CompuServe Messages

Ed, Its a complex issue how to cover the flaws in a product, and you're right, the PAR is a good example, because its not perfect but it does the job and for most people quite well… I really don't know what to say other than that. The legal issues are equally complex… but the tendency is to play it safe and there are lots of rather involved reasons for that too. I was pretty hard on the PAR when it came out because I felt it was being way over glorified, actually I still do, but its found its own equilibrium, and if it were to be released today, I'd still have the same dilemma about how it should be handled. Frankly I think you could draw a fairly comparitive analogy between the PAR and Ani Studio… Though the PAR on the outset delivered more up front, Ani Studio has tremendous potential, the problem as I see it is that a) it had to be ported to Windows because Win 95 was too much a gamble, and b) it was an incredibly ambitious undertaking… personally I don't feel anything short of NT is going to resolve it, and this is due to hardware and harddisk realities… Its alot of program for the system to carry… and that's the biggest problem… that and the fact it was ported to Windows in the first place… with twenty twenty hindsight, I still don't know what would have made a difference… what I'm trying to say here is, I think the took the most prudent course, but in the end it was a compromise and not a comprise you or I would have wanted to make, but in their case they had no choice… so you live with it… in a year or so, it'll be one of the hotest programs out there IMO as I don't see anything on the horizon that's going to compete, especailly at it price level… The kinds of applications you're talking about with a 100 mb swap file is precisely the point I was trying to make… Tom mentioned the difficulties in the article of running flc files in windows… only a year ago get 15 fps was a pretty spectacular achievement… now it fairly common, in another year all of this will be forgotten as well… timing and growing pains, and Tom provided good insight on what could realistically be expected, without distorting the truth or over glorifying the program but just spelling it out in a positive fashion… Next time I like an article someone has done… I'm going to do them a favor and keep my pen in quill… <g> John