[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
> ...It's a huge effort to
> produce something that has equivalent functionality to the Windows console
> on an OS and audio subsystem that is really quite different...
Frank Brickle wrote:
>All right. Let me try to give an honest (rather than glib) answer to
>Eric2's original question.
>First, there isn't a finished, well-rounded Linux console yet because
>there isn't a strong enough demand for it. The experts who have been
>building their own GUIs (Bob, John, Edson) have been seeing to their own
>needs.
>This is possible because the design of the underlying DSP code has been
>decoupled and modular from the very beginning. It was built from day one
>on the idea of making separate and/or remote control as *simple* as
>possible.
>People who are interested in an
>"I-don't-care-just-give-me-a-working-console-with-the-features-I-want"
>interface already *have* the Windows version. It's hard to argue for
>duplicating that. (My own opinion is that Mac OSX is probably a better
>platform for that, but never mind.)
>Empirically the people who want a Linux version want something *else*.
>Personally, I have been privately detesting the monolithic Windows
>console since the VB days. I've been calling it the "horseless carriage
>SDR" since the beginning. It's like the original automobiles that were
>styled to look like a horse-drawn vehicle that just happened to be
>missing a horse. Making a long rant short, I believe that hobbling an
>SDR with a glass front panel that's hard to work is a way to hold SDR
>development back in a crippling way, in the medium and long terms.
>The clearest illustration of this is the matter of multiple receivers.
>The DSP software has been capable of providing multiple independent RX
>channels in the passband for many months. It isn't there in PowerSDR
>because the interface won't support it. That's because the
>glass-front-panel model, in any manifestation, just sucks eggs. Putting
>on skins is like rearranging deck chairs on the etc.
>This is not a prejudice that came out of nowhere. I have been intensely
>involved in using computers for processing music sound since 1970, when
>we used to have to drive to Bell Labs in Murray Hill to get D/A
>conversion of our digital tapes. These interface issues have been
>thrashed over time and time again in the computer music world for thirty
>years. The lesson is always the same. Highly proficient users want and
>need different things than beginners when it comes to complex
>interfaces. Windows and mice are hopelessly inadequate to capture the
>repertoire and gestural vocabulary of expert users. It's kind of like
>when electronic keyboards went polyphonic. Adding a second tone
>generation section isn't a 2X improvement, it's an improvement by 1/88.
>Binding your interface to a visual model based on physical resemblance
>is a *terrible* idea in the long run. The GUI needs to fit the *mental
>model of a the community of experts*. At present the experts are still
>learning.
>The Linux console is ultimately going to be a coalescence of the lessons
>learned from the great work by Bob, John, Edson, and others. It's a good
>bet the result won't look much like PowerSDR.
I started to formulate a reply to Larry and then binned it. You have put far
more elegantly than I could have done why things are where they are. We are
a selfish lot, switching strategy, swapping language seemingly at a whim.
It's all part of the learning process though and if nothing else we know a
lot of what not to do. The collateral is not in the lines of code in the
different consoles, it's in the knowledge gained.
The jsdr is a stunning piece of code and makes it possible for people to get
involved that would never have gotten off the ground otherwise, me included.
It does not suffer the same kind of uncertainty as the console because it
has a specialized job to do and it does it extremely well within a very nice
structure. Whilst we might play with the interface there is little need to
dig any deeper.
The biggest challenge now is getting a quorum to agree on the right route.
Enough critical mass to start building the ultimate beast!
Bob (G3UKB)
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