#15813 - 29/08/2000 11:58
Re: empeg rock's
[Re: Terminator]
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Pooh-Bah
Registered: 09/09/1999
Posts: 1721
Loc: San Jose, CA
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Geez, you people are giving fox a real hard time. Come on! No need to add to his frustration. He just sees a little bit more of the future than is capable right now. :-)
Calvin
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#15814 - 29/08/2000 12:34
Re: empeg rock's
[Re: eternalsun]
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enthusiast
Registered: 05/07/2000
Posts: 301
Loc: Montana, USA, Bozeman
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He's going about it the wrong way though. I have the same future vision but I'm not demanding it from anyone or putting down a company that has made no claims to what he wants.
Alex Lear
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Alex Lear
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#15815 - 29/08/2000 12:41
Re: empeg rock's
[Re: alear]
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enthusiast
Registered: 05/07/2000
Posts: 301
Loc: Montana, USA, Bozeman
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I must admit, I like the HOWiDO section on your website Fox. It is similar to the How-to page I've been hoping for.
I'd like to see a FAQ with just developer items on it.
Alex Lear
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Alex Lear
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#15816 - 29/08/2000 14:43
Re: empeg suck's
[Re: trevorp]
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member
Registered: 09/06/1999
Posts: 197
Loc: Germany
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>Another point that no one seems to have raised about ftp/http support: It
>would seem to me that if empeg put either of those tools on the developer
>image, than they would be providing a method for retrieving mp3's from the
>unit.
>From what I gather, RIAA would not like that much.
Oh comeon, there must be a border, *mygod* ...
Lets not listen to mp3's at all, RIAA would not like that much...
:-[
Nils
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#15817 - 29/08/2000 15:04
Re: empeg suck's
[Re: fox]
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new poster
Registered: 17/04/2000
Posts: 9
Loc: Denver, Colorado USA
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Wow... i think this has been the least cordial post on this board _ever_ (we all need to vent)... this by far is the most well behaved board i think i've ever been to and people continue to be cordial after flamebait like this... i agree with you on some points and disagree on others... i'm not _SUPERcoder_ and would like to do some small (read: goofy little worthless, but with a high 'NEAT-O' factor) things on my EMPEG (bills, bills, bills *sigh*) and have tried to read up on writing for this and it is hard to understand for someone who isn't as technically saavy regarding programming, anyone want to take on the task of dumbing it down for people like me? or EMPEG boys (and girls?) are there commercial development tools you guys use (or are you guys just too cool for stuff like that... heh)?
i guess what i'm trying to say is i'm doing nothing at work and i think my time during/after work would be better spent making goodies than surfing or frying my brain on EQ
*ramble*
*ramble*
*ramble*
---Proud owner of empeg registration number 14309 (ugh!)---
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---Proud owner of empeg registration number 14309 (ugh!)---
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#15818 - 29/08/2000 15:12
Re: empeg suck's
[Re: FriendlyDogSalad]
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carpal tunnel
Registered: 20/12/1999
Posts: 31602
Loc: Seattle, WA
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Somebody help DogSalad, he's addicted to EverCrack.
As I recall, a recent column in PC Gamer said something to the effect of: "Some of us have considered switching from EverQuest to heroin. The advantage being that a heroin addiction doesn't show up on your monthly credit card statement."
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Tony Fabris
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#15819 - 29/08/2000 15:24
Re: empeg suck's
[Re: tfabris]
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new poster
Registered: 17/04/2000
Posts: 9
Loc: Denver, Colorado USA
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i admit i got into the game late (may of this year)... but it has take over my life :(
i lost my wife and job to my addiction :)
now i'm a boozer, a loser and an EQuser... :)
anyone else?
Atreiyu
Human Druid of the 15th season
Veeshan
Raenfal
Wood Elf Druid of the 5th season (i've recently move to quellious)
Quellious
---Proud owner of empeg registration number 14309 (ugh!)---
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---Proud owner of empeg registration number 14309 (ugh!)---
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#15820 - 29/08/2000 22:50
Re: empeg suck's
[Re: fox]
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addict
Registered: 03/08/1999
Posts: 451
Loc: Canberra, Australia
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So tell me, did you think your arrogant slagging of empeg was going to bring about any helpful, useful respose to your queries? Perhaps you've tried asking Sony, Panasonic, Alpine, Clarion or some other big car stereo manufacturer for all the features you want in a cheap device. Tell me, did they bend over backward to help you?
