Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!sdd.hp.com!usc!apple!portal!cup.portal.com!Jake-S
From: Jake-S@cup.portal.com (Jake G Schwartz)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.handhelds
Subject: Re: RE: Copying ROMS to RAM
Message-ID: <38750@cup.portal.com>
Date: 2 Feb 91 01:03:26 GMT
References: <3336@gmuvax2.gmu.edu>
Organization: The Portal System (TM)
Lines: 33

Bob Peraino gives some rather valid (IMHO) arguments for copying ROM cards
that a user owns into his own RAM for use with other ROM images that he owns.
I'd like to add at least one other point to this argument. In the case of
CMT cards, they stipulate in their documentation that the pins on the cards
tend to wear over time, and that plugging and unplugging should be kept to
a minimum. This is obviously true for the HP cards as well (although I 
might speculate that HP's cards may be a bit more robust - who really knows
for sure?). Therefore, I definitely do not want to be plugging and unplugging
my cards every few minutes. If I own 4 32K cards, I think I have a right to
have all 4 of them in my machine at once in port 2 while my 128K RAM card
is in port one.
  At the Las Vegas meeting, when the Sparcom folks talked about their 
Personal Information Manager card, I brought this issue up specifically
(and Joe Horn followed it up with some poignant questions to the speakers).
I happen to own a Casio 7500 BOSS organizer, which I keep in my pocket just
about all the time. When I heard about the "PIM" card from Sparcom, I 
figured that I could retire the BOSS and keep the data in the HP48 so I
wouldnt have to carry two machines around. But the PIM card functions go
away when the card is unplugged (except, of course, for the alarms which
stay in RAM in the HP48), and I need my port 2 for *all* the ROM cards I
own. The Sparcom people had no good solution to this dilemma. I purposely
did NOT suggest copying the PIM card into RAM, hoping that they would have
a creative solution that I did not think of. They did not, only saying that
"we agree, it's a problem." They DID get upset when Joe asked them point
blank if they'd have objection to copying the PIM card that one owned , into
his RAM, citing copyright problems. Paul Hubbert spoke up at that moment,
mentioning that all the PC software vendors (who sell products for far
more money than Sparcom cards) all recommend copying their products on 
to the user's hard drive. Well, my "hard drive" on my HP48 at the moment
happens to be a CMT EEPROM card. I see no problems with using it as such,
since I bought the ROM cards in the first place.

Jake Schwartz