From: James Wages (james_at_kiramek.com)
Date: Mon Nov 14 2005 - 17:02:05 PST
On 11/14/05 11:21 PM, SbM wrote:
> I think you really should try Escale: it works fine, except
> sometimes it hangs while deconnecting from the Newton.
I know you didn't mean to say something that sounds "humorous" but it did
get me to chuckle a bit. :-)
Seriously, Newton users who read this this want something that works as well
as NCU on a classic Mac, but with modern connectivity. That "working well"
part doesn't mean "hangs while disconnecting."
And again, I ask everyone who reads this list...
If Escale is so great, why have so many posted to this list about paying
good money for an NCU replacement? Because they have never tried Escale?
Hardly. In many cases it's *BECAUSE* they've tried it. It also could be
that some prefer the legacy NCU interface over Escale.
What it boils down to is that changes need to be implemented and bugs need
to be fixed "quickly." Yes, that costs money and cost the time of some
programmer, but "consumers" among us are willing to pay that in the form of
purchasing copies of the said software. Right now, the Newton community
simply waits and prays that a tiny bug will be fixed in their favorite
software "sometime over the next decade." I for one have grown a bit
impatient with that.
I know this words may sound harsh or uncaring, but sometimes it takes a
little controversy or a few provocative words to stimulate real change.
That is my aim writing about NCU on this list.
On 11/14/05, Deborah Mitchell writes:
> The problem is that people don't
> understand the time programmers have
> to spend to do this sort of thing.
As a programmer myself (assembly language on 8-bit MCUs), I partly
understand the time required. But programmers typically don't set prices
for their own software, unless they are a one-man show. Certainly all
programmers would want to fetch a couple hundred dollars for every single
copy of the software that resulted from their couple hundred hours spent
programming! The fact is though, $12 is low for what I proposed, and $60 is
high for many on this list, yet $35 is about right for a modern NCU
replacement that I described (which went without saying that it should work
on all flavors of OS X, which includes Mactel).
Yes, we need to "feel the pain" of programmers, but we must avoid using this
as a cop-out for maintaining the status quo of complacency and developmental
stagnation. For if we all truly believe that the Newton and its 3rd party
developers are dead, then what are we doing here reading and/or posting to
this list?
--James Wages
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