About everything - Problems of the software market for the Spectrum. Who is to blame and what to do?

 Software market problems             
                   or                    
              "Who is to blame?"              
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  Here  for more than a year in the entire computer
press, echo conferences dedicated to
here Spectrum with you, and just at the same time
in the dialects of various makers, coders, hackers
rov, users, software sellers are constantly
 asks the question: “And where, in fact,
new software? And not everyone understands what is happening
walks.  So  either game makers died out, or
sellers software was squeezed until better times, then
Is there some other misfortune? We can safely say
that in 1997 there was nothing but newspapers and journals
cash,  did not come out.  Yes  and the latter are not
we were all very spoiled with frequent appearances
niyami. The Spectrophone closed, releasing a message
last  numbers with a break of six months. Died
Op-Line. ZX-For- has not been released for more than six months
swear, and when he appeared he pleased everyone with the article
under the following heading:                 
 Software problems                
                   or                    
         WHEN THE SPECTRUM GOES OUT          
          codenamed           
           "LAUGHTER CKBO3b TEARS"            
                                          
  Editorial  ZX-Format magazine  enough
soberly stated the essence of this issue. And...
simply put all the blame on the poor
new user:                        
  "The only reason  low  income
of the authors is  reluctance user
pay money for copyright products..."
                                          
  Here  here  here. Cut it off... Definitely...
Simply  saying,  the authors  do not want anything
do  for "thank you", and users, buying pi-
Russian software, they delayed this process.      
  No I know how things are in the northern
capital of our Motherland (I just don’t want to judge-
to   only  by  words  individual magazine
publishers), but to mefor some reason I wanted to
(more precisely, I tried) take a look  at this
problem through the eyes of an ordinary nondescript
th user, and _Samara_.            
  First legally distributed (like me
then  thought)  programs appeared in
shops  Samara radio stores approximately
in  end 1993 - early 1994. A little
before the Moscow Spectrofon. But the difference is
got them from Spf, who came to the city of lo-
manna, disc design. By the way, it was
operating system  iS-DOS. (I wonder if
what do  know about  this iSKRA-Soft and "Slot"?)
3a throughout the existence of the Spectrum in Sa-
mare this  were the only copyrighted
universally distributed  programs.  By
at least I have nothing else to use
is missing... (For the last two years I haven’t taken
in  account, because. I'm no longer interested in
user problems.) So  those were
stores  And,  if compared with the day today
Today, everything was quite tolerable.
 On the market  until recently
we left  to wish  the best. Coming to fish
nok, user  simply did not  found the author's
software  He couldn't find it. At that time-
on  in  Samara  practically no one did anything
wrote. And those who wrote did not distribute
your software, with the exception of Mr. Penzin,
"famous"  from  pages of one Moscow
Kovsky edition. Samara has always been a city
Hackers' house. I don’t know if this is good or
bad.  Therefore, support in the city was
no one.                                   
  That's  and everything. Oh yes... There was one last thing left...
Option: "support beginners"
torov  ruble" through "one Moscow company
lobe."  But those who want to  finance their life
there was a little guy. Two or three people
century in the city, no more.                
  Thus, any Samara user
body resembled more of a madman, wearing
walking around the city in search of software. What
already  there is a desire to pay for copyright
duction, when you don’t find what pirates have
are you looking for... This is how it always worked out: a-
torus does not, because he has practically nothing
th  not  falls, and the user is ready to pay,
just can’t find why and to whom.
Dima, they won’t figure it out until death.
ty Spectrum.                             
  In general, they begin to come to mind
disturb  not  very good thoughts. Today-
nyah, when users just crowd together
are going to leave  from the Spectrum, they are impossible
you can  nothing hold. There's nothing worthwhile
th...  There remains hope, of course, for the main
the country's leading game maker and his project. Ho-
It seems  to believe that at least  this is somewhat
will inspire some authors to continue
started projects and will stop the outflow of users
ditch from the platform. But for how long???         
                                          
                               Alex Noman,
  01.11.97.
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