The General Approach to Computing - A Ramble

[Tony Duell]

> That is true.  But it's also part of the challenge.  The even harder
> part is to get someone to pay you to reverse engineer an obsolete
> computer.  Not many of us can afford to do it for fun.  Although we
> will try.

Is this aimed at me :-). All I'll say is that I wish I could find someone 
to pay me to do that...

> 
> > On the other hand, now that people have a handful of common platforms, much
> > more
> > sophisticated software is being written.
> 
> Commodity hardware comes with advantages and drawbacks.  One advantage
> is that it will be a long time before the last ISA graphics card bites
> the dust.

Well, given that a CGA card is technically a graphics card, I suspect 
it'll be a very long time.. Offical schematics and programing info exist 
for that card. The most complicated chip on it (in terms od understanding 
it, not transistor count) is a 6845. Making one from scratch using 
whatever logic family or FPGA you favour would not be all that hard.

-tony