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I have a hard time feeling sorry for companies that are still churning out 32-bit software. The move to 64-bit wasn't a surprise to anyone that was paying atte

I have a hard time feeling sorry for companies that are still churning out 32-bit software. The move to 64-bit wasn't a surprise to anyone that was paying attention. If the pro audio space is really decimated then I'm not sure they were that hardy to begin with. Granted, the move to ARM is a bit more work, but again I don't think anyone should be especially surprised by it. As soon as the "A" processors started posting real, positive benchmark numbers I figured that Apple would move to them and away from Intel. In my minds eye I can see Apple differentiating machines depending on how many ARM chips it has. MacBook Air - 2 A15; MacBook - 4 A15X; MacBook Pro - 12 A15X; Mac - 128 A16X (or something like that)

mikestew 7y ago
I have a hard time feeling sorry for companies that are still churning out 32-bit software. A lack of sympathy does not make my audio software work, however. And I believe what parent is driving at is that should the ARM transition take place, even more stuff isn't going to work for the end-user. So a little empathy for the user, eh?
- Corrado 7y ago
  I meant no offense to the user and have myself been the victim of using old, unsupported software (ie. I play TF2). The point I was trying to make is that companies can't expect the world to stop changing and advancing just because they don't want to build new things. AFAIK there is no computational reason that any software can't be made 64-bit (within reason). We've moved on from 8-bit and 16-bit software; what's stopping them from leaving 32-bit behind? When I hear that some group (ie. pro audio software makers) won't update their offerings I have to believe it's because they don't want to or they just don't want to serve the market anymore. In either case it seems like there is an opportunity for someone to create an alternative, and possibly make some great money.
  - qppo 7y ago
    Those companies aren't around anymore. There's no one left to update the software, and like vintage gear, it's irreplaceable.
Jetrel 7y ago
Yeah, I was having a long discussion about this with a friend, and this is precisely where the misconception lies. The problem with the 32->64 transition (or x86->ARM) doesn't lie with active businesses failing to "get with the program" and update their software - it lies with abandonware. With software that's been put out either by defunct companies or sometimes literally deceased programmers. In some niches, this sort of stuff is really, really common - generally this is the case if there's a really stable API for building things, like VST plugins, and if the niche in question has a lot of failed businesses. A lot of times in the pro audio space, a musician will spend a large part of their career "collecting" a ton of little one-off sound libraries and fx plugins, because these are the only way they can get the computer to produce that exact kind of sound they're looking for. This collection slowly builds up over the course of, say, a decade - just like a graphic designer would collect fonts. The difference is that unlike fonts, which last had their "greet the reaper" moment back when bitmap fonts got scrapped in the mid-90s (despite OpenType becoming a thing, TrueType fonts from the 90s still work fine, some 30 years later), any audio plugins that aren't compatible with the cpu architecture die out. And that's just really brutal to a working musician. You can't get an update to most of those because there's a ton of attrition in that industry; lots of small-time plugin makers realize pretty fast that it's a very difficult place to make any kind of ROI, so they quit after a few years. -- Games are in a really similar place - they're a business slaughterhouse where most companies that attempt to make something discover they're not going to cover the initial investment, so after the game's produced it typically gets a couple of years of barebones support, and then gets abandoned - or the company just croaks. Any kind of rewrite is completely out of the question. The tragedy is that most of these games are pretty good and fun, they're just not economically viable. I love apple moving the tech forward, but we desperately need a better emulation solution, and/or we've got to get the industry off of coding for bare metal.
- freehunter 7y ago
  I am sympathetic, don’t get me wrong, but this isn’t the only industry and this isn’t the only time this has happened. It happens every day in every industry and has been happening forever and will continue to happen forever. The old example is buggy whips, someone might have spent hundreds of thousands of dollars making or collecting whips for horses only to have thar investment disappear when cars came around. Or making/collecting spears just as the Roman army switched to swords. Or medieval turnip farmers when suddenly everyone wanted to eat the newly discovered potato. Or people who bought all their favorite movies on Betamax and can’t easily watch them anymore. There are very few creators who actually create the things they rely on to create, ultimately we are all consumers even inside our professions. And like any consumer, we are all at the mercy of a market we don’t control. Either you have to accept that everything must come to an end and plan for that eventual end, or you have to dig deeper into your creativity. Everyone has something they rely on that will disappear before they’re ready to lose it. It’s a reality of life and as much as humankind has experienced that loss for thousands of years, we never seem to get any better at accepting it or planning for it.

