JTD wrote:
The "fun" part was writing the hdlc stack (for fax) by reading ccitt
manual in z80 assembly.
Those were really fun days. :) I used to assemble circuits from EFY and
later designed some of my own too, like a bank token display, a
temperature controller etc. I even designed my own pcbs and etched some
at home using ferric chloride.
The ridiculous part was that DOT guys had a
rule (upto 1987 afair) which made connecting a fax machine a criminal
offence - just like carrying a wireless non gsm cdma handset is
today.
Yes. I recollect, our customers had to apply to mtnl with details of
their fax machine and the guys at the exchange would allow fax traffic
from that number. Luckily all that stopped soon.
Also I myself saw fax technology as hitting a deadend
in a few years
- notice how color faxes are an expensive oddity and color scanners
are 1/10 the price and x100 the performance of a color fax. Fax
killed telex, the email killed fax, and wireless will kill GSM / CDMA
and the phone companies.
Email was killing my fax business so I had to get into computers. "If
you can't beat them, join them".
Precisely these reasons hinder the widespread use of foss. The big
difference is that foss is not a Company that has to think of cash
infusion today to fund tomorrows market or worry about someone else's
business going phut. All you have to do is focus on technology.
Creating a successfull brand is necessary too. Thats where the West is
leading the world whereas even though Indians are talented, we still
aren't good at creating global brands. Even in open source software, the
world looks towards the West. Even our popular linux distros and their
bundled softwares are created in the West. How do we make the turn
around? What can we do to create successfull Indian brands globally?
Regards,
Rony.
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