On Sat, Feb 22, 2003 at 08:42:53AM -0500, K5NZ@aol.com wrote:
> It's about time for us to hear from you Tree....
The Tree is silent in the forest - having pretty much said all there
is to say on this subject. However, I can say it all again.
> Speak to us oh master of TR, we your dedicated followers wish to hear your
> words on this subject! Lead us through this maze of discontent and trickery
> from the silicone giants.
Well - I agree with some of the points being made. There is no doubt
that a Windows version of TR - which keeps all of the good stuff in the
current program, and makes it easier for users to take advantage of the
new possibilities that "windows" enables, would be a good thing.
There are some that thing the recent real time scoring system that was
done during WRTC would be a cool thing to do for something like the
SS or Sprints (although I think it is still more desirable to have
those people actually on the air). This is harder to do under DOS
without easy internet access.
Networking is a tall order without being in the Windows environment
(or linux).
And yes, there have been several people who come along and think they
can help port TR to a windows environment... but so far, nobody has
actually done it.
Am I the only guy on the planet that can do this? Probably not, and
certainly my lack of experience programming under windows is a big
reason why I am probably not the guy to do this. When I started TR,
I had been programming professionally (on and off) for 8 years in a
DOS environment using the archaic language of Pascal.
The logical choice for me to try and make a windows version would be
using Delphi - which is essentially a Visual Basic type of program,
that uses Pascal for the real work. I have from time to time actually
started trying to get familar with the program - and am trying once
again to get comfortable with it. This might lead someday to some
kind of windows version of the program - but it will probably take
a long time until it would be good enough to replace TR for most of
you. It might become a TR like program - that could appeal to a
larger market than the die hard 100 QSOs/hour contesters that most
of you are.
As you all know, I don't have as much free time for doing this as I
used to. This is a situation that will probably change sometime
down the road. Hopefully, sometime in the next 10 years, I can set
myself up for some kind of retirement - one that will leave me with
more time for this sort of thing - and putting energy into it will
be both possible and required as I doubt I will be so comfortable
that having no income at all would be an option.
So - there is some hope that in 2010 or 2015, there could be some
kind of Windows version.
Maybe having some kind of section in the manual about how to setup
your disk for multi-boot would be a good thing. Someone who has
actually done this would have to help write it - so I can learn
how to do it.
EFI is coming - which is a pretty scary thing from a DOS person's
perspective. At Intel, we have a bunch of programmers working on
redeveloping many of the DOS tools we current use during BIOS
development - because the BIOS isn't going to support the hooks to
support DOS in the next generation of PCs. Yes - there are BIOS
engineers today at Intel that still rely on DOS to get their job
done.
I suspect that there are enough smart people who will enable the
Pascal language to run under EFI - and a port of TR to that is
possible - and that might even open up some functionality that is
currently only available under windows... I don't know.
Thanks for all of the nice comments about the program. It is nice
to know that some of you feel strongly enough about the program
to put up with the hassle. It really seems to me that having a
computer setup to deal with TR and a second one for the windows
stuff in your life isn't that big of a deal. The 486 PC that
you need probably can be had on e-bay for under $100.
And - I would like to yet again thank Ron for showing up and
helping put a new coat of paint on TR. This has given me a
chance to rest and have some of my creativity energy come back
(albeit slowly). Hopefully, you will see positive results from
this at some point.
73 Tree
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