phil@adam.adelaide.edu.au (Phil Kernick) (05/29/91)
Congratulations to C= for *NOT* releasing KS2.0 to the general public yet. This might sound a little strange, but the guys at C= have spent a lot of time making sure that it is reasonably compatible with KS1.3 and before. If you don't think that this is particularly significant then go have a look in comp.sys.mac.system and you will see about 500 messages which almost *all* gripe about bugs in the new Mac System 7.0. This is not to start a flamefest, but if we don't follow the safe road we are really likely to suffer (cf Mac System 7.0, MS Windows 3.0, MS-DOS, etc). Phil. -- o| /// Phil Kernick EMail: phil@adam.adelaide.edu.au |o | /// Departmental Engineer Phone: +61 8 228 5914 | o| \\\/// Dept. of Psychology Fax: +61 8 224 0464 |o | \/// University of Adelaide Mail: GPO Box 498 Adelaide SA 5001 |
dannie@coplex.uucp (Dannie Gregoire) (05/29/91)
phil@adam.adelaide.edu.au (Phil Kernick) writes: >Congratulations to C= for *NOT* releasing KS2.0 to the general public >yet. This might sound a little strange, but the guys at C= have spent a >lot of time making sure that it is reasonably compatible with KS1.3 and >before. I guess us A3000 owners are not the "general public" but some elite superficial group of people hired by Commodore to do their beta testing ;-) >If you don't think that this is particularly significant then go have a >look in comp.sys.mac.system and you will see about 500 messages which >almost *all* gripe about bugs in the new Mac System 7.0. But there are 500 (give or take a few hundred ;-) messages griping about 2.0 problems before the general public has it. The problems are much less frequent now, and 2.04 is supposedly the cure all for most of the current OS ailments. I think part of the problem is the fact that Commodore HAS released the operating system to the "general public". Version 2.0 (was 1.4) was due to hit the streets for ALL Amigas 1.5 years ago, and continual promises of "any day now". Instead they released "beta" versions of the software on their high end machines. These are the same machines that they are trying to push as business class machines. If I were a business client new to the Amiga world, and was going to shell out ~$4000 per machine with a buggy unsupported OS I would honestly have to pass. "You're not forced to use 2.0," you might say. Well, why the hell did the A3000 ONLY come with 2.0 manuals. And, the 2.0 diskettes were sealed in the same manner (license agreement) as the 1.3 diskettes -- implying the OS's are equally solid. Additionally the fact that only some Amiga owners have 2.0 running has further angered the rest of the Amiga community, and has even led to mass pirating of the operating system (as noted by the many people posting questions to the net about difficulties with 2.0 on their A2000's). I am in *NO* way criticizing Commodore or the Amiga as a whole -- I have been a Commodore owner/user since the days of the PET, and currently a very happy A3000 owner. I am however, questioning the convoluted method in which Commodore has gone about testing and releasing their updated OS. It has angered many current Amiga owners, possibly hurt their sales, and has significantly delayed software development. Several top name developers have said that they will *NOT* offer upgrades until 2.0 is solid and in ROMs!!! (Spectrum Holobyte for one). Why should a software company support an OS that is in beta anyway?? Perhaps in the future Commodore should have a fully organized PRIVATE beta testing program, and not depend upon the general public to do so. Furthermore release dates should NOT be mentioned until the product is NEAR completion. Six months overdue is somewhat standard for software developers but 2 years?? The word on the streets is that the finalized version of the OS (2.04) is complete and KS2.0 ver 37.?? is in ROM. The official release date as far as I know is "3rd quarter of this year." I would assume that would mean we would all have 2.0 by October and the second phase of 2.0 beta testing will be in full gear ;-) ;-) +-------------------------------------------------------------------------+ | Dannie J. Gregoire \\\\//// dannie@coplex | | Copper Electronics Inc. ////\\\\ !uunet!coplex!dannie | +-------------------------------------------------------------------------+
jdickson@jato.jpl.nasa.gov (Jeff Dickson) (05/31/91)
