Commodore Free 16/Commodore_Free_Issue_16_2008_Commodore_Computer_Club.d64/t.info cmd

Text File | 2023-02-26 | 6KB | 174 lines

u
CMD and Maurice Randel where did it all
go wrong?


It seems that users are venting out
there frustrations about Maurice in
various Commodore related chat rooms, I
have read everything from users trying
to take him to court or reporting him
the the authorities all the way up to
arranging a mob to go round and beat
the guy up complete with baseball bats.

For myself and I would imagine anyone
who has purchased equipment from
Maurice its a very frustrating
situation to be in. I ordered a SCPU
over 3 years ago and am still waiting;
I had little in the way of an email to
apologise and my asking for a refund or
even asking Maurice to explain in the
magazine has come to nothing I can't
see the point of phoning long distance
as others have tried and just had
verbal abuse from Maurice.

I personally feel Maurice is now over
his head with too many orders and will
never find the time to complete any of
these ever!, software or hardware I
think he is so behind he has just given
up. I remember reading that  Mauruce
lost his father recently to cancer and
I am truly sorry if this is true, but
why not just be upfront and apologise
and explain what has happened instead
of letting people think the worse.
Personally I tried going down the
Paypal route to claim but it would
appear that to much time has passed so
its now looking like I have lost my
money sending screaming emails to
paypal didnt exactly help me.

Getting upset and sending threats isn't
going to help me and while I am not
happy to loose money what can I do?
Keep complaining and sending nasty
emails and moaning in chat rooms? I
think we need to move on, if someone
can claim back the money somehow maybe
if we all hire a solicitor (more cost)
and have a mass court case we may get
something back. Otherwise I think we
need to look at the future and remove
CMD from Maurice, who may continue to
support Geos and Wheels with updates or
just turn his back on many loyal
customers.

I think the rights to produce the CMD
hardware should be removed from Maurice
as soon as possible and given to
someone who can better utilise them,
while I realise there is little
monetary gain in CMD products and the
development of new products is more a
labour of love then a full time job, I
think many users would be interested in
the rights to produce devices.

I would really like to see the
following for the continuation of CMD
products:

 The current devices
  * CMD Hard disk
  * CMD Supercpu
  * CMD Floppy drive
  * CMD Ramlink

Of course we need software to go with
these products and Maurice owns the
rights to Geos and wheels, yes GEOS is
free but you can only use the free
version with PD public domain software
not the commercial software we all want
to utilise, I dont mind paying for
software, I am not saying it should all
be free.The CMD hardware should
continue as is to ensure full
compatibility with existing products
Wheels/GEOS etc. this would be the
quickest option for the products and
may even see hardware back on line from
companies like Protovisions and I would
like to see a new line of products to
be created from scratch like a combined
Accelerator and hard disk using Solid
state medium, like the IDE 64 but a
Commercial sealed unit with slots for
adding Solid media and interfaces for
external disks maybe using USB/ fire
wire, and a slot inside to add an
accelerator add-on, various options are
available but I think the designs need
pooling together to form one device,
although floppy disks have now been
dropped from the PC world many people
still use them for 8 and 16 bit
systems, maybe this could all be
combined into one device.

Costs are always difficult to work out
how much would some one pay for a
device, If the CMD original products
could be mass produced rather than
produced by hand using plastic casing
or moulded metal cases then costs could
be reduced, although the SCPU and
RAMLINK use very hard to find memory
modules and this should be addressed,
of course fully compatible with
existing hardware.

Maybe if enough people wanted such
devices we could generate a market in
the hope someone would take up the CMD
redesign.  As I have said no one is
going to get rich selling products to
Commodore users, well except maybe
Maurice who owes money to people and
hasn't paid back or produced the goods.
Its a shame that all this has happened,
as Maurice asked for donations to buy
the rights to produce CMD products in
the first place.

Maurice has been offered help on many
occasions but would rather work alone
to produce devices, with SCPU
accelerators selling for mega money on
eBay does this show demand for
products? Maybe I could print a list of
CMD products and the number of people
wanting them in the Magazine? Also the
amount you think the products should
cost, to give the designers an idea
whether it would be worth spending time
to do the projects.

Well thats what I think, and while I am
still a little upset about my loss I
know others who have lost a lot more
poor Alan from Commodore scene took
money for the import service and sent
it to Maurice after years of promises
the goods never arrived and Alan is now
having to refund from his own pocket.
Maurice if you are reading this please
feel guilty, you have caused a lot of
stress to people. I don't want to be
badmouthing as I have said, there must
be a reason and from what people say
Maurice is a good guy, lets hope
something can be resolved but quickly,
whoever Maurice licences CMD products
and IP from please take it back

Comments welcome
Commodore Free