ud140469@ndsuvm1.bitnet.UUCP (09/27/87)
am (at least initially) impressed. Now, I must admit, I have this funny thing
for documentation--when something has a big manual, I really like it. The only
thing wrong with Tackle Box is that it might have too big a manual--I don't
think I've ever seen a 3" 3-ring binder! I know OSS told me it was nine
hundred pages of docs, but it didn't really sink in until I saw it.... Nine
hundred pages, broken into nine topic areas: GEMDOOS, BIOS, XBIOS, VDI, AES,
math library, hardware, Pascal tutorial, and Tackle Kit. I haven't even looked
to see what's on the disks yet (two disks). Oh yeah--if you didn't already
figure it out, this is 81/2"x11" (must weigh five pounds). It kind of over-
overwhelmed me when I saw it--kind of like the Atari Dev. Docs do to you
(except that Atari hasn't produced anything this nice--it's all letter quality,
nice diagrams, dividers for all the sections, tables of contents and an
index (!). Even the stuff he has in the hardware sections that came from other
sources doesn't look like it was photocopied!). He seems to have calls for
nearly everything (even the blitter!), and they come in either C-style calls
(makes it a lot easier to translate all those C program samples in the books
and magazines into Pascal) or you can use the generic Pascal calls (and it's
all documented!). mini**FLAME** Atari if just one person (Rusty Mullins and
his small company) can put together such a quality package for developers, why
can't you? Maybe you should distribute his docs instead of what you have know.
.. **FLAME OFF*** This is a great all-in-one reference manual (you still
might need some tutorial books to supplement (although he does have some nice
introductory stuff at the beginning of each section)). This, along with the
new Compute! books (I have the VDI one, and I assume more are coming) and the
new version of PPascal (and my Mega for a decent RAMdisk) should really get me
rolling. (In case you haven't guessed, I've forgiven SRM for the delays in
getting this out--it was worth it!). Now if only the Megas will come out...
(are you listening, Atari?).
Scott Udell
UD140469@NDSUVM1.BITNET
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