thad@cup.portal.com (Thad P Floryan) (12/24/88)
Well, it appears that Spectrum Holobyte can be added to the list of companies that consider the Amiga lower than a whale turd. Their latest disaster, FALCON, exemplifies their "Screw The Amiga" attitude. Specifically, FALCON does NOT function on *ANY* 68020-equipped Amiga. Not the 2500. Not the A500 with a CSA 68020 card. Not the A1000 equipped with a Ronin Hurricane card. Not the A1000 equipped with a CSA 68020 card. Not the A2000 with a 68020 card. Yes, I've checked them all. Cretins. 3 1/2 years ago the Amiga Programming Guidelines were first issued re: processor compatibilty. And today, companies like Spectrum Holobute STILL thumb their noses at the Amiga by controverting those programming guidelines. Sheesh. No smiley faces here. :-( The arrogance of those cretins, claiming the "premier jet fighter simulation on personal computers" (from their manual for the Amiga, page 3). Thad Floryan [thad@cup.portal.com (OR) ..!sun!portal!cup.portal.com!thad]
sean@ms.uky.edu (Sean Casey) (12/26/88)
In article <12895@cup.portal.com> thad@cup.portal.com (Thad P Floryan) writes: >Specifically, FALCON does NOT function on *ANY* 68020-equipped Amiga. I can vouch for that. I watched someone try to get it to boot on a stock A2000 with expansion mem. It got partway through the boot sequence and hung. At the computer store, they couldn't get it to boot on any of their machines. They are sending their copies back. Sean -- *** Sean Casey sean@ms.uky.edu, sean@ukma.bitnet *** Who sometimes never learns. {backbone site|rutgers|uunet}!ukma!sean *** U of K, Lexington Kentucky, USA ..where Christian movies are banned. *** ``My name is father. You killed my die. Prepare to Inigo Montoya.''
mike@shogun.cc.umich.edu (Michael Nowak) (12/26/88)
My brother just got Falcon for his Mac Plus and it is kind of fun to play,
especially when using two Macs on AppleTalk to fight each other. According
to the docs, you can play Mac vs. IBM over a serial cable. Does anyone
know if you can use the Amiga version and a serial cable to play against
a Mac Falcon player?
I wish I had the problem of not being able to run Falcon on my Amiga but
alas I only have a 68000 and no expansion memory...
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Michael Nowak ...mailrus!shogun!mike
Workstation Consultant mike@shogun.cc.umich.edu
U of M Computing Center User Services Mike_Nowak@um.cc.umich.edu
...working for but in no way representing the University of Michigan...thad@cup.portal.com (Thad P Floryan) (12/28/88)
As much as I enjoy receiving email, enough is enough. I've received 28 emailings so far on the subject of FALCON not working with the '020 and '030 Amigas; 27 have been in agreement with my posting the "flame", and one was not. I literally don't have time to answer all the mail, but I did answer the "negative" correspondent and have included my reply here for your perusal; the correspondent's name is NOT among the others who've posted publicly and I've removed all references to that person in this reply: " It appears you didn't get the message re: Spectrum Holobyte. 1) they're located nearby Ronin Engineering (both companies are in Alameda, CA). Ronin are the makers of the Hurricane 68020 and 68030 cards for the Amiga A1000 and A2000; Ronin is very good about lending their stuff out on approval and/or for trials. 2) the Amiga programming guidelines were issued in May 1985 and have been re-iterated in EVERY edition of the ROM Kernel Manuals and related documentation and at EVERY Amiga Developers' Conference; even in the various Amiga magazines, BBSs, networks, Amiga MAIL (from CATS), etc. There is *NO* excuse for anyone today to violate those guidelines; criticism of EA on The WELL several years ago finally brought them to their senses ... the F-18 game, for example, DOES work on all Amigas. 3) people from Spectrum Holobyte regularly attend both BADGE and FAUG meetings; they *KNOW* the Amiga programming guidelines (which I hammer home at every opportunity: I chair the Technical Q&A Session of FAUG, and am on what is the closest thing to "staff" that BADGE can claim (the Speakers' Committee) ). 4) and, to paraphrase another saying: "Ignorance of the law is no excuse." :-) Face it: Spectrum Holobyte screwed up badly. And as others have attested (see the followup "I vouch for Thad's comments" posted in response to mine), your opinion is the minority opinion in this regards. Dealers *ARE* sending the damned game back because it won't work on the "hot rodded" Amigas in the store used for demos. This *IS* an important issue. I really don't care if YOUR Amiga has an '020 or not; in this area (Silicon Valley, where Spectrum Holobyte itself is located) many people even have a 68020 in their A500 systems; a 68010 is a very popular upgrade, and there are hundreds of 68020 *AND* 68030 equipped A1000 and A2000 Amigas. Someone has to point out the failings of companies purporting to "support" the Amiga; you've just made me realize that purchasers of crap