jfbruno@rodan.acs.syr.edu (John Bruno) (06/07/90)
A recent post mentioned TOS 1.4 on disk. Is this available somewhere? Perhaps via FTP? Can I order the ROMS from somewhere for less than $100? (That's what it costs for them installed, but I'd rather do it and save the $$$). Thanks ---jb
towns@atari.UUCP (John Townsend) (06/12/90)
in article <3651@rodan.acs.syr.edu>, jfbruno@rodan.acs.syr.edu (John Bruno) says: > > A recent post mentioned TOS 1.4 on disk. Is this available somewhere? > Perhaps via FTP? Can I order the ROMS from somewhere for less than $100? > (That's what it costs for them installed, but I'd rather do it and save > the $$$). > > Thanks > ---jb The only _legal_ and Atari authorized versions are available in 2-chip and 6 chip ROM formats. Check with your local Atari Dealer for more info on prices and availablility. -- John Townsend Atari Corp.
grahamt@syma.sussex.ac.uk (Graham Thomas) (06/12/90)
From article <2212@atari.UUCP>, by towns@atari.UUCP (John Townsend): > The only _legal_ and Atari authorized versions are available in 2-chip > and 6 chip ROM formats. Check with your local Atari Dealer for more info > on prices and availablility. > > -- John Townsend > Atari Corp. The above applies only in part where the UK is concerned. Atari UK do now actually have TOS 1.4 ROMs in stock (at least, they did a couple of weeks ago), but they only ordered the six-chip set. For some reason, they quote a price per chip, rather than a price per set, so I expect that when (if??) they ever do order the two-chip set the upgrade cost for TOS 1.2 owners will come down. As it is, I had to pay for the six chips, and then pay extra for four new sockets. Naturally (for Atari UK), the chips came with zero documentation on the features of the new TOS, although a three-page 'technical note' was supplied with details of the part numbers and positioning of the old and new chips. Apart from Allan Pratt's original posting on the features of TOS 1.4, the best user documentation I found was in the February 1989 (yes, that long ago!) edition of ST World (the UK one, not the US one). Despite all this, yes, it is worth having. Graham -- Graham Thomas, SPRU, Mantell Building, U of Sussex, Brighton, BN1 9RF, UK JANET: grahamt@uk.ac.sussex.syma BITNET: grahamt%syma.sussex.ac.uk@UKACRL INTERNET: grahamt%syma.sussex.ac.uk@nsfnet-relay.ac.uk UUCP: grahamt%syma.sussex@ukc.uucp PHONE: +44 273 686758 FAX: [..] 685865
daniel@hexagon.pkmab.se (Daniel Deimert) (06/14/90)
In article <2212@atari.UUCP> towns@atari.UUCP (John Townsend) writes: >The only _legal_ and Atari authorized versions are available in 2-chip Did I hear you say that? Is it _illegal_ to have TOS on disk? Does indeed seem kinda' strange to me, that Atari would like to stop the spreading of their own TOS. If so, why making a disk version in the first place?? Or is it just pure greed? And don't tell me it's because of the incorrect versions of TOS that would be spread with disks. It couldn't be easier to correct: Send out an Atari authorized copy of 1.4. Most users would like to have it in ROMs anyhow, sooner or later. Can we have a comment on this? -- Daniel Deimert, Fridstavaegen 4, S-715 94 Odensbacken, Sweden Internet: daniel@hexagon.pkmab.se or daniel@pkmab.se UUCP: ...!{mcvax,uunet,munnari,cernvax}!sunic!kullmar!pkmab!hexagon!daniel
gl8f@astsun.astro.Virginia.EDU (Greg Lindahl) (06/14/90)
In article <707@hexagon.pkmab.se> daniel@hexagon.pkmab.se (Daniel Deimert) writes: [ why isn't there tos on disk ] >And don't tell me it's because of the incorrect versions of TOS that >would be spread with disks. It couldn't be easier to correct: Send out >an Atari authorized copy of 1.4. And then someone would patch it, and someone would patch the patches, and then who would know what we end up with? Yes, I can deal with this kind of stuff, but Atari has the view that Joe Average ST user just wants a video toaster and doesn't want to worry about which sub-sub version of TOS he has on disk. You may not agree, but complaining here probably won't do any good. -- "Perhaps I'm commenting a bit cynically, but I think I'm qualified to." - Dan Bernstein
