thad@cup.portal.com (Thad P Floryan) (06/29/89)
Burned again? Yep. :-( After just (2 weeks ago) commending Accolade for their "The DUEL: Test Drive II" working properly on all Amigas and doing things correctly (e.g. multitasking, returning to the Workbench screen upon game exiting, good "play", operating from a HD, etc.), I have to retract my statements of praise because: Accolade's "GRAND PRIX CIRCUIT" doesn't work worth shit. Within seconds of a boot attempt, Guru #8 pays a visit. Guru #8 is a privilege violation. Sheesh. A brand new, 1989 product (May 1989; in stores as of June 27), controverting all the Amiga programming guidelines iterated time and again since the first Developers' Conference in Monterey in 1985, and in all the RKMs and other documents. And this at a time when the latest RKM (pages "Introduction-5, -6") clearly state (again): " For 68010/68020/68030/68040 compatibility: - Do not use the "MOVE SR,..." instruction! This 68000 instruction acts differently on othe rmembers of the 68000 family. If you wish a copy of the condition codes, use the exec.library GetCC() function. - Do not use the upper 8 bits of a pointer for storing unrelated information. The 68020 uses all 32 bits for addressing. - Do not use signed variables or signed math for addresses. - Do not execute code on your stack. - The stack frame used for exceptions is different on each member of the 68000 family. The type identification in the frame must be checked! - Do not use self-modifying code. " Still miffed at NewTek, too; it's been 18 months since the DigiDroid fix for use on 68020 and 68030 was promised in public at FAUG, and even the latest 3.0 DigiView software still has the bug driving the color wheel ... the code won't work until the instruction cache is turned off, which strongly suggests self-modifying code. And turning the cache off makes for a slower computer. Sigh. With companies still producing software that doesn't work on all Amigas, CBM has no fear of lawsuits from Apple; the Amiga 3rd party companies will kill the Amiga with their own arrogance and incompetence. :-( Well, Accolade is only a block from my office (in Silicon Valley), so I'm really going to give them a difficult time about this fiasco; it's inexcusable. Thad Floryan [ thad@cup.portal.com (OR) ..!sun!portal!cup.portal.com!thad ]