Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!usc!apple!portal!cup.portal.com!Jake-S
From: Jake-S@cup.portal.com (Jake G Schwartz)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.handhelds
Subject: Re: More on ROM extraction
Message-ID: <38751@cup.portal.com>
Date: 2 Feb 91 01:19:01 GMT
References: <10594@jarthur.Claremont.EDU>
Organization: The Portal System (TM)
Lines: 23

Scott Burke writes:

> My point is it is _not_ necessary to back up a reliable,
> solidly tested ROM card, and that no one has yet demonstrated a supportable
> reason for needing more than 1 slot (assuming a merged 128K RAM card).  I 
> am a developer, and _I_ don't need 2 slots.  I am certainly _not_ going to 
> write programs that _do_ need that!  Just like I won't shoot myself in the 
> foot! ;-) It'd be really nice if the 48 had, oh, six or seven slots, but 
> lets keep in mind that this is a calculator.

Hey, does anybody remember the good ole' HP41??? It had 4 ports, and that
wasn't nearly enough. I had a port extender on that baby and was able to
fill all ten ports with things, especially when developing code for people.
Now, ten is too much, I'll agree, but four or five might have been a better
choice than two. I know, the physical constraints limit us to what there is,
but if there had been two HP48 models - one with two ports and one with,
say, four, I bet lots of folks would have chosen the one with 4 (if they 
realized that there would be so many cards under development within a short
period of time). Gee, it's a good thing that PC's don't require you to 
have a disk drive for each and every application you want to run, instead
of being able to store it all on one hard disk.

Jake Schwartz