urjlew@ecsvax.UUCP (01/18/86)
Keywords:Microsoft BASIC,vendor attitudes,COMSPEC
I received my Amiga on Dec 19, two days before I was set to
leave for Toronto, for my thrice yearly visit to the city of
my youth. In the short time available before my trip I decided
to play at writing a few short programs in Amigas' new
MICROSOFT BASIC, just to get the feel of the machine.
I decided to test the accuracy of the arithmetic calculations
and mathematical functions, with some simple programs
that calculate the same thing in several ways and compare the
results. Standard stuff, nothing fancy. Imagine my surprise
when squaring numbers from 1 to 1000 by calculating i*i, i^2,
and exp(2*log(i)) showed that Microsoft BASIC can not square.
Try the following program for yourselves
FOR i = 1 TO 1000
j = i*i : k = i^2 : l=EXP(2*(LOG(i))
IF j<>k THEN PRINT i,j,k,(j-k),l,(j-l)
NEXT i
or being a little more fancy
INPUT"Enter range";x,y
INPUT"Enter steps";nx
delta = 1.0/nx
FOR i = x TO y STEP delta
j = i*i : k=i^2
IF j<>k THEN PRINT i,j,k,(j-k)
NEXT i
Run the second version from about 925 to 930 with nx=2,4,8,16
etc. For comparison run the programs on your Apples, IBM PCs etc.
In Toronto I immediately contacted several Amiga dealers wanting
to find out if they perhaps already had a fix. Instead I found
out that Commodore Bussiness machines Canada and Commodore Amiga
in the USA were having somekind of a tiff about what was to be
released in Canada and when. So no one had an official version
1.1 nor of the Microsoft BASIC. Some unofficial copies of the
software had just been received and were beginning to make the
rounds, but there was no documentation. The unofficial versions
of 1.1 had been obtained because one of the Electronic Arts
programs, Delux Paint I believe, must have version 1.1 to run.
Between Boxing day and New Years day I attempted to call both
Commodore Bussiness machines (416)-499-4292 and Microsoft
(416)-673-7638, but Commodores Phones were out of order and
the needed person at Microsoft was on vacation till the 5'th.
On Thursday Jan. 2 I got through to Suzan Watlain at the
Commodore Product support center and attempted to report the
problem to her. She kept asking me if I had declared the
variables and telling me that one should expect roundoff problems.
It was with some difficulty that I even convinced her to copy
down the example program. She finally let me dictate
the program to her and said it would be looked at.
On Monday Jan. 5 I talked with Peter Duynistee at Microsoft.
He told me that Microsoft had sold Commodore the OEM developers
package and that all errors were the responsibility of
Commodore, even though I tried to convince him that Microsofts
reputation was partly on the line, because Microsofts name
featured prominently on the software packaging.
On Tuesday I again called Suzan Watlain to ask if she had
tried the example program. She said that I should make the
variables double precision. I asked her if the problem had
been reported to Pennsylvania and she told she would not
pass it on.
It appears to me that Microsofts BASIC was rushed out the door
to market before the ink was dry. Certainly without proper
testing. I think I understand the competitive
market pressures and teething troubles of a new machine.
What concerns me however is the attitudes of the vendors
support personnel. This is exactly the time to be willing
to accept user inputs such as bug reports in order to shake
down the software as quickly as possible.
Has anybody else tried to report errors to Commodore? Is my
experience anomalous? I am aware of Commodores previous
record on user support, but had been assured that they had
changed.
Also while in Toronto I tried to call COMSPEC at the number
published on the net a little while ago. COMSPEC has pre-
announced a 2 meg memory expansion card for around $800. CDN.
Because I was not a reseller or a school, the head office
would not talk with me. They referred me to their retail store
on Wilson Ave. tel. (416)-633-5605. The personnel at the store
had no specific information about the board. The answers were
all "I can't tell you". Supposedly the board will only be
available fully populated and will get its power from the main
box. Questions I wanted answered were: would it allow further
expansions, What kind of chips, static (highly unlikely),
256k x 1, 64k x 4, with or without parity, full speed or with
wait states. Some of these questions are perhaps irrelevant,
but some answers would be a better indication that the
hardware already exists.
Anyway Jeff Coble at COMSPEC promised to post my little
BASIC program on their company BBS. Also I think
that I managed to post it on House of Computers BBS.
Since my return to NC I have reported the problem to a
representative of BSA sales who is the regional Amiga
distributor. Lets see what happens.
Rostyk Lewyckyj
Small Computer Systems Specialist (5'3/4") 8-)
1305 W. Main St.
Carrboro NC 27510
urjlew@ecsvax.BITNET
DISCLAIMER: Only I personally am responsible for any opinions
or inaccuracies stated above. My employers are not involved in
this. Leave them alone..