2011-07-05 00:00 hmm, didn't really pay attention to < vs. > 20 2011-07-05 00:00 (talk link) yeah, seems to take a while to do the censorship ;-) 2011-07-05 00:01 (new things learned) hmm, one thing. do you know the "GPLv2 death penalty" ? 2011-07-05 00:01 never heard about that 2011-07-05 00:02 sort of ritual from fsf guys? :) 2011-07-05 00:02 close ;-) 2011-07-05 00:04 it's basically that, if you violate the GPL, you lose the right to use the code under that license, and that you have to return to compliance AND get re-licensed by each author/rights holder individually to be allowed to use the code under the license again 2011-07-05 00:05 GPLv3 relaxes that to simply having to return to compliance 2011-07-05 00:05 it's an interesting technicality 2011-07-05 00:06 sounds good that they removed that 2011-07-05 00:06 yeah. it's quite nasty :) 2011-07-05 00:06 it may also affect enforcability 2011-07-05 00:06 not that i'd really expect someone to try to enforce it, but ... 2011-07-05 00:07 you shouldn't try to link too many things together, like punishment chains etc. leave that to the legal system case by case, people can make their arguments anyway 2011-07-05 00:08 otherwise you risk that your entire thing becomes unenforcable because of some higher legal concept like practicality or what not 2011-07-05 00:08 so a simple "back to compliance" is much better 2011-07-05 00:08 what this means can then be determined in each case 2011-07-05 00:08 well, there's always the clause that if part is not enforceable, the rest still prevails 2011-07-05 00:08 that's just my opinion of course 2011-07-05 00:09 but yes, "back to compliance" makes a lot more sense. having to find all the rights holders would be quite impossible in many cases 2011-07-05 00:11 perhaps they put it in such that you can't hurriedly return back into compliance once a lot of money has been spent on legal action. i wonder how they solved that. 2011-07-05 00:12 what other projects or talks at fisl did you find most interesting? 2011-07-05 00:12 of course, some of the violators are stubborn enough that they see things through to the bit end no matter how many chances for backing off they are given :) 2011-07-05 00:14 i didn't go to many talks. i listened to the one on tor (onion routing for privacy). it's interesting how crazy the powers that be get. and how the cat and mouse game between tor and the censors evolves. 2011-07-05 00:14 but .. not directly applicable to our stuff. well, except for you personally perhaps :) 2011-07-05 00:15 i also had someone with RF experience have a quick look at my atben/atusb boards, and nothing obviously fishy turned up 2011-07-05 00:16 i found a few bugs when trying to show things to people :) 2011-07-05 00:17 China is big on tor 2011-07-05 00:17 the powers of darkness 2011-07-05 00:17 I would stay away from it only because of that, but it's good that they bind some resources of evil 2011-07-05 00:17 ah, and my ubb-vga is more robust than i thought. after days of carrying it around without any protection, it still worked. and produced very nice colors on two occasion - nicer than that i had seen on my test devices 2011-07-05 00:18 (tor) yeah, it only works if you can hide in the crowd 2011-07-05 00:19 we have to use more steganography, randomization, etc. 2011-07-05 00:19 there are so many attack vectors, like packet delays and what not 2011-07-05 00:19 oh well :-) 2011-07-05 00:19 they now also have tor briges that don't show up in the list of nodes 2011-07-05 00:20 and they have tor mail services, so that you can get it via, say, google mail. and don't need to connect to tor itself 2011-07-05 00:21 now sure how much that matters in practice, though. after all, you still need to find the explanation of all this :) 2011-07-05 00:21 may be easier to just hand out uSD cards. the perfect medium for covert operations :) 2011-07-05 00:22 ah, M1 doesn't include a mouse, right ? can it actually be used without one ? 2011-07-05 00:24 jon talked with mozilla about possible common interests. he's thinking of trying to convince them that they need a hardware platform they can control. 