Author: Dann Corbit
Date: 21:26:52 04/02/04
Go up one level in this thread
On April 02, 2004 at 19:56:13, Vincent Diepeveen wrote: >On April 02, 2004 at 19:43:11, Uri Blass wrote: > >>On April 02, 2004 at 19:20:11, Vincent Diepeveen wrote: >> >>>On April 02, 2004 at 19:15:35, Sune Fischer wrote: >>> >>>>>>I think Chessbase and Fritz is the most widely known combination of software, at >>>>>>least here in Denmark among club players. >>>>> >>>>>How many copies did fritz sell? >>>>> >>>>>Chessmaster like 6 million or so. >>>>> >>>>>Forget it. Chessmaster is number 1. >>>> >>>>Hard to say without knowing how much fritz sells. >>>> >>>>Among the more serious chess players I'm quite sure chessbase is the big seller, >>>>the database tools are very important to many. >>>> >>>>Just go to the net and see how many game collections you can download in >>>>chessbase format. It's crawling with them! >>>> >>>>>Then somewhere in a dark gray room at playchess you'll find a few chessbase >>>>>fans. >>>> >>>>Only because chessbase hasn't made it possible for them to connect to ICS. They >>>>want to be confined to their own server instead of spreading them out all over, >>>>let's just agree to be thankful for that :) >>>> >>>>>>You won't believe how many times I've explain they should start out with the >>>>>>strong winboard engines which they can download _for free_. >>>>>>-S. >>>>> >>>>>No one gets that to work except a few dudes. >>>>> >>>>>Like 99.999% of the population will not get winboard engines to work even if you >>>>>make a video how to do it. >>>> >>>>Yes, I always recommed they use Arena, it's much easier to install engines for >>>>the novice user. >>> >>>Even if you make a video how to do it, they won't manage it. >>> >>>After a few months they will unhappily email you that your product never worked. >>> >>>Assuming you earn nothing on Arena, that is a very difficult helpdesk you must >>>provide for every product 'sold'. Imagine that for each product sold you must >>>answer 10 questions. >>> >>>No one can do that at a profit at the prices such software has. >>> >>>Arena is of course not having a chance to get used by many people. >>> >>>Perhaps 0.00001% of the total chess product users. >> >>0.00001% means 1 out of 10,000,000. >>I doubt if there are 10,000,000 chess product users in the world when I am sure >>that there are more than 1000 people who use arena. > >If you make it 1 out of 1 million daily users of Arena i'm sure it's a correct >estimate. Of course vaste majority of users who use 'a chess product' will not >daily use it at all. Having done software support, I have to agree with Vincent. People will have a terrible, terrible time with anything requiring more than a couple clicks to "Yes". Forget about editing an ini file. It sounds so simple, but one person in 1000 will be comfortable doing that. They won't know what kind of machine that they have. They won't know if they have any space on their hard drive. They won't know what kind of screen resolution or CPU they have. They won't know anything about their computer. They won't be able to tell the computer where the Nalimov files live. They won't be able to do anything at all. Here is what the install program must do: 1. Figure out if all the prerequisites are satisfied. 2. Create defaults for every single setting. 3. Ask the householder as few questions as possible. A. Do not ask about hash B. Do not ask about opening books C. Do not ask about learning D. Do not ask about anything at all unless it is impossible to guess 4. Tell them you are going to install in a location where you have already checked to be sure it has enough space 5. Do the install after they click "Yes." That should be their total input. It will be hard enough for them to put the CD in the drive. You had better have an autostart for your install, too. They are not going to browse to the drive and find autorun\cdsetup I have found people who could not install Arasan. Believe me that everyone here can do it, but even something as totally simple as that can be too hard for some people. But that's OK. They know how to curry a horse or to do titrations in resin columns or tune a Ferarri. They just don't know how to mess with computers.
This page took 0.02 seconds to execute
Last modified: Thu, 15 Apr 21 08:11:13 -0700
Current Computer Chess Club Forums at Talkchess. This site by Sean Mintz.