products have been TOO SILENT and more pressure is needed (even for companies like Word Perfect). You're entitled to your opinions, but I believe your attitude is ridiculous. A 68000 computer (today) is ancient; even 68020 MPUs are typically used now for process control, and the 68030 (and soon the 68040) is the only MPU to deploy as the principal one in new design; even Apple and NeXT have seen the light, and Commodore has produced the A2620 020/881/851 card for the A2000 and is bundling it with an A2000 as the A2500. Open your eyes and look around. My "flame" (as you put it) is something that CATS itself should have published when they find companies that screw the Amiga and violate the programming guidelines and standards. Such standards, by the way, apply not just to the Amiga but to any 680x0 product as stated by Motorola in their literature. YOUR attitude reminds me of the people who say "it's OK" to use sub-standard building materials (remember Armenia? certain nuclear power plants? etc.) and/or release software with known flaws believing that 99% is "ok"; sheesh. :-( Sounds like a book entitled "UNUSABLE ON ANY COMPUTER" by Ralf Nadir (not "sic": see the definition of the colloquialism "ralf" and of the word "nadir"; the pun is intentional) should be published. :-) :-) Thad Floryan [ thad@cup.portal.com (OR) ..!sun!portal!cup.portal.com!thad ]
dales@teksce.SCE.TEK.COM (Dale Snell) (12/29/88)
In article <10736@s.ms.uky.edu> sean@ms.uky.edu (Sean Casey) writes: [Thad flames Spectrum Holobyte because FALCON won't work with a 68020.] |I watched someone try to get it to boot on a stock A2000 with expansion |mem. It got partway through the boot sequence and hung. At the computer |store, they couldn't get it to boot on any of their machines. |They are sending their copies back. Good! Maybe that'll get somebody's attention. Another game you can add to the list is "Annals of Rome". This one does boot. However, if you have *any* extra memory beyond the first 512K of CHIP Ram, the text is completely obscured. I spent about fifteen minutes last Saturday trying to get this sucker to work. A friend of mine had bought it, and it wouldn't work on his 1 Meg A500. He brought it over to a mutual friend's place to try it on his stock A2000. Same problem. The game boots up, running AmigaDOS, and seems to start just fine. Then it puts up a map of the "world", and starts to print some numbers in each country. Well, that's what's supposed to happen. Actually all we saw were grey rectangles. We tried various combinations of NoFastMem, SetPatch, 1.2, 1.3... No change. Finally, we told our friend to take the game back to the dealer. Of course, the dealer has been showing this on stock (512K) A500s, where it works just fine. It also works on a 512K A1000 -- we tried it. Gahh! Another one for the fecal roster. :-( |*** Sean Casey sean@ms.uky.edu, sean@ukma.bitnet --dds |*** ``My name is father. You killed my die. Prepare to Inigo Montoya.'' *Snicker!* *Chortle!* Big Whorls Have Little Whorls | Dale D. Snell CompuServe: 74756,666 Which Feed On Their Velocity | UUCP-Domain: dales@teksce.SCE.TEK.COM And Little Whorls have Littler Whorls | UUCP-Bang: ...!tektronix!teksce!dales And So On To Viscosity. | Disclaimer: My opinions. Not Tek's
joe@dayton.UUCP (Joseph P. Larson) (12/30/88)
In article <12991@cup.portal.com> thad@cup.portal.com (Thad P Floryan) writes: >As much as I enjoy receiving email, enough is enough. I've received 28 >emailings so far on the subject of FALCON not working with the '020 and '030 >Amigas; 27 have been in agreement with my posting the "flame", and one was >not. I literally don't have time to answer all the mail, but I did answer the >"negative" correspondent and have included my reply here for your perusal; the >correspondent's name is NOT among the others who've posted publicly and I've >removed all references to that person in this reply: Thad was good enough to leave my name out of this, so I'll toss it in, anyways. I wrote Thad a letter explaining I thought his flames were turned up a bit high. His original posting accused the company who wrote "Falcon" (Spectrum Holobyte?) of having a very negative attitude towards the Amiga. (He wasn't this polite.) Simply because a company did not build a product that runs on a rather odd Amiga configuration does not imply the company has a bad attitude. My response to his response (his response being identical to the posting to which I am now replying :-) indicated I don't like imperfect software any more than the next guy. However, a lot of people have put out software that violates the guidelines a little. I asked him (not in those words, exactly, but...) to keep a little perspective. So -- for the record. I'm not saying Spectrum Holobyte did right when they put out a product that violates one of the Amiga developers guidelines and won't run on the '020 and '030 machines out there. But maintain some perspective! Don't damn a company for this. Or at least not before you know WHY this happened. Oversights occur. Maybe one person in a large company blew it. Don't damn the entire company. Don't even damn that one person -- maybe his 4-year-old has been sick or his dog died or something. Report the shortcomings. Don't damn the person or company for them, though. -Joe -- When you fall on your head do you land on your feet? UUCP: rutgers!dayton!joe (Feed my Dayton Hudson Department Store Company ATT : (612) 375-3537 picture Joe Larson/MIS 1060 (standard disclaimer...) collection) 700 on the Mall Mpls, Mn. 55402
blgardne@esunix.UUCP (Blaine Gardner) (01/01/89)
In article <12991@cup.portal.com> thad@cup.portal.com (Thad P Floryan) writes: >As much as I enjoy receiving email, enough is enough. I've received 28 >emailings so far on the subject of FALCON not working with the '020 and '030 >Amigas; 27 have been in agreement with my posting the "flame", and one was >not. While we're flaming, you can add the fact that it will not run on a 68010 processor either. So it's not anyting as exotic as self modifying code, but an illegal instruction. GOMF 3.0 wouldn't trap the error, I didn't try DeciGel. Since it won't even run on a 68010, it's not just the boys with the big bucks toys that they've cut themselves out of the market on, it's anyone with $30 to spare for a 68010. Since the A2500 is now for sale (I've heard of several sightings at dealers), they can't use the excuse of an alternate CPU being a "nonstandard" setup. -- Blaine Gardner @ Evans & Sutherland 580 Arapeen Drive, SLC, Utah 84108 Here: utah-cs!esunix!blgardne {ucbvax,allegra,decvax}!decwrl!esunix!blgardne There: uunet!iconsys!caeco!pedro!worsel!blaine "Nobody will ever need more than 64K." "Nobody needs multitasking on a PC."
me128-aw@kepler.Berkeley.EDU (me128 student) (01/02/89)
In article <12895@cup.portal.com> thad@cup.portal.com (Thad P Floryan) writes: >Well, it appears that Spectrum Holobyte can be added to the list of companies >that consider the Amiga lower than a whale turd. > >Their latest disaster, FALCON, exemplifies their "Screw The Amiga" attitude. Actually, I like FALCON, but agree with you that it is NOT an AMIGA program. I talked to a programmer from SH and he said that management was putting MASSIVE pressure on the programmers to do a quick port. Thus, no 020 support (AAGHH! my Lucas board!) and st-type menus. To add to the bug list, FALCON will not work under 1.3 if an autobooting rad: exists in memory! (at least it didn't work for me) The only solution: turn the machine off and then on again. I guess it does some type of partial reset or something half-way thru the boot procedure. I hope this doesn't mean that it won't work with autobooting Hard disk controllers. Imaging having to pull out your hard card everytime you want to play! Sheesh! -Vincent H. Lee
zlhb0a@apctrc.uucp (Lawrence H. Brown) (01/03/89)
In article <12895@cup.portal.com> thad@cup.portal.com (Thad P Floryan) writes: > >3 1/2 years ago the Amiga Programming Guidelines were first issued re: >processor compatibilty. > >And today, companies like Spectrum Holobute STILL thumb their noses at the >Amiga by controverting those programming guidelines. > >The arrogance of those cretins, claiming the "premier jet fighter simulation >on personal computers" (from their manual for the Amiga, page 3). Yep. I saw the program and wasn't impressed. I'm saving my buckeroos for F18-Interceptor II (*) which will have multiplayer via modem and/or midi! * Note: There currently is no such thing. Wishful thinking on my part. Re: the page three hype, yah gotta take those things with a BIG grain of salt. I'll stick with AmigaWorlds picks (gads, I'm gonna get flamed) or best of all, our own net-reviewers. // You've heard of CATS, DOGS, & GOATS? *NOW* TRY GERBILS! // "Gladly Educating Real Beginners In Latest Software!" \\// Lawrence H. Brown USENET: ...!uunet!apctrc!zlhb0a \/ (918-660-4389) USmail: 7325 E. 50th, Tulsa, OK 74145
darin@nova.laic.uucp (Darin Johnson) (01/03/89)
In article <27302@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU> me128-aw@kepler.Berkeley.EDU (me128 student) writes: >I hope this doesn't mean >that it won't work with autobooting Hard disk controllers. Imaging having >to pull out your hard card everytime you want to play! Sheesh! > >-Vincent H. Lee Actually, when I had my 1000 with a SupraDrive, I actually had to do this for a program (it wasn't commercial). I have no idea why it didn't work, since it wasn't an autoconfig drive, so it shouldn't have taken up any memory. So every time I used the program, I had to yank off the card from the side of the 1000... Of course, when I wasn't using the hard-disk, I would unplug it since it made this horrible noise. Just leaving it turned off wouldn't work, since the 1000 wouldn't boot. I am not blaming the manufacturer for the noise, since I have seen quite a few quiet ones, especially the later models - they even gave me excellent support when I needed it. Darin Johnson (leadsv!laic!darin@pyramid.pyramid.com) "You can't fight in here! This is the war room.."