Didn't think so.
It's fairly obvious from your tone that you don't know much about empeg's history and, it seems, you're unwilling to learn even when as much advice as all of us are able to give is freely presented to you (on this and Verement's site). In that case, I'll do you a deal. Let me take that terrible burdensome piece of uncooperative hardware off your hands - it must really gall you that you bought something with so little potential so you'll be prepared to sell it really cheap.
On the other hand, if you think that everyone here, including the very busy people at empeg, has the time and patience to bend over backward to your clumsy, rude demands, then I think your doctor needs to increase the dosage of your reality pills, since they don't seem to be working very well now.
I'd suggest learning some manners and intelligence before coming back.
Save the whales. Feed the hungry. Free the mallocs.
_________________________
Owner of Mark I empeg 00061, now better than ever - (Thanks, Rod!) - and Karma 3930000004550
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#15821 - 29/08/2000 23:06
Everquest invades the empeg BBS.
[Re: FriendlyDogSalad]
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carpal tunnel
Registered: 08/06/1999
Posts: 7868
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EQ had me for a while, but being one of the origional players, got tired of the "nerfing". Lucially I have moved on from that life, but still know several hooked on EQ.
For those who are wondering what nerfing is, here you go:
nerfing - A term used by EQ (and other massive multiplayer games) that describes the programmers of the game changing something in the world to tone down a skill. Most of the time it is done to try to ballance things, but most see it as a way to eventually transform the game into a pointless game of a one character system, and simply armed with a nerf bat.
Most people get upset with these changes, because they spend much of their free time and money playing. I do see it as wrong when I payed over $200 for entertainment, and got stuck with a worthless EQ CD and a bad taste for massive online gaming. Lucially I found better and less additicting games that have more entertainment value.
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#15822 - 30/08/2000 00:33
SubSpace
[Re: drakino]
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member
Registered: 09/06/1999
Posts: 197
Loc: Germany
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Does anyone of you know SubSpace ??
That is one of the first multiplayer games for windoze, created about 5 years ago ...
In my first year of playing it, i played 1200 hours, wgich makes about 3.5 hours a day, counting 7 days a week, no matter if its christmas or birthday or sunday or holiday or whatever ...
I decided to play less after that year, noticing that relationship(s), sports & studies suffered a *lot* from this ...
Now i still like it, and getting back a good connection next month i am looking forward to play it again :-)
Ender's Game, Templar -Knights-, played WarZone, Pro Leaugue and EuroLeague
(now Ender's Game in Starfire Elite as Templars dissolved 2 years ago :-( )
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#15823 - 30/08/2000 00:47
Re: empeg rock's
[Re: fox]
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pooh-bah
Registered: 13/09/1999
Posts: 2401
Loc: Croatia
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but what i have no is a not so bad mp3 player, not more or lessThen I really suggest that you sell it and buy a really ass kicking good MP3 player (and tell me which one it was, when you do, and does it run zope app server you mentioned). Guys@empeg are keeping their promises so far, and they promised plug-in architecture for almost everything, way to elegantly start something else insted of player from init etc. They did not promise to opensource the player itself, and I can see why (although, of course, I would prefer if thet did). My guess, BTW, is that Hugo will open-source the player when some big company starts selling empeg clones, not those laughable things that are on the market today. Now the competitive advantage over big guys who can knock the hardware together much more easily than empeg (thuy don't have problems with components :) is a gret and well thought-through peace of software that drives it. When Sony, Matsushita and others manage to clone the functionalyty, open-sourcing it and thus speeding up appearance of new features will be the advantage. My only real gripe with development potential on empeg is only 12MB of memory. I think than guys@empeg should have been more generous (but again, it's primarily a damn player, and it caches almost 5 minutes @ 128kbps with dev image and visualizetion active!) Finally, I think that few months of reading through the board you claim to have done should have given you quite clear picture of what you are getting, features, shortcommings, teething problems, bugs, potenttial and all. I got exactly what I expected (OK, perhaps the software is two shades easier to use than I expected). I can wish for more, but nobody led me to expect more. Try to be fair and separate wishes from expectations. Cheers! P.S. Note to others on the board: Fox seems to be serious; look at his Web site  Dragi "Bonzi" Raos Zagreb, Croatia Q#5196, MkII#80000376, 18GB green
