[HPCC-Conf] Conference Report

[Tony Duell]

[I am not sure this should be on the mailing list, but as Richard has 
made some unpleasant and IMHO incorrect comments here, I feel I have to 
give my version as well]

> At 10/3/200210:56 PM+0100, you wrote:
> > > The situation this year was exceptional.  HP was gone for over two years.
> >
> >This is not a valid reason, IMHO, particularly not at an HPCC conference
> >(which this claimed to be, even though I somewhat doubt it was!).
> 
> You have made these comments several times.  I am not sure what you

I've explained this in my reply to Joe Horn. Basically, the conference 
was partially organised by you, a non-member, it was run almost entirely 
as you wished (so it was really the same as one of your conferences), and 
I feel it was run for the benefit of American club members, not HPCC 
members. That's why I don't think of it as an HPCC event.

> mean by them.  I assisted Wlodek with the Conference to help him.
> Let me say this again - to help him.  He was in charge at all times and
> he knew what was going on at all times.  You clearly don't know what

You seem to think that Wlodek == HPCC. I do not.

> > > The "new" team was meeting the "Community" for the first time.  We
> > > had no idea what to expect just they had no idea what to expect.  I think
> >
> >That's not my complaint. My comment is that it should have been made
> >clear from the start
> 
> The start of what?  Do you think that there is a time when you know
> exactly what and when is going to happen at the conference?

Therre darn well should be!

> You don't understand how dynamic these things are.  You are too

That is the big problem. What _you_ fail to realise, I think, is that 
these last minute changes, extra talks, etc removed parts of the 
conference that I personally would have enjoyed (namely time to talk to 
other enthusiasts). Oh, you got all the talks _you_ wanted, but....

> rigid in your expectations.  Will you be the one to stand up and say -
> WAIT, I just noticed that the slide said something we don't agree
> with - and then get everyones agreement as what to do next?  Three
> people fly thousands of miles because they were invited and you

I was against inviting _anybody_ from the start!. I don't feel it's 
necessary or even desirable. Unless your idea of the conference is to 
have the same old crowd meeting up each year at various places. But then 
again, at least one of the conference organisers has admitted to me 
that's precisely what he wanted.

I'd rather have people coming who _want_ to come, talking about what they 
want to talk about. That way you might at least get some presentations 
with content...

> will do that?  Life is not so ideal in the real world.
> 
> >that the conference details would be published
> >as/when the organisers saw fit.  And that we should not accept
> >presentations
> 
> You make making assumptions that are not valid.  We had now
> idea who was coming or exactly what they would say.  I will bet

This does not mean you can't lay down some ground rules that would apply 
no matter who was coming and what they were talking about!

> that they were not sure either until they sized up the group.  You
> keep assuming an ideal world, it is not.  I agree with you in principle
> and some day you may be the one making the decisions - Good luck.

In some ways you remind me of a manager I once had to put up with. His 
view was that if something had always been done in a certain way, then it 
had to be done that way, and there was no reason to try anything else 
(even if someebody had good reasons for thinking it would be an 
improvement). I, of course, regarded him as an idiot.

I am assuming you've never tried to run a conference where everything is 
rigidly defined in advance -- no last minute talks, full ground rules set 
out. I haven't either.

But I have been to several 'proper' conferences (not HP calculator 
related) where the timetable was rigidly defined in advance, where there 
were clear conditions placed on a presentation, and so on. And I can 
assure you I enjoyed them a lot more than this HPCC conference, for all 
the subject matter should have been less interesting to me. 

Perhaps an HP calculator conference run rigidly would be a disaster, I 
don't know. Perhaps it would be a great success. But the only way to find 
out is tor try it. And that will never happen if all the major conferences 
around the world are essentially organised by one person.


> > > That balance of independence and sharing mutual interests is a difficult
> > > one that each group has to work out on an incident by incident basis.  This
> > > "balance" between our interests and HP's interests is a vital part of who
> >
> >I really don't see why?  

> You will eventually, given more time.

Not unless somebody explains it to me...

At one time I could see a clear benefit to the club of 'keeping on the 
right side of HP'. Namely that they'd release useful, internal, 
information to us. But AFAIK they've released no detailed information to 
clubs on any of the RPL machines (if they have, then the general HPCC 
members have never seen it!). And if they're no longer designing and 
making calculators (only specifying designs  for other companies to 
make), then I feel it's unlikely they'll even have information to release 
in the future.


> 
> NOMAS is a user group concept designed by me, negotiated by me, and
> only possible because we were part of the "HP family".  You can be sure
> of one thing.  The kind of information that we obtained in the past would
> not have been available if the group was independent of HP.  We

Sure, but that was then and this is now... Have you managed to get the 
source code, or IC data, for any of the RPL machines under NOMAS? Do you 
feel you'll be able to get such information on future machines?

