FreeRunner delayed a further 6 months?!?!??

Matt Manjos matt at manjos.com
Sun Mar 16 19:26:23 CET 2008


On Sun, Mar 16, 2008 at 11:39 AM, Mark Haury <wolfmane at gmail.com> wrote:
> Matt Manjos matt at manjos.com wrote on Sun Mar 16 16:23:09 CET 2008:
>
>  >I think the main concern with FIC at the moment is that if they
>  >release the Freerunner developer-only hardware now, produced in 10x
>  >the quantity of the 1973 (what was hinted to earlier), and some major
>  >hardware problem was found, it could destroy the credibility and the
>  >resources of the project. I hate waiting like this, and I was hoping
>  >to get the Freerunner developer model for my birthday in a few weeks,
>  >but I'd much rather wait and have the guarantee that I won't be SOL if
>  >there is a problem with the function or the longevity of the device.
>
>  Which is worse: the fear of possible failure, or certain failure?
>
>  The fear of failure is usually self-fulfilling prophecy.
>
>  Nothing ventured, nothing gained.
>
>  If they're constantly going to give in to the fear of failure, then that
>  is certainly what's going
>  to happen.
>
>  Mark
>
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>

Buying each one of the 5 GTA02 hardware revisions, if they were sold
to the public, would have cost me $2250 so far, not including
shipping, taxes and customs/duty charges. Each one of those revisions
fixed multiple hardware bugs, some of them very serious. "Certain
failure" as you put it would be to release a piece of hardware that
might burn out because of an obscure, improperly placed resistor or
capacitor and making the community foot the bill every time a $450
hardware revision is produced.

Perhaps waiting for this device feels longer BECAUSE of the openness
of FIC's prototyping/development process. "Watching paint dry" I
believe is the expression, as we see small, incremental changes
instead of a large "splash". If FIC was closed and secretive as to the
prototyping/testing process for their hard drive, and NO information
was given as to a final release date, we wouldn't have anything to
complain about.




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