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Dragi "Bonzi" Raos
Q#5196
MkII #080000376, 18GB green
MkIIa #040103247, 60GB blue
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#15824 - 30/08/2000 04:25
Re: empeg suck's
[Re: PaulWay]
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addict
Registered: 15/07/1999
Posts: 568
Loc: Meije, Netherlands
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Henno
mk2 [orange]6 [/orange]nr 6
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#15825 - 30/08/2000 06:45
Re: empeg suck's
[Re: PaulWay]
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stranger
Registered: 22/08/2000
Posts: 28
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> Let me take that terrible burdensome piece of uncooperative hardware off your hands - it must really gall you that you bought something with so little potential
it does not ! and i always told that it has allot of potential, but i was very disapointed that, beside of some great graphics i got only a plain mp3 player nothing more.
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#15826 - 30/08/2000 06:59
Re: empeg suck's
[Re: fox]
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enthusiast
Registered: 21/08/1999
Posts: 381
Loc: Northern Ireland
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I think when fox says 'only a plain mp3 player' he is referring to the software, and even then, I think that by 'plain' he means that he expected more in the way of development tools and utilities, rather than running down the player software itself. I do not think he is in any way putting down the empeg unit by any means. It can sometimes be tricky enough to express yourself in English even when it is your first language, and I doubt if fox intended to provoke quite the reaction he did...  I took a look at fox's web site, and it is clear that he is committed to the empeg, and is just feeling a little frustrated that he can't (yet) do some of the things he hoped to do. I feel the same myself sometimes, but that's my fault for not having enough experience with developing in a unix/linux environment. Geoff ---- ------- Got one of the first Mark 2 empegs...
_________________________
Geoff
---- -------
Mk1 Blue - was 4GB, now 16GB
Mk2 Red - was 12GB, now 60GB
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#15827 - 31/08/2000 00:28
Re: empeg rock's
[Re: fox]
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carpal tunnel
Registered: 08/07/1999
Posts: 5549
Loc: Ajijic, Mexico
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but what i see is a mp3 player with some nice graphics when playing a song. but i paid already the full price.
I don't know what you bought... but I bought an in-car entertainment system with 600 hours of music capacity; a hierarchical playlist structure that allows me to find and play any of my 2000+ pieces of music instantly with superb sound quality; the possibility (no, the guarantee!) of future product enhancements at no charge such as voice recognition, support for additional file formats, etc; a powerful but understandable user interface that gives me unparallelled control over the operation of my player; built-in end-user tools such as a 20-band parametric equalizer and a "loud" setting that can be adjusted in 1.5dB increments; and I could go on and on.
You want FTP and telnet and God only knows what other weird Linux computer black magic thingies (sorry for being so technical here) -- did it ever occur to you to play music on your empeg? That's what it was designed, manufactured, and marketed to do. That's all I want it to do. And you know what? Considering its capabilities in that regard, I think I got one hell of a bargain.
The empeg is a music player that happens to be run by a computer. Don't think of it as a computer that happens to play music!
tanstaafl.
"There Ain't No Such Thing As A Free Lunch"
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"There Ain't No Such Thing As A Free Lunch"
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#15828 - 31/08/2000 13:01
Re: empeg rock's
[Re: tanstaafl.]
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Pooh-Bah
Registered: 09/09/1999
Posts: 1721
Loc: San Jose, CA
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Except of course, when it comes to import duties and Customs, it becomes a computer that happens to play music. The definition flips when it's convenient...
Calvin "causing trouble..."
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#15829 - 01/09/2000 14:39
Re: empeg suck's
[Re: Geoff]
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member
Registered: 08/05/2000
Posts: 135
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In reply to:
It can sometimes be tricky enough to express yourself in English even when it is your first language, and I doubt if fox intended to provoke quite the reaction he did...
I dunno... kinda hard to have a translation error when you are using words like "sucks".... I think the intended meaning was pretty clear when using that word .
Kureg
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#15830 - 01/09/2000 14:56
Re: empeg suck's
[Re: FriendlyDogSalad]
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member
Registered: 08/05/2000
Posts: 135
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In reply to:
anyone want to take on the task of dumbing it down for people like me?
I can't say for sure that this will ever happen. The only reason I suggest that is because I remember when I bought my Timex DataLink watch and decided to jump into programming it, and it enlightened me on things just like this.
The problem is, programmers have dumbed things down over the years like crazy. Back in the days of the 8086, dumbing things down wasn't practical because you'd waste precious resources. We've all gotten lazy.
The truth is, the same situation is back. The empeg has limited resources. If you dumb it down, you take the lazy way and write non-efficient programs that hog resources... and probably make the mp3 playback suffer.
When writing programs for my Datalink, it all had to be written in assembly language cuz you only get 200 bytes of program space (really fricken tiny!). There just isn't any way to dumb that down.
Well, if you want to write efficient programs for the empeg, it'll probably mean taking a lot of short cuts, a lot of code chopping and a lot of "to the metal" programming. That stuff isn't easy to dumb down.
Grant it, you probably write inflated programs and run them on the empeg, but it wouldn't be empeg friendly, at least as far as the player goes. Running both at the same time might cause unwanted anomolies in the music playback.
Anyway, that's my rant. I'm sure it has some holes. I've been busy all day and I'm very tired, so I rushed it .
Kureg
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#15831 - 02/09/2000 02:21
Re: empeg suck's
[Re: Kureg]
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addict
Registered: 15/07/1999
Posts: 568
Loc: Meije, Netherlands
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kinda hard to have a translation error when you are using words like "sucks"...I disagree, Kureg. While learning any foreign language is difficult enough in itself and requires a lot of hard effort learn even a very basic vocabulary, coming to grips with the subtleties and emotions of a language is of a very different magnitude. This is complicated by the fact taht there are significant differences between languages in the way sentences are constructed (sequence of words; differences between should/would/will; choice to use simple negates as no/not or never; etc). In many languages (including English) the sentence construct is important to convey the way the speaker/writer wants to come across. Unfortunately the emotions that are associated with these constructs have very different meanings in certain languages. Thus, the very constructs that are intended to show an interest in some languages, sound very harsh on others. Looking back over the this thread and how it started,is an example of such language differences, I think. Henno mk2 6 nr 6PS: Maybe Paul shoud add the suck-word to the list of censored words
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Henno
mk2 [orange]6 [/orange]nr 6
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#15832 - 02/09/2000 06:52
Re: empeg suck's
[Re: Henno]
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veteran
Registered: 16/06/1999
Posts: 1222
Loc: San Francisco, CA
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...Unless you're learning a foreign language as a teenages - then the first 50% of your learnings are emotionally charged curse words:)
-mark
...proud to have owned one of the first Mark I units
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#15833 - 02/09/2000 08:57
Re: empeg suck's
[Re: dionysus]
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addict
Registered: 15/07/1999
Posts: 568
Loc: Meije, Netherlands
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...Unless you're learning a foreign language as a teenager - then the first 50% of your learnings are emotionally charged curse words
Probably true also
Henno
mk2 6 nr 6
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Henno
mk2 [orange]6 [/orange]nr 6
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#15834 - 02/09/2000 10:47
Re: empeg suck's
[Re: Henno]
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carpal tunnel
Registered: 20/12/1999
Posts: 31602
Loc: Seattle, WA
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Thus, the very constructs that are intended to show an interest in some languages, sound very harsh on others. Looking back over the this thread and how it started,is an example of such language differences, I think.Sounds like Douglas Adams' description of the Babel Fish: "Meanwhile, the Babel Fish, by having removed all language barriers, has caused more and bloodier wars than anything else in the history of the galaxy". ___________