> accomplished the impossible in some cases.  I told one story about the
> use of PPC EPROMS.  I am sorry, what you suggest is contrary to what
> has worked very well for 28 years.  Of course things have changed,

AS I said above. 'It's worked for 20 years, so we can't possibly consider 
changing it'....

> but still there are reasons to consider HP's needs.  We all want the same
> thing - the best possible machines.

If you honestly think HP would make the machines you and I really want, 
then I really feel you are living in another world! HP do _not_ want to 
make the best possible machines any more. That much is obvious to anyone 
who has ever used an HP49G...

> 
> >I have to ask 'what can HP really do for user groups now'? I think 'very
> >little.
> 
> Will you donate five HP49's to the next conference?  Check with Wlodek
> on what was gained by HPCC.

Oh, this is pathetic! The reason to keep in with HP is so that we get 
free machines to give away as door prizes ??!?!?

I was against the whole idea of prizes at the conference, BTW. I have 
never been to any conference other than an HPCC one where there are 
prizes of any description. And certainly not randomly-chosen door prizes. 
But the American conferences have always had door prizes so we have them 
too...

I am not at all convinced that anyone attended the conference so as to 
get a chance of winning a door prize. I know it didn't affect my decision 
to attend _at all_. Most (all!) people came to meet others and to listen 
to the presentations. 

Just let me indicate why I am worried about the club becoming too 
closely connected with HP : 

A few years ago I was involved in a club project called the '42SV 
project'. AS you doubtless know, the HP42 has an 8K RAM chip in it, a 
standard low-power 6264 chip. After cracking a machine open and examining 
the PCB, I realised that a 32K RAM chip (a stnadard 62256) would also 
work if you changed a solder-blob configureation pad. So I desoldered the 
8K chip, soldered in a new 32K chip and moved the blob. The internal 
software was clearly designed to work with such a configuration -- it 
recognised the extra RAM with no problems (FWIW, the firmware in the 
17B-II will not use more RAM, even though it's trivial to fit the 32K 
chip to this machine also -- it's actually the same PCB). We named the 
result the 42SV for the obvious reason. Please note that I had no inside 
information from HP to do this -- I just took a machine apart and probed 
around inside, like I often do.

So, if it's so easy and cheap to fit the 32K RAM (I think the chip in 
1-off quantities was around \pounds 10.00), why didn't HP sell a '42SV'. 
One reason suggested (I have no idea if this is correct, but assume it is 
for the moment) is that it was a marketting decision so that the 42S 
would not overly compete against the 48SX. If that's true, then HP might 
have been unhappy with us for making a couple. Now legally there's 
nothing they can do about it, but if the club was not totally independant 
of HP, then they might prevent the club from discussing such things, from 
printing photos of the modified PCB, and so on. That's something I would 
not want to happen.

IMHO the ability to discuss what we like is much more important than 
getting door prizes.


> >Acrurate, yes. But we should not delay an issue just to suit HP's ideas.
> 
> You miss the point completely.  Again you are so rigid in your thinking.
> HP doesn't care when you publish, they just want it to be appropriate in
> its timing.   It is getting the information to the members that counts.

They care about what we publish in the sense that they care if we publish 
it too early...

I think what you don't realise is that we do have 'stuffing parties' over 
here too. We stuff the envelopes at a monthly club meeting. Which means 
that either the issue is delayed by an entire month, or we have to get 
enough people together a week or so later to stuff envelopes, or one 
person has to do the lot. None of these are particularly satisfactory.

> The policy is up to the board as they guide the editor.  Would you like
> timely information or "old" information.  Why publish news type
> information at all?  Ooops, of course, you want only schematics, etc.
> Fine, but there has to be a balance.

What I want is information which will let me use the machines I already 
have, or which I could go out and buy, to the best of their capabilities. 
Not just schematics, or even only low-level information. User-level 
programming tips are great too. 

But I really don't see the point in printing information about machines 
that don't exist and may never exist. I can't base anything on that.

> 
> >We publish their information in the first issue after they release it.
> 
> And if you know that news can be released two days after the normal
> publishing date?  In this case the news will be two months old.  If

Do you want to come over here and stuff the envelopes for us?

> you ARE NOT in dependant HP may work with you.  I think you
> should be the editor for a while so you will gain a perspective on what
> can and cannot be done.  Again, work first, then complain.

Quite honestly I find your continual comments that I do nothing to be 
insulting in the extreme. For your information I put a lot of time into 
HPCC, not necessarily in 'visible' ways. 

-tony