[sdiy] Those darned Casio chips!

[Richard Wentk]

At 07:35 23/11/2004 -0700, Scott Gravenhorst wrote:
>"Rude 66" <r.lekx at chello.nl> wrote:
> >
> >heh.. of course lying is  wrong. so is swearing. however, presidents lie and
> >not only get away with it, but even get re-elected..;-)
>
>That is no excuse.  You are in control of your mouth and what comes out of
>it.  I don't care WHO else is lying, it is WRONG.

It may or may not be wrong. But not offering information is still stupid, 
bureaucratic and counterproductive.

As a former tech as I understand it the rationale is to try to offer some 
quality control, so that not just anyone can call themselves a keyboard 
tech, and also to keep the stores sweet because many stores do a fine 
sideline in selling tech support and repair services, and if those were 
available from anywhere they'd lose some turnover.

But we're talking about twenty year old designs here, and I can't see 
making the info available online would make a major dent in anyone's profits.

Plus it's an attitude issue. As a company you may be justified in not 
giving a rat's ass what your customers think of you, but ultimately it's 
not a very intelligent way to do business. Whatever the rationale, not 
making the archicture and other technical details open doesn't do the 
industry any favours.

Once upon a time Yamaha took the chips from their 02R and put them on a PCI 
card. But they did the usual thing of limiting tech details to a handful of 
manufacturers, and very effectively strangled what could have been an 
excellent and very popular product. The DSP Factory cards limped along for 
a while but the drivers were never quite right and after a couple of years 
they sank without trace, when they *could* have become an Emu-Creative 
style standard.

The fact is that selling chips that are generation or two old to third 
parties, with tech support, could open up the market in all kinds of 
interesting ways, with potential big wins for everyone. Keeping it closed 
stops that happening, and not only puts a brake on innovation, but also 
cuts off a significant source of potential licensing and profits.

Richard