In article <1991May29.161601.28693@coplex.uucp> dannie@coplex.uucp (Dannie Gregoire) writes: >phil@adam.adelaide.edu.au (Phil Kernick) writes: > >>Congratulations to C= for *NOT* releasing KS2.0 to the general public >>yet. This might sound a little strange, but the guys at C= have spent a >>lot of time making sure that it is reasonably compatible with KS1.3 and >>before. > >I guess us A3000 owners are not the "general public" but some elite superficial >group of people hired by Commodore to do their beta testing ;-) Beta testing of this nature is not so uncommon. You are not some elite superficial group. You're just the dopes that went for the A3000 first. When Sun Microsystems released O.S. 4.0, you can bet I had my hands full. It was full of bugs. It wasn't until 4.0.3 or 4.1 until most of them were corrected. -jeff
arctngnt@amiganet.chi.il.us (Bowie J Poag) (05/31/91)
>Congratulations to C= for *NOT* releasing KS2.0 to the general public >yet. This might sound a little strange, but the guys at C= have spent a >lot of time making sure that it is reasonably compatible with KS1.3 and >before. > >If you don't think that this is particularly significant then go have a >look in comp.sys.mac.system and you will see about 500 messages which >almost *all* gripe about bugs in the new Mac System 7.0. > >This is not to start a flamefest, but if we don't follow the safe road >we are really likely to suffer (cf Mac System 7.0, MS Windows 3.0, >MS-DOS, etc). > > >Phil. > > >-- >o| /// Phil Kernick EMail: phil@adam.adelaide.edu.au |o > > | /// Departmental Engineer Phone: +61 8 228 5914 | >o| \\\/// Dept. of Psychology Fax: +61 8 224 0464 |o > > | \/// University of Adelaide Mail: GPO Box 498 Adelaide SA 5001 | My point exactly, Phil. Id rather wait, and have improved compatibility with 1.3 than to have them do a rush job and screw us all with buggy roms. Let the boys take their time. Theres no question as to if theyre going to deliver quality. From 2.03 ROM kickstarts (I run my 1.3 Amiga on a kickstart 2.03 disk 100% of the time now.. Ive all but left 1.3) and its DAMN impressive to me, still, even after ive used it for 3 weeks. Have some friends who are Mac and IBM Windows officianados who practically drool over how much of a mother of a system ive pumped up my A2000 to be with 2.0... You know the old saying.. Time moves twice as slow when youre expecting something really great to happen.. Think of it this way: Patience builds charecter. Even with 2.0 roms, there will STILL be enough room for Jell-O in my A2000. Arctangent (Naperville, Illinois, USA)
arctngnt@amiganet.chi.il.us (Bowie J Poag) (05/31/91)
2.0 roms will be released in 3rd quater, aye? You forgot to add on a +2 months to that.. I wouldnt be surprised if I waited until late December or early '92 till I saw the final burnins. As for current Workbench, I have Version 37_47...Cosmetically, its great. Though I DO have a few unexplained gurus, and a few minor gripings. For example: When I use JrCOmm 1.01, And the screen flashes (for beeps) it sometimes leaves the Workbench screen is like a freeze-frame. It screws up the color pallete, for instance, leaving my Workbench screen a lovely puke yellow instead of returning back to marble-blue theway I like it.. Afte an occassional guru (after some massive task suspension) While the system recovers, the screen is black, and in red garble. Kinda tacky. The font editor on the Extras disk chops off pieces of the icon if you arrow-click their position to move out of the screen, and back into view. The workbench itself. Everytime I load it, I remove the Workbench Backdrop.. (Up in the menu).. The backdrop itself is essentially useless, since there are utilities for workbench scrolling on the disk (for having super-bitmap workbenches, and stuff..) ...Super-bitmap Workbench screens also look better than a Backdrop, plus theyre faster... Would be cool if the "loadwb" command could have some subcommands to it, so instead of just "loadwb" yu could have "loadwb nobackdrop" instead, to automatically cancel the creation of a backdrop. Or perhaps just enter it as a Parameter setting, if you want a Backdrop on or off during bootup. Easier access to adding commands to the Tools menu of Workbench. Ive got quite a list of things id like to chuck in there, and there is no Utility to do this from inside Workbench, OR on the Extras disk.. So ive resorted to scanning my local BBS'es for utility programs that let you add selection to the Tools menu.. So far, these programs have been poorly made, and badly documented. Make 2.0 a modifyablee wonderland. Make a whole load of commands in the Workbench menu. The Macintosh has D/A Mover..Where you can access programs anywhere by opening a menu.. Would be cool if you could teach Workbench to lookfor a specific directory on adisk like "stuff"....Whatever program you copied into the "stuff" directory would appear in a menu from the Workbench screen, or anywhere else for that matter. Just some ideas. And remember, when finalizing the 2.04 roms. ALWAYS make room for Jell-O Arc
