Newsgroups: comp.arch
Path: utzoo!utgpu!cunews!bnrgate!bcrka451!cadnews
From: myhui@bnr.ca (Michael Hui)
Subject: Re: Sun's Competitive Strategy (Was: Re: P1754
Message-ID: <1990Nov25.012052.17129@bnr.ca>
Sender: myhui@bcrka325
Organization: bnr
References: <1990Nov23.181851.26588@zoo.toronto.edu> <11182@pt.cs.cmu.edu> <1990Nov24.162427.10023@ameristar>
Date: Sun, 25 Nov 90 01:20:52 GMT

In article <1990Nov24.162427.10023@ameristar> rick@ameristar (Rick Spanbauer) writes:
>	somewhere that people do not have access to the stuff.  As a counter
>	example, these days I do most of my hardware work on Commodore Amigas 
>	- CBM provides a 380 page reference manual (published by Addison-Wesley,
>	no less) on programming their full custom ASIC parts in the Amiga and 
>	they ship full schematics with *every* box they sell.

In the other hardware sphere of oscilloscopes, Tektronix also ships
full schematic, _trouble shooting_, and _calibration_ information
with each and every scope. Legend has it that a smaller scope maker's
VP of engineering was too proud to copy Tek's horizontal sweep generator
circuit, and went on to design his own for his company, and got a patent
for it in the process. In the old days, scopes were made of discrete
transistors, hand soldered to boards, wired by hand. Copying would have
been trivial.

Michael Hui     myhui@bnr.ca