> Respecting the issue of "too many trees" for Manuals, When I got my initial Release > of DXP, I got a manual that was just over 3/8" thick that was an absolute joke (I am > once again restraining myself to keep it clean here in the forum), that was totally > worthless, and very soon actually obsolete. I can accept the fact that Altium did > not want to print any manuals while they were trying to get their collective DXP act > together, but if they think that that time has come, and they have actually decided > to go ahead and print a "THICK manual" as Mike called it, then I do believe that > Altium "owes" one of these manuals to all of it's DXP customers, since it never > delivered a useable manual in the first place, and have been "begging off" giving > one to every DXP Licensee with various excuses over the last year and a half now.
Oh, how I yearn for the old days, when software came with thick, well written printed manuals. If you're going to kill a tree, a thick well written manual is a good reason to. Besides, trees are a renewable resource; just plant some more. Petroleum is not a renewable resource, so those made-from-petroleum CD's with PDF manuals on them are worse for the environment than books are! And if you don't like the big, thick manual, toss it in the paper recycle bin! I admit books are more expensive to produce than CD's, but when I am plunking down nearly $10K for the software, I think it's not going to affect their margin too much. I've still got all the manuals from the DOS days: Quatrro Pro 3.0, WordPerfect 5.1, MS-DOS 3.3, 5.0, Windows 3.1, Borland C/C++ 3.0, etc. Those manuals are the gold standard IMO, and I will preserve them as an example to future generations of good technical writing. That is, if future generations can comprehend them - we may all be speaking Newspeak before long (obligatory "1984" reference). In Newspeak, software bugs will be called "features", and reviews for software will be scored in terms of "good", "goodgood", or "double plus good". Software pricing will be described in terms of "double plus low" (free), "lowlow", (low to medium price levels) and "low" (all other price levels). We won't be able to call free software "free", because the concept of free and freedom is anathema to the State, therefore the word "free" will no longer exist in the Newspeak vocabulary. The word "freedom" is, however, allowed to be used to oppose it's concept, as in the chant "Freedom is slavery". ;-) As far as DXP/2004/Nanoboard or whatever-Altium-is-calling-it-this-week goes, I am interested in hearing if any new and/or improved functionality is present in it, and if said is worth the upgrade price. And if upgraders from 99SE get a new printed manual, which I think they should. As usual, the case that has to be made to me is "What are the new features and are they really worth the price?". Now, nobody on this list owes me these answers, but if somebody wants to volunteer these answers, I would appreciate the info. And if anyone actually uses the new features and/or Nanoboard (or whatever that is), could they please share their opinions/experiences with it? And please, no Newspeak... ;-) Best regards, Ivan Baggett Bagotronix Inc. website: www.bagotronix.com ----- Original Message ----- From: "JaMi Smith" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: "Protel EDA Forum" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Cc: "JaMi Smith" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: Monday, March 08, 2004 9:34 PM Subject: Re: [PEDA] 2004 DXP Looks Great, > This is kind of what I was trying to address in the DXP Forum with a post there, > before Nick stepped in and totally side-stepped the issue by telling me to go read a > link. > > People keep calling Protel 2004 an "Upgrade". > > With the exception of the "Nano-Board" stuff, it occurs to me that this is not a > real "Upgrade" in anything but name only, and that in respect to DXP Schematic and > DXP PCB that this is really nothing more than the long long overdue Realease of > "Service Pack 3". > > This seems to be somewhat comparable to the "Upgrade" from Protel 99 Service Pack 2 > to Protel 99 SE, which if I understand it correctly, was actually also called > Service Pack 3. > > The problem here is that while I understand that the step from Protel 99 to Protel > 99 SE actually was in fact a really big step, what we appear to have here is simply > some additional functionality, which you must pay for if you want, and which is > clearly additional to the basic DXP Package, but that with respect to the basic > Schematic and PCB Packaging part of DXP, we are only getting a Service Pack, and one > that really doesen't look like it really may have addressed all of the problems in > the "DXP Only" part of the package, based on what I am seeing here in the forums. > > Respecting the issue of "too many trees" for Manuals, When I got my initial Release > of DXP, I got a manual that was just over 3/8" thick that was an absolute joke (I am > once again restraining myself to keep it clean here in the forum), that was totally > worthless, and very soon actually obsolete. I can accept the fact that Altium did > not want to print any manuals while they were trying to get their collective DXP act > together, but if they think that that time has come, and they have actually decided > to go ahead and print a "THICK manual" as Mike called it, then I do believe that > Altium "owes" one of these manuals to all of it's DXP customers, since it never > delivered a useable manual in the first place, and have been "begging off" giving > one to every DXP Licensee with various excuses over the last year and a half now. > > Altium - If you have actually have printed a manual, then distribute it to the > people that you have been stalling for the last year and a half, irrespective of the > number of trees that it takes. > > Respectively submitted, > > JaMi Smith * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * To post a message: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] * * To leave this list visit: * http://www.techservinc.com/protelusers/leave.html * * Contact the list manager: * mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] * * Forum Guidelines Rules: * http://www.techservinc.com/protelusers/forumrules.html * * Browse or Search previous postings: * http://www.mail-archive.com/[EMAIL PROTECTED] * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
