ins778u@vax4.cc.monash.edu.au (mr c.r. hames) (05/27/90)
Ok here are a few questions related to the advent of 2.0
1. FFS off floppies will be great but the majority of disks will continue
to be OFS. So with the re writting of DOS was the brain damage taken
out. Ie does AmigaDOS when reading an OFS directory just blindly go
through the hash table taking no notice of the location of the blocks
so that it grinds back and forth wasting large amounts of time?
2. The RKM's are much improved(V1.3 ones) but with so much extra information
that will be required for using 2.0 to the limit, will their be a full
new version or will their be update docs all over my room?
3. Could you describe the current developer support methods with regards
to Australian programmers(yes there are quite a few).
--
Chris Hames: ins778u@vax4.cc.monash.edu.au(internet)
C/Assembler!: FreeWare: VMK,DirWork,FSDirs......(Fish etc)
Commercial: Classified.carolyn@cbmvax.commodore.com (Carolyn Scheppner - CATS) (05/30/90)
In article <2259@monu1.cc.monash.oz> ins778u@vax4.cc.monash.edu.au (mr c.r. hames) writes: >Ok here are a few questions related to the advent of 2.0 [] >2. The RKM's are much improved(V1.3 ones) but with so much extra information > that will be required for using 2.0 to the limit, will their be a full > new version or will their be update docs all over my room? > Both. First you will have 2.0 autodocs/includes/readmes available on disk, and Developer's Conference Notes available through CATS. We plan to do a new manual set. But a new manual set will take significant amount time to complete. So for a while, you'll have to depend on Autodocs, Includes, and Devcon Notes. (Plus we'll be doing additional examples for AmigaMail) >3. Could you describe the current developer support methods with regards > to Australian programmers(yes there are quite a few). You'd have to contact your local developer support organization for this information. -- ========================================================================== Carolyn Scheppner -- CATS Commodore Amiga Technical Support PHONE 215-431-9180 UUCP ...{uunet,allegra,rutgers}!cbmvax!carolyn Oh I'm a numberjack and I'm OK, I code all night and I work all day... ==========================================================================
charles@teslab.lab.OZ (Charles W. Widepy) (06/08/90)
In article <11918@cbmvax.commodore.com> carolyn@cbmvax (Carolyn Scheppner - CATS) writes: >In article <2259@monu1.cc.monash.oz> ins778u@vax4.cc.monash.edu.au (mr c.r. hames) writes: >>3. Could you describe the current developer support methods with regards >> to Australian programmers (yes there are quite a few). > >You'd have to contact your local developer support organization for this >information. This is the crap we, in Australia, have been getting for four years. First, we contact Commodore Australia, who do nothing. Then we contact Commodore in the U.S. who invariably say to talk to Commodore Australia. This apparently is a policy decision from senior management, that any developer enquiries have to be referred back to Australia. I think the main problem is that Commodore Australia have never made a loss so Commodore thinks don't touch anything that seems to work. Unfortunately, the success of Commodore products in Australia is due more to the intelligence of the Australian consumer than to the competence of the management of Commodore Australia. There are a hell of a lot of developers in Australia, most of whom are fed up with the total lack of support that Commodore is prepared to give them! Chuck. -- Charles Widepy (charles@teslab.lab.oz.au) Phone +61 (Aust) 2 (Sydney) 289 8715
fozzy@bhpese.oz.au (Andrew Steele) (06/14/90)