goldstein@carafe.enet.dec.com (Fred R. Goldstein) (06/15/90)
In article <1990Jun14.155316.10045@murdoch.acc.Virginia.EDU>, gl8f@astsun.astro.Virginia.EDU (Greg Lindahl) writes... >In article <707@hexagon.pkmab.se> daniel@hexagon.pkmab.se (Daniel Deimert) writes: >[ why isn't there tos on disk ] >>And don't tell me it's because of the incorrect versions of TOS that >>would be spread with disks. It couldn't be easier to correct: Send out >>an Atari authorized copy of 1.4. >And then someone would patch it, and someone would patch the patches, >and then who would know what we end up with? Seems to me that we'd have a situation just like MS-DOS! Which is only available on disk (it's not ROMable -- that's a DR-DOS niche) and frankly nobody thinks that's so bad. It even COMES WITH a DEBUG utility that lets you patch things. Horrors to Betsy! Maybe Tramiel is paranoid that a ROM version would have clone hardware built to run pirated versions. He should be so lucky. --- Fred R. Goldstein goldstein@carafe.enet.dec.com or goldstein@delni.enet.dec.com voice: +1 508 486 7388 opinions are mine alone; sharing requires permission
ignac@electro.UUCP (Ignac Kolenko) (06/15/90)
In article <1990Jun14.155316.10045@murdoch.acc.Virginia.EDU> gl8f@astsun.astro.Virginia.EDU (Greg Lindahl) writes: >In article <707@hexagon.pkmab.se> daniel@hexagon.pkmab.se (Daniel Deimert) writes: >[ why isn't there tos on disk ] >>And don't tell me it's because of the incorrect versions of TOS that >>would be spread with disks. It couldn't be easier to correct: Send out >>an Atari authorized copy of 1.4. > >And then someone would patch it, and someone would patch the patches, >and then who would know what we end up with? Yes, I can deal with this huh? MSDOS, i believe, never went through all this, and it was a disk based OS. I can't see why TOS would behave any differently from MSDOS if it were distributed on floppy. It would at least allow *FAST* distribution of updated versions of the OS, which is critical if you want people to believe that Atari is dedicated to providing decent support in order to make the ST a "real world" machine. If Atari would regularly release a disk based TOS with proper bug fixes as Microsoft did with DOS, then there would be no reason for the above stated scenario. And hell, if TOS was disk based, then all those STUPID patches like GDOS wouldn't have to be patches anymore - they could be right there within the OS where it belongs. hmmpphhh! just adding more fuel to the fire ... -- ========Ignac A. Kolenko (The Ig)=======watmath!watcgl!electro!ignac========= I refuse to succumb to societal pressure and give a witty quote in my .sig!!! =============================================================================
hcj@lzsc.ATT.COM (HC Johnson) (06/15/90)
In article <707@hexagon.pkmab.se>, daniel@hexagon.pkmab.se (Daniel Deimert) writes: > In article <2212@atari.UUCP> towns@atari.UUCP (John Townsend) writes: > > Did I hear you say that? Is it _illegal_ to have TOS on disk? > > Does indeed seem kinda' strange to me, that Atari would like to > stop the spreading of their own TOS. If so, why making a disk > version in the first place?? TOS 1.0 came on disk because ROMS were not ready in 1985. Beta releases of 1.4 were on disk for developers to test with. They signed a release to not distribute these disks. The last bug fixes were never distributed on disk, only burned into ROMS. There are two ways to go with Operating System distribution. 1. RAM based. PC's, Amigas (I believe, dont FLAME me), and MACs (almost) work this way. The advantage is fast changes. The disadvantage is a. fast changes -- macs sometimes seem to have a fix per month -- it implies (to me) not much testing before distribution. b. it sops up available RAM. you never know from release to release how much will be available to the user. This is Hell for developers. 2. ROM based. Atari. The plus is considerable stability. And considerable more testing. The minus is there is no way to even have a perfect ROM, as the way people use the box changes even if the code was correct initially. So, the result is stay with ATARI, and ROM bases OS or get another box. Howard C. Johnson ATT Bell Labs att!lzsc!hcj hcj@lzsc.att.com
