[A86] Re: ROM / RAM equates database
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[A86] Re: ROM / RAM equates database
> So basicaly you say, have a [Little description] (would be 'general' on=
e)
> table, and a [In depth description] table (For the different Ti's)?
> Would't that be more or less the same?
My original idea, without much thought on the problem, was to simply make=
=20
it for multiple calcs, have a single record for each call, and a differen=
t=20
record for each calc. But now I see that it would be beneficial to use t=
he=20
same call for multiple calcs, with a different entry point for each calc,=
=20
and possibly a calc dependant note for each call.
> We don't need to display the database as-is on the website (you should
> know that)...
No, of course not. However, it's import to know the nature of the data s=
o=20
you can most efficiently store it in the database. This is known as=20
"normalization".
> Hubba?
>
> That would mean you need at least some >500MHz processor I think. Plus
> only one person can update the site... (time, the final frontier...) An=
d
> you need to transfer the whole (megabytes big) database "up 'n down" th=
e
> line...
Nah, you can easily run Apache with PHP and MySQL on a P133. Remember ba=
ck=20
a few years ago, when Pentium was top of the line. In fact, that's what=20
our development box at work was for quite a long time. I was quite=20
surprised when I saw it for the first time, after having used it for near=
ly=20
a year ("this is our dev box? no way"). Granted, it had 128 megs of ram=
=20
and was running FreeBSD. The big thing is ram. Processor speed doesn't=20
matter much if you aren't compiling stuff, and aren't loading down the bo=
x=20
with a lot of heavy weight processes. It was just an old box that had be=
en=20
around for a long time, but it ran just fine, and was never a problem, so=
=20
no one ever bothered to transfer the dev stuff to another machine.
If you are offline, then yes, you can't update the site. What happens wh=
en=20
you update something offline, while someone updates the same thing on the=
=20
live site? You have a conflict, and it needs to be dealt with. There ar=
e=20
many ways to deal with this sort of problem, but for something like this =
I=20
would rather not deal with it.
A database doesn't have to be very big. It's just text, so when you do a=
=20
SQL dump of it, you just get text, plus the SQL commands. Being text, it=
=20
will compress very well. If you were only going to add records while=20
offline, you could just upload the changed ones, which wouldn't be that b=
ig=20
(how much can you type or copy/paste?). If you didn't want to mess with=20
SQL, it could have an interface to dump specific records, say those creat=
ed=20
after a certain date, to a text like format, delimited with a special=20
character or characters, that it could also import.
It all depends on how much time you want to put into a side project that=20
isn't going to pay the bills. With that in mind, I'd like to stick with=20
the simplest possible approach :)
> Both of these would mean I wouldn't be able to help (very much).
>
> Plus I think a two way solution (web<->stand-alone) would be very
> usefull.
Well, if you just want to run MySQL, there's always insert records by han=
d=20
using the command line utility, or use one of the front ends. Otherwise,=
=20
you need to write a client for whatever OS you run. That's why I suggest=
=20
just running a web server locally, so you only have to write one app in=20
PHP. It would be easy to whip up a quick app in VB to interface with MyS=
QL=20
using ODBC (assuming you run Windows), but I have a thing against VB :) =
Or=20
if you don't want MySQL to be on the client end at all, then you need to=20
come up with another format for the data, a way to edit it, and a way to=20
import and export it.
> hmm... HTML is indeed 'readable' everywhere if you make yourself a litt=
le
> angry to get a borwser working on that machine.
Heh, what doesn't a browser run on? My laptop is a P133 with 32mb of ram=
,=20
and if I bothered to reinstall X on there, it would run Netscape 4.77 jus=
t=20
fine. As it is, Lynx works just fine :)
There is always plain text, but formatting is non existant and there is n=
o=20
real form of indexing. And then you could try to do old style Windows He=
lp=20
format, or postscript or PDF, but that would be way too much work for thi=
s.=20
A light weight web browser should run on any sort of modern computer. Te=
xt=20
readers and web browsers even exist for the Palm Pilot. Hmm, maybe we=20
could have it export to Palm Pilot format, so you could use that as a=20
reference while programming assembly on calc on the 86 :)
Now, having calc storage on a Palm Pilot, maybe with a development system=
=20
on there, that would interface through a custom serial link, or with an I=
R=20
link, that would be interesting.
References: