hull@hao.UUCP (07/17/86)
If you can't stand Mr. Robinson's whining, try mine: Like you, I realized
last October when I bought my Amiga, that with no software I was automatically
in development mode. Now if I was smart enough to figure that out, how come
Commodore and my dealer weren't? To wit: I got no developer documentation
with the machine, and there was no bingo card and letter entitled "How to
become a registered Amiga Software Developer and where to order the
"A miga S oftware S pecialist" tee shirt. I got the software developer
information (too late) off of USENET. Like you, I paid. I paid the then
advertised price of $199 for the assembler package, and another $299 for
the Lattice C compiler. The 1/4 inch thick AmigaDos Developer's manual
that came with the assembler was totally inadequate for interfacing with
Intuition, let alone the Rom Kernel. The 1 inch thick manual that came
with the Lattice compiler, though organized in a way foreign to my nature,
was acceptable with respect to the compiler, but was devoid of any detail
concerning the content of the libraries. Net vector sum == ZERO. At the
same time I took delivery on my machine I ordered a $100 manual set.
It never arrived at the dealership. I just happened to wander into the
dealership the day my Amiga salesman was quitting. He told me he had
actually reordered these for me *twice*. The marvelous mechanism that was
zilching my order (and which prior to this time was never explained to me)
was that the store manager was canceling any outstanding orders more than
30 days undelivered. This had the effect of recycling me to the end of
the line once a month whether I needed it or not. I would have been totally
unproductive were it not for the tutorials, programs, and the discussions
on the USENET.
As it was, with the aid of USENET articles, I had the opportunity to
study code examples, compile C programs, and examine the tools implemented
by the registered developers on the net. Then came the upgrade to 3.03
Lattice. Programs from the net wouldn't compile worth crap, and I had to
learn to patch them. Again, gracious hosts on the net provided most of
the fixes. Commodore not only never sent me an update for my compiler,
hell, they never even sent *notification*. I later got an update through
a net contact. When the 1.1 workbench came out, Commodore did notify me.
They said "Take this letter down to your dealer and receive your free
update package." So I went to my dealer. My dealer explained to me that
he had sold more than 80 Amigas and that he had gotten a mere half-dozen
update packages. He had none left. He allowed me to buy a set of disks
and copy his one remaining set, which I did. I ended up with disk software,
and again, No Documentation. No AmigaBasic manual, and no update to the
workbench stuff.
The only way I ever recovered even part way is when an Amiga dealer
bailed out and offered his demo to me at a reasonably low price, I
threw good money after raw; I picked up all the demo software with it,
the warranty registration cards, all the manuals and all those copies
marked "Demo Copy, Not for Resale" (Don't worry, Commodore, he didn't
re-sell them to me. He *gave* them to me). I probably don't dare ask
anyone, even Commodore to fix either of my machines if they crap out at
this point in time, but so far, so good. As I've said before, I really
love the Amiga hardware! If I have anyone to thank for whatever I can do
with my machines and the recently acquired Addison Wesley documentation,
it is the wonderful people on USENET (and its off-net contributors) NOT CBM.
I can hardly wait to see what I have to do to get up-reved to v1.2 with
*both* in-town Amiga dealers now deceased, and no replacements announced.
And meanwhile, all those other developers have had a 9 month head start
on anyone in my situation (and I'll bet there are at least a baker's
kilodozen). Lucky for me, in my case this isn't an issue. However, I
did get to pay $300 extra to sit around and wait for CBM to publish
documentation they could have distributed ON DISK six months ago.
Personally, I feel this was all very deliberate on the part of CBM.
Part of their "support" for their registered professional developers
almost certainly is a rear-holding action (no bun intended) to keep the
unregistered competition in an uninformed state until the good guys
(who are investing their valuable time helping CBM to debug everything)
have had time to get their stuff into the market. Certainly dirty pool,
but not likely so bad as to be illegal. For the future, I want to offer
my best wishes to CBM and the Amiga in the hope that a successful product
will decrease the evident necessity for this kind of Tom-Foolery.
Best Regards, Howard Hull
[If yet unproven concepts are outlawed in the range of discussion...
...Then only the deranged will discuss yet unproven concepts]
{ucbvax!hplabs | decvax!noao | mcvax!seismo | ihnp4!seismo} !hao!hull