Tony Fabris
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#15835 - 02/09/2000 14:56
Re: empeg suck's
[Re: tfabris]
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addict
Registered: 15/07/1999
Posts: 568
Loc: Meije, Netherlands
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has caused more and bloodier wars than anything else in the history of the galaxy".with you saying that ! remember the Tony/Toni/Tone issue? if you just knew the discussion that tanstaaf and I had on that . . . . .  Henno mk2 6 nr 6
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Henno
mk2 [orange]6 [/orange]nr 6
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#15836 - 02/09/2000 23:04
Re: empeg rock's
[Re: fox]
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carpal tunnel
Registered: 08/03/2000
Posts: 12342
Loc: Sterling, VA
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i can also understand that empeg people worked hard on the mark2 but i cannot understand why they give not developpemeont support for NON rocket scientists.a) They have like 20 people at most working for them (too lazy to count right now). They will probably get around to what ever you are talking about after they run their company first. b) the things you are asking for sound pretty high-tech to me. I don't know anything about developer images and telnet and ftpddfjk! All I know is I got a great ICE MP3 player. You should also remember the things that are inside the player that make it stand apart from the other, cheaper, players. -ARM chip that I believe is around 200 MHz -proprietary hardware (great for optimum performance in minimum space) -heavily tested top-grade hardware. tested for performance and other things-like shock protection. -hard drive space that is only limited by the size of the two biggest laptop HD's you can find. -additional hardware features like cell phone mute, mic input, AUX inputs, and more. Believe me, I looked at every player I could find, and none are as professionaly designed, built, and (most importantly) supported like the empeg. DiGNAN  13653
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Matt
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#15838 - 03/09/2000 03:00
Re: empeg rock's
[Re: fox]
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carpal tunnel
Registered: 21/05/1999
Posts: 5335
Loc: Cambridge UK
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i can also understand that empeg people worked hard on the mark2 but i cannot understand why they give not developpemeont support for NON rocket scientists.
The product is a consumer MP3 player, and as such even my gran can operate it. If you want to develop software for the player, then I think it's entirely reasonable that we assume a few things:
1. You are highly competent with Linux
2. You are highly competent at working with a TIGHT memory structure (no swap!)
3. You know your way around the Linux kernel
4. If you need support with simple stuff (such as the issues you've raised) you're prepared to go and find the answers yourself - we don't have time!
A number of people have already developed cool applications for the player, in particular kim and rjlov, so it can be done. We plan to release an ever expanding API for easier access to many of the player features, but this will still assume that you're a competent Linux C++ programmer.
I don't understand why you think this is so unreasonable! Were you expecting Visual Basic or something similar? That's not going to happen - we're always going to assume a certain level of competence for 3rd party developers, as you can't afford to write crap code for a platform with 12Mb of memory, no swap, a strict disk spin regime, and a complex threaded native application to co-exist with in a friendly manner.
There are lots of developers who do understand all of this, and as we've already seen, they have started to produce dumbed down walk-throughs for simple tasks such as installing telnet daemons and so forth. That's great user community support, and it doesn't impact on our time to do the essential work of developing consumer level code.
Rob
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#15839 - 03/09/2000 03:33
Re: empeg rock's
[Re: Dignan]
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carpal tunnel
Registered: 19/05/1999
Posts: 3457
Loc: Palo Alto, CA
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Actually, there are only 6 development staff (including me), one hardware contractor. There are another 4 support/admin/management, bringing the total to 10.
Hugo
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#15840 - 03/09/2000 03:37
Re: empeg rock's
[Re: altman]
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carpal tunnel
Registered: 21/05/1999
Posts: 5335
Loc: Cambridge UK
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.. with another two support staff starting next week.
Rob
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#15841 - 03/09/2000 05:42
Re: empeg rock's
[Re: rob]
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enthusiast
Registered: 18/08/1999
Posts: 202
Loc: philadelphia pa
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yeah, but rob, with his superhuman strength, does the job of 5 customer service reps:)
12 gig, green...
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12 gig, green...
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