Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!texbell!uudell!natinst!rpp386!woody
From: woody@rpp386.cactus.org (Woodrow Baker)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.postscript
Subject: Re: *COMPLETE* Postscript Descripti
Summary: cycles
Message-ID: <17493@rpp386.cactus.org>
Date: 25 Dec 89 14:35:47 GMT
References: <17480@rpp386.cactus.org> <99500005@p.cs.uiuc.edu>
Organization: River Parishes Programming, Plano, TX
Lines: 48

In article <99500005@p.cs.uiuc.edu>, gillies@p.cs.uiuc.edu writes:
> 
> I don't see people trying to interface to their pocket calculator
> "because it's wasting cycles!"
> 
> I don't see people trying to interface to their TI speak & spell
> "because it's wasting cycles!"
> 
> I don't see people trying to interface to their stereo receiver
> "because it's wasting cycles!"
> 
> I don't see people trying to interface to their car, even though the
> latest GM products contain a decent multiprocessor with ~11 CPUs,
> "because it's wasting cycles!"
> 
> I don't see people trying to interface to their microwave ovens, to
> their stoves, or to a myriad of other dumb home appliances,
> "because they're wasting cycles!"
> 
> I don't see people trying to run LISP on their epson home printer,
> "because it's wasting cycles!"
> 
> So hands off with that laserprinter, ok?  Ok!

So, none of these have an interface designed to be used with a computer
or terminal.

It happens that you GM car is capable of some mighty neat things, and there
IS a fellow who is selling a software package that connects the PC to the
car, and lets you do COMPLETE diagnostics on the car.  You can alter the
roms for the main control computer, and increase your horsepower, and you
can even change the smog readings to fool inspectors.  Unfortunatly,
being that this is an embedded controler, there is no user accesable language,
.  Your arguement here is tenuous at best.  While you have a Laser connected
to a computer, or terminal that is doing work some of the time, most of the
time you have a perfectly fine general purpose computer just sitting on your
desk, doing nothing.  The silly sucker draws 6 amps of current, so why not
use it.  It costs you nothing, except (shudder) getting your hands dirty
with a little NON-CONFORMING code perhaps.  Now, I my car had an RS-232
port that I could plug into, and offload some work to it, why not.  It
would be an entertaining conversation topic at the least.

There are also people interfacing to TI and HP calculators.


Cheers

Woody