Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!ginosko!xanth!mcnc!uvaarpa!hudson!astsun8.astro.Virginia.EDU!gl8f From: gl8f@astsun8.astro.Virginia.EDU (Greg Lindahl) Newsgroups: comp.sys.atari.st Subject: Re: official tos 1.4 release Message-ID: <2074@hudson.acc.virginia.edu> Date: 6 Oct 89 21:16:23 GMT References: <460c4f58.14a1f@force.UUCP> Sender: news@hudson.acc.virginia.edu Reply-To: gl8f@astsun.astro.Virginia.EDU (Greg Lindahl) Distribution: comp.sys.atari.st Organization: Department of Astronomy, University of Virginia Lines: 45 In article <460c4f58.14a1f@force.UUCP> covertr@force.UUCP (Richard E. Covert) writes: > Well, my feeling is that Atari has really dropped the ball on the release of > TOS 1.4!! Lots of feeling, no understanding. I tried to send this email, but uunet doesn't know where "force.UUCP" is. You suggest that Atari go ahead and produce updated TOS 1.4 ROMS. This is probably a bad idea. Can't you just see customer service: "I have this problem", "What version of TOS are you running?", "TOS 1.4, I just bought it from my dealer", "Which one, new TOS 1.4 or old TOS 1.4???" Or, a user sees TOS14PATCH.ARC on his BBS, and wonders if he's supposed to run it or not. It's vastly easier to have all TOS ROMS distributed for a long time be the same, and for all users to need the same patch program. This is the only philosophy that makes sense for a home machine. Atari isn't Sun. On another topic, Richard flamed Atari for not providing more software support to people trying to get the SLM804 working with Mac software. Atari provides sufficient support that if you can make a bitmap, you can output it to the printer. This is how the DVI program for the SLM804 works. The problem is generating the bitmap on the Mac. You can either generate it using Postscript (which could be licensed from several sources), or implement Quickdraw for an arbitrary bitmap. General Computer sells Mac laser printers that work this way. In either case, this isn't an Atari-only problem -- it's the same problem you'd get hooking up ANY "dumb" laser printer to a real Mac. It's a bit silly to expect Atari to pay several programmers a bunch of money to implement such a critter when it won't sell many STs. And it's silly to expect David Small to do it if it would take so much time it wouldn't be cost-effective. Many "technical" decisions are really marketing decisions. If we want to get Atari to do something, let's ask for something useful, not something stupid. Can I get down off my soapbox yet? ;-) ------ Greg Lindahl gl8f@virginia.edu I'm not the NRA.