2011-07-05 00:25 we also talked to some google folks. alas, not the ones with their hand on the money. jon will follow up on that in SFO. 2011-07-05 00:27 oh, tor mail, thats new for me 2011-07-05 00:27 reaction to the M1 demos (in the talk) was very good. better than i expected - they really captivated the audience. unfortunately, with the update problems, we didn't have time to show it off to a larger audience in the exposition area. 2011-07-05 00:28 we didn't do the L19 rework. didn't want to tempt fate ;-) the camera didn't cause problems 2011-07-05 00:29 we do not include a mouse 2011-07-05 00:29 for two reasons: 1) I have never seen a mouse that would not work (but with keyboards there are many that won't work, such as most/all from Apple) 2011-07-05 00:29 2) the GUI either is already 100% controllable from keyboard, or almost there 2011-07-05 00:30 2) is good. 1) alone would still mean that your out of the box experience may be limited. 2011-07-05 00:30 my biggest worry for including a mouse is that we have so many accessories already, it becomes like a bag of assorted electronics 2011-07-05 00:31 it's not so much the price, but also the size and weight of a mouse that turns me off 2011-07-05 00:31 (keyboard) also jon had some no name keyboard he said didn't work 2011-07-05 00:31 oh sure 2011-07-05 00:31 it took me 4 keyboards until I finally found one that works 2011-07-05 00:31 that's when I decided that we had to include one :-) 2011-07-05 00:31 (too many accessories) yeah, also not exactly fun for the sourcing side 2011-07-05 00:32 lots of work, yes, but we are mostly done with it 2011-07-05 00:32 so the mouse, yes, it's still in the air 2011-07-05 00:32 (mice that work) you can add my little travel mouse from kensington :) 2011-07-05 00:32 when comparing silicone keyboards, we had one with an integrated mouse 2011-07-05 00:32 but, as always, there were problems 2011-07-05 00:32 first the current software would not support mouse + keyboard as 2 endpoints on the same usb port 2011-07-05 00:33 heh. integrated mouse means hub doesnt it? 2011-07-05 00:33 do we know at what layer are the problems with the keyboards ? 2011-07-05 00:33 wpwrak: mm1 doesnt support stuff behind usb hubs afaik 2011-07-05 00:33 roh: of course :) 2011-07-05 00:33 and second, even more important, the mouse on that silicone keyboard was very imprecise 2011-07-05 00:33 it was just nearly impossible to position it over a button 2011-07-05 00:33 it would always jump too far etc. 2011-07-05 00:33 so that would have meant even more software work 2011-07-05 00:34 roh: no, that one implements 2 endpoints 2011-07-05 00:34 better not to ship with crap then 2011-07-05 00:34 or 2 'interfaces' something like that 2011-07-05 00:34 definitely no hub 2011-07-05 00:34 it would be relatively easy to support, but then we still would have precision problems 2011-07-05 00:34 yes correct 2011-07-05 00:34 weird. but yes. 2011-07-05 00:35 Apple keyboards include a hub, always I believe 2011-07-05 00:35 that's why none of them work on m1 right now 2011-07-05 00:35 (no hub) hmm. need to check the spec on whether that's allowed. not that it wouldn't make perfect sense ... 2011-07-05 00:35 definitely allowed 2011-07-05 00:36 but anyway, that's the mouse story so far 2011-07-05 00:36 I wish that silicone keyboard would have had a better precision mouse 2011-07-05 00:36 i think the entire USB trouble just has one solution: get Linux to work and move everything that need RT into some little RT bubble under linux 2011-07-05 00:36 then I would have taken that (and added support for the 2 endpoints/interfaces, which looked like not to be that hard) 2011-07-05 00:37 so yeah, we need to make sure that keyboard only is intuitive, I haven't tested it yet 2011-07-05 00:37 the precision problems may be compensated in software as well, I would think. but it's more work... 2011-07-05 00:38 wpwrak: RT bubble sounds nice :) 2011-07-05 00:38 the gui seems a bit overloaded. but again, that's comfortably a v2 problem to address 2011-07-05 00:38 it just needs to move more slowly, and then accelerate when pressed longer 2011-07-05 00:39 and is not usb, also memcard, i confess i miss linux a bit now :) 2011-07-05 00:39 kristianpaul: i think even lekernel would now consider linux to be the lesser evil than having to port a gazillion of usb drivers :) 2011-07-05 00:39 :-) 2011-07-05 00:41 lekernel will think that if someone other than him ports/improves Linux, or adds a MMU, or ..., that'd be awesome 2011-07-05 00:41 wolfspraul: the next step would be to integrate an interface into the M1. e.g., a touch screen lcd. 2011-07-05 00:41 on top ! yes 2011-07-05 00:42 wolfspraul: (port linux) yeah. i wonder what's taking