matt@vrtwo.UUCP (Matt Buford) (06/02/91)
writes: >In article <arctngnt.1436@amiganet.chi.il.us>, >arctngnt@amiganet.chi.il.us (Bowie J Poag) writes... >> >>2.0 roms will be released in 3rd quater, aye? > >That's a good question that only Commodore can answer. Even if they did answer, would you believe them? -- .____________________________________________________________________________. | _ _ | Sysop of: | | () ) ) _ __ __ | Virtual Reality BBS | | / / / (/ / / Buford | UUCP:vrtwo.UUCP | | | 808-337-1560 * 2400 baud * C-Net Amiga | | matt@vrtwo.UUCP | PMRF Barking Sands, Kauai, Hawaii, USA | |__________________________|_________________________________________________|
wright@etsuv2.etsu.edu (BRIAN WRIGHT) (06/02/91)
In article <arctngnt.1436@amiganet.chi.il.us>, arctngnt@amiganet.chi.il.us (Bowie J Poag) writes... > >2.0 roms will be released in 3rd quater, aye? That's a good question that only Commodore can answer. >You forgot to add on a +2 months to that.. I wouldnt be surprised if I waited >until late December or early '92 till I saw the final burnins. > >As for current Workbench, I have Version 37_47...Cosmetically, its great. >Though I DO have a few unexplained gurus, and a few minor gripings. > >For example: When I use JrCOmm 1.01, And the screen flashes (for beeps) it >sometimes leaves the Workbench screen is like a freeze-frame. It screws up the >color pallete, for instance, leaving my Workbench screen a lovely puke yellow >instead of returning back to marble-blue theway I like it.. JrComm doesn't like 2.0 too much. I prefer VLT for VT100 connection, that's just personal preference. It is completely 2.0 compatible, though (VLT, that is.) >The font editor on the Extras disk chops off pieces of the icon if you >arrow-click their position to move out of the screen, and back into view. Font editor? I think you mean Icon editor. Font editors don't normally save and load icons. The icon editor program has always done this. Of course, if you have the icon visible you can just drag and drop the icon over the window and it will replace it with the current icon that you are editing so that if you have accidentally trashed the imagery with arrows, you can easily replace it. Also, as far as I know, 2.0 doesn't have a font editor, yet. I am still waiting for it. >The workbench itself. Everytime I load it, I remove the Workbench Backdrop.. >(Up in the menu).. The backdrop itself is essentially useless, since there are >utilities for workbench scrolling on the disk (for having super-bitmap >workbenches, and stuff..) ...Super-bitmap Workbench screens also look better >than a Backdrop, plus theyre faster... There is a pref called WBConfig that allows you to either put the WB into Backdrop ON or OFF mode as you specify on bootup. >Would be cool if the "loadwb" command could have some subcommands to it, so >instead of just "loadwb" yu could have "loadwb nobackdrop" instead, to >automatically cancel the creation of a backdrop. Or perhaps just enter it as a >Parameter setting, if you want a Backdrop on or off during bootup. Not necessary, see above. >Easier access to adding commands to the Tools menu of Workbench. Ive got quite >a list of things id like to chuck in there, and there is no Utility to do this >from inside Workbench, OR on the Extras disk.. So ive resorted to scanning my >local BBS'es for utility programs that let you add selection to the Tools >menu.. So far, these programs have been poorly made, and badly documented. Get Stefan Becker's Toolmanager 1.3. It will allow you to add tools to the Tools menu via a text config file. It is neither poorly documented, nor poorly made. Check out ab20 or your local BBS for this program. >Make 2.0 a modifyablee wonderland. Make a whole load of commands in the >Workbench menu. Toolmanager does just this. If you need a power menu with icons you can get AmiDock that will give you a NeXT style Dock on your Workbench or Default screen. 