Executor 2.0/executorv2.0.iso/pc/linux/extra/docs/maillist/text/archive.96/text0309.txt

Text File | 1996-07-25 | 9.9 KB | 188 lines

Hi Folks,

Sorry for the long delay in getting this out.  By the time we got back
to Albuquerque, I had managed to catch a cold that got into my lungs
and made me miss half of last week (Monday, half of Thursday and
Friday).  I spent Tuesday and Wednesday taking care of business and
meant to write things up on Thursday, but I didn't come back to work
after dinner on Thursday night, so this is the first chance I've had
since then.

On Saturday morning, sometimes ARDI employee Bill Goldman, my wife
Sophia and I hopped in our car to make the two day drive from
Albuquerque to the bay area.  Vissually dissimilar -- we managed to
pack all bags and computer equipment into the trunk without requiring
a single bungie cord -- to the Beverly Hillbillies, nonetheless, the
beginning of our trip had a black and white, fifties sitcom, feel: a
cast of odd characters from the boonies peddling a quirky product to a
large collection of potential non-customers (MACWORLD Expo attendees
tend to have fewer PCs than the average computer wielding rabble).

The drive out was uneventful with the stirring exception of the novel
wakeup call we were treated to Sunday morning.  Saturday night we
stopped in Ludlow California.  Around 6:30 a.m. Sunday morning, as we
were contemplating getting up and driving, the room jumped briefly due
to a 5.2 magnitude earthquake centered somewhere near Bakersfield
(UTC:143252.5 Lat: 35.737N Long: 117.646).  No big deal to our jaded
cousins Californian, but perhaps an omen.

Monday morning I had a meeting with the president of a company that is
interested in working with ARDI to see that we meet our goals for 1996
(to be native for Windows '95 and other platforms, to support INITs,
CDEVs, serial ports and AppleTalk and to be able to drop System 7.5 on
top of Executor and get the remaining increases in compatibility and
functionality that would make a Pentium+Executor+System 7.5 a superior
alternative in all ways to all 68040 based Macs).

I'm quite embarrassed to admit it, but my presentation of Executor at
this meeting went poorly.  I brought "Presto", our TI-4000M (8 MB 75
MHz DX4) laptop, loaded with what I thought was 1.99q and "Demo" a 1
gig portable drive with our software testing library loaded on it.
Rather than give a rigged demo where I go through a canned set of
applications, but leave the viewer wondering what would happen if I
were to depart from the script, my plan was to show some good features
of Executor and then demo arbitrary applications by request.  I have
been on both sides of the demo process before, and I was presenting
the type of demo that I myself would find most persuasive, at least I
myself would have found it persuasive had 1.99q been loaded onto
Presto.

What was on Presto was a precursor to 1.99q that I had built during
the 1.99q creation process.  When we built 1.99q, we took what should
have been the official release and tested each version (DOS + four
variants of Linux + two variants of NEXTSTEP) on an appropriate
machine.  Since we discovered problems with the first build of 1.99q,
we did some debugging, fixed the problems and made another build.  It
was as part of this process that the mongrel version of 1.99q was
created -- it had a "1.99q" stamp, but failed the testing process.
Although we did do a lot of testing of the real E/D 1.99q, apparently
it was never loaded onto Presto.

So, the demo portion of our meeting was a bust.  Executor paged so
thoroughly that no large applications could really be demonstrated.  I
apologized, and we continued discussing a potential teamup -- my host
admitted to having seed demos go awry previously.  Although I *never*
want to go through
bring-a-mortally-wounded-experimental-version-to-a-key-meeting hell
again, I'm left hopeful, knowing that engineers from the important
company did visit with us at our booth and were able to see Executor
run and knowing that we have since made Executor available to them for
testing personally in their own labs.

After the meeting, we picked up Mat at the airport, drove to Moscone
and dropped of our equipment at our booth.  Because we were late in
deciding to go to Expo and got our booth materials request in late,
the booth was not yet furnished, so, after waiting around a few hours
with no progress, we headed off to Fondue Fred in Berkeley, for all we
could eat salad, fondue, beer, wine and cheesecake.

Tuesday morning, the first day of actual exhibits started with the
ARDI booth not having a sign.  Due to our late registration, we were
not listed in the main list of exhibitors, although we were one of the
first entries in the (alphabetically arranged) addenda.  Still,
without a sign, we needed Mat to call out to passers by to let them
know that we had Mac software running on PCs.  By afternoon, our sign:

      EXECUTOR
    100% Native

    Run Mac Apps
     on your PC

had been placed and more people were dropping by of their own accord.