the guys so long. it can't be *that* hard. 2011-07-05 00:42 Linux is booting 2011-07-05 00:42 nommu version 2011-07-05 00:42 but I don't think all the different peripherals are supported, and it seems work on the port has stopped in March 2011-07-05 00:42 yeah. nommu is quite a big turnoff for many people 2011-07-05 00:43 nommu is suckish 2011-07-05 00:43 wpwrak: last i heard there were some minor issues with interrupts, you can ask mwalle i think 2011-07-05 00:43 but why not implement a really simple mmu ? one-way TLB. that can't be so hard. 2011-07-05 00:44 kristianpaul: ah yes, he didn't like the hierarchy. but i think he and lekernel now agree on an approach 2011-07-05 00:44 wpwrak: btw.. i got some people around working on their own small designs.. currently the i.mx233 looks fancy to us.. because its available in hand-solderable packages and still not be totally outdated when it comes to performance 2011-07-05 00:45 roh: sounds nice 2011-07-05 00:46 also freescale seems nice when it comes to datasheets and the linux ports are maintained by pengutronix :) 2011-07-05 00:46 sounds like the right approach to think about practical execution first 2011-07-05 00:46 only downside: no eth mac included on the imx233 ... the imx28 or so has one.. but its bga again 2011-07-05 00:47 wpwrak: there was serious planning about the mmu, see http://lists.milkymist.org/pipermail/devel-milkymist.org/2011-April/001418.html 2011-07-05 00:48 and http://lists.milkymist.org/pipermail/devel-milkymist.org/2011-April/001472.html 2011-07-05 00:48 but someone has to take it from planning to implementation now 2011-07-05 00:48 Sebastien will surely merge back any good code that comes his way :-) 2011-07-05 00:48 for the video synthesizer itself, the mmu is not critical imho 2011-07-05 00:49 4 privilege levels ? who needs that ? :) 2011-07-05 00:49 is anyone porting VAX/VMS ? ;-)) 2011-07-05 00:50 (mmu+synth) not for the video synthesis. but if you want to make the synthesizer talk to more things, you need the cornucopia of drivers from linux. and linux is so much happier if it has an MMU :) 2011-07-05 00:53 (mmu arch) quite fancy already. for getting started, you could make something much simpler :) 2011-07-05 00:58 ok but I want to be as real as possible 2011-07-05 00:59 I am not working on mmu, i have no experience in Verilog at all, no time to do it. I have no resources to fund someone doing it. For Sebastien it's not high on his priority list at all. 2011-07-05 00:59 afaik nobody else (for example from the people discussing the design on the list) is currently working on it either 2011-07-05 00:59 so keep your expectations about a mmu 'arriving from somewhere' very low 2011-07-05 01:01 yeah, yeah, the old "if you want it get done you have to do it yourself" ;-) 2011-07-05 01:01 it's important that we communicate that rather than speculating whether it would be nice, and leaving out that it is beyond the resources of the project (and priority list) to work on one now 2011-07-05 01:01 I just think with the most clear assessment you eventually succeed best. rather than implying all these wonderful things will, or may, happen. 2011-07-05 01:01 m1 has a long list of desirable todos 2011-07-05 01:01 mmu is one on that long list, somewhere 2011-07-05 01:02 so I communicate that clearly: m1 has no mmu, don't expect one, we don't need it for the video synthesizer, we can drive the video synthesizer to much higher grounds without one, etc. 2011-07-05 01:03 mmu is a de facto prerequisite for linux; linux is a de facto prerequisite for proper driver support. people will quickly get frustrated with USB host having all sort of weird restrictions. 2011-07-05 01:04 he :-) 2011-07-05 01:04 so the sooner this gets solved, the better 2011-07-05 01:04 you are a good candidate for communication effectiveness tests 2011-07-05 01:04 i mean, just think of the horror scenario of someone losing the keyboard ;-) 2011-07-05 01:04 I never endulge in wishful thinking 2011-07-05 01:05 I do not see those things on the practical radar 2011-07-05 01:05 and they are not needed now, imo. at least not for me selling a video synthesizer. 2011-07-05 01:05 (comunication) i hear your "i don't want to think of the problem" ;-) 2011-07-05 01:05 not at all 2011-07-05 01:05 as you can see I am very clear about the status of it, that's why I try to get it across 2011-07-05 01:05 you are not the first one to ask :-) 2011-07-05 01:05 hrhr 2011-07-05 01:06 hen and egg problem somehow 2011-07-05 01:06 yes 2011-07-05 01:06 "community needs to grow" is another way to describe it 2011-07-05 01:06 but how can it grow? needs to be attractive? 