[Elecraft] OT: Flex & SDR Design

[Edward R. Cole]

Changing the subject line to fit the topic.

Definitely see the advantage of the embedded processor with firmware 
upgrades considering what Tony wrote.  A lot of us running ham 
specific sw are having these legacy issues with the continual upgrade 
of OS.  In fact I have a win95 P75 laptop and p100 desktop for 
running old DOS programs and still running my XP32 computer to avoid 
compatibility issues.  (but did sell off an old P3 win2000).  I have 
an idle P3 upgraded to xp32 which does nothing anymore (antivirus has 
expired with no use).  It might get used for dedicated antenna 
pointing controller/sw for eme.

We bought a Laptop during the Vista interlude and should have 
upgraded it to Seven, but now there is Eight.

Installing an embedded processor allows the SDR mfr to control sw 
upgrades in a more rational and economic manner.  I suppose this is 
the way new SDR's will go?  If so then there needs to be open 
sourcing for sw developers to make additions and improvements outside 
of the mfr.  It does amateur radio no service to have the design locked up.

That is the Apple model.  But will severely hamper ham radio SDR development.

73, Ed
--------------------
Date: Mon, 21 May 2012 13:40:59 -0500
From: Tony Estep <esteptony at gmail.com>
Subject: Re: [Elecraft] [OT] Dayton- new hf rigs?

Naw, the client that displays the pan and controls the radio appears to be
not too different from, say, Ham Radio Deluxe. Of course you can run lots
of pans at once and increase the computing needed, but the radio part is
all on the ARM chip inside.

This is an interesting gambit on Flex's part. They absolutely have to get
out from under PSDR, which has been a huge resource drain with no
offsetting revenues. And they were facing obsolescence problems: a new
version of Firewire, USB 3.0, new Windows OS, etc were making them run hard
to stay in the same place with the old designs. OTOH, leaving the old
designs and their installed user base in the dust kinda makes the claim
that the radio can never go out of style sound a bit hollow -- their old
designs are now orphans and that situation will only get worse. An HQ-110
still performs as it did 50 years ago, but a radio that depended on an
Atari 400 or an Apple 1 would just be junk. That could be the eventual fate
of the existing Flex radios, and this new design makes that point in a
trenchant way. It's a very promising design, a huge upgrade, and a huge
amount of addition by subtraction; but it illustrates the difficulties and
dangers of SDR as a business plan.

Tony KT0NY




73, Ed - KL7UW, WD2XSH/45
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