Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!clyde.concordia.ca!uunet!bu-cs!lll-winken!uwm.edu!uakari.primate.wisc.edu!brutus.cs.uiuc.edu!apple!amdahl!twg.com!obelix!warner From: warner@twg.com (Warner Losh) Newsgroups: gnu.misc.discuss Subject: Re: GNUclear Warfare Message-ID: <91@gollum.twg.com> Date: 19 Dec 89 05:49:27 GMT References: <2558@flatline.UUCP> <4639@sugar.hackercorp.com> <25770F75.3EA@rpi.edu> <1913@texsun.Central.Sun.COM> <1989Dec7.075641.13191@news.acc.Virginia.EDU> <4754@sugar.hackercorp.com> <1989Dec13.213445.13639@world.std.com> <4757@sugar.hackercorp.com> Sender: news@twg.com Reply-To: warner@twg.com (Warner Losh) Organization: The Wollongong Group Lines: 35 In article <4757@sugar.hackercorp.com> peter@sugar.hackercorp.com (Peter da Silva) writes: >Let's see you write a free IBM-compatible BIOS. But why should you? It's >not of any interest to computer nerds. Whanna bet? Does anyone out there remember this 8088 based machine that Digital (should be DEC) produced called the Rainbow? It ran MS-DOS, but not PC-DOS. It was very uncompatable with PC's. Then this dude (Dan Pleasanton?) wrote this nifty little program called Code Blue. Basically, it was an IBM-compatible BIOS that you loaded into your Rainbow and made it look like a PC. He started out in the public domain, but quickly realized that he could make some doe with his code. So the original public domain version had lots of bugs in it. It was very hard to get the source to it. It crashed your machine. It didn't work too well. However, he cleaned up the code a lot and now it is really slick. He sells it for around $100. Which is reasonable, given today's money hungary market place. Never have heard of anybody sueing him over the look and feel of his BIOS interface :-). The point is that there is always somebody doing something that you never thought would be useful because you were wearing blinders. Every body wears them, but few realize it. -- Warner Losh warner@twg.com (formerly warner@hydrovax.nmt.edu) I'm the B.O.S.S. I'm all around you. I'm the computer -- Dr. Who My views and spelling are my own. Only the letters have been changed. -- -- Warner Losh warner@twg.com (formerly warner@hydrovax.nmt.edu) My views and spelling are my own. Only the letters have been changed.