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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