grunau@husc2.UUCP (grunau) (11/26/86)
Ok, once again, there are a lot of apocryphal rumours going around, and a lot of conflicting information from Atari itself. Is there anybody out there w/ any authority to comment on the following inquiry: Will GDOS be distributed to non-developers at any time in the near future, and if so, at what sort of cost? There are those who speak of GDOS as a "missing" part of GEM, or something that was "supposed to have been included" in GEM from the beginning: this would imply that it should (eventually, when fully debugged, of course) be distributed without charge: I seem to sense that this is unlikely. On Neil Harris's earlier comments, I am willing to accept that GDOS is currently available to developers: however, contrary to what he claimed, when I phoned Atari on Mr. Harris's information that any developer, not only those who have purchased Atari's developer's kit, can be registered with Atari, I was told (1) that this was not so, but that I had to buy the full kit, Alcyon C included, and (2) that currently GDOS is only being distributed to large, institutional developers, anyway: not to just any person in off the street who got the developers kit, even. This confuses me. Is there any more up-to-date information available? JJMG Harvard Grad. School
oyster@uwmacc.UUCP (Vicarious Oyster) (11/26/86)
In article <1044@husc2.UUCP> grunau@husc2.UUCP (justin grunau) writes: ... >There are those who speak of GDOS as a "missing" >part of GEM, or something that was "supposed to have been included" in GEM from >the beginning: this would imply that it should (eventually, when fully >debugged, of course) be distributed without charge: I seem to sense that >this is unlikely. As usual, there are the two sides to this (which applies equally well to the new ROM question): 1) "Our" side- We paid for a working GEM machine. GDOS is an integral part of GEM, and a relatively bug-free OS is an integral part of the machine in general. 2) "Their" side- You paid for what you got. Any development done to better the computer costs more money, which we pass on to you when you buy the newer components. As much as I'd like to get GDOS and new ROM chips free, I can certainly see Atari's position. After all, the computer is very inexpensive compared to it's peers; what's another $20-50 more? (Frankly, though, I'd like to see the rumored new ROM free or very cheap-- manufacturing costs only.) > > ...contrary to what he [N. Harris] claimed, >when I phoned Atari on Mr. Harris's information that any developer, not >only those who have purchased Atari's developer's kit, can be registered >with Atari, I was told (1) that this was not so, but that I had to buy >the full kit, Alcyon C included... You may have been misled by my posted interpretation of what one of the Atari people stated. While I can agree with Atari's position on some matters (like the above), I still think it's a *really* dumb idea to restrict documentation and new developments to people who have paid for a kit containing a lot of undesirable stuff. I can *almost* see that kind of policy for the first few critical months in the life of a new machine, but there is already a large alternate source for many of the components of the current developer's kit, and we latecomers who have chosen other C compilers, assemblers, Kermits, etc., shouldn't have to pay for yet another set of the same software (which, according to all reports I've read, is inferior). Incidentally, I heard from a friend who has both an ST and an IBM with GEM (GDOS intact, and *very* impressive!) that you can get the IBM GEM documentation and C bindings for ~$100 directly from DRI. From what I understand (and owners of the Atari Dev. Kit can correct this), the ST GEM documentation is a barely changed version of the IBM stuff. That still won't get you first dibs on new developments from Atari, nor access to things like the CompuServe developers forum, but at least you won't have to make do with the Abacus books, and you won't be the proud owner of a second C compiler, etc. -- - Joel Plutchak uucp: {allegra,ihnp4,seismo}!uwvax!uwmacc!oyster ARPA: oyster@unix.macc.wisc.edu
grunau_b@husc4.harvard.edu (justin grunau) (11/28/86)
Yes (in reply to Vicarious Oyster), your points are all well-taken. I am not trying to be selfish, here. I recognize that Atari is selling the machine dirt-cheap, and that they have to recoup their R&D costs as well as their current manufacturing costs. I was thinking about cheap mail-order manufacturers the other day: for instance, PC's Limited sells (at the top of their line), a fully-decked out fully AT compatible for $1800, where fully-decked out means 8MHz, 1MB RAM, 1.25M floppy, 20M hard disk, ports, clock/calendar w/ battery backup, hercules-compatible monitor interface, and monochrome monitor. For a monochrome ST with 20M hard disk, one would pay $1800 retail, $1450 typical mail-order discount ($800 mono. ST, $650 Supra or Atari 20M). So we are talking comparable prices. Yet PC's limited provides very high-quality service, including FREE monthly ROM upgrades. Of course, one ends up with a boring (though admittedly powerful) AT. I realized, however, that the difference is that PC's Limited is capitalizing on IBM's R&D, whereas Atari (even though they did the smart thing and went with GEM) had to shell out a lot of capital to design the ST in the first place, and are still (I hope!) spending bucks to debug the OS. So let no one (esp. Atari) imagine I am trying to be unfair to their side of the story. I would be happy if they sold GDOS at a reasonable fee, and the debugged ROMs (free of blitter) at a nominal fee. For right NOW, I would be happy if I could get some **official** information from Atari on whether there are even going to BE fixes to the 40-folder limit, non-booting from HD (at least allow an AUTO folder on the HD, like you currently allow the .ACC files to be read from drive C:), and whether either GDOS will be available to non-developers or that we can really be registered as developers w/o their compiler. JJMG Harvard Linguistics