Path: chuka.playstation.co.uk!scea!greg_labrec@interactive.sony.com From: Matthew Hulett Newsgroups: scee.yaroze.freetalk.english Subject: Re: Now I'm getting REALLY mad! Date: Wed, 24 Dec 1997 01:00:57 +0000 Organization: SCEA News Server Lines: 50 Message-ID: <34A05EC9.57B8@bellatlantic.net> References: <34902D4B.D275BC60@tin.it> <34912FDB.DD29F57F@micronetics.com> <349190e4.16177852@news.playstation.co.uk> NNTP-Posting-Host: client-119-49.bellatlantic.net Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Mailer: Mozilla 3.04 (Win95; I) CC: Matthew Hulett Hello, Just thought I would mention that Linda J. Hodge is really Austin Kottke. He must be using his parent's computer. Matt Gil Jaysmith wrote: > > Jim wrote: > >I do hope however, when the Playstation dies and is replace with PSX2 that > >Sony would then release the full libs and docs to Yaroze owners. Any plans > >for this is a few years? > > Given that the last ever Megadrive game was released a couple months > ago, the 'death' of the PSX is likely to be in something like 2004AD > :) > > As for the original point, my wholly personal (and probably > unhelpful!) opinion is: tough. This is the cheapest and most powerful > development system anyone at home has ever had a chance to use. Home > developers always have a paucity of documentation, little or no > support from the manufacturers, and a strong need for other people to > share their discoveries. Developing on the Spectrum and BBC fifteen > years ago wasn't particularly easier, it's just that the user base got > off its ass and shared all the information it could and wrote its own > tools and books. The user base was bigger because the prices were > lower, and the shared information made its way into books and > magazines which everyone could access. The reason there isn't a > respected Yaroze newsletter, central webpage, book of tips, whatever, > which *everyone* reads - is simply that no-one has done one. > Magazines and books cost money and time to produce, and why should you > contribute, let alone organise and maintain, such information if > you're not getting paid for it? Because you're a hobbyist community, > is why, and that's what hobbyist communities do. > > Whinging from an old fogey, I know... but even acknowledging the > flimsiness of the Yaroze documentation, I boggle at the slackness some > people exhibit in wanting everything given to them by Sony. All credit > to people like Linda J. Hodge, probably the most prolific poster to > the newsgroups with questions about how to do things. She wants to > understand, and she wants to find out. No whinges about what is or > isn't provided and what could or couldn't have been done better - just > curiosity about how to get it right. Good for her! > > Meanwhile, if anyone was thinking of buying a Yaroze so they could be > a cool PlayStation game programmer, now would be a damn good time to > recall that there's a reason why "PlayStation programmer" is a > full-time job and why PSX games take so long to write. > > Grouchy on a Friday evening > - Gil