Many interesting people stopped by the ARDI booth, including no less
than Guy Kawasaki himself.  I had exchanged some e-mail with Guy
previously and was glad he could stop by.

Personally, I had hopes that Apple could "embrace" our technology.
With Apple's blessing and a license to their 68k MacOS System 7.5 code
We could rapidly make a set of products that would be useful to Apple
strategically and financially, but Guy was less than convinced that
such a creation would be a boon to Apple and was 100% convinced that
even if that *were* the case that corporate culture would nix such
plans and hence any time spent trying to get an audience with Apple
now would be time totally wasted.

Guy did suggest that we "wrapperize" (not his word, he chooses his
words carefully) Executor so that Mac ISVs would be able to integrate
the Executor engine into their product and be able to release a
cross-platform version of their software with significantly less fuss
than traditional ports require.  This is an avenue we have already
been exploring, although with Executor 2.0 behind schedule, we're
expecting to do most of the wrapperization after E2 ships.

Thoughout the week we were honored to be visited by engineers from
Apple, members of the press, and people who wrote some of the software
that runs (or doesn't, in some cases) under Executor.  As Ernst Oud
reported earlier, MacWEEK's daily Expo special mentioned us on
Thursday the 11th as the first entry in their Show Tips column on page 3:

    ``ARDI (Booth #4566) is selling $99 "pre-beta" copies of
      Executor 2.0, its Mac emulation software for Intel standard
      PCs, Unix and NeXT platforms.  The software runs about 60
      percent to 70 percent of System 6-compatible software but
      not programs that require System 7, networking or serial
      connections.  A 90-MHz Pentium system runs like a 45-MHz
      Quadra 610, ARDI said, ...''

That information is a little incorrect, but we still appreciate the
press.  In some ways, we wish we *had* been selling copies of Executor
at the show, but due to Executor's limitations, we wanted people to
pick up a copy from the net first and try it and then order it from us
in NM after they had a chance to see what it did and didn't do.

We had hoped that during the week of Expo and the week following it
that we'd sell double the number of copies of Executor that we
normally sell.  However, perhaps because there were so few of us
available to handle our normal e-mail and Usenet duties during Expo
and we had few people at ARDI during the week after due to scheduled
vacation time and unexpected illness, we actually sold fewer copies
than normal.  Ouch.

The lack of sales has temporarily put a crimp in our budget, but we
made many good contacts and will be following up on them as we get E2
into beta.  We have yet to see what the press thought of us, but
expect that all told our visit to MACWORLD Expo will be a big net win,
even though it delayed E2 going beta by at least three weeks.  The
next time we go to a trade show, ARDI will not have so few employees
and as such the world will not have to stop while we are at a show,
although I understand that Apple themselves are slightly less
responsive immediately preceeding and during Expo, so perhaps I'm
wrong and ARDI is doomed to a similar fate.

Saturday morning Bill, Sophy, and I drove Mat to the airport so he
could fly off to vacation back east with his friends from MIT and
swing by his home town in Kansas before returning to ARDI.  The ride
back to Albuquerque was totally uneventful, the biggest non-event
associated with it is that I caught a cold and was running a slight
fever by Sunday evening when we unloaded the equipment.  Being sick
and it being Martin Luther King's birthday (observed), I took Monday
off.  Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday I came in and started hacking
away at e-mail, netnews, voice mail, contacts I had made at Expo and
plans for how we could team up with various companies to make sure
that we meet our goals for 1996.  My cold was still giving me trouble
and unwittingly I infected Melissa -- she was out sick Thursday and
Friday.  After going out to dinner on Thursday I decided to try to
shake whatever bug I was fighting off and went home Thursday evening
and didn't come back until earlier today, Monday.

Although being sick for a week afterward was no fun, Expo itself was
invigorating.  Almost universally Executor was applauded in concept,
speed, and cost.  Still, the fact that Executor 2 will still have many
limitations will make it tricky to sell, and Copland and PPC-only apps
are on the way.  ARDI needs to kick into high gear, get Executor 2
shipping and simultaneously get to work removing Executor's
limitations and also make it receptive to System 7.5 -- 68k first and
PPC later.  We have the knowledge and and know the engineers who we
can make this happen, but we do not currently have the budget to get
us there.  Expo was a reminder of this, but also an introduction to
the people and corporations who will make this happen.

I greatly appreciate everyone's patience that allowed us to go to
expo.  On now to getting E2 out the door, and beyond.

--Cliff
[e-mail]