EightyOne control issues

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Einar Saukas
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Re: EightyOne control issues

Post by Einar Saukas »

Nomad wrote: Mon May 14, 2018 9:05 am Going to paraphrase Jamie Zawinski...
Free software is only free if your time has no value.
This sentence implies using free software is more effort, since it typically takes more time to make free software work properly in comparison to commercial alternatives.

That's bullsh*t.

In certain areas, a free software product works much better than any equivalent commercial product. In other areas, it's the opposite. And in lots of areas, each product has different advantages and disadvantages.

There's no general rule, you have to analyze each case.
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Joefish
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Re: EightyOne control issues

Post by Joefish »

ZXSpin is free and lets you setup something it calls a 'Keystick'. First you configure the PC keyboard keys you want to control directions, then you set this 'Keystick' to emulate Kempston joystick input, a Sinclair joystick, or a 'User Defined' set of keys on the Spectrum keyboard.

There's a seperate menu option to enable / disable the keysitck, as when it's enabled, the keys you've chosen can't be used to type directly onto the Spectrum because they've been remapped to something else.
Nomad
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Re: EightyOne control issues

Post by Nomad »

Einar Saukas wrote: Mon May 14, 2018 2:14 pm
Nomad wrote: Mon May 14, 2018 9:05 am Going to paraphrase Jamie Zawinski...
This sentence implies using free software is more effort, since it typically takes more time to make free software work properly in comparison to commercial alternatives.

That's bullsh*t.

In certain areas, a free software product works much better than any equivalent commercial product. In other areas, it's the opposite. And in lots of areas, each product has different advantages and disadvantages.

There's no general rule, you have to analyze each case.
I think its a subjective thing based on individuals experience of free software, I can only speak to my own experience but for every good project I can think of many more that failed, had inadequate or no existent documentation, incompetent coding, non functioning features, or deceptive advertising, massive peer pressure by project leaders to guilt contributors to work for free on projects that when they reached a level of marketability - the leads would change the licence and sell the software. :lol: There are many examples of this.

Plus how many projects are just abandoned, because there is no financial incentive to keep the project active?

One of the things about free software that is kind of swept under the carpet - how many people lost their jobs because of free software? Sure commercial software had better documentation, support, feature sets and a commitment to future updates but for bean counters a application does not have to be as good or better than a commercial product. It just has to be barely good enough to achieve an objective. All they see is the cost saving of the licence purchase not the hours of work that IT would need to sink into actually getting the free inferior offerings to work.. Because IT is seen as a cost to the business and not an asset. Bean counters don't really understand what IT do anyway so they assume they can be forced to 'make it work'. Most IT departments are one review away from being shut down and outsourced so it is not like they would complain to hard..

It reminds me of trying to convince a client to actually pay a photographer to get some images we needed to complete his project - he wanted an elaborate setup, like what you would have seen in a magazine. And we couldn't get it through to him that stock photography does not really cover this kind of situation. This is where you need to actually hire a professional.
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Einar Saukas
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Re: EightyOne control issues

Post by Einar Saukas »

Dammit, I just got myself into another free software discussion! :)

Nomad wrote: Mon May 14, 2018 2:33 pmI think its a subjective thing based on individuals experience of free software, I can only speak to my own experience but for every good project I can think of many more that failed, had inadequate or no existent documentation, incompetent coding, non functioning features, or deceptive advertising
Unfortunately that's typical of most software development, regardless of commercial or free software.

Nomad wrote: Mon May 14, 2018 2:33 pmmassive peer pressure by project leaders to guilt contributors to work for free on projects
OK, that's news to me. I never heard of people working on projects for free, against their will, due to massive peer pressure. Can you elaborate on this?

Nomad wrote: Mon May 14, 2018 2:33 pmthat when they reached a level of marketability - the leads would change the licence and sell the software. :lol: There are many examples of this.
Licenses cannot be changed retroactively. If an open software has a certain license that allows getting replaced to a commercial license, you can simply fork the project immediately before the license change and keep it open.

There are also many examples of this, such as MySQL/MariaDB.

Nomad wrote: Mon May 14, 2018 2:33 pmPlus how many projects are just abandoned, because there is no financial incentive to keep the project active?
How many commercial projects are just abandoned, for lots of reasons?

Nomad wrote: Mon May 14, 2018 2:33 pmOne of the things about free software that is kind of swept under the carpet - how many people lost their jobs because of free software?
Have you ever considered how many people lost their jobs because of commercial software?

Nomad wrote: Mon May 14, 2018 2:33 pmSure commercial software had better documentation, support, feature sets and a commitment to future updates
Bullsh*t.

Sometimes commercial software has better documentation, support, etc. Sometimes it's the opposite. Again, there's no general rule.

Nomad wrote: Mon May 14, 2018 2:33 pmbut for bean counters a application does not have to be as good or better than a commercial product. It just has to be barely good enough to achieve an objective. All they see is the cost saving of the licence purchase not the hours of work that IT would need to sink into actually getting the free inferior offerings to work..
Same problem as buying the wrong commercial software, just because it's cheaper than the best commercial software.

Also same problem as renewing licenses of the wrong commercial software, although there's a much better free software available, just to save money on training people to use a different software.

Again, this is not a problem with free software. It's the problem of making the wrong choice, when decisions are made without considering the total costs, efforts and benefits.

Nomad wrote: Mon May 14, 2018 2:33 pmBecause IT is seen as a cost to the business and not an asset. Bean counters don't really understand what IT do anyway so they assume they can be forced to 'make it work'. Most IT departments are one review away from being shut down and outsourced so it is not like they would complain to hard..
Yet this is not free software's fault.

Nomad wrote: Mon May 14, 2018 2:33 pmIt reminds me of trying to convince a client to actually pay a photographer to get some images we needed to complete his project - he wanted an elaborate setup, like what you would have seen in a magazine. And we couldn't get it through to him that stock photography does not really cover this kind of situation. This is where you need to actually hire a professional.
Exactly. Sometimes you should hire a professional expert to assist the company on adopting a new software, regardless if it's commercial or free software.

Again, it has nothing to do with free software!
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PeterJ
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Re: EightyOne control issues

Post by PeterJ »

It's about the best software for your usage case, regardless of if it's free or paid. It does annoy me when free software gets laid out to rest, but Google often do the same thing. I would argue though very strongly with [mention]MrPixel[/mention]s assumption that paying for software is a waste of money though.

I use Linux now as my daily driver, but because the opensoure graphics drivers cause me all sorts of issues, I ended up booting from Windows 10, then starting a virtual machine with Linux on it.

Interesting to hear about the features in Spin [mention]Joefish[/mention]
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Re: EightyOne control issues

Post by Nomad »

Learn something new every day, I didn't know about that spin feature. :lol: It's nice to hear others opinions on issues the wider issues around open source software are fun to go over but probably better on another topic thread :ugeek: Sorry for derailing the current topic. One of the reason I like the forum is its more focused on the technical side of things rather than the contents of our dinner plates. :mrgreen:
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Re: EightyOne control issues

Post by MrPixel »

PeterJ wrote: Sat May 12, 2018 8:31 pm It sounds like you need an emulator which supports the Comcom programmable joystick interface such as Spectaculator. Download the 30 day trial and read the help file and it will tell you how to map the keys.

Nice to see you back on the Spectrum after your extra marital affair with the BBC Micro. Did you order that BASIC programming book I recommended?
i will order the paperback. speaking of which, what are the current prices for a zx spectrum?
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