Re: Virtual Repeater

[S V G <vsyevolod@yahoo.com>]

  Jeff wrote:
  <<If it was "almost ready" then
it doesn't take hundreds or even tens of thousands of dollars to
finish and distribute.  If you've got programmers committed to the
project they'll make it happen.  Sales weren't going to give Adam and
the other two principals a nice salary but what the heck, get it out
there and recoup at least some of your expenses.>>


     Makes sense, though we'll probably never know enough of the story to 
even make an informed opinion.




  <<This is of course pure speculation but something is fishy.  Some
likely possibilities:

1) They never had anything and did the classic vaporware play hoping
    for an enthusiastic response they didn't get.

2) They grossly underestimated how hard it was going to be to
    port firmware designed for custom hardware to a general
    computer OS with all the associated UI, performance,
    plugin hosting, and latency issues.  It wasn't even half done.

3) They outsourced the development to relatively disinterested
    programmers with no financial stake in the product's success.
    Once the contractor money dried up, there was no one left
    that knew how to finish it.

4) There were really almost done but ugly internal politics
    shelved the project and the code rights now reside
    with one of the principals that doesn't know what to
    do with it.>>





     1, 2, and 3, are way off base.  I don't know if 4 is close or not.  I 
do know that they would have finished it and sold it if there were any 
possible way to do it.  Without going into any kind of speculation here on 
this marvelous Interweb, I will say that's it's pretty much all a moot 
point.  It's not available for sale, nor is it available for an outside 
person to 'finish up'.


     And to address a few other points that others brought up, no Peter 
Toms has no stake in the company, nor does he currently have any control 
over the sale of the OS software.  He only has a stockpile of parts and is 
one of the few repair shops that actually owns schematics to the entire 
line.

     There were three different owners (or groups of owners) of the 
Electrix brand.  Each one failed to communicate well with the public, 
though to lump them into one large group is to miss the individual 
characteristics that each owner (or group of owners) brought to the table. 
 Each one had a different style of communicating with Peter Toms, some 
more readily available, some not so much.  None of them did well with the 
public side, though they weren't connected with each other, nor was there 
a master plan passed down from tribe to tribe to keep the rest of us in 
the dark...

     I still have three of them, they serve me quite well, and though I've 
owned (and still own) several other types of loopers, nothing does it for 
me (and my style) as well as the Repeater.  May its creators know that 
they are appreciated...

     Stephen