Path: chuka.playstation.co.uk!chuka.playstation.co.uk!news From: James Russell Newsgroups: scee.yaroze.programming.2d_graphics,scee.freetalk.english Subject: Re: General Complaining Date: Sun, 21 Sep 1997 12:38:40 +1200 Organization: Peace Computers NZ Ltd Lines: 66 Message-ID: <34246C90.2C67@peace.co.nz> References: <33E66E4D.47E@erols.com> <33e8341d.21570202@news.scea.sony.com> <5sisa1$bis3@scea> <5slclu$d574@chuka.playstation.co.uk> <600t7l$5321@emeka.playstation.co.uk> NNTP-Posting-Host: 202.37.70.35 Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Mailer: Mozilla 3.0Gold (X11; I; IRIX 6.2 IP22) a wrote: > > Ira Rainey wrote: > > > >Rather, Yaroze is much like my old Apple // or my friend's Commodore > > 64 --machines we had fun investigating, playing with, and seeing what we > > could makedo. > > > > >I've seen this argument a number of times on these newsgroups, that > > the documentation is this, the support is that, and why isn't Sony doing > > more to educate us? On the contrary, I've seen a *LOT* of information come > > from Sony employees here on their newsgroups and from the websites. Certainly > > more information than we got from Apple or Commodore! I'd have to agree, Developer Support is very fast and very good. The fact remains that you still have to ask them questions though! They wouldn't have to do this if the docs were better. > > My old Z80 programmers reference guide, and the CBM 64 programmers > > reference guide were far more informative than anything that sony has given us. > > If we> had manuals that were anywhere near as good as those, complete with > > hardware reference we could do so much more. I think the reason why we don't get hardware refs is twofold: 1) Sony want to keep the technology (not just hardware, but libraries too) proprietry, and hence as secret as they can. 2) When the next version of the Playstation comes out, old software won't necessarily work if it doesn't use standard function calls (If there's a PSX 2 in the pipeline, there's probably a Yaroze 2 as well, and we wouldn't want Yaroze 2 members to be unable to use OUR code because hit the metal too early). To answer (1), I'd have to say, well, because Sony have done this it has really prevented me for starting up my own multinational multibillion dollar company and selling equivalent technology :OP To answer (2), I'd say, the Amiga's approach to this was simple - GIVE the programmers the hardware specs AND the library functions, and put a simple warning next to the hardware specs: "If you don't conform to certain standards when coding, your code may NOT work on future versions of the Amiga". And this happened - Amiga hardware developers had to compromise on hardware design simply because many of the games for the A500 wouldn't work on a revolutionary new design. BUT a lot of very powerful software was created - If you think back to all the cool effects and games that were done, how many do you reckon would have been able to do it with just standard Amiga library function calls? I'd go so far as to say that Dev Support probably agrees with us on this - but company politics has a lot to do with what we'll eventually see. If Sony decide that this is the way to go, and want ANY help in preparing documentation, I (and probably many others here) would be willing to put my hand up for that. > > Come on Sony, if you support us, eventually we will support you! Yes! Message to Sony: Open platforms develop a LOT faster than proprietry ones. Viz: Unix, PC architecture. -- ==PEACE COMPUTERS ==James.Russell@peace.co.nz - 64(9)3730400 -Fax 64(9)3730401 What's another word for thesaurus?