2011-07-05 01:06 needs Linux to be attractive? 2011-07-05 01:06 who brings Linux there? 2011-07-05 01:06 etc. etc. 2011-07-05 01:06 hen and egg, indeed 2011-07-05 01:07 meanwhile I focus on the video synthesizer :-) 2011-07-05 01:07 there is a clear target market who has no demand for 'vj-ing' equipment with an interrest to use linux on a fully open arch.. the question is how big. 2011-07-05 01:07 roh: help us attract more devs to the platform 2011-07-05 01:07 to be fair.. i dont have any usecase i'd need vj-ing equipment for. i am interrested in open hw. 2011-07-05 01:07 we are all 'in favor' of that 2011-07-05 01:08 no mmu was when I stopped on *nix porting to Amiga1000 2011-07-05 01:08 for real vjs (the ones i meet) we need a non-gui user interface anyhow. 2011-07-05 01:08 roh: the approach with m1 is to make one use case work very well first, in this case video synthesizer. then break through the hen and egg problem like that. 2011-07-05 01:09 they all had notebooks with pd or such with em. and used xga or up resolutions. and they asked how to not have a menu popping up ;) 2011-07-05 01:09 i guess they would have liket to have the mm1 as kind of a 'eth controlled pd playout renderer' instead of keyboard, mouse and gui 2011-07-05 01:10 agreed, but some of that sounds like relatively minor software mods 2011-07-05 01:10 one by one 2011-07-05 01:10 please remember the size of the engineering team that brought it to where it is 2011-07-05 01:11 wolfspraul: i hear you. i am only thinking that there is a balance between trying to reach a self-set spec in reasonable time and widening the target groupt to not end up like openmoko in the end (where we only kept the die-hard-no-binary fraction) 2011-07-05 01:11 agreed 2011-07-05 01:12 sometimes its just 'making stuff work' to make customers happy 2011-07-05 01:12 regardless of politics 2011-07-05 01:12 it's pretty huge. an EE, a verilog designer, a part-time fpga tool designer, a GUI infrastructure designer, a GUI designer, a driver developer, an AVR chip designer, a AVR USB firmware author, ... 2011-07-05 01:12 oddly enough, they're all called "Sebastien" ;-) 2011-07-05 01:12 so you just need to find more sebastiens :) 2011-07-05 01:13 there's more people that made significant contributions, and I include soft contributions and those on the edges as well 2011-07-05 01:13 but still, if we get lost on the long todo list now, that'd be a mistake. at least I won't do it. 2011-07-05 01:14 I focus on video synthesizer, and need to reach our sales targets there. 2011-07-05 01:14 which is 200 for 2011, and I'm 31 into it, 169 missing 2011-07-05 01:14 wolfspraul: the question is: is that market that big? 2011-07-05 01:14 with the given current spec 2011-07-05 01:14 running a little late with rc3, which is hopfeully another 75, hopefully sells in 2-3 months (?), and hopefully leaves enough room for an rc4 to reach the target 2011-07-05 01:15 what would be the changes from rc3 to rc4 ? 2011-07-05 01:15 roh: the next challenge is a marketing challenge 2011-07-05 01:15 just look how wpwrak described audience reaction at fisl 2011-07-05 01:16 now... the question is: can we effectively get the capabilities of m1 across to a large audience? in the next few months? 2011-07-05 01:16 can we quickly and effectively sell to people around the whole world? 2011-07-05 01:16 big question marks 2011-07-05 01:16 if an established company like Roland, M-Audio, etc. would put their marketing muscle behind it, I am 100% sure they could sell 5000 or so in the first year 2011-07-05 01:17 why? because they throw the same technology into an existing marketing machine 2011-07-05 01:17 wolfspraul: thats the part where i am unsure. is the market with the given spec really big enough? i only meet people who have higher demands. 