From - Mon Oct 05 15:41:49 1998
Errors-To: 
Message-ID: <000301bdf047$505f2980$3ba30018@bleem.fed1.sdca.home.com>
Reply-To: "bleem Beta" 
To: 
From: "bleem Beta" 
Subject: bleem
Date: Mon, 5 Oct 1998 03:02:50 -0700

Dear Emulation News WebSite:

It has come to our attention that the recent news about our PSX emulator may
have been interpreted by some as a "hoax" or "fake", especially to those
within the emulation community.

We're not really sure why exactly someone would even attempt to fool people
like this, but perhaps you have some insight and could shed some light on
it?  To us, it really seems like an awful lot of trouble with no possible
reward or benefit to *anyone*...

To be quite honest, it really surprised us at first -- we weren't quite sure
exactly *why* people didn't believe it.  It also caught us a little bit
off-guard when we discovered that there was an almost *negative* reaction to
the list of features that our software provides.  What surprised us most,
however, was that this reaction was coming largely from within the
programming and emulation community!

After reading some previous "interviews" with other emulation authors,
especially in the PSX community, we were given the strong impression that,
almost universally, the whole emulation community openly welcomed
competition because it only served to better the state of emulation and give
the end-user a much better piece of software.

We would never have imagined people being upset or unhappy with the choice
of another emulator (excepting the original hardware manufacturers, of
course), but given the close-knit emulation programming community it
actually happened!

This is really unfortunate, considering how much we all could benefit from
better and better software.  We do certainly understand it when people who
have worked long and hard on their emulators for months, and even years, are
concerned that their hard work and efforts take a back-seat to the
"newcomer", however temporary.

You know what?  We wouldn't like it either -- infact, nobody would.  In the
end, however, it doesn't change the fact that an improvement benefits all of
us, *especially* the end-users.

There are even those out there who are secretly hoping that bleem fails to
run a particular game or isn't quite as compatible as one of the other
emulators for certain software.  Thinking this way doesn't help the
emulation community in the least -- and it certainly doesn't sound like
"inviting open competition" to us.  Why anyone wouldn't want bleem to be as
compatible as possible is simply beyond us -- it just doesn't make a whole
lot of sense.

Perhaps it was our initial announcement that was unclear -- It wasn't meant
as anything more than information that you could pass on to your readers to
give them a "heads-up" that a new PSX emulator would soon be available.  It
wasn't a wish-list of things we ourselves *wanted* to see in an emulator, it
was a matter-of-fact list of features that were *already* up and running in
bleem.

We did some research and were told about a past case where someone had
attempted to pass off a fake emulator as being real and even went so far as
to create a whole website for it -- beta forms and all.  Things started to
become a little clearer for us as to the "lukewarm" reaction that our
announcement had generated.  What this individual gained from the experience
we never found out.  What we did learn, however, was that emulation
newssites had become "gun shy" of reporting on rumours until they were
verifiable.

After some more digging, it became clear that many people interpreted what
we were promising as virtually impossible, given the state of PSX emulation
so far.  What was really unfortunate was that so many people could look at a
list of features that *should* be expected from any polished piece of
emulation software, and then dismiss them as not possible simply because it
hadn't been done yet.

The simple fact is that people have become accustomed to beta versions that
fail to deliver what the software is expected to do.  The term "beta" used
to mean software that was "feature complete" but may have some bugs left in
it.  These days, "beta" means something before it's stuffed into a box and
shipped.  Which isn't to say that it's feature complete when it's actually
*in* the box, mind you -- it's just in a box at that point, nothing more,
nothing less.  If it happens to deliver on its promises?  All the better
then.  More often than not, however, it doesn't live up to it's promises.

We don't believe that's the way software should be.  We don't work that way.
When we call something a "beta" version, we adhere to the *true* definition
of "beta":  Feature complete, save for some undetected bugs.  Not "some
minor known issues".  Not "minor inconveniences, workarounds provided."  No
known bugs.

Which certainly isn't to say that there won't be any -- just that we're
working really hard to have as few as possible.  It's very important that we
put our best foot forward when the general public first meets us, and we
don't want that impression to be one of buggy software and incomplete
features.

We don't believe the emulation community to be a part of the general public.
The general public doesn't really comprehend "emulation" or the technology
behind it -- the emulation community is much more technically savvy, the
"power users" of computing technology, if you will.  The general public can
barely turn on their machines, much less adjust settings for "root counters"
and "vertical blanking intervals".

It's for that reason that we sent our initial information out to you, the
leaders of the emulation community, in the hopes that it would strike up
some interest in bleem and for emulation in general.  Perhaps we would even
find a couple of additional beta testers who had unusual systems or software
to help us improve bleem's compatibility.  Simply put, to get the reaction
we received was disappointing at best.  Put yourselves in our shoes for a
moment.

In any event, while we would like to assure you that bleem is real and does
work, it effectively boils down to just our words and promises until there
is an actual release of the software.  We expect the closed beta release in
roughly one week's time, however, we have grabbed a couple of screen shots
that should demonstrate beyond any reasonable doubt that bleem is real, and
infact operational.

We suggest that you check out www.emuunlim.com for the latest images and
view them for yourself.  We also request that you contact other PSX
emulation authors and programmers to get *their* opinion on the validity of
the images.  We bring to your attention the image containing the outlines of
the polygons -- clearly this is not something that can be "faked" without an
idiotic amount of work.

Furthermore, we are willing to send you some additional images, however,
we're certainly not about to just send you 200K or so worth of data if you
do not wish to receive it.

To that end, we request the courtesy of a reply and an indication on whether
or not you wish to continue to receive updates and mailings regarding bleem.
We certainly understand your reluctance to post anything about bleem until
you actually have the software to test for yourselves, but we do ask that
you at least tell us that is the case so we won't be expecting anything
further from you or your website.

We truly hope to "raise the bar" for quality and compatibility with bleem
and to provide the best PSX emulation yet, and we look forward to our
initial beta release and to dispelling any false and untrue rumours about
our software.

Thanking you in advance for your time,

bleem.