[Elecraft] Memory Management for the KX3 on the Mac (OT)

[David Anderson]

Rick,

More off topic 

> On 12 Feb 2015, at 16:56, Rick Prather <rprather at mac.com> wrote:
> 
> When the Memory Manager first came out it was said that it would be ported to the Mac soon.  That was about three years ago...  
> Don't know what happened.

Yes, good point, I suppose it depends what was used for creating the software? It seems to rely on Microsoft stuff, that is probably the reason it isn't easily ported, so would need to be started from scratch. If enough people ask then maybe something would happen.


> 
> David you bring up an interesting topic.  I am of the opinion that the ability to run virtual machines (Parallels, Fusion, etc) on the Mac wound up costing us a lot of good Ham software.  Too often the answer given for running ham software on the Mac is to run it under Parallels, etc.
> 

Actually although all my testing of Windows stuff is done in Parallels, I don't actually like using it very much. I always used a real PC in the shack for things that I couldn't run on my Macintosh at the time, like WSJT. Though that has changed.


> If that option wasn't there I bet more talented programmers would have jumped in and written Mac specific software.

The OSX ham market just wasn't there for a long time. I made my MoonSked software cross platform, OSX, Windows and Linux. I sell 95% Windows users, the Mac is insignificant despite there being no other competing Mac products, yet many free Windows ones. Linux, forget about it, a couple that is all. 

Even free Mac/Windows software shows similar ratios of users I found. 

> 
> I hope we see more in the future.  There really are a lot of Hams that run Macs and would like to stay within OS X  for their software.

Maybe, but unfortunately in many cases hams have already got a Windows PC in the shack and have started to use it, it is then difficult to leave all that, especially since all the new stuff seems to come out on Windows first. 

What I would like to see if manufacturers of ham gear make sure they produce their software utilities for Mac, Windows and Linux, Elecraft are pretty good at doing this, just the memory manager seems to be missing.

As things seem to be running in browsers more and more, there is hope for more universal software.

73

David Anderson GM4JJJ