Author Topic: Interview with Nick Toop (Read 16188 times)

szipucsu · « **on:** 2008.July.06. 22:10:44 »

Quote from: gflorez on 2008.July.06. 20:49:02

I have "bad understood" in the Magyar part of this forum that you have interviews to Nick Troop or other creators of our loved computer.
Can you, the Hungarian members, translate them to English?

It's that Zozosoft has found Nick Toop's e-mail address on the net, the designer of the Nick chip. Zozo wrote Nick, who answered that he'll gladly answer our questions. Now we (first of all Zozosoft

) collected some questions and Zozo sent them to Nick by e-mail, as I know. (Nick Toop doesn't have enough time to register in this forum and to answer our questions here.) In the meanwhile Mayer Gabor also wrote some questions to that Hungarian topic to be answered by Nick. That's we wrote about in that Hungarian topic.
Of course, not Hungarian members also can make questions and write them here - it's an advantage that those questions won't need translating into English.

It's just a short summary on that Hungarian topic so far. Do you need more detailed information?

Zozosoft · « **Reply #1 on:** 2008.July.06. 22:25:38 »

Now we waiting the answers for the first batch of questions.
When finished, the interview will be published on the Enterprise webpages.

gflorez · « **Reply #2 on:** 2008.July.07. 04:29:30 »

Hello szipucsu.

Thanks for the confirmation. I would like more information, but there is no more a translator page from Magyar. Is dificult for me to understand something from your language as it is very diferent from Spanish or English. I will wait spectantly llike everybody.

szipucsu · « **Reply #3 on:** 2008.July.07. 13:24:35 »

You're welcome.

Quote from: gflorez on 2008.July.07. 04:29:30

there is no more a translator page from Magyar.

In this topic Zozo wrote about a web page which can help translate Hungarian texts and web pages into Englsih.
We also had a project to translate the Hungarian forum into English so that you and many other non-Hungarian members can understand it. For the present we invented this "summaries topic" here. Having time I will translate the whole Nick interview topic into English, I see you are interested in it.

gflorez · « **Reply #4 on:** 2008.July.07. 23:56:58 »

Hello again szipucsu.

Thanks for that tip. Works very well, and the page tranlator is invaluable.

Gustavo.

Tutus · « **Reply #5 on:** 2020.February.09. 19:46:06 »

Nick Toop answered with great difficulty.
I reached through her daughter, who is a painter.

Nick replied:

"Dear Istvan,

I am so sorry for the delay in replying to you. I have had serious family problems recently which have taken and continue to take most of my attention.

I am proud and fond of the Enterprise video chip which I think was probably one of the best things I have designed. I was also very fond of David Levy and Kevin O'Connell but the time after my design when I was constructively forced out of the company was one of the saddest periods of my life and I do not like to think about it. I was also obliged to erase all personal copies of the design which is sad as I had various enhancements in mind and would love to be able to implement my design with these enhancements in a modern CPLD. Of course I designed the Enterprise computer hardware too and Dave Woodfield designed the sound chip.

Best regards,

Nick Toop"

I'm sad

gflorez · « **Reply #6 on:** 2020.February.09. 20:41:59 »

Not so sad, it seems that the man has his head still on, and it is a very good new.

What is very sad is the behaviour of the great corporations with theirs staffs, treating them like shit when they don't need them anymore.

SlashNet · « **Reply #7 on:** 2020.February.14. 23:08:42 »

Just to bookmark some links...

25 March 2012 was celebration of 30-anniversary Acorn BBC microcomputer, where Nick Toop was present as one of the creator.

Photos you can see at FB: https://www.facebook.com/pg/ReplayEvents/photos/?tab=album&album_id=349293515117164

And at Twitter (#beeb30): https://twitter.com/beeb30

There was recreated interesting historical group photo:
[ Guests cannot view attachments ]

(young Nick's hairstyle was awesome)

dangerman · « **Reply #8 on:** 2020.February.15. 09:27:20 »

Amazing photos! Thanks for posting these.

Zozosoft · « **Reply #9 on:** 2020.February.16. 14:20:31 »

Quote from: SlashNet on 2020.February.14. 23:08:42

25 March 2012 was celebration of 30-anniversary Acorn BBC microcomputer, where Nick Toop was present as one of the creator.

Interesting, he is proud to this computer, and happily celebrating it.

