[WriteLog] Open Letter to Wayne - Networking

[Alfred J. Frugoli (KE1FO)]

Bob McCormick wrote:
> Re: Windows 98 ... indeed we are already there today.
> USB support is poor to non-supported in the first 
> version; most vendors won't support their USB devices
> connected to anything other than Windows 98SE or later.

I see several challenges to moving away from legacy machines just to improve network capability:

1) Unfortunatly USB isin't the issue as bob states above.  XP's lack of support (and most xp boxes lack of availability) of com and lpt ports is the rub.  Until the ham radio market comes out with viable and affordable options for cw keying, fsk, rig control etc that is available on a usb port, there's a lot of work to be done to make writelog work with XP or a new off the shelf xp machine.

2) legacy machines are cheap/free.  Thrifty hams could get a contest setup up and running on a w98 machine for a relatively low cost.  Buying a new xp box plus a serial expansion card plus all the time to make the lpt port work right etc will be a deterant.

3) I run single op and rarely connect writelog to another writelog machine.  What percentage of writelog users are actually effected by network connectivity?

At a time when the CQ contest reflector is bemoning the loss of ja and us contesters, it's concerning to talk about porting easy to learn and use contest software exclusevly to the xp platform.

I want to continue to see continued enhancements of writelog.  I don't want to see writelog eat up a ton more resources and work only on 2000 or xp boxes.  There's already another contest logger out there that does that.

73 de Al, KE1FO