[HECnet] PDP-11/70 on FPGA

[Johnny Billquist]

Bob Armstrong wrote:
  I'm not going to quote anybody's posting here, but there have been several
that motivated me to speak up.   I have say that this is really pathetic.   A
guy (Walter Mueller, the original author it looks like) does all the work to
implement a 11/70 in VHDL, gives it away to you _for free_, and all you guys
do is sit around and make lists of the stuff he didn't do.   If you want an
FPU, write the VHDL for one.   If you want an MSCP disk, then implement one.
Contribute.   Help.   Take some of that energy you use to write these emails
and use it to make the core better.   That's what Open Source is all about,
guys.
  </soapbox>     Sorry.   I see this attitude the time with Spare Time Gizmos
and I've become kind of sensitive to and intolerant of it.   I'll go back to
sleep now.

Hey, I don't mind the discussion, and I understand where you come from.
It's always a problem. One the one hand, I suspect that you don't mind the interest generated, and the potential users discussing how something can be used. On the other hand, you can start to feel like people whine about something given free.

However, you should never forget that just because people might not know how to do one thing (like write VHDL) don't stop them from having opinions on what might be needed to make something someone else did being more useful. And wanting to provide feedback is not neccesaily the same thing as whining.

Take things for what they are. Peoples opinions. People who take an interest. I don't think that is bad. You just need to step back and take a deep breath sometimes when things might sound very negative, and try to look at things in a larger perspective.

Of course, you are free to disagree with me on this too, and I won't stop writing about things even if you do. I do, however, sincerely hope that people take what I write as more than just whinings... :-)

Oh, and I do use more of my energy to more than write emails. This whole list exist because I do so... :-) I just don't have time to go diving in yet another direction. I have enough with just doing stuff on HECnet, improving RSX in all corners I can think of, bugfixing and improving 2.11BSD, contributing to NetBSD, and keep my own machines up and running and providing help for others to keep their machines up and running.
Don't assume that all people do is write mails complaining about stuff, just because they think that something they see could be improved. :-)

	Johnny

-- 
Johnny Billquist                                   || "I'm on a bus
                                                                  ||   on a psychedelic trip
email: bqt at softjar.se                         ||   Reading murder books
pdp is alive!                                         ||   tryin' to stay hip" - B. Idol