The main survey page is here:
http://www.nonstickglue.com/QL_Hardware_Library/Survey.html
Nicely laid out, Dave.
Some comments, for discussion, based on just a quick look through the
results earlier this morning:
Question 1: Only 3% with a 128K or 640K QL. Seems to fly in the face
of Geoff's survey for Quanta a few years ago when a surprising number
of members were using a basic QL. But, add in the first 4 results
(above QXL) and it suddenly becomes 26% of people using a QL with any
type of expansion up to Super Gold Card. I did rather expect that the
QL emulators section would be the single largest category, even if 45%
(commercial) plus 5% (free) seemed larger than I expected. And 9%
using Q40/Q60 as a main QL system surprised me, I'd expected about
half that.
Question 12: glad I'm doing something right!
Question 13: 95% able to program in SuperBASIC. Rather surprises me,
but assuming replies came mostly from list-members, I've always
thought that most people on this list might consider themselves more
experienced than, say, a lot of Quanta members or QL Today readers?
Does that sound elitist? Wasn't meant to.
Question 14: 56% able to program in Assembly Language - Norman
Dunbar's QL Today articles have obviously worked well here!
Question 16: given that the survey was mainly publicised through
ql-users list, I'm surprised only a third of people said they
subscribed to it???
The low percentage of people subscribing to Quanta and QL Today
probably speaks for itself (although later answers substantially
increase these figures), but could be partially due to people who are
not as active on the QL scene as they used to be, but remain in
contact with the QL scene via this list, which is probably why this
particular survey gives Quanta and QL Today a poor result. I suspect
we've seen plenty of comments on this list including someting like "I
no longer subscribe to Quanta/QL Today, but...". The question is, do
people remain on this list just to keep in touch without the cost of
subscribing to anything (no real reason to subscribe if they are not
regularly using a QL), or is there something that both organisations
could do to entice these back? Comments from people who are on this
list and not subscribing to either organisation welcome.
Question 17: 15% members of Quanta in Q.16, 29% here. Is the doubling
a statistical blip caused by a fairly small number of responses, was
one of the questions worded so as not to extract the same reply or
what?
ID 4347254: The response about the overseas delivery, "...belief that
sending the newsletter to foreign countries should come AFTER all the
domestic members received their and thus show an inability to factor
in 10+ extra days of transit -- THAT is symptomatic of how they view
the World and/or the membership ... i.e., it's a local club that they
allow others to contribute to"
I'm not quite sure what to make of this - I presume that John Gilpin
has been sending ALL issues out at the same time (not checked with
him), and if so, is the suggestion that Quanta should hold posting UK
mags back for 10 days? I've been a member of Quanta since 1984, my
postal copy regularly seems to arrive one or two days after other UK
members get theirs, even though it's the same British postal system
(probably just the usual "West of Chester" syndrome).
Question 18: As with the Quanta figures, this shows 50% more QL Today
subscribers than the original Question 16?!?!
Question 20: 71% sharing files via email - to be expected in this day
and age, figure may be a little higher here as this is a survey where
all users by definition use email to know about this survey, but the
21% still using floppies surprises me.
Question 21: 78% using their QL for programming and personal use. In
line with my expectations.
Question 22: I'm surprised the response wasn't even higher in citing
internet access as "critical". Of course, QPC2, QemuLator and uQLx
have the base ability here, but we only have Jonathan Hudson's
programs as applications. Dave - get working on those apps you
mentioned - they'll do well!
Question 24: 46% using a Windows system, no surprises there. The
figure for OSX is a little higher than I'd expected, but it looks like
Daniele correctly predicted the need for a OSX QemuLator here.
In summary, this survey was a fairly smal and limited one, as others
have remarked. Hopefully, the experience from this one should mean
even better results from the next one. Well done to Dave for putting
it together quickly and getting the results out pronto (even if the
list did sabotage his first results effort).
Dilwyn Jones
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