But seems he want to forgot Enterprise forever

Something went very-very wrong at the companies crash. As he wrote it: "one of the saddest periods of my life and I do not like to think about it."
I afraid he became hating the Enterprise forever and never want to hear anything about it

Remember: I tried to make interview with he at 2008, but after the first contact ("Yes, I'm that Nick") never answered anything

lgb · « **Reply #10 on:** 2020.February.16. 14:45:11 »

Quote from: Zozosoft on 2020.February.16. 14:20:31

Something went very-very wrong at the companies crash. As he wrote it: "one of the saddest periods of my life and I do not like to think about it."
I afraid he became hating the Enterprise forever and never want to hear anything about it

I guess it's typical in case of a problem or such

I have similar experience when tried to get some deeper level of Commodore 65 information ... an ex-Commodore engineer responded me something like: "I refuse to talk about C65, I'm so sorry, but it's so much a sad era for me I want to forget" ...

BruceTanner · « **Reply #11 on:** 2020.February.16. 14:59:05 »

Quote from: Zozosoft on 2020.February.16. 14:20:31

But seems he want to forgot Enterprise forever Something went very-very wrong at the companies crash. As he wrote it: "one of the saddest periods of my life and I do not like to think about it."
I afraid he became hating the Enterprise forever and never want to hear anything about it

Remember: I tried to make interview with he at 2008, but after the first contact ("Yes, I'm that Nick") never answered anything

Yes it is very sad. This only occurred to me a few days ago: but I can see how he might have received all of the blame by "various people" high up in Enterprise Computers and/or Intelligent Software for the delays to the initial launch of the EP, which as we know were largely caused by Nick chip problems (which, I would say, were caused by pushing the available ASIC technology to its limits, not by bad design.) Apart from the delays, each revision of the Nick chip cost someone a lot of money, and whoever that was would not have been pleased. He must have been under a lot of pressure at the time.

Zozosoft · « **Reply #12 on:** 2020.February.18. 09:31:52 »

Quote from: BruceTanner on 2020.February.16. 14:59:05

which, I would say, were caused by pushing the available ASIC technology to its limits, not by bad design.

And one more thing: at early motherboard photos, and in ISSUE 3 machines* you can see Made in Korea chips! In a final machines the chips are Made in Austria!
I think the Enterprise company firstly want to use too cheap Far East factory for the chips. Just after the many failures moved the production to more serious European company (which is will be more expensive).

* These first 100 machines are not a final version, just urgently needed to send something for a developers and to a press, for testing purpose.

Tutus · « **Reply #13 on:** 2020.February.18. 10:08:02 »

This is very sad.

But we must not give up hope!

According to several people (whom I appreciate!) It is possible to decrypt the two chips (Nick and Dave).
Whoever wrote the EP128emu program can solve it almost 100%!
We just need to find him somehow because he's been out of the forum for a while

lgb · « **Reply #14 on:** 2020.February.18. 15:16:26 »

Quote from: Tutus on 2020.February.18. 10:08:02

This is very sad.
But we must not give up hope!
According to several people (whom I appreciate!) It is possible to decrypt the two chips (Nick and Dave).
Whoever wrote the EP128emu program can solve it almost 100%!
We just need to find him somehow because he's been out of the forum for a while

Do you mean IstvanV? And indeed, writing a software emulation of a hardware needs just to "mimic" identical behaviour of the chip what the real one does, assuming the chip itself a "black box". Certainly, from some perspective, it does not matter how the chip is constructed if it does the SAME as the original. This is also true of the re-creation of a chip in a programmable hardware, for sure, not only in a software emulation. The basic design of Nick looks very clean and logical, it's quite easy to emulate or re-create. Surely, the devil is in the details

Like some BIAS-tricks etc we've already seen. Even missing those, probably it won't affect 99% of any EP software. But that's true: as close "replica" of the original as possible gives the best result, and the best feeling too

Author Topic: Interview with Nick Toop (Read 16188 times)

szipucsu

Interview with Nick Toop

Zozosoft

Re: Interview with Nick Toop

gflorez

Re: Interview with Nick Toop

szipucsu

Re: Interview with Nick Toop

gflorez

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Tutus

Re: Interview with Nick Toop

gflorez

Re: Interview with Nick Toop

SlashNet

Re: Interview with Nick Toop

dangerman

Re: Interview with Nick Toop

Zozosoft

Re: Interview with Nick Toop

lgb

Re: Interview with Nick Toop

BruceTanner

Re: Interview with Nick Toop

Zozosoft

Re: Interview with Nick Toop

Tutus

Re: Interview with Nick Toop

lgb

Re: Interview with Nick Toop