cc1@ucla-cs.UUCP (10/15/85)
Since Tandy is on the net, this should get there, right? What will be done about the bugs (numerous) in the 1.2 development package? Not the least is that hack will not run on my 512K 16 because the system craps out at 256K, nor is it that the configuration files are 5 versions out of date so I can't tell the system to use all the memory. Nor is it the games that have bugs, such as hangman giving the same sequence of numbers each time. Nor is it the C compiler generating assembly statements "mov <tab> r1,r2" when it should be "movl <tab> r1,r2". Nor is is the bugs in handling of shell scripts (sh does not give them to csh), nor is it ... It is ALL of this, and more (my personal bug list/wish list is 5 pages). It ranges from lack of a simple version 7 bianary license (which I need to get a bianary copy of ditroff so I can use my epson with graftrax+) to my inability to dial out on my 'atdt' style modem. More importantly, it is the imposibility of getting information, from my local store that says "we don't know" when I ask about the price of upgrading from the version 7 to system 3 development (is it full price? If so, forget it) to the "we can't get it so you can't demo it" when I ask about X-view (which has been marked New for 2 or 3 catalogs now) or the system 3 development. It ranges from the bugs that can be fixed in under 5 lines of code (if I had the source) (this is 95% of them), to the lack of documentation on EXACTLY what is done--programs whose docs say they look at /etc/termcap when the programs do not, etc. Basically, at least 50% of the documentation is in the source code (there are 17 references in the manual pages to them) which is not available. Note that this last complaint is of Unix* in general. It is the inability to write my own device drivers (psuedo-drivers actually; more like process-to-process communications and i/o filters (such as getting my model 1 and 16 to like each other)). Have I made myself clear? Good, because I'm not sounding very clear to myself 30 minutes after I wrote the above. But I do get upset when I talk to customer representatives who say that "no upgrade to the development package is planned because there are no bugs". There are. Everytime you release a new version of the core package, the development package is out of date from the configuration files. And there are the "Thats not a bug, thats a feature" stuff. This is where two people feel that something should be done differently. For example, I like black on white (reverse video). I'd like it better if spaces showed up as inverse blanks. They do, but tabs, blank lines, etc. do not. Very uneven, un-symetrical, un-atrractive. And there are the extra's that I want to put into the kernel so that my programs can do more. Like talking to my modem even when it is "NO CARRIER". Michael Gersten p.s. Just what is the value of O_WRSYNC? And does it work correctly on terminal files? (/dev/tty01)