charles@teslab.lab.OZ (Charles W. Widepy) writes: >In article <11918@cbmvax.commodore.com> carolyn@cbmvax (Carolyn Scheppner - CATS) writes: >>In article <2259@monu1.cc.monash.oz> ins778u@vax4.cc.monash.edu.au (mr c.r. hames) writes: >>> [about developer support for Australian developers] >>You'd have to contact your local developer support organization >This is the crap we, in Australia, have been getting for four years. >First, we contact Commodore Australia, who do nothing. Then we >contact Commodore in the U.S. who invariably say to talk to Commodore >Australia. This apparently is a policy decision from senior >management, that any developer enquiries have to be referred back to >Australia. >There are a hell of a lot of developers in Australia, most of whom >are fed up with the total lack of support that Commodore is prepared >to give them! I'd just like to add another voice to this. Commodore Australia are totally incompotent. A close friend of mine is a ComCare agent, whenever I'm over visiting him I hear a never ending list of horror stories of problems he has with them. It seems that their underlying problem is that they are afraid of getting ripped off which I suppose would be the reason why they appear O.K. on the bottom line to Commodore in the States. He does servicing for a number of different brands of equipment and of all the stuff he fixes he says the parts replacement policy of Commodore Aust. takes the cake. Unfortunately he does not have net access so I'm only going on third hand knowledge. Maybe there are some other ComCare agents out there who could relate first hand the problem's we down under have had. With any luck, if enough of the Aust. Amiga Community say something then those at Commodore US who read this group may pass some of it on to the people who have some control as to how Commodore Aust. runs. fozzy -- Andrew Steele Computer Services, ACSnet : fozzy@bhpese.oz BHP Rod & Bar Products Division, INTERNET: fozzy@bhpese.oz.au Newcastle, NSW, Australia. UUCP : ...!{uunet,mcvax}!munnari!bhpese.oz!fozzy
cmcmanis@stpeter.Eng.Sun.COM (Chuck McManis) (06/15/90)
In article <1990Jun14.061459.17601@bhpese.oz.au> (Andrew Steele) writes: >I'd just like to add another voice to this. >Commodore Australia are totally incompotent. A pretty gross generalization but what the heck this is usenet. The fundamental issue is that Commodore is split up into a zillion little companies that all share the name Commodore in their name somewhere but little else. Further "CATS" as seen on the network, are either part of Commodore Business Machines/USA or Commodore/Amiga both of which are essentially USA companies. Send mail to Irving Gould or the Commodore Board suggesting that the world should get the same level of support that the US does. Anyway, you might not have much luck but if you get the CATS budget boosted to support other countries they might not mind. ;-). Bottom line, its a structural thing, not a technical one. Contact someone with a big hammer to whack the structure of the company. -- --Chuck McManis Sun Microsystems uucp: {anywhere}!sun!cmcmanis BIX: <none> Internet: cmcmanis@Eng.Sun.COM These opinions are my own and no one elses, but you knew that didn't you. "I tell you this parrot is bleeding deceased!"
jbickers@templar.actrix.co.nz (John Bickers) (06/15/90)
Quoted from - fozzy@bhpese.oz.au (Andrew Steele): > charles@teslab.lab.OZ (Charles W. Widepy) writes: > > >In article <11918@cbmvax.commodore.com> carolyn@cbmvax (Carolyn Scheppner - CATS) writes: > >>In article <2259@monu1.cc.monash.oz> ins778u@vax4.cc.monash.edu.au (mr c.r. hames) writes: > >>> [about developer support for Australian developers] > > >>You'd have to contact your local developer support organization > > >This is the crap we, in Australia, have been getting for four years. Someone from CBM (possibly DH) posted a while back that there was a European version of CATS, and that Australasia came under their jurisdiction, not the US (sort of makes sense, what with PAL and the suchlike). We (in NZ) had our zeroth Amiga conference shortly after this, and were surprised to see the local CBM people turn up with some support scheme. While nothing has come of this scheme so far (heh) the move may have been prompted by Europe. So I think if you want to go over the heads of the people in Aust., complaining to Europe might be more effective than complaining to CATS in the US. > >There are a hell of a lot of developers in Australia, most of whom > >are fed up with the total lack of support that Commodore is prepared > >to give them! As a BTW, what sort of support do developers expect to get? I'm not an independent developer myself, nor is what I write headed for the Amiga, so I don't have a first hand opinion on what support should be. But the one developer I do know gets along well enough without CBM handholding. Is it