Well said Steve. Having done hardware and software design in other product fields for many years, I think you guys are doing it right. Your team has made an astounding piece of hardware and I have no doubt you will do as well on the software. Yes, I know it will take time to mature and it will never be 'done', but I'm good with that.
Flex already has my pre-order and I am looking forward to progress reports. But you won't hear me complaining about how long it takes. Just to show the interest you have generated, after I told a friend who runs an Icom 7800 about the 6000 and he read the pdf, he is planning on a 6700. Congratulations on a great product. 73 Wayne K4ELO On Mon, May 21, 2012, at 10:48 AM, Stephen Hicks, N5AC wrote: > Jack, > > I understand where you are coming from and I would love to help you. On > one hand, what we are doing in software is what we have always done in > software -- DSP, control, interfacing, etc -- and we know what & how to > do > it. On the other hand, we have a completely new platform, architecture > and > components that we are integrating into the radio. Sometimes, when we > embark on a particular part of the design, everything comes together and > works very quickly and other times, it takes real effort to make > something > simple work at all. This is the nature of engineering, especially > software > engineering. > > You may have heard this story before, but in the past we would often say > what we were going to do next and when. This did not seem to serve us > well > for a variety of reasons, many of which you can imagine. So we decided > that it was not good for us or you to continue doing things this way. > Many > our engineering team would like to sit with each one of you and talk > about > all the fascinating things we are doing and when we think we will be > done. > > Our goal is to deliver a "working radio" by the end of the year. Yes, I > know this is entirely nebulous. We will be meeting once every two weeks > to review progress and ask ourselves one question: If I was a customer, > would I want the radio this week or would I want to wait two more weeks > until the next set of development is done? The whole concept here is > that > this radio is a PLATFORM, just like our previous radios. The software > will > never be complete -- to say that it is would be to say that we are no > longer interested in innovating in the software. We will continue > enhancing and expanding it -- adding new functions and features. We > practice Agile software development (see > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agile_software_development) which can be > uncomfortable for people who believe that everything should start with a > master plan and a set of tasks. But on a project this complex, having > the > flexibility to say "I know we had talked about working on band control > next > week, but we found when doing the codec software that we could > significantly enhance the capabilities if we took another week to work on > X > which we were in the code," is significant. > > In answer to your specific concern, at a minimum to help solidify the > questions and answers that have been asked here in the last few days, we > will be putting a FAQ up on the web. We are going to talk over the next > couple of days about how to keep those that have made a commitment to the > radio in the loop on our progress and I expect we will be getting back > with > you. I think there are benefits to both groups (us and you) in doing > this. Writing software is not a mechanical process: it is a creative > one. > Creativity takes time and space and requires nurturing. We are more > aware > than you can imagine of what we need to do over the next few months. > > I want to thank each of you for the amazing confidence you have in us as > demonstrated by becoming an owner of a FLEX-6000 radio. With the > hardware > done, we now need to go finish the software for the initial delivery! > > 73, > Steve > > Stephen Hicks, N5AC, AAR6AM > VP Engineering > FlexRadio Systems™ > 4616 W Howard Ln Ste 1-150 > Austin, TX 78728 > Phone: 512-535-4713 x205 > Email: [email protected] > Web: www.flexradio.com > > > > *Tune In Excitement™* > PowerSDR™ is a trademark of FlexRadio Systems > > _______________________________________________ Flexedge mailing list [email protected] http://mail.flex-radio.biz/mailman/listinfo/flexedge_flex-radio.biz This is the FlexRadio Systems e-mail Reflector called FlexEdge. It is used for posting topics related to SDR software development and experimentalist who are using beta versions of the software.
