Re: Marketing, was Re: C


10 Dec 1995 23:17:50 GMT

In article <4a5se5$hdj@magus.cs.utah.edu>, galt@lal.cs.utah.edu (Greg Alt) writes:
> How about this idea... With all of these cheapo spell-checkers,
> computerized bibles, organizers, etc. selling for under $50, what about
> making a dedicated thing using the same hardware but different ROMs?
> I'm sure some of those things have more powerful computers in them than
> some of the old 8-bit machines that ran infocom games. You could
> probably charge $40 or so and include 5 games. I seem to remember
> someone saying that some of those spell-checkers/etc have 6502 CPUs
> and a system similar to the old Apple II, with the only difference
> between the different models is the ROMs. You might even be able to
> do something like a spell-checker, a scrabble dictionary, and a
> few IF games.
>
> Greg
> --
> Videogames, Unicycling, and Anarchism: http://www.cs.utah.edu/~galt/

Hey there. I was the voice a while back that was trumpetting IF on the
newton. It rocks. I mean it is *very* cool. The cost of the old MP100s
is about $150 now, which is significantly more than the $40 you mention.

However, having a touch screen and never having to type is *wonderful*.

Basically, the UI I've worked up lets the user tap on any word in the
'output area' and have it appear as the next word in their 'input area'.

This prevents giving away clues by having a popup list of words or some
other cheat, and allows the user to avoid fighting the dictionary and
having

Throw axe at dwarf

change to

Tree ash at burn

(:

sanj