2011-07-05 01:17 so it will show up in specialized stores all over the world 2011-07-05 01:17 no way. the people I meet never once ask about 'specs' 2011-07-05 01:18 you basically need to find a group that loves it enough to forgive its quirks. many of its limitations will be regarded as bugs. if the users love the concept enough, they will forgive virtually everything. so it's important to make them fall in love :) 2011-07-05 01:18 this product does not need to wipe out everything else in that space, and it won't 2011-07-05 01:18 my guess is that roland or so wouldnt have used that versatile hw but something much more limited to one usecase, still speced higher in some domains (dvi/hdmi ports, hd ready etc) 2011-07-05 01:18 the difference whether we sell 50 in the next 6 months or 2000 depends entirely on marketing effectiveness 2011-07-05 01:19 which is a big problem, but alright, we have to meet that challenge 2011-07-05 01:19 roh: you always get a lot of people who want more. let them carry that hecta-core mainframe with two suitcases full of peripherals around ;-) 2011-07-05 01:19 just count the number of nightclubs in China alone that could put one of these boxes into their place 2011-07-05 01:19 it must be in the tens of thousands :-) 2011-07-05 01:19 from my pov these matrox 'make 3 out of one vga/dvi port' devices are a bigger contender than roland or so 2011-07-05 01:19 roh: these people will also be extremely vocal, because they're desperate :) 2011-07-05 01:20 I think that card costs more than the entire m1, including camera 2011-07-05 01:20 no no 2011-07-05 01:20 this is not how sales function 2011-07-05 01:20 wpwrak: mainframe? huh? nah. they all just carry that one macbook. 2011-07-05 01:21 wpwrak: also they have multiple beamers with them anyhow, to everything smaller than a notebook is fine. 2011-07-05 01:21 go to any middle-class hotel in the world, check what projector they have in the conference room. is it the latest and greatest? no 2011-07-05 01:21 why is it there? because they chain bought it for all hotels, or some company setup the stuff 2011-07-05 01:21 roh: in most clubs, they'll just what is already installed 2011-07-05 01:21 s/just/just use/ 2011-07-05 01:21 why did that company choose it? because they know it, because it's cheap and gives them a big margin? many reasons 2011-07-05 01:21 wolfspraul: low-end beamers are XGA now. high end is fullhd. 2011-07-05 01:21 so? 2011-07-05 01:22 if someone doesn't like m1 that's fine 2011-07-05 01:22 you think too black & white 2011-07-05 01:22 we need to communicate what it can do 2011-07-05 01:22 and it needs to work flawlessly and out of the box, dumbed down 2011-07-05 01:22 and then some people will buy, and hopefully be happy 2011-07-05 01:24 so... my sales target remains at 200 for 2011 :-) 2011-07-05 01:24 rc3 is late, unfortunately 2011-07-05 01:25 we loose 1-2 valuable months of 2011 there 2011-07-05 01:25 roh: one big issue on the marketing side is also that with m1, there are several new things at once 2011-07-05 01:25 new technology, new brand, maybe new category, new business model 2011-07-05 01:26 no sane company would risk all those things together, but we have no other choice right now 2011-07-05 01:26 :) 2011-07-05 01:26 if it would be an existing brand, and new technology, that would be easier 2011-07-05 01:26 new brand, old technology - also easier 2011-07-05 01:26 new business model, old technlogy - all fine 2011-07-05 01:26 but all of those together - NOT GOOD 2011-07-05 01:26 it creates a huge marketing challenge 2011-07-05 01:27 brand = trust 2011-07-05 01:27 many people will trust a company to sell them something good if they remember that brand positively from the past 2011-07-05 01:28 we cannot make use of that 2011-07-05 01:28 they have to trust a new brand, new technology, new category, all at once 2011-07-05 01:29 also my ability to sell into NanoNote brand is limited, because the product is 5 times more expensive 2011-07-05 01:29 wolfspraul: ah, by the way: have you registered any trademarks in the qi-hw universe ? (qi-hw, nanonote, M1, etc.) 2011-07-05 01:29 so even though I have a sizable number of customers who trust me, the practical outreach is limited 2011-07-05 01:29 the would buy something for 99 USD from me, many 2011-07-05 01:29 not even look at the specs for 1 minute 2011-07-05 01:29 but 499 USD? many will say "too expensive" 2011-07-05 01:30 i don't think it's so much a question of trust. a few nice reviews will settle that. 2011-07-05 01:30 nah 2011-07-05 01:30 it's a big wall to climb 2011-07-05 01:30 I hope we can find some marketing parent corp to help us with global marketing of m1 2011-07-05 01:30 i mean the trust issue. they may still dislike the price, but not because they don't trust you 2011-07-05 01:31 wolfspraul: sure. 2011-07-05 01:31 the price is great, everything is included in the box like camera 2011-07-05 01:31 500us$ is nicely above the 'expensive geek-toy' class of 299-399E 2011-07-05 01:31 I agree prices are coming down in electronics, fast 2011-07-05 01:32 many people don't even closely look at anything above 150 EUR anymore 2011-07-05 01:32 roh: OQO sold quite a few units at a much higher price point. and with a rather interesting list of flaws. 