C70:info-cpm (06/04/82)
>From lauren@Ucla-Security Fri Jun 4 04:26:03 1982
"My Friends. We are all interested in the future, because that is where
you and I will spend the rest of our lives."
--- 'Kriswell' from
PLAN NINE FROM OUTER SPACE
So you wanna know about MARC, eh? Well, I guess I'm the one to
tell yah. As many of you know, I will *never* be convinced that
it is really finished -- I'll keep improving it and adding features
until doomsday if nothing stops me. However... in reality, we
are extremely close to being able to start LIMITED "invitation-only"
distribution. This may mean that if you ask nicely and are an
experienced user who doesn't need alot of handholding (and understands
what "preliminary" really means) you will probably get an invitation.
Users who already are familiar with Unix will have an easier time
getting started until I have time to write more tutorials for the
documentation.
The basic system, in a usable form, seems to be pretty stable right
now (in fact, I am using it at this instant). All major known
bugs have been fixed in the system proper... there are still some
problems floating around of a minor nature that are really more
along the lines of "features not setup exactly the way I'd like"
rather than bugs. The CP/M emulator exists and runs. It still
has some minor problems that I hope will be cleared up soon.
Release is primarily waiting on the required emulator fixes, some
fairly minor library support work needed for the C compiler, and
some substantial documentation updating that will be required before
even the preliminary version can be released.
I am sure that once people start hacking on the system a number of
new bugs will appear -- that's in the nature of such a complex
system, I guess. In any case, it should be possible to start
selling the thing sometime toward the end of the summer, assuming
that nothing really horrendous happens (like my hard disk collapsing
again, which it seems to do on a semi-regular basis).
Keep hanging in there.
--Lauren--
P.S. For those of you wondering why MARC has taken so long to
appear -- please remember that the project has been entirely
unfunded since day one. Since I consider it unethical to take
money until I have a product to deliver, the project has had
ZERO cash flow. Doesn't make things easy unless you're independently
wealthy (which I most certainly am NOT).
--LW--