gl8f@astsun7.astro.Virginia.EDU (Greg Lindahl) (06/15/90)
In article <1965@electro.UUCP> ignac@electro.UUCP (Ignac Kolenko) writes: >> >>And then someone would patch it, and someone would patch the patches, >>and then who would know what we end up with? Yes, I can deal with this > >huh? MSDOS, i believe, never went through all this, and it was a disk >based OS. Well, that's because TOS and MSDOS provide different levels of features. The serial I/O routines under MS-DOS are sadly broken and still are, so nobody ever used the MS-DOS routines and they write their own drivers, especially for high-speed modems (e.g. FOSSIL). On the ST it's possible to run the serial ports at 19.2 kbaud using the serial port, so people go ahead and use TOS -- except a patch was needed to get rts/cts to work. So the difference between MS-DOS and TOS in that case was that nobody expected MS-DOS to provide that service, so application programmers wrote around it. On the ST, a system program patch was used. MS-DOS 2.X has the same slow FAT allocation that GEMDOS has, but nobody ever bothered to fix it during the several years that 2.X was out before 3.X was released. Perhaps nobody cared. Yes, TOS on disk would provide a means for fast distribution of updated versions. But as I keep on saying, repeating yourself repeatedly saying you want something that they don't provide won't get you anywhere, but it sure makes reading this newsgroup hell. -- "Perhaps I'm commenting a bit cynically, but I think I'm qualified to." - Dan Bernstein
rodney@merkur.UUCP (Rodney Volz) (06/26/90)
In article <30990@cup.portal.com> Robert_G_Brodie@cup.portal.com writes: > The disk based version of TOS 1.4 was available only while it was in > development. Strictly a developer unit, and was bug ridden. Rubbish. I'm currently using a TOS I which is booted from HD, and it's a new version, that's as bug-free as atari-software can be. -Rod -- Rodney Volz - 7000 Stuttgart 1 - FRG ============> ...uunet!mcsun!unido!gtc!aragon!merkur!rodney <============= rodney@merkur.uucp * rodney@jolnet.orpk.il.us * rodney@aragon.uucp \_____________ May your children and mine live in peace _______________/
towns@atari.UUCP (John Townsend) (06/29/90)
in article <7226141@merkur.UUCP>, rodney@merkur.UUCP (Rodney Volz) says: > > In article <30990@cup.portal.com> Robert_G_Brodie@cup.portal.com writes: >> The disk based version of TOS 1.4 was available only while it was in >> development. Strictly a developer unit, and was bug ridden. > > Rubbish. I'm currently using a TOS I which is booted from HD, and > it's a new version, that's as bug-free as atari-software can be. > Wrong! Atari has never completed or released a final TOS 1.4 on disk. If you are using a version on Disk, then it is either a developer version that is _way_ out of date or an authorized copy of TOS (which violates Atari's copyright and is illegal!) Do yourself a favor, go to your dealer and have the ROMs installed. It's the best thing you can do for your ST. -- John Townsend Atari Corp.
Henry_Burdett_Messenger@cup.portal.com (06/30/90)
Rodeny Volz writes: > Rubbish. I'm currently using a TOS I which is booted from HD, and > it's a new version, that's as bug-free as atari-software can be. Oh? And what are your qualifications to perform software testing on TOS? Do you have a copy of every application program and every piece of hardware that can be connected to an ST? Bob Brodie talks to Atari Software Engineering every day, and they're more qualified to know what is in TOS than you are. - hbm ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- henry_burdett_messenger "You want my reply? @cup.portal.com What was the question? I was looking at the big sky."