2011-07-05 01:32 but the downside is that there are only a handful of products left, all the same (big surprise) 2011-07-05 01:32 (oqo) of course, they still didn't make it ... 2011-07-05 01:32 wpwrak: that's long ago 2011-07-05 01:32 wpwrak: not around here. not seen anybody with one 2011-07-05 01:32 exactly 2011-07-05 01:32 those times are gone 2011-07-05 01:32 but... 2011-07-05 01:32 as always there is a downside 2011-07-05 01:32 products become extremely boring 2011-07-05 01:33 because the companies need huge volume, cannot take risks 2011-07-05 01:33 the first thing many people admire about the m1 is the case 2011-07-05 01:33 ? 2011-07-05 01:33 seriously? 2011-07-05 01:33 who has seen a computer/box like this EVER? 2011-07-05 01:33 oh sure. simply because it is different 2011-07-05 01:33 show me something like that? go to any store? everything looks the same there, and getting even worse. 2011-07-05 01:34 that's the downside of prices going down (and in the background: volumes going up) 2011-07-05 01:34 gazillions of devices on a fair.. the 'messe-version' ;) 2011-07-05 01:34 at FISL, the reaction to the price was that people didn't think it too expensive for what it can do. they may still consider it too expensive in relation to their individual spending power, of course. 2011-07-05 01:35 roh: what do you mean? interesting stuff at fairs? 2011-07-05 01:35 also, they may change their opinion once all the taxes are added, which they may or may not be aware of 2011-07-05 01:35 wolfspraul: no.. the frequency of custom acryllic showcase-case on fairs 2011-07-05 01:35 do they make it to the store? 2011-07-05 01:35 argghh taxes 2011-07-05 01:35 prototypes 2011-07-05 01:35 mostly (atleast around here) 2011-07-05 01:36 kristianpaul: ;-) 2011-07-05 01:36 to be fair.. most people dont buy hardware in stores anymore. loads of sales shifted to mailorder 2011-07-05 01:36 I do not believe we can escape the price spiral down, and low prices are good 2011-07-05 01:36 but I look at this as a function of volume and price, and then I think we do pretty good. Now my focus is sales, then bring price down. 2011-07-05 01:37 why go somewhere to order it then because its not on stock in that version you want?... and stockpiling isnt possible for shops mostly because of the small margin on sales of such stuff. 2011-07-05 01:37 on computer articles you usually have <3% margin for sales to end-customers compared to the recommended sales price. so either you are more expensive or need to push through really many boxes 2011-07-05 01:38 soon we will have ad-supported hardware that is free 2011-07-05 01:38 Amazon is making some smart experiments right now, which I believe will succeed 2011-07-05 01:38 I'm fairly relaxed about all this 2011-07-05 01:39 wolfspraul: or the ingenic computer in playboy and some other magazine ;-) 2011-07-05 01:39 yeah :-) 2011-07-05 01:40 roh: recommended sales price would still include some margin ... 2011-07-05 01:40 m1 has some fairly unique connectors like dmx, rca video-in, midi 2011-07-05 01:41 wpwrak: some. which is really small in mass market CE 2011-07-05 01:41 that may also help drive some sales, if marketing is effective in message and reach 2011-07-05 01:41 wolfspraul: can it actually *do* anything with DMX ? :) 2011-07-05 01:41 wpwrak: dmx is widely used for lighing control. 2011-07-05 01:41 I haven't seen it, but sebastien has some dmx patches, I would think they do something 2011-07-05 01:41 basically its 512channel 8bit value control. 2011-07-05 01:41 i think it reads dmx 2011-07-05 01:41 roh: yes. but does M1 do something with it ? 2011-07-05 01:42 ad-supported free hw. Hell they must earn their money with some other service then 2011-07-05 01:42 actually code used for osc was derivated from dmx, i think xiangfu did? 2011-07-05 01:42 wpwrak: i think you can control is as well as control lamps from the mm from within patches 2011-07-05 01:42 (midi) another issue is that it can't do USB-midi. again, drivers. 