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From: towns@atari.UUCP (John Townsend)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.atari.st
Subject: