Hi RM

first of all: please sign with a real name. This is a requirement in the
usenet and should be good taste in a forum like this too. (Btw: If I would
be D. Döpfer, I would not care for a post of someone, who does not stand
for his name. But I don't speak for Doepfer).

So now to the topic: I am one of the first Schaltwerk users and Betatester
(mine is that old, that is has no CV interface). Chris Assall (the software
engineer at Doepfer) received a four pages of bugreport for the Schaltwerk.
We talked a five hours about it. The result was: the processor is on the
end of his power. So this is the truth as you stated.



The following is MY PERSONAL OPINION - nothing I know from Doepfer.

The Schaltwerk was assumingly an economic disaster: Originally developped
as an addition to the MAQ for Kraftwerk (and with a lot less features),
they decided to make a complete product out of it. Then there were a lot of
unnexpected problems (hardware and software). The developement time
exceeded any reasonable amount. So they had to make it quite expensive.
This caused, that sales did not run.
They tried to get some value return, by creating the Regelwerk (which we
can describe as the original idea: combination of Schaltwerk and MAQ).
It sold better and did not cost that much, since half of the development
was done already for the Schaltwerk. So it had a little better, but not
very good cash return.

So they had to invest energy, time and money into products, which give
better sales. And they had to do this immediately, since the sales from
other products (Keyboards, MS404, basic A100) had reached their max count
of possible sales. So they developped lowbudget versions of a faderbox.
This took all their manpower.

For such a small enterprise like Doepfer an unsuccessful product like the
Schaltwerk can be a killer problem. This would cause nine people becoming
unemployed. So I can accept that they invest in better selling products
instead of bugfixing of older products, which do not return any buck.

So far these are my private theories.



In fact I know that the bugfixes are still on the to do list at Doepfer.
Chris Assall called me last year, whether I had further complaints. So I
know it is deferred, but not kicked out.


Florian

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Florian Anwander |ConSol* HP-Support
Tel. +49.89.45841-133 |Consulting&Solutions Software GmbH
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