On 1/20/2023 12:31 AM, Tony Jones via cctalk wrote:
On Thu, Jan 19, 2023, 10:18 PM Jim Brain via cctalk
<cctalk(a)classiccmp.org>
wrote:
cheaper than KryoFLux (I believe it was designed
as a rebuttal for the
high priced and "walled garden" nature of KryoFlux) or other related
projects like DiscFerret and/or discontinued solutions like CatWeazel
(which was a plug in card and harder to support on newer machines)
I figured it just was a logical continuation .... Keir Fraser also wrote
FlashFloppy (the alternative firmware for the Gotek) and the associated
Disk Utilities software which also is now used in GW. Obviously FOSS is
his focus (Xen etc).
I'm trying now to forget how much I spent on my Kryoflux :-)
As someone who writes FLOSS, it's rarely just to redo something already
done well. It's either that bugs or missing features in the original
solution annoy me, the cost is too high for the use case, or the
designers of the closed source item lord it over the consumers. I don't
remember all the details, but I seem to remember all 3 of those were in
play when GW came out.
Regardless, Keir is an impressive person for making the various projects
(FLashFloppy and GW). I think nowadays, everyone immediately replaces
Gotek std firmware with FF on the devices as soon as they hit the mailbox.
--
Jim Brain
brain(a)jbrain.com
www.jbrain.com