pre-release hardware and software people want, or are they just looking for a human index to the RKMs? Can't you sign up as a developer (for AmigaMAIL, or whatever it's called, and the suchlike) directly to the States? > With any luck, if enough of the Aust. Amiga Community say something > then those at Commodore US who read this group may pass some of it on > to the people who have some control as to how Commodore Aust. runs. Are CBM Australia part of CBM International? CBM NZ wasn't, until recently. Just an independent co. with a name corresponding to the product it sold. And if you want to quiz the NZ CBM guy looking after the developer support stuff, he's at: Philip Grant 1-3 Parkhead Place, North Harbour Industrial Estate, Albany, Auckland, NZ. PO Box 33-847. Phone: (09) 415-8440, Fax: (09) 415-8452. This info is off the guy's business card, and not guaranteed to be correct... :) > fozzy -- *** John Bickers, TAP, NZAmigaUG. jbickers@templar.actrix.co.nz *** *** Let them figure it out, Come on and step across, *** *** Just remind yourself, We are here to code. - munged Devo ***
jbickers@templar.actrix.co.nz (John Bickers) (06/15/90)
Quoted from - geoff@actrix.co.nz (Geoff McCaughan): > In article <1990Jun14.061459.17601@bhpese.oz.au> fozzy@bhpese.oz.au (Andrew Steele) writes: [...] > >Commodore Australia are totally incompotent. A close friend of mine is a > > Ditto for New Zealand. It's about time CBM woke up and realised what is > happening out here. > > We have a video put out by Commodore NZ that waffles on about Developer > and User Group support. We sometimes play this at our user group There's a video?!?!? Did they skip the NZAmigaUG because we use the word Users instead of User? :) We could always try a writing campaign to Philip Grant, mentioned earlier. And perhaps Tony Wills could tell us what contribution, if any, CBM NZ makes to the national Amiga Echo on Fidonet? Also, are there any NZ Amiga developers on Usenet? Perhaps they could comment on whether or not CBM provide any support at all for their products. Note that CBM *did* demonstrate an Amiga 3000 for the national Users Group a few weeks back, as well as the group in Auckland. > Geoff McCaughan Email: geoff@actrix.co.nz Phone: +64 3 539545 or 852101 -- *** John Bickers, TAP, NZAmigaUG. jbickers@templar.actrix.co.nz *** *** Let them figure it out, Come on and step across, *** *** Just remind yourself, We are here to code. - munged Devo ***
geoff@actrix.co.nz (Geoff McCaughan) (06/15/90)
In article <1990Jun14.061459.17601@bhpese.oz.au> fozzy@bhpese.oz.au (Andrew Steele) writes: >charles@teslab.lab.OZ (Charles W. Widepy) writes: > >>In article <11918@cbmvax.commodore.com> carolyn@cbmvax (Carolyn Scheppner - CATS) writes: >>>You'd have to contact your local developer support organization > >>This is the crap we, in Australia, have been getting for four years. > >>First, we contact Commodore Australia, who do nothing. Then we >>contact Commodore in the U.S. who invariably say to talk to Commodore >>Australia. This apparently is a policy decision from senior >>management, that any developer enquiries have to be referred back to >>Australia. > >>There are a hell of a lot of developers in Australia, most of whom >>are fed up with the total lack of support that Commodore is prepared >>to give them! > >I'd just like to add another voice to this. > >Commodore Australia are totally incompotent. A close friend of mine is a Ditto for New Zealand. It's about time CBM woke up and realised what is happening out here. We have a video put out by Commodore NZ that waffles on about Developer and User Group support. We sometimes play this at our user group meetings, because it always gets a good laugh. These zeros just don't seem to want to know about developer or user group support. Our current theory is that this is because they're too embarrassed to admit that most of the developers and a good portion of the user group memebers could run rings around their 'technical' staff. Somebody please do something...... -- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Geoff McCaughan Email: geoff@actrix.co.nz Phone: +64 3 539545 or 852101 Amiga/Hardware/Unix/Quantum Mechanics Hacker Phax : +64 3 539567 "Anarchy: Think of it as evolution in action." ^ NEW ZEALAND!
