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From: frank@grep.co.uk (Frank Wales)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.handhelds
Subject: Re: download library from EQ LIB card
Message-ID: <1991Jan31.190459.18388@grep.co.uk>
Date: 31 Jan 91 19:04:59 GMT
References: <27a114e2:1810comp.sys.handhelds@hpcvbbs.UUCP> <19440003@hpfcdj.HP.COM> <10566@jarthur.Claremont.EDU>
Reply-To: frank@grep.co.uk (Frank Wales)
Organization: Grep Limited, LEEDS, UK
Lines: 53

In article <10566@jarthur.Claremont.EDU> sburke@jarthur.Claremont.EDU 
 (Scott Burke) writes:
>I have a few thoughts on this beginning thread on ROM copying.  
>
>4.  If libraries are distributed (i.e., sold) as code objects like Donnelly's
>    Toolkit, which comes on a disk, then they can be downloaded to the 48.
>    But this eats memory--does anybody out there actually use all his code in
>    a 32K machine?  No, of course not.  If you have a 32K machine, you down-
>    load what you need when you need it.  But Donnelly's libraries can be
>    pirated because of this.

Whether a library exists in RAM or ROM doesn't change the amount of
memory the library itself consumes (modulo any housekeeping data and
exploitable features of one versus the other), but it does affect the
amount of memory the User has left over for other things, since the User
has a choice of what to do with the remaining RAM, but not with the
remaining ROM.  Thus, having the choice of which parts of Jim's Toolkit
I can have in RAM makes it no less flexible than if it were ROM-based,
plus I get the choice of what I do with the remaining memory.  To me, this
is a win, since I never have enough RAM.  The Equation Library is a good
example of something which has several uses, but in an all-or-nothing
package.  I can easily imagine that some people would like to have only
the periodic table, say, in their machine, and would rather not
sacrifice the remainder of the port for the facility.

>6.  If Joe owns two ROM cards, he can pull one out and plug the other one in.
>    This is simple.

It also results in a system halt, so transient state information is lost,
including the stack.  This is inconvenient.  In general, hardware
reconfiguration is a poor solution if an alternative is available.

>    There is no need to complain about the 3 seconds taken
>    to do this if Joe wants to access two different ROM cards, he doesn't
>    need to extract one of the libraries and put it in RAM.

If Users don't like it, you ignore their complaints at your commercial peril.

>7.  HP's EQLIB card is misleading because it contains 8 libraries.  Sparcom's
>    cards contain, typically, one large 128K library.  (More or less.)  

It is not misleading.  It is a more general-purpose card than many
currently available, and so is more likely to be in the hands of people
who only wish to exploit a part of its functionality.  That Sparcom's
cards are like extended versions of particular parts of the Equation Library
card only serves to confirm that point.  

I would hope that copying of ROM-based applications into RAM will become like
breaking privacy on the HP-41; most knowledgeable Users know it can be
done, some have the tools to do it, but few actually bother to to so.
--
Frank Wales, Grep Limited,             [frank@grep.co.uk<->uunet!grep!frank]
Kirkfields Business Centre, Kirk Lane, LEEDS, UK, LS19 7LX. (+44) 532 500303