Gauging interest in a DM48 or DM50?

[ben.titmus]

I have to admit I was originally quite sceptical about DB48x when I heard about it because I know how much work is involved in developing a calculator due to my involvement in WP43. I think you've done an amazing job though.

I thought I would correct one comment that you made though.

(10-01-2024 09:40 PM)c3d Wrote:  They only deviated once from this philosophy, and I believe they see that as a disaster. They worked with the WP43 team to try and bring a non-HP calculator, albeit one that was clearly "in the spirit of" RPN calculators. Prototypes of the calculator were built, but then there was a dispute. I was not part of that dispute, so I can only report hearsay, but my understanding is that the creator of the WP43 project and the SwissMicros team could not come to an agreement regarding who would own the really impressive user manual. In any case, my impression is that SwissMicros derived all the wrong lessons from that, namely that working with an "external R&D department" was dangerous, and that they'd better stick to the known evils of existing HP calculators.

This is not correct, although there isn't any particular reason you should know this. I was directly involved in the negotiations as I represented the WP43 team to Michael (SM) so I have more insight. There is a post made by me on the SM forums ("Joint statement from the WP43 developers and the C43 team") that gives the reason why:

Quote:The decision has been made by SwissMicros to end the collaboration due to past and recent behaviour of Walter causing the concern that the WP43 project could negatively impact the reputation of SwissMicros.

I can tell you that this is the reason why the negotiations failed. Michael was concerned that Walter would negatively impact the reputation of SM due to his behaviour. There were several examples of this, such as his behaviour on this forum and the SM forum, his behaviour during the negotiations (there were actually two rounds of negotiations), and his behaviour when the prototypes were made. I won't go into the details of these incidents, but suffice to say that all the others involved in the negotiations agreed with Michael that Walter's behaviour was unacceptable and moved to C43 (now C47) as a result.

The 'hearsay' has some truth in it because we essentially begged Michael to allow us to continue WP43 hardware development after these incidents and Michael suggested that if we could mitigate Walter's involvement so that he didn't pose a serious risk of reputational damage to SM then it might be possible. But Walter didn't agree to any of the ideas on how this could be done as they would all have decreased his involvement in the project in some way. (One suggestion was to allow SM editorial control over the manuals so that Walter couldn't add anything inflammatory to them.) It's unclear whether the negotiations would have succeeded even if Walter did agree to these requests though.

I haven't been involved much in C47 for the past two years due to lack of time. I do greatly appreciate Walter's work on WP43 and he had a strong clear direction for the project, but I also understand why Michael didn't want to continue.