in Control Panel parlance!).  Then the user could configure
>the machine depending on wether a fast or slow card is being used.
>
This would be horribly confusing for most users, methinks.  Mixing newer and
older slots would only be OK if the old cards couldn't accidentally be plugged
into the newer slots...but then, of course, the hardware manufacturers have to
start building new types of cards for the new slots.  A control panel setting
for an existing slot opens everyone up to all kinds of problems.  A user has
an old Disk II card but he thinks it's too slow, so he quite naturally sets
the control panel to make that slot "fast", which either makes the hardware
stop working altogether or (worse) damages the card.

>Hmmm... while we're brainstorming, the ROM on the card could determine its
>slot and set the Control Panel itself.  This would be easier for users.
>
No existing card could do this, and neither could the Control Panel unless it
tried to know every peripheral ROM already in existance for ID purposes.  There
is an argument that some brand-new convention could be invented that existing
cards couldn't possibly follow, but I'd have to see it to comment on it.

>Rick
>rnf@shumv1.ncsu.edu

-- 
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Matt Deatherage, Apple Computer, Inc. | "The opinions expressed in this tome
Send PERSONAL mail ONLY (please) to:  | should not be construed to imply that
Amer. Online: Matt DTS                | Apple Computer, Inc., or any of its
ThisNet: mattd@apple.com              | subsidiaries, in whole or in part,
ThatNet: (stuff)!ames!apple!mattd     | have any opinion on any subject."
Other mail by request only, please.   | "So there."
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------