When will the next firmware release be?

[norlesh]

Yes I have the newest firmware release - still leaving alot to be desired as evidenced by the bug reports emerging... any chance of the developer/s floating a tentative date for the next release?

[Steve Simpkin]

Good luck with that request. Tim W and company would not be allowed to say anything even if they did have a planned date.

[alexzkter]

(06-04-2014 08:49 PM)Steve Simpkin Wrote:  Good luck with that request. Tim W and company would not be allowed to say anything even if they did have a planned date.

Then why did Tim give an ETA on the last firmware?

[eried]

(06-04-2014 11:22 PM)alexzkter Wrote:  

(06-04-2014 08:49 PM)Steve Simpkin Wrote:  Good luck with that request. Tim W and company would not be allowed to say anything even if they did have a planned date.

Then why did Tim give an ETA on the last firmware?

He never did, in fact he explained why he (or anyone) can. Legal stuff.

[spinkham]

(06-04-2014 11:26 PM)eried Wrote:  He never did, in fact he explained why he (or anyone) can. Legal stuff.

It's should be pretty transparent why: When they do make forward looking statements about things like wireless and SmartStream and something doesn't work out, we threaten to sue them. ;-)

Fewer forward looking statements == fewer pitchfork bearing mobs.

[cyrille de brébisson]

Hello,

Quote:When they do make forward looking statements about things and something doesn't work out, we threaten to sue them. ;-)

Fewer forward looking statements == fewer pitchfork bearing mobs.

<Funny>
I am not looking forward to meet the mob!
Darn mob!
</funny>

Cyrille

[John P]

(06-05-2014 04:30 AM)cyrille de brébisson Wrote:  Hello,

Quote:When they do make forward looking statements about things and something doesn't work out, we threaten to sue them. ;-)

Fewer forward looking statements == fewer pitchfork bearing mobs.

<Funny>
I am not looking forward to meet the mob!
Darn mob!
</funny>

Cyrille

I am beginning to understand the 'mind set' at HP. At HP the feudal 'aristocracy' that screws up very often and the rest peasants and darn mob. Congratulations on your 'mind set'.

[Jim Horn]

You might consider looking up the "Osborne effect" before castigating HP... (or NS7100 or HP95 or so many others)

[norlesh]

(06-06-2014 05:08 PM)Jim Horn Wrote:  You might consider looking up the "Osborne effect" before castigating HP... (or NS7100 or HP95 or so many others)

I looked up the Osborne effect and understand the reference - so it got me wondering along those lines if there is a analogous 'screw beta testers that's what the paying consumer is for' effect? and if so what is it called?

[Jim Horn]

Good question! Microsoft?

Seriously, I know for a fact that HP does use alpha and beta testers well before they launch new calculators and have for years (I was an HP-75 user for a year before it was announced). I suspect a number of the Forum members have had that pleasure with other machines as well.

With the tremendous breadth and depth of functionality of even the simplest machines today, doing comprehensive testing over the range of valid and invalid inputs, output, interactions and such has become an astronomical task. A must-be-small set of testers is limited by requirements of expertise, tester time, security (to avoid pre-release), etc. You want testers that will put a machine through heavy and real-world use without ever showing it to anyone else, precluding its use on most jobs. You can't just hand them out to the most enthusiastic - how can they contain the excitement and not spill the beans?

Meanwhile, "Sooner or later you have to shoot the engineer and ship the product". Or, "The only enemy of good enough is more better". In other words, with the tremendous amount of code in these things (man decades) selling for a few hours pay versus the HP-35's man months of code selling for a month's pay, when does it become good enough to be worth having as compared to bug-free perfect? And if, in waiting for the latter, a competitor ships their apparently superior (but perhaps buggy) product, will the closing market window make it all for naught?

Let's keep things in perspective. This is the real world. Like the bird flapping with all its might to fly which wishes there was no air to fight against (but wouldn't go anywhere without it), we have to live with what is possible for the seriously limited *but still existing* resources that Tim, Cyrille and a remarkably few others have been able to use to make the remarkable products that bring us all here. Yes, mistakes are made. Yes, it is our implied duty and pleasure to find and report problems we encounter and we are fortunate that the above have been listening and responding to that.

But having watched HP Labs in Palo Alto spin off Advanced Products Division in Cupertino which spun off the Calculator Group in Corvallis which moved its calculator work to San Diego, Australia, Vancouver and Fort Collins (among other moves), sometimes eliminating it altogether, and considering the job it did with the Touchpad, later Jornadas and such - we're seriously lucky to have anything at all. To have something like the 39gII (designed for a market on the other side of the earth that doesn't include many or any of us), the re-engineered 15C, and, especially, the Prime with its gargantuan code and even larger future capability is so far beyond what anyone expected just a few years ago is staggering. Combining that with their open hardware (20b and 30b) leading to the astounding WP 3x series (bowing to that magnificent firmware / documentation / label / add-on team), I'm seriously impressed with what we have available.

Yes, I understand your frustration. But I just see the situation from a somewhat differing perspective...

(Not an HP employee - just (air)plane nuts...

[Jim Horn]

A thousand apologies - I've got to close that parenthesis lest there be a stack error!)

Whew, that's better!

(with thanks to the PPC-UCI Newsletter which experienced the same - thanks, Joe!)