Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!cs.utexas.edu!ut-emx!nather
From: nather@ut-emx.UUCP (Ed Nather)
Newsgroups: comp.arch
Subject: Re: DTACK Grounded
Summary: Yes! Yes!
Message-ID: <13419@ut-emx.UUCP>
Date: 26 May 89 14:15:26 GMT
References: <19433@obiwan.mips.COM> <199100003@inmet> <5164@mtgzz.att.com>
Organization: The University of Texas at Austin, Austin, Texas
Lines: 36

In article <5164@mtgzz.att.com>, dam@mtgzz.att.com (d.a.morano) writes:
> In article <199100003@inmet>, rich@inmet writes:
> > 
> > > Hal Hardenbergh   [incl std dsclmr]   ames!vsi1!hal   hal@vicom.com
> > > surely nobody here remembers the newsletter DTACK Grounded ?
> > 
> > As a matter of fact, I do!  Please stop doing whatever job you have now and
> > republish DTACK Ground.  Life has been so booorrring without it.
> > 
> DTACK Grounded, if I remember correctly.  Compelling high performance title.
> Yes, I found it quite enjoyable, but I don't think that the company is
> willing to have to pay for it if necessary.  Maybe you could get some
> advertisers to defray costs and publish it free.

You remember correctly.  At its height, it was the best-informed journal on the
computer industry, the most fun to read, and by far the most irreverent.  It
was supported (in part) by subscription fees, which readers gladly payed to get
the (monthly) newsletter -- it was the highlight of *my* month, at least.

It carried no advertising, and so was captive to no one --- not that the editor,
Hal Hardenbergh, would have allowed that, in any case.  It was a one man show:
Hardenbergh did the whole thing himself.  I miss it.

Of course, you can't go home again, but should he ever decide to publish it (or
a descendant) again, I'd get my checkbook out in a flash ...

The title, "DTACK Grounded", was derived from the signal line on the 68000 CPU
chip that allowed you to configure the "mighty" 68000, pushed as the 
"large system" chip by Moto, as a small, fast CPU for personal computers --
Hardenbergh's company made add-in 68000 cards for Apple computers, mostly;
his "full gallon" board had 1,000,000 bytes of RAM, unheard-of in the PC
world at the time.

-- 
Ed Nather
Astronomy Dept, U of Texas @ Austin