PSX Updates Pace

[MFarhadi]

Hi,

I wanted to bring some attention to the fact that the last update on the PSX happened in September of last year, almost 6 months ago.

There are possibly two reasons that the update pace has been slow:

1. Hardy has spent the cold and gloomy months of Autumn and Winter in somewhere much nicer than Germany (probably Cyprus, or maybe Hawaii)

2. PSX is already perfect and does not need any revisions.

I would personally lean towards option 2, but would be happy to hear that option 1 was also exercised to some extent.

Best,

[voipmeister]

Good software doesn't need (frequent) updates. I like to think that 20 to 30 years ago, you'd buy software that would maybe receive one or two updates since it was released at a good maturity level. These days, 'time-to-market' is more important and sub-par software is released by the responsible people, fashionably yelling #shipit #yolo and subsequent updates are rolled out later. Of course the facts that most PCs are always connected to the internet and bandwith has grown (for most people) hasn't helped in that regard.

Tesla for instance has made an artform of updating their cars over-the-air, but at least their cars get updates. Legacy manufacturers lag behind as they used to be very conservative. I hear horror stories of people updating their legacy brand EVs and brick them, so they tend to do the updates at the dealership and confront them with the mess if it fails

Having used MSX and ZX Spectrum+ computers when I was younger, I was amazed by what people could cram into 16 or 48Kb memory. Programmers wrote efficient software to get the most out of the hardware. These days, memory is plentiful (albeit expensive at the moment too) so there's not much incentive to optimize software.

/rant over, I feel old

Oh, one more thing: updates for games and programs shouldn't be forced like with MSFS. If X-Plane could replace MSFS2024, I'd opt for that: like PSX it is portable across OSes and no forced updates! The only could auto-updating I see is for routers connected to the internet directly. But I like to control those, too

[MFarhadi]

Cannot agree more, Seb.

I was just joking with Hardy. Let's see if he actually reveals his favorite sunny vacation spot...

[B747-400]

Gents, I guess you missed option 3!

Hardy is silently working on another simulator 😉

Ok, jokes aside – I think PSX is mostly number 2, and I sincerely hope that Hardy can also enjoy option 1.

Seb, you are totally right about what you said. My first "computer" was a Philips P2000T, connected to a TV set. My second was also an MSX, a Philips VG-8235 model.

So, not talking about our ages, but when I look back at my first days in the IT business, I worked with 8" floppy disks and a Philips P400 without any terminal on the "server", just a 132-character system printer. All commands and error messages were printed in those days. An immense amount of paper was wasted.

BR,
Hans

[Hardy Heinlin]

Hi Mohammadreza,

I'm several decades older than you; at my age, ten years feel as short as ten weeks at your age :-) (And ten weeks at your age feel as short as ten days when you were a baby.)

Secondly, PSX is so error-free that there's nothing significant to fix :-)

I have some minor feature items on my todo list, but I prefer to put them in one update instead of releasing a micro update for every single item every few weeks.


Regards,

|-|ardy

[Hardy Heinlin]

I've split the discussion on the Philips P2000T to this thread:

https://aerowinx.com/board/index.php/topic,7948.0.html

[alcannata]

Hi!
Twelve years is an exceptional duration for a simulation software, particularly if it is still unsurpassed like as PSX.
Unbelievable price/quality ratio! A very profitable investment, indeed.
Grazie Hardy! We remains endebted for your constant technical support.

Aldo

[Hardy Heinlin]

I have some minor feature items on my todo list, but I prefer to put them in one update instead of releasing a micro update for every single item every few weeks.

Now available: PSX 10.186.

https://aerowinx.com/board/index.php/topic,4191.0.html


|-|ardy

[MFarhadi]

Can we have a Tip function to the forum for each update?
*Joking*

[United__744]

I would pay for a -8 update! There was something else mentioned a few years ago being a paid update if it happened, but I can't recall what it was.

[ASCTU744]

We used to have lots of updates, but I'm convinced that depended entirely on some forum users geting really specific or testing scenario's that were outside the realm of any conventional normal or non-normal scenario. Hardy knows exactly what I'm talking about

P.S. But also because PSX got the fundamentals right, PMDG seems to have been much more focused on the surface level stuff which may made development cheap and easy but was destined to result in a lot of problems down the road. I'd even go as far and say that Aerowinx may even be an emulator at this point.