2.0 is VERY congifurable. With all the preferences programs included you can change LOADS of things about the Workbench. Also, the CX programs that are now coming out at some very interesting things to the OS. >The Macintosh has D/A Mover..Where you can access programs anywhere by opening >a menu.. Would be cool if you could teach Workbench to lookfor a specific >directory on adisk like "stuff"....Whatever program you copied into the >"stuff" directory would appear in a menu from the Workbench screen, or >anywhere else for that matter. The only problem with this suggestion is that this drawer might get very cluttered with all different types of programs. Think about this. You might add a Word Processor, a Paint program, A Comm program, etc etc. It's kinda useless to have them on two places on your disk just to have the entry in your Tools menu. Just use a text based config file that you can edit to allow entries into your Tools menu like ToolManager does. As for M*C's font/DA mover idea. No, this won't work on the Amiga. With programs like ClickDOS, Diskmaster, and CLImate etc etc, you can move things around with MUCH more ease than Font/DA mover ever could. As for the comparison between the DA on the M*C and the Tools menu entry on the Amiga, there is none. The Tools menu under 2.0 holds much MORE flexibility than the D/A menu ever can. ToolManager let's you add and remove entries on the fly just by dropping an Icon in TM's appicon that it places on WB. You don't increase the size of ANYTHING by placing an entry into ToolManager. The Tool entry is only a pointer to a place where your program actually is. This contrasts the D/A in that the D/A is a type of program that resides within the system file increasing the size of that file. Only certain files are D/As where ANYTHING can be an entry in the Tool menu. >Just some ideas. > >And remember, when finalizing the 2.04 roms. ALWAYS make room for Jell-O >Arc I won't go into the 'only A3000 owners or developers should have 2.0' speil, but if you are an A2000 or A500 owner running 2.0 it would be nice if you at least you had a full release version of it. This makes 2.0 look like it's missing things, when in reality you are missing things from the version you have (WBConfig for example). ToolManager (as far as I know) is not being distributed on the OS disks, but is very easy to get ahold of. -------------------------------------------------------------- Brian Wright wright%etsuvax2@ricevm1.rice.edu or wright@etsuvax2.bitnet -------------------------------------------------------------- Standard Disclaimer... not my words and all that jazz.
stevek@amiglynx.UUCP (Steve K) (06/03/91)
>The Macintosh has D/A Mover..Where you can access programs anywhere by opening >a menu.. Would be cool if you could teach Workbench to lookfor a specific >directory on adisk like "stuff"....Whatever program you copied into the >"stuff" directory would appear in a menu from the Workbench screen, or >anywhere else for that matter. Also, I'd like to see a menu option to create an icon alias (hence MAC 7.0). I know it can be done by duplicating the existing icon, move it where you want it and change the tool path to point back to where it came from, but why not make this part of the system under the "Duplicate" command? -=*> Steve Krulewitz -------------------- UUNET!tronsbox!amiglynx!stevek <*=-
stevex@artech.UUCP (Steve Tibbett) (06/03/91)
In article <arctngnt.1436@amiganet.chi.il.us> arctngnt@amiganet.chi.il.us (Bowie J Poag) writes: >As for current Workbench, I have Version 37_47...Cosmetically, its great. >Though I DO have a few unexplained gurus, and a few minor gripings. If you've got 37.47 legally, then you should be posting bug reports to Commodore, not publicly, right? And if you didn't get it legally (I don't know if you did or not, so don't accuse me of accusing you cuz I ain't) then you shouldn't be complaining. -- ...Steve's Signature (when Steve's at work)...
bmccnnll@vax1.tcd.ie (06/06/91)
In article <stevek.4964@amiglynx.UUCP>, stevek@amiglynx.UUCP (Steve K) writes: > Also, I'd like to see a menu option to create an icon alias (hence MAC 7.0). > I know it can be done by duplicating the existing icon, move it where you want > it and change the tool path to point back to where it came from, but why not > make this part of the system under the "Duplicate" command? System 2 has that feature: you just do MakeLink file1 file2, and it creates a new "file" pointing back to the first one, same as an alias in System 7. Barry.