wirch@gumby.UUCP (10/24/85)
Well, the company I work for sent in a check for another developer's
system today, so I'll have a machine of mine own in two weeks. My
co-worker, John Foust, has had one for about a month now.
He just got his password to the official tech support BBS today, and
spent an hour or so downloading stuff... There was a lot there, like
example code to image editors, and R.J. Mical's own Intuition testing
suite. He downloaded over 300K today, onto IBM format disks.
Here's the file he left me to post:
-----------------
Date: 23-Oct-85
From: John Foust
Re: Amiga developers, untie!
I sent a long letter to Amiga developer Lee Grey today, via U.S.
Mail. It went on for about five pages, but in general, it related
the problems I've bumped into, and the problems of not having other
developers to talk to.
Not everyone has a Usenet connection, or the $$$ to call every Amiga
BBS in the country. I wasted twenty minutes on an "Amiga BBS" in
North Carolina, with menus that you could go down, but not up; with
nothing about Amigas, that wanted $10 from me before I could download
or post, and only ran at 300 baud - apparently, it was a Commodore 64
system. It was also "a C64 BBS, a sci-fi BBS, an Atari BBS, an Apple
BBS, an IBM BBS..."
I thought it might be nice to develop a network of Amiga developers...
These people could communicate via several media: electronic nets,
like Usenet, CompuServe, and the Source; disks through the U.S. Mail;
and text, in the form of letters and maybe a coordinating newsletter.
Disks through the mail would save everyone costs in downloading
software from the Amiga BBS's around the country, and avoid
"commercial use" problems of Usenet.
We could exchange solutions to known problems. We could produce a
newsletter, perhaps electronic, perhaps on paper, or both, to quickly
distribute information. All volunteer labor, of course, with each
person paying their own postal or electronic costs.
This would be a human net - it will give us all better contacts into
the Amiga developer community. Not for profit, but for everyone's
personal gain.
There are difficulties: the registered developers on this list would
have to cooperate, in their own best interest; this might be
complicated since these people might be competitors in the Amiga
market. Some things may be proprietary, and couldn't be exchanged.
Then again, some people might be "registered hackers", and prefer to
share, in the hope that everyone's code will improve. Or they may be
both. The U.S. Mail is slow, slower than Usenet or CompuServe or
whatever. Non-developer hackers will want in, when development tools
are sold to the public. The list of potential problems goes on...
Since we might be distributing Commodore example source code, this is
open only to real, registered developers. We can't safely send this
stuff around the Usenet. I'm sure none of us want to damage our
developer status. To insure this, please send a a copy of the letter
you received from Commodore when your developer status was approved,
or some other proof of your developer status.
We'll need developer's names and addresses. If you are an interested
developer, or you know an Amiga developer, please send them a copy of
this note. Please cross-post this message to any net that might
respond.
I've thought about how disks, newsletters, and data could be
exchanged - people could act as "backbone sites", and coordinate
developers in their area, and backbone developers could communicate
with each other, or something like that.
This mailing list database will be available in any form to any group
member, and I don't think we should care if it's used for commercial
purposes.
To bootstrap this network, we'll need the following from each
developer:
o your name, company, and U.S. Mail address
o TWO stamped, self-addressed envelopes to get things started
o a xerox of your developer's acceptance letter, or some proof of
your developer status
For the group database, if you wish, describe any:
o expertise or labor you wish to offer the network
o any electronic addresses where you can be reached (Usenet, CompuServe, etc.)
o your interests, software plans
o system configuration
o disks to loan to the floating library, or to begin the software
exchange
Send the above to:
Sight & Sound Music Software
Attn: John Foust
16 N. Carroll St. Suite 600
Madison, Wis. 53703
(608) 256-3646
(My employer, Sight & Sound Music Software, will have no connection
to this group. It's just the closest thing I have to a permanent
address.)jef@lbl-rtsg.arpa (10/25/85)
From: jef@lbl-rtsg.arpa That sounds like a good idea, but Mr. Foust left out one surprisingly important detail: the name. I propose Amicus - the Amiga Users' Society. This is of course reminiscent of DECUS, one of the most successful users' groups ever. It's also Latin for Amiga, for whatever that's worth. --- Jef
wirch@puff.UUCP (10/25/85)
> From: jef@lbl-rtsg.arpa > > That sounds like a good idea, but Mr. Foust left out one surprisingly > important detail: the name. I propose Amicus - the Amiga Users' Society. > This is of course reminiscent of DECUS, one of the most successful users' > groups ever. It's also Latin for Amiga, for whatever that's worth. > --- ^^^^^ > Jef (doesn't "amicus" mean "friend(ly)"?) John says this name sounds great - he's had a few years of Latin and Greek. He said naming the group never occurred to him. Anyways, he said to keep the letters coming... He found the SetSerial program on a demo disk last night, and got the source from the tech BBS, too. He downloaded a full IBM disk of software from there last night, and plans to move it to Amiga format soon. Any developer who wants a copy of the IBM disk can send him a floppy and mailer, and he'll copy it, or you can wait for the Amiga format. He found Icon.Editor and Font.Editor on one disk, but the directory entries said 'empty', and DiskEd probing discovered that those sectors were bad for both files... Is there some kind of copyprotect scheme going on? The same 'empty' entry shows up on his Mandril demo... He'll go back to the dealer where he got the demo disks, and see if they are on the originals. I saw the stuff he downloaded. It sure looks good - all sorts of examples, AmigaDOS V1.0 and below. There was a full image editor there, and timer and playfield and BOB demos, the "dotty window" source, things like that. Rick