mikestew 7y ago

I have a hard time feeling sorry for companies that are still churning out 32-bit software. A lack of sympathy does not make my audio software work, however. And I believe what parent is driving at is that should the ARM transition take place, even more stuff isn't going to work for the end-user. So a little empathy for the user, eh?

Corrado 7y ago
I meant no offense to the user and have myself been the victim of using old, unsupported software (ie. I play TF2). The point I was trying to make is that companies can't expect the world to stop changing and advancing just because they don't want to build new things. AFAIK there is no computational reason that any software can't be made 64-bit (within reason). We've moved on from 8-bit and 16-bit software; what's stopping them from leaving 32-bit behind? When I hear that some group (ie. pro audio software makers) won't update their offerings I have to believe it's because they don't want to or they just don't want to serve the market anymore. In either case it seems like there is an opportunity for someone to create an alternative, and possibly make some great money.
- qppo 7y ago
  Those companies aren't around anymore. There's no one left to update the software, and like vintage gear, it's irreplaceable.

Jetrel 7y ago

Yeah, I was having a long discussion about this with a friend, and this is precisely where the misconception lies. The problem with the 32->64 transition (or x86->ARM) doesn't lie with active businesses failing to "get with the program" and update their software - it lies with abandonware. With software that's been put out either by defunct companies or sometimes literally deceased programmers. In some niches, this sort of stuff is really, really common - generally this is the case if there's a really stable API for building things, like VST plugins, and if the niche in question has a lot of failed businesses. A lot of times in the pro audio space, a musician will spend a large part of their career "collecting" a ton of little one-off sound libraries and fx plugins, because these are the only way they can get the computer to produce that exact kind of sound they're looking for. This collection slowly builds up over the course of, say, a decade - just like a graphic designer would collect fonts. The difference is that unlike fonts, which last had their "greet the reaper" moment back when bitmap fonts got scrapped in the mid-90s (despite OpenType becoming a thing, TrueType fonts from the 90s still work fine, some 30 years later), any audio plugins that aren't compatible with the cpu architecture die out. And that's just really brutal to a working musician. You can't get an update to most of those because there's a ton of attrition in that industry; lots of small-time plugin makers realize pretty fast that it's a very difficult place to make any kind of ROI, so they quit after a few years. -- Games are in a really similar place - they're a business slaughterhouse where most companies that attempt to make something discover they're not going to cover the initial investment, so after the game's produced it typically gets a couple of years of barebones support, and then gets abandoned - or the company just croaks. Any kind of rewrite is completely out of the question. The tragedy is that most of these games are pretty good and fun, they're just not economically viable. I love apple moving the tech forward, but we desperately need a better emulation solution, and/or we've got to get the industry off of coding for bare metal.

freehunter 7y ago
I am sympathetic, don’t get me wrong, but this isn’t the only industry and this isn’t the only time this has happened. It happens every day in every industry and has been happening forever and will continue to happen forever. The old example is buggy whips, someone might have spent hundreds of thousands of dollars making or collecting whips for horses only to have thar investment disappear when cars came around. Or making/collecting spears just as the Roman army switched to swords. Or medieval turnip farmers when suddenly everyone wanted to eat the newly discovered potato. Or people who bought all their favorite movies on Betamax and can’t easily watch them anymore. There are very few creators who actually create the things they rely on to create, ultimately we are all consumers even inside our professions. And like any consumer, we are all at the mercy of a market we don’t control. Either you have to accept that everything must come to an end and plan for that eventual end, or you have to dig deeper into your creativity. Everyone has something they rely on that will disappear before they’re ready to lose it. It’s a reality of life and as much as humankind has experienced that loss for thousands of years, we never seem to get any better at accepting it or planning for it.