Hi Thierry, >The old debate "should software be designed before hardware ?" is a >nonsense to me
I didn't mean to say that software should be designed before hardware. When I designed the Q40/Q60, there was no software at all!!! For me, there are two software-related conditions, before I implement any QL hardware: 1. I must see a (reasonable) chance QL software will use it later on. 2. I must be able to write enough software myself to test basic functions of the hardware. Both conditions were given for the (ISA-like) extension bus of Q40/Q60, and even more for the peripherals on the mainboard itself. Both conditions are not given for PCI, in my opinion. >Now, with some good motivation, most of these programmers will be >ready to "sacrify" significant part of their free time to do some >software development. New hardware (INCLUDING UNSUPPORTED ONE under >QDOS/SMS) is a very good motivation as far as I am concerned. I do fully second that. Your CDROM driver is a vey promising piece of software and proves that very well!!! But what you say, does not mean *every* interesting looking hardware will eventually get software support later on. There are limits of reasonable software expectations! And in the special case of PCI to expand a QL related mainboard, I see that limit reached. Furthermore I doubt that PCI would really be a good motivation for possible software writers. Most of the things that we lack and eagerly wish, can already be implemented in a more simple way than PCI. There is not much use in wasting enormous software-writing resources, just so we can say "hey look how modern we are, we have PCI". If there are easier ways, why chose the almost impossible ones? All the best Peter
