Path: utzoo!utgpu!watserv1!watcgl!wsflinn
From: wsflinn@watcgl.waterloo.edu (Scott Flinn)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ti
Subject: Re: TI-99 compatible....
Message-ID: <13021@watcgl.waterloo.edu>
Date: 19 Jan 90 01:22:31 GMT
References: <409@compnect.UUCP> <7360@cbnewsh.ATT.COM> <412@compnect.UUCP>
Reply-To: wsflinn@watcgl.waterloo.edu (Scott Flinn)
Organization: U. of Waterloo, Ontario
Lines: 34

In article <412@compnect.UUCP> dave@compnect.UUCP (Dave Ratcliffe) writes:
> The Geneve wasn't a 'this-one-or-that-one' choice. Maybe, now that I think
> of it, it was more of a curiosity thing?? It IS an interesting machine,
> considering what you get on that little card.....
>
> Anyone else have an opinion??

I agree completely.  I got my Geneve during the summer of 1987, before the
boot eprom displayed the swan on power up.  You might say I was overly eager!
Unfortunately, I _did_ have to make a "this-one-or-that-one" choice,
since I couldn't afford the luxury of two machines.  Later that year, I
really needed to do some serious work and was counting on Pecan's P-system
Pascal arriving.  At one point that Fall, I was on the phone with Myarc's
head office in Basking Ridge with Lou's personal secretary preparing to
download the Pascal system over the phone.  At that point I figured that,
if it was that close to being distributed, I could wait a week for it
to be shipped.  Of course, two years later it has yet to be released.  So
I sold my precious Geneve to a nearby friend and bought an Atari 1040ST on
which Real(TM) work can be done.  I don't regret the decision, but I do
wish I could have kept the Geneve.  I have since sold my 99/4A and expansion
box (everything in fact), so getting another Geneve up and running would
be costly.  But I do hope to get one some day soon.  As Dave says, the
hardware on that little card is truly amazing, even by today's standards.
I could have a lot of fun finding out just what it can do.  Unfortunately
for the future of the Geneve, I think this is typical.  For hacker types
who like to program chips directly, disassemble rom and just generally
play with bits, the 9640 is a marvellous toy.  But few of us seem to
fit that category, which for the sake of computing in general is a very good
state of affairs I suppose.

Any more fond memories out there?

Cheers,
Scott