Re: [NTLK] Native installer for NCU and OS X Update

From: James Wages (james_at_kiramek.com)
Date: Fri Nov 11 2005 - 14:18:15 PST


On 11/11/05 10:14 PM, Laurent Daudelin <laurent.daudelin_at_verizon.net> wrote:
> Paul Guyot did much of the work with the Desktop Connection Library (DCL)
> <http://www.kallisys.com/newton/dcl/>. However, I think there are still some
> bugs here and there and the last update was from August 2004, over a year
> ago...

Laurent, ATA Support is one of the more popular Newton apps that has been
built in "recent years," and yet it has not been update since 2003:

<http://www.kallisys.com/newton/ata/>

When I paid my $50 to purchase a license to ATA Support well over a year
ago, I exchanged several emails with Paul about speed issues. Paul
indicated that updates to ATA support were forthcoming, as he could do some
more tweaks to make it faster. No updates ever came out.

I do not say this in any way as a strike against Paul. Indeed, I am
grateful to Paul for bettering the Newton community. But I think it does
illustrate how unlikely it is that we will see any "betterment" of existing
software, and how unlikely it is anything similar to NCU will ever see the
light of day, even 3 years hence.

The fact is, NCU is still the best software for synching one's Newton to a
Mac, but it is not native on Tiger. Will a native version of NCU appear in
the future, fully reverse-engineered by an active community of Newton
programmers? I think not. But that's not because it's impossible. It's
simply the lack of a will. Most Newton users and programmers seem to like
to "toy" with their Newtons now, but few are willing to invest time in
serious programming. This is the basis for my skepticism on the issue.

But again, if I am off-base, I would love to hear the thoughts of others on
this point.

Thanks!

--James Wages

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