cca@pur-phy (Charles C. Allen) (01/04/89)
I'd just like to interject a note that Spectrum Holobyte has a good reputation for support in the Mac world. They appear to have screwed up in this particular instance, but wait and see what they do. Falcon on the Mac originally had problems on a Mac II, but a free upgrade fixed that and added other improvements. None of their Mac products are copy-protected (I don't know about other machines). Charles Allen cca@newton.physics.purdue.edu
barrett@ektools.UUCP (Chris Barrett) (01/16/89)
In article <1170@esunix.UUCP> blgardne@esunix.UUCP (Blaine Gardner) writes: > >While we're flaming, you can add the fact that it will not run on a 68010 >processor either. So it's not anyting as exotic as self modifying code, >but an illegal instruction. GOMF 3.0 wouldn't trap the error, I didn't >try DeciGel. > According to the GOMF 3.0 docs, the use of decigel is not necessary, apparently it is supposed to trap the illegal intruction interrupt such as the move <sr> instructions. Chris rochester!kodak!ektools!barrett barrett@ektools
blgardne@esunix.UUCP (Blaine Gardner) (01/19/89)
From article <1696@ektools.UUCP>, by barrett@ektools.UUCP (Chris Barrett): > In article <1170@esunix.UUCP> blgardne@esunix.UUCP (Blaine Gardner) writes: >> >>While we're flaming, you can add the fact that it will not run on a 68010 >>processor either. So it's not anyting as exotic as self modifying code, >>but an illegal instruction. GOMF 3.0 wouldn't trap the error, I didn't >>try DeciGel. >> > > According to the GOMF 3.0 docs, the use of decigel is not necessary, apparently > it is supposed to trap the illegal intruction interrupt such as the move <sr> > instructions. Yes, GOMF will trap the exception errors if you tell it to, but neither GOMF or DeciGel (I did get the chance to try it) will help with Falcon. Whatever it's doing wrong is too much for either of the patches to fix it. GOMF does work with most programs that cause the exception error, so I was surprised to find that Falcon still broke. Since the "two weeks" are now up, has the 68020 version of Falcon been released? :-) We need the A2500 and the A2620 to be released so that vendors can't use "non-standard hardware configuration" as an excuse for not supporting alternate CPUs. -- Blaine Gardner @ Evans & Sutherland 580 Arapeen Drive, SLC, Utah 84108 Here: utah-cs!esunix!blgardne {ucbvax,allegra,decvax}!decwrl!esunix!blgardne There: uunet!iconsys!caeco!pedro!worsel!blaine "Nobody will ever need more than 64K." "Nobody needs multitasking on a PC."
jesup@cbmvax.UUCP (Randell Jesup) (01/21/89)
In article <1195@esunix.UUCP> blgardne@esunix.UUCP (Blaine Gardner) writes: >We need the A2500 and the A2620 to be released so that vendors can't use >"non-standard hardware configuration" as an excuse for not supporting >alternate CPUs. They have been released, and I hear they're in (some) stores, and people have bought them. -- Randell Jesup, Commodore Engineering {uunet|rutgers|allegra}!cbmvax!jesup
lphillips@lpami.wimsey.bc.ca (Larry Phillips) (01/22/89)
In <1195@esunix.UUCP>, blgardne@esunix.UUCP (Blaine Gardner) writes: > We need the A2500 and the A2620 to be released so that vendors can't use > "non-standard hardware configuration" as an excuse for not supporting > alternate CPUs. In <827@afit-ab.arpa>, news@afit-ab.arpa (News System Account) Writes: > Both magazines expect at least the A 2500 to be available "early" in 89. > Somewhere else (I don't recall exactly where) it was mentioned that all > pieces of the A2500 UX could be purchased separately to add to an existing > system, but I'm certainly not the one to ask. The A2500 was released in early January (arrived here in Vancouver BC during the first week in January). The 2620 was released about a week ago as a separate item. Hie thee to thy local dealer and enjoy. -larry -- Frisbeetarianism: The belief that when you die, your soul goes up on the roof and gets stuck. +----------------------------------------------------------------------+ | // Larry Phillips | | \X/ lphillips@lpami.wimsey.bc.ca or uunet!van-bc!lpami!lphillips | | COMPUSERVE: 76703,4322 | +----------------------------------------------------------------------+