Date   : Tue, 13 Jan 2015 05:13:42 +0000
From   : jgh@... (J.G.Harston)
Subject: Compromises

Jules Richardson wrote:
> Later on, but before the Archie came out, it was clear that the Tube 
> was
> slow and so the whole "beeb core as the I/O processor" concept had 
> grown
> long in the tooth

I remember somebody at Acorn mentioned that it took them by surprise 
that the progression in computer systems was improved display resolution 
rather than improved CPUs. The inbuilt assumption of the Tube system was 
that you got a better program execution environment (bigger, faster CPU) 
with the existing I/O system (eg monochrome 80-column text), but other 
systems quickly went for flashy gee wizz look at that with the CPU 
system basically remaining unchanged.

The Tube's core usefulness is the ability to quickly bootstrap a CPU 
development system without having to build any IO. Without it getting 
started on ARM-based computer development would have been a magnitude 
harder.

Back in the 1980s I did sketch up some notes on a sort of Video Tube - 
replacement I/O processor instead of replacement program execution 
environment.

-- 
J.G.Harston - jgh@...      - mdfs.net/jgh