From: nospam.Daniel@f1.n770.z3188.fidonet.org   
      
   -=> Tom Lake wrote to Daniel <=-   
      
    TL> You can get almost instant-on by turning on a fast boot switch which is   
    TL> available in most BIOS. Fast boot eliminates a lot of the checking   
    TL> (such as a RAM test) the regular boot does. Remember, for the old   
    TL> systems, the ROM was written for just that particular hardware. There   
    TL> was no need to try to identify all sorts of different hard drives, USB   
    TL> devices, etc. The ROM knew exactly what was there and only needed to   
    TL> start BASIC or an rudimentary menu. Modern systems then have to load a   
    TL> very complex OS from some device. When everything is in ROM, there's no   
    TL> need to do that.   
      
   Thank you for the reply. Let met phrase the question a different way because I   
   don't think I properly conveyed the question.   
      
   Imagine if Commodore continued releasing faster and more advanced versions of   
   the C64. System still loads on ROM and, with a flip of a switch the user is   
   welcomed with either a basic screen or a basic menu UI.   
      
   David, of the 8 bit guy, is actually building a souped up Vic 20 with off the   
   shelf components and getting help on his pursuit from a variety of people   
   including an old Commodore engineer. His dream machine, as he calls it. I think   
   he's naming it the Commander X16. He's intending to mass produce it for the   
   retro computing scene. Yeah he's a small guy with very little funding but the   
   pursuit is similar in concept to my question the one i asked about. Every copy   
   will be on identical hardware and software so OS complexity shouldn't be much   
   more complex than the original system.   
      
   while he's building a modern 8bit machine, I'm wondering if it would be   
   possible to do this very thing with a modern 32 or 64 bit processor with modern   
   storage, memory, video/audio, and input/output yet be instant on. And the   
   developer would be responsible for the look and feel of the application.   
      
   Daniel Traechin   
   ... Visit me at gopher://gcpp.world   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)