malcolm@tower-unix.city-poly.ac.UK (Malcolm Ray) (12/01/89)
Firstly, (sigh) the non-availability of TOS 1.4 in the UK: much as I'd like
to join Neil Forsyth on the soapbox, I recognise that radical changes of
policy take time (even assuming Atari UK can be persuaded to change at all!),
so it might be better for us to look elsewhere. So, what's to stop me
buying TOS 1.4 ROMs from the US, sussing out what changes need to be made
for UK use, then blowing my own modified copy? Never having met a US ST
I'm not sure what the differences are (beyond the obvious) - has anyone done
a comparison of the ROMs?
My first thought was shamefully profiteering. I considered buying a stack
of TOS 1.4 ROMs and reselling them along with details of the UK patches, to
punters who would then blow their own EPROMs. Trouble with that is that many
of the buyers would then flog the Atari ROMs, so I'd be encouraging piracy
(and the fact that Atari UK brought it on themselves has no bearing on the
legality). Anyway, I've got bugger-all capital.
Moving on, it seems questions about ROM versions are flavour of the month.
Perhaps it would be a good idea if apratt or kbad could post a complete list
of all ROM-based TOS versions in the field, with the following information
for each:
1. Version number
2. Date hex-string (for identification)
3. Machine (i.e. 'STE only' for 1.6)
4. Hopefully, a *brief* list of salient features, such as bugs fixed since
last release and known bugs
Is this a reasonable request? It occurs to me that registered developers
may already have this, but it'd be nice if the rest of us could as well.
JANET: malcolm@uk.ac.clp.unixa
Internet: malcolm@unixa.clp.ac.uk
EARN/Bitnet: ditto
You faint from lack of ROMs.--More--