Keith.Stewart@actrix.co.nz (Keith Stewart) (06/15/90)
In article <1990Jun15.022514.10448@actrix.co.nz> geoff@actrix.co.nz (Geoff McCaughan) writes: >In article <1990Jun14.061459.17601@bhpese.oz.au> fozzy@bhpese.oz.au (Andrew Steele) writes: >>charles@teslab.lab.OZ (Charles W. Widepy) writes: >> >>>In article <11918@cbmvax.commodore.com> carolyn@cbmvax (Carolyn Scheppner - CATS) writes: >>>>You'd have to contact your local developer support organization >> >> >>>First, we contact Commodore Australia, who do nothing. Then we (Deleted a lot of things about Commodore Australia) > >Ditto for New Zealand. It's about time CBM woke up and realised what is >happening out here. >We have a video put out by Commodore NZ that waffles on about Developer >and User Group support. We sometimes play this at our user group >meetings, because it always gets a good laugh. These zeros just don't >seem to want to know about developer or user group support. Our current >theory is that this is because they're too embarrassed to admit that >most of the developers and a good portion of the user group memebers >could run rings around their 'technical' staff. > >Somebody please do something...... >-- >------------------------------------------------------------------------------- >Geoff McCaughan Email: geoff@actrix.co.nz Phone: +64 3 539545 or 852101 >Amiga/Hardware/Unix/Quantum Mechanics Hacker Phax : +64 3 539567 >"Anarchy: Think of it as evolution in action." ^ NEW ZEALAND! Well I have to agree Geoff but I think Chuck McManis had a point in the last posting (you probably never saw it) There is not much the CATS people can do I will take his advice and write to Irving Gould. I have written to him to tell him what a fine job the CATS people are doing and what good representatives they are for the Commodore with their contributions to USENET. Say Chuck actually Commodore International bought out Commodore NZ and now own it 100%. It was a private company with the licence to use Commodore name : o -- Keith Andrew Stewart B2000 Rev 4.5 2 Floppy Disk Drives 2058 RAM Card w/ 2meg
daveh@cbmvax.commodore.com (Dave Haynie) (06/16/90)
In article <3758.tnews@templar.actrix.co.nz> jbickers@templar.actrix.co.nz (John Bickers) writes: >Quoted from - fozzy@bhpese.oz.au (Andrew Steele): >> charles@teslab.lab.OZ (Charles W. Widepy) writes: >> >In article <11918@cbmvax.commodore.com> carolyn@cbmvax (Carolyn Scheppner - CATS) writes: >> >>In article <2259@monu1.cc.monash.oz> ins778u@vax4.cc.monash.edu.au (mr c.r. hames) writes: >> >>> [about developer support for Australian developers] >> >>You'd have to contact your local developer support organization >> >This is the crap we, in Australia, have been getting for four years. > Someone from CBM (possibly DH) posted a while back that there was a > European version of CATS, and that Australasia came under their > jurisdiction, not the US (sort of makes sense, what with PAL and the > suchlike). That is ESCO/ADSPE (European Support and Coordination Office/Amiga Developer Support Program Europe, or some-such), based in Frankfurt. They're the other half of the technical support group at present, though for some reason, they cover at least 70% of the Amiga's market with fewer people. Which is what makes the local support managers so important. If the folks in Frankfurt were swamped with technical questions from every non-CATS supported country, they wouldn't be able to keep up, despite the fact that they have many excellent support people (if we could only clone Thomas and spread a few of these copies around the world, all our technical support problems might be solved :-). Anyway, the support deal is supposed to be that you, the Developer in Oz or some other place, asks something of your local support manager. That support manager will contact ESCO if he/she doesn't know the answers, ESCO will contact CATS is they don't know, and CATS contacts Engineering if they don't know. Or something along those lines. In any case, theory has it that once a question is thusly back-propogated, the local support manager will know that question, and you locals are spared the costs of overseas phone calls at strange hours to people who are most likely busy with other things anyway. Also, local support managers are supposed to provide local testing facilities, so you can get access to A3000s without flying halfway across the planet. And from most places at leats, you can also hook into the ADSPE network, which works just like usenet and goes straight to West Chester as well as throughout the ESCO organization and to other developers. If you are having trouble with the local support people, you should complain. But make sure you're trying to use them, and not just blowing them off. > We (in NZ) had our zeroth Amiga conference shortly after this, and were > surprised to see the local CBM people turn up with some support scheme. I don't think you'd have too much trouble getting some Engineering and/or CATS folk out to a southeastern pacific DevCon. Plan it December-January, maybe somewhere in North Queensland. Near the beach. I'd be there in a heartbeat if my bosses approved :-) > But the one developer I do know gets along well enough without CBM > handholding. Is it pre-release hardware and software people want, or > are they just looking for a human index to the RKMs? Most US developers get peeks and samples of pre-release hardware, discounts on shipping hardware, beta testing of early software, and they get to ask questions of CATS and Engineering, though most of the Engineering questions are done in forums like the amiga.com conference on bix or the ADSPE network. No one in engineering has time to take phone calls unless severe problems crop up, and both CATS and the ADSPE folks act as a filter to Engineering. But they also know reliable ways to get Engineering to answe questions, and just who should be asked on various quesitons. I think the current system works pretty well in the US, and should work just as well worldwide. But there may still be some fine tuning necessary here and there, I don't know enough about what's going on worldwide to guess that one. >*** John Bickers, TAP, NZAmigaUG. jbickers@templar.actrix.co.nz *** -- Dave Haynie Commodore-Amiga (Amiga 3000) "The Crew That Never Rests" {uunet|pyramid|rutgers}!cbmvax!daveh PLINK: hazy BIX: hazy "I have been given the freedom to do as I see fit" -REM