Unsupported Peripherals - to be or not to be?

[G4FKK]

There’s been some discussion on the Portsdown4 Display thread about publicising experiments using unsupported peripherals. There’s a delicate balance here I think. I didn’t read Hubertus’ post as a proposal; I read it as “Hey guys, I tried this. This bit works, this bit doesn’t. It may be useful for you”. I believe this to be typical amateur experimentation or “self training of the licensee” as my original Post Office licence used to encourage.

On the other hand, I have not been subject to disappointed and vocal, inexperienced beginners trying to get me to fix their arcane exploits for them and I imagine this can become infuriating, let alone time-consuming. Scope Creep can be very wasteful!

In my own case I work on the principle that, unless a relatively complex project such as Portsdown is not built exactly “as the composer intended”, then I should not expect it to play the right tunes. For example I use a non-supported sound card in my Portsdown and a non-supported version of the Pluto firmware. If the combination doesn’t do something it should then the first course of action is to revert to the as-designed configuration, not pester the hard-working and talented team.

I do think it would be a shame though not to see what other folk have been experimenting with on a reasonably technical forum such as this. As a victim of the "levelling down" of UK education in the 1970’s I feel we should aim higher than the lowest common denominator in our discussions here.

I've started a new topic about this rather than cluttering up rather more useful subjects with my woolly minded wittering. Do feel free to ignore it

73, Martin - G4FKK

[radiogareth]

As someone who frequently wonders 'what if' and then 'tries it' I subscribe to Martins way of thinking. There is a trend to expect everything to be answered by "some bod on some forum", in place of basic research in the first place.
Having spent my life teaching 'design - make - evaluate' there will be several routes to an outcome, not all of them cheap quick or easy but possibly all going some way towards a solution.
Its a broad church and although beginners would be well advised to follow the well trodden route if they want a functioning solution, it's sometimes useful to see beyond the path edge and in doing so greater knowledge may well result.
Gareth G4XAT

[g0mjw]

Good points. Experimentation is to be encouraged but we need to avoid these pitfalls. 'So and so got it to work, why doesn't it work for me?' when we are discussing what are supposed to be standardised appliances.

Mike

[G3GJA]

The preceding comments miss one important point; if the experimenter wants to deviate from the known to be working hardware then they must be prepared to write or modify the software to accommodate their modifications.

It's unfair to expect, or as seems on this forum demand, changes to software to match random pieces of hardware attached to the Portsdown system, especially as the main code is supported by just one person.

Clive

[G4FKK]

I think that's what I was trying to say in my third paragraph Clive. I couldn't agree with you more.

73, Martin