Editorial - October 1997 27/09/97

At times, it would seem, some people are not only hard, but actually impossible to please. Lazarus took months of drudging before it even began to exist. The decision was made that we would not "open" until we had at least 90% of the work prepared so that it was in a fool-proof and useable state. We knew only too well that if it were made available to the public half-cocked, we'd be flooded with the type of idiotic and petty emails that doubtlessly befoul the mailboxes of lesser webmasters and site hosts. We are lucky in this respect and receive only a minimal trickle of such pedantic observations - although we have to question the mentality of someone who takes the time to write and point out a spelling error. But anyway.

When you compare the relative ease of constructing a simplistic but functional website to that of the emulation of, possibly the World's most complex home computer ever devised, hopefully enlightenment will strike with the result being a vivid realisation of quite why there can be considerable delays between updates of UAE - and now, Fellow.

During the progress of such a project, the developers (real people, remember) will be quite busy with other things (real life, remember) and might perhaps need thinking time to ponder on how best to approach a particular aspect of what they're trying to achieve. Different methods will be devised and, from time to time, a "beta" version of the work so far (be it in executable form (for ease of use) or as raw source code) will be released to a select few, previously recruited (based on their relative merits), "beta testers".

The beta tester's work will be to follow specific instructions issued by the developers so that the code may be tested under varying circumstances, reporting back with their findings, so that the progress may continue either in the same direction, or if problems are pinpointed, possibly again from scratch. What developer's don't need is, often misguided and ill-concieved, opionions from a thousand different people. Not yet at least, that's not the point.

If you're a developer yourself, you'll know the problem. If you release your project too early to "the public", you'll be the recipient of a barrage of emails or messages from disgruntled users complaining about an already identified and documented problem. This type of "help" neither warrants or dignifies a response. Look at WinUAE, the System 16 Emulator and countless other non-Emulation related products.

However, if it's too long between updates, the nebulous gossip found in places like the Discussion Boards and IRC channels will lead to inevitable rumours and speculation which will, before long, turn your simple ASCII editor into an all-singing, all-dancing visual arts processor; "I heard he's adding true colour real-time manipulation of characters"; "I heard he's stopped work on the project because his cousin's great-grandmother's sister has died."

Noticing the recent dearth of UAE-related news, we took it upon ourselves to collate as much factual information as we possibly could. The aim being to provide a reliable and trustworthy news service both within the pages of the magazine we write and the IRC channel most of us regularly occupy. Sadly, there wasn't much. Until we managed to acquire a copy of a recent (but already outdated) Picasso 96 beta.

Bereft of documentation, we quickly learned how to use the new functions ourselves and hurriedly prepared as much information as was possible. However, upon announcement that we had exclusive news and pictures of the awaited Picasso emulation at Lazarus, we were set upon by impatient and selfish individuals, self-proclaimed "real Emulation fans" who swamped us with requests, nay, demands that we should surrender our copy of this beta - given to us in good faith by a friend of ours.

Normally, attention is not paid to the troublesome, destructive element of what is the Amiga Emulation Scene. On this ocassion though, the situation was turning quite nasty. We dutifully destroyed our betas and hoped that would be the end of it and chose to wait for the full public release. Except that wasn't enough. In a period of just 3 days, defamatory messages were posted at the UAE Discussion Board and Emulation Talk, we recieved a number of emails and abusive behaviour at #AmigaUAE. We still can't understand what we've done that enraged everyone so much.

Such was the desire to obtain this elusive and, admittedly eagerly-awaited item, people resorted to deceit, offering us an "Alfa version of AGA emulation - using 3DFX", amongst other non-existant things. We find this type of behaviour dispickably pathetic and are thorougly ashamed to be associated with such cretinous morony.

It is our wish for Lazarus - The Magazine, in particular the news section (of it), to become a useful and entertaining source of information - to serve the UAE community. We convey as much detail within our reviews and previews as we possibly can. In spite of this particular incident we have managed to forge even closer ties with those at the heart of Amiga emulation developement. We recommend you do the same. If you are worthy of their attention, you will get it.

Please remember that all of the UAE and Fellow developers work for free. In the case of Fellow, Petter Schau has been pratically crafting his emulator single-handedly. Patience and decorum pay handsome dividends - constant bickering and petty squabbling will only force the developers into wondering why they bother at all. Which, after all, is a very good point. DeeJay99