Re: In Retrospect.....

[cturley2@aol.com (Cturley2)]

supertimer@aol.com wrote:
"Piracy did contribute to our current situation.  That's how we lost various
new software like SoundSmith Pro."

To which I reply: You are indeed correct with respect to 
the above, with the exception of the title you call SoundSmithPro.  And, I'd
like to add some clarification to your statement about SoundSmith Pro with some
accurate and first hand facts about the matters - also.  

Back in 1992-93, after Mr. Z (Dominic DeLay) of the (then) FTA leaked a copy of
it, (as a final beta version of SoundSmith v1.0  - not SoundSmithPro -) to many
BBS' around the world, these BBS' took the archive and made it available to
their clients online.  I had nothing to do with such a release of it either!  

As soon as I learned of this pirated beta release to these BBS' - I took the
initive of promptly contacting the SoundSmith author: Hubert Aalbers and Seven
Hills by telephone voice call - at my own expense, to try and salvage the
matter and help with a commercial release by Seven Hills.  I talked with Hubert
on several occasions by International call to him (then in Spain) and to Earl
Childers at Seven Hills in Florida, at great expense on my phone bill, simply
because I wanted to see it be available from Seven Hills as a commercial
product very much!

(A) Seven Hills kindly, made arrangements to reimburse me for the cost of the
calls to Spain with a check, I received made payable to me from Seven Hills for
my efforts and International telcon expenses incured with the efforts. 
Unfortunately they were not successful, as Hubert told me he had lost most of
the src. codes to the final SoundSmith v1.0 and all previous versions also, as
a result of a hard drive crash.  Seven Hills for one reason or the other also
lost the src. codes to it - as well. Thus, no updates results for the
commercial release of V1.0 for SoundSmith.  

(B) After trying to obtain an agreement on all this between
Seven Hills and the SoundSmith author - Hubert Aalbers,
to obtain a commercial release of SoundSmith v1.0, nothing of any merit
resulted.

(C) After the contract between the author and Seven Hills
was not able to be finalized and a commercial release of the program was not
acheived as v1.0, Hubert Aalbers, released it as a shareware - as SoundSmith
v1.01.

(D) Hubert Aalbers gave me verbal consent per a final International telcon at
my own expense in September,1993 to include him as a team member of 1WSW, I did
and the 1WSW team (with Hubert Aalbers premission and blessings) proceeded to
disassemble SoundSmith v1.01
and do a rewrite of it as SoundSmithPro, for release as a freeware from the
Author and from 1WSW, as a copyright from Hubert Aalbers, with other 1WSW team
members assistance and efforts with updates to the program. 

(F) After much work and efforts on this rewrite and the update project, nothing
of any great improved value was acheived, with the MIDI input functions for the
program.  Other changed and slight improvements were made to  it.  

I still have the final 1WSW rewrite and update attempt of the SoundSmithPro
program, with the src. codes. As the status of SoundSmith is now in public
domain, (all versions) I'm going to archive the SoundSmithPro final draft
version - with the Orca/M disassembled src. of it and release it for public
access and use by anybody as they wish. (It will be public domain as are all
SoundSmith versions now - per the authors release of them).

What more can be said on the matters.  Efforts were attempted by all concerned
to help salvage the matter for a commercial release of SounsdSmith v1.0 - as
best we all could and it failed.

SoundSmith was to have been released as a commercial product from Seven Hills,
with the version of 1.0 and for several reasons - as outlined above that did
not happen. I did everything I knew how to do to help it occur.  Finally it was
released as SoundSmith v1.0.1,  by the author - as shareware, then freeware,
then released just this year to the public domain) by the program author.

Cheers,
Tom