From: norlin@midway.ecn.uoknor.edu (Norman Lin)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.soundcard,comp.music,alt.binaries.sounds.d,alt.sb.programmer,comp.sys.ibm.pc
Subject: More on MODEDIT/crippleware
Date: 10 Nov 92 14:33:11 GMT
Article-I.D.: constell.BxI8FD.DzB
Organization: Engineering Computer Network, University of Oklahoma, Norman, OK, USA

Forgive me for following up twice to this article, but the full original
post didn't arrive at my site until now. (I followed up to a followup.)

rjm@mentor.cc.purdue.edu (Ryan Mitchell) writes:

>ModEdit 3.1 may very well be an excellent piece of
>software but I won't be purchasing it because it DOESN'T follow
>the shareware concept--it's crippleware.  In its downloadable 
>state I can't test it for anything but use as a MOD player and 
>I've seen several better as far as that goes.  The real-time
>recorder and piano-roll display are both disabled, which are
>the two fundamental selling points of the program.

I disagree.  The fundamental selling point of the program is the new
method of entry/display of notes, where a note "ruler" goes vertically
up the screen and you place dots and bars along the screen to
indicate pitch and duration.  This is what I call the "piano roll
display."  Why do you say it is disabled?  I know of no other MOD
editor supporting this style of display, and I have found in my
personal experience that this style of display is MUCH easier,
more intuitive, and faster to use than other MOD editors where you
type in a note and an octave.

Of the 43 functions selectable from the main menu, 2 are disabled:
saving all samples, and real time recording from the keyboard.

Yes, the real time recorder is disabled, BUT you can still evaluate
it by selecting the "play along with MOD" option.  This is IDENTICAL
to the real time recording except that the notes are not recorded
into the MOD.  You can still hear the notes as you play them, therefore
giving you a feel of how the function works and if you need it.

> I was really 
>excited to hear that there was going to be a functional recorder 
>out but I refuse to spend money on any "shareware" I can't test 
>first, simply because it goes against the very concept of shareware.
>This method, which is unfortunately used by many, many PC
>authors, is more of a "You-have-the-skeleton-program-but-must-pay-
>for-anything-useful" approach rather than shareware.

I feel I'm being rather generous with ModEdit, in fact.  You can
completely create, edit, load, and save MODs with ModEdit 3, in a
much easier and faster manner than any other MOD editor I know of
because of the intuitive piano-roll style of display.  I could have
disabled "save" or something silly like that, but I wanted to give
users a piece of software that, I feel, is very evaluatable and
completely usable in its unregistered state.

It appears our definition of crippleware differs.  I have spent hundreds,
if not a thousand or more, of my free hours to produce ModEdit, and
not providing 2 non-vital functions in the unregistered version is,
to me, completely justified.

People, I hope you do give me a chance and try out ModEdit 3.  See
if it's easier to use.  I think you'll agree it is.

Norman
norlin@mailhost.ecn.uoknor.edu
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.soundcard