Re Dicks reference to technical obstacles above I would just like to pick up on the following points and contribute a few suggestions to the discussion.



The question here is why? Why not try and simplify things so that the upgrade works with relatively modern operating systems instead of trying to cater for everything.

From the Microsoft side that means forget about all Windows OS support prior to say at the very least NT/ Win 2000 through to XP. Vista schmista, it'll be years before (a) they sort out the bugs with that OS and XP will be compatible (well more or less we hope) and (b) before people learn how to really work within that environment. Leave Vista for a later upgrade again.

From the Mac side forget about offering support for Classic (Mac OS 9) and just focus onMac OSX. and its nice Unix underpinnings. Opensource Linux also gets the thumbs up but I'll leave it to someone else to argue which distro would be the best development environment for that OS.

The issue here is that the major software manufacturers dont support their old operating systems so why should DT developers. Mudcatters or anyone else who is still using Win 3.1 need to be encouraged to spend a few bucks and upgrade. I mean you can buy a P3 running W2k or XP for around $AUD100. A P4 isnt much dearer and either is superior to 3.1 0r Win 98 etc.

Regarding the next point:



The concept is great of course but once again looking for simplicity, instead of taking the programming route why not take the visual animation route and look at a Flash based approach where you can place images, text audio on a timeline and then animate them. You can also add a whole slew of pefab effects or develop custom ones to enjoy all of the visual bells and whistles.

The resultant file can them be playable on any hardware and operating system capable of running the specific version of Flash player. This way you bypass much of the separate platform specific programming and all of the hack work and time that goes with it.

Finally before anaay work in Flash, it would be even simpler just to put together a quick and dirty version of the DT as a stand alone web app. My 13 year old daughter could do that! You may not get all of the frills but getting a set of words along with an image of the notation and a link to a basic audio file would be a bloody good start to getting a new version of the DT out there.

Reminds me of the old zen line that Donovan adapted... First there is a mountain, then there is no mountain......... its just how we look at things.