One of the problems about living on the end of a 'carries the signal over
barbed wire for the last 10 miles" ISP, is that it is frequently far too
late to respond. However, I've been following the HP908 thread with
tremendous interest.

Stan (among others) notes that the cost of hardware is not the problem
(memory at $117 for 32 MBytes). The real issues is the funding model for CSY
to get something like this done. SO how about this::

HJP908 with whatever hardware configuration you come up with

No software support whatever (thanks for this neat idea, Gavin)

Software available by subscription to a brand new CSY product called the MPE
Developers Subscription. Contents of this brand new CSY product would
include all the compilers, etc etc, etc. The product would be unsupported,
but could be replaced as often as necessary (say in time for each new
release) by purchasing a new one (Cost c $2000)! Then we have what every
wants, yes/no?

CSY gets a brand new revenue stream approximating the cost of support for
the software that they sold once to a typical system.

WCSO doesn't lose anything, because these new systems won't take away any
support activity (because there's no support...)

We get the system we've dreamed of

Is this too simplistic to be true? Or might it just work?

Tony