2011-07-05 01:42 given the rationale ads are to make people *buy* stuff 2011-07-05 01:43 DocScrutinizer: let's try perfume ;-) 2011-07-05 01:43 wpwrak: usb-midi? huh? ofcourse you can connect a usb-midi if to the midi of the mm1 2011-07-05 01:43 I think it makes no sense to compare our hardware that is made and sold in the hundreds or thousands to hardware that is made and sold, or at least anticipated to sell, in the millions or tens of millions 2011-07-05 01:43 I am very happy that I'm not an investor in that other side, it's at least as risky as our stuff if you think about it 2011-07-05 01:43 no risk no fun, no risk no profit 2011-07-05 01:43 DocScrutinizer: may be is just marketing budget anyway.. like when you gave free cloth accesories with brands etc.. 2011-07-05 01:43 so I need to sell 200 m1 boxes this year, end of story. 2011-07-05 01:44 Samsung needs to sell 5 million tables, or more, who knows. that's their problem, and the gamble they accepted when they did some new piece of hardware. 2011-07-05 01:45 roh: i mean a usb-midi device to usb 2011-07-05 01:45 yes, thats a very common stuff right now 2011-07-05 01:45 wpwrak: luckily we dont have usb client on the mm;) 2011-07-05 01:45 roh: there's now a ton of small stuff that only talks usb. but it's still midi on top. 2011-07-05 01:45 roh: no, usb host is fine 2011-07-05 01:46 actuallu i tried to source a midi keyboard for m1, and just founded cheap midi-usb stuff 2011-07-05 01:46 wpwrak: ah.. now i get what you mean. like connecting a usb-midikeyboard to the mm1 2011-07-05 01:46 yup 2011-07-05 01:46 I know what's next :-) 2011-07-05 01:46 linux ? :) 2011-07-05 01:46 kristianpaul: the same models are avail with midi too. just some euros more 2011-07-05 01:46 :-) 2011-07-05 01:47 wpwrak: well.. one could use the driver layer... or some 'similar' api to make porting much easier 2011-07-05 01:47 roh: didÂ Â i said i need it _cheap_ ? ;) 2011-07-05 01:47 kristianpaul: i can guess so. 2011-07-05 01:47 it was like 50E usb-midi only, 60 or 65 with midi ports 2011-07-05 01:47 roh: sure, just do that ;-) 2011-07-05 01:48 roh: if they import the "real MIDI" version at all ... 2011-07-05 01:48 roh: not every country is a high-value high-volume market like germany 2011-07-05 01:48 naaah.. its not that nice here 2011-07-05 01:49 i knew you'd say that :) 2011-07-05 01:49 its getting better as the us goes under ;) 2011-07-05 01:49 hey btw, one small thing 2011-07-05 01:49 asia somehow realises it shoudnt sell the nice stuff there but here. 2011-07-05 01:49 yeah. no us market, need to find others :) 2011-07-05 01:49 if m1 is successful, there is chance we can build up a reasonable strong free pool/market of visual works, that are freely shared among users 2011-07-05 01:50 wolfspraul: like a 'patch-bay' ? 2011-07-05 01:50 we are working on that slowly now with the update automatically downloading new patches 2011-07-05 01:50 sorry for the patch vs piratebay pun ;) 2011-07-05 01:50 that's just the first step but the direction is clear 2011-07-05 01:51 if uploading/downloading (syncing) is easy, and the quality of that pool reaches a certain critical mass, then that alone may drive sales quite well 2011-07-05 01:51 attribution of creators needs to work well, maybe even rewarding them (donations, flattr, whatever) 2011-07-05 01:51 we'll see 2011-07-05 01:52 so let's not forget that m1 is not just a piece of plastics and physical goods, but also connects to a 100% free world of bits and bytes 2011-07-05 01:52 another appstore? 2011-07-05 01:52 I said 100% free 2011-07-05 01:52 :-) 2011-07-05 01:52 (patchstore) yup. that's the new way :) 2011-07-05 01:53 the strengh of the visual works that are either included when sold, or freely and easily downloadable later, is quite important 2011-07-05 01:53 it creates value 2011-07-05 01:53 not just higher vga resolutions create value (though of course they do too) 2011-07-05 01:54 yes. create a user community platform. not just some places for developers to hang out with like-minded freaks. 2011-07-05 01:54 for risk see Nokia's N950 (formerly N9) desaster 2011-07-05 01:54 correct 2011-07-05 01:55 you also want the ability to comment/discuss, have a forum where you can link to/from the patch archive. 2011-07-05 01:55 DocScrutinizer: Nokia is the new Openmoko. don't do what they did and you'll be fine ;-) 2011-07-05 01:55 indeed 2011-07-05 01:56 it is my firm belief that 90%, even more, of tech buyers use only a fraction of the features of the products they buy 2011-07-05 01:56 for the sake of this argument we can say they use 1% of them 2011-07-05 01:56 :-) 2011-07-05 01:56 why? 2011-07-05 01:57 because stuff does not work, plain and simple. it's too difficult, they have no time. they press a few buttons, it doesn't do what they want, they move on. 2011-07-05 01:57 there are also more features than they individually need 2011-07-05 01:57 the approach is exactly the opposite approach from ours (mentally) 2011-07-05 01:57 we look at the specs first, then we think (with our understanding of software), what is theoretically possible with those specs 2011-07-05 01:58 90% or more of people do it exacty the other way round 2011-07-05 01:58 plus you usually pick a lot of functionality for "just in case" 2011-07-05 01:58 they press a few buttons, and see what happens 2011-07-05 01:58 then that's what they will use of this product 2011-07-05 01:58 like aircrack & monitormode on N900 ;-) 2011-07-05 01:58 many companies in tech don't care about this, and slowly start to believe that all the great features they are adding is what sells their products 2011-07-05 01:59 then they ignore the stats that are saying that 90% of 'smartphone' buyers only make phone calls and sms 2011-07-05 01:59 well then :-) 2011-07-05 01:59 wpwrak: so, we linux support, just in case we lost the factory keyboard that came with MM1 :-) 2011-07-05 01:59 so the main thing for something like m1 is that what it can do is super easy to reach 2011-07-05 01:59 give the m1 box to a newbie in a test room 2011-07-05 01:59 record with a camera what happens 2011-07-05 01:59 if we improve those kinds of things, we can sell tons 2011-07-05 01:59 I'm sure 2011-07-05 02:00 not if we dwell over feature lists and think what more could be added 2011-07-05 02:00 at least that's what I will do, and I took the risk to manufacture them, he he :-) 2011-07-05 02:00 has strange visions of green cards with lao tse sayings on them 2011-07-05 02:01 I like that card, but it's unrelated to the point I just made. 2011-07-05 02:01 which is that it's far more important that some basic features are very easy to use, than adding more features on top. 2011-07-05 02:01 it's loosely related 2011-07-05 02:01 but I need to proove it in sales, not in chat 2011-07-05 02:05 kristianpaul: (linux support) well, it's just one of those scenarios that can easily happen if you have too narrow a known to be good path. another is the power supply that has to be exactly 5.000 V (exaggerating :) 2011-07-05 02:07 wpwrak: (power suply) i think thats fixed for rc3, but is a fair point 2011-07-05 02:07 wolfspraul: you basically have to match reasonable expectations. add too many unpredictable restrictions and people will get frustrated. add too many predictable restrictions and they'll think the product is weak. so you need to put it all in a good story. 2011-07-05 02:16 wpwrak: (the new OM) the part that really puzzles me is that literally everybody can see clearly how Elop is a mole sent by M$ to kill the company, just they seem to ask for it and like it 2011-07-05 02:17 DocScrutinizer: makes you wonder what kind of deal he struck with the board of directors, eh ? 2011-07-05 02:17 I dunno if at OM there was an parallel after I left :-) 2011-07-05 02:22 I don't believe the mole story. I think it's just exceedingly hard to turn the company around now. 2011-07-05 02:22 probably OM could have sold a gta03 and gta04 and 05, if only we wouldn't have started from square one basically 3 times for one product. a gta03 with s3c2442 would have sold another 5000 units 2011-07-05 02:23 DocScrutinizer: i had proposed to make a cleaned up gta02 ... but of course, nobody listens to me :) 2011-07-05 02:23 the Microsoft deal is totally US centric and ignores 'traditions', yeah well. don't fight with mother nature, is the US expression. 2011-07-05 02:24 Elop decided to fight with mother nature, and I believe it will not work. 2011-07-05 02:24 who cares. one big contender less. 2011-07-05 02:24 om was unrescuable since day 1 2011-07-05 02:24 and probably Nokia could have sold millions of N9 when they just had rolled out their N950 design last year as they could've done 2011-07-05 02:24 the mother bug... 2011-07-05 02:24 i guess android has >50% market share on smartphones already when counting all the chinese knock-off-iphones 2011-07-05 02:25