[opendtv] Re: Dueling Statutes?

I'll address just one point.  There never was a first-generation Mac.  There
was a failed, bloated product that had been in development for three years,
called the Apple Lisa (the name of Steve Job's girlfriend, and the mother of
his first child -- although he denied it for many years, if only because it
would cost him money.  (He eventually, many years later, faced up to his
parental responsibilities, at least to the extent of paying for child
support.)

It was slimmed down, made to work in 128K of memory, the console was
removed, and it became the "first generation" of MacIntosh.

And, it's hard to believe that someone with such an Apple-shaped head
WOULDN'T know this fact.  Of course, some people omit inconvenient facts to
make "points."

I just love how Steve Jobs told Wozniak that they would split the money from
Atari on "pong," but many years later, Wozniak found out that while he got
$700, Jobs pocketed $7,700.  

John Willkie, who tries to avoid all reality-distortion fields, and who has
read at least three books about the early days of Apple.

-----Mensaje original-----
De: opendtv-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:opendtv-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] En
nombre de Craig Birkmaier
Enviado el: Saturday, March 29, 2008 6:06 AM
Para: opendtv@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Asunto: [opendtv] Re: Dueling Statutes?

At 4:45 PM -0400 3/28/08, Manfredi, Albert E wrote:
>Lost in this thread is the fact that Microtune had not a single word to
>say about any "dueling statutes," or anything about NTSC bypass at all.
>Microtune was complaining about the fact that some of these coupon boxes
>do not pass the NTIA performance requirements over the entire TV band.
>
>The paragraph I quoted above is where the article jumps the tracks and
>goes off on another tangent.
>
>Here is the Microtune letter to the NTIA:
>
>http://www.microtune.com/news/2008Articles/MTLetter.pdf
>
>Bert

Microtune is in a very precarious position in all of this. They COULD 
say many things about these boxes...

For example, they could point out that the boxes that use their 
tuners COULD HAVE provided fully integrated analog reception at NO 
ADDITIONAL component cost. The only cost would have been the NRE to 
add the ability to use the analog tuner that is being bypassed in the 
boxes that use the Microtune chip.

The NTIA comments that John posted prove that the CBA and other 
organizations DID NOT drop the ball. The NTIA dropped the ball, in 
large part because they were not qualified to handle the assigned 
task. They approached this task as a bureaucracy would, not as a 
manufacturer would in trying to develop a product to meet the market 
requirements.

As for John's comments about "first generation products," this is not 
even true. DTV STBs have been available for years. We have had 
numerous threads discussing the performance of these boxes as each 
new generation is offered to the marketplace. And the guts of these 
boxes have been integrated into DTV receivers for several years. The 
lowest cost approach would have been to allow manufacturers to take 
the NRE from existing products and transport it to the boxes for this 
program. Instead, the NTIA wrongly assumed that ANY feature not 
absolutely required would make these boxes more expensive - just the 
opposite is actually true - it took additional resources to develop 
these crippled boxes...

And by the way John - my first generation iPhone is a remarkable 
product, as was my original Mac in 1984. That first generation Mac, 
as was the case for the first generation 8086 PC, was underpowered 
and lacked the resources to do most of the things we expect of a PC 
today. What made that underpowered Mac remarkable was the path that 
it defined toward the GUI that we all use today. On the other hand, 
the iPhone takes all that we have learned about computing and blends 
that with breakthrough technologies that make it possible to use a 
tiny handheld device for applications that are relevant to the needs 
of consumers.

Yes John, it IS possible to build highly functional first generation 
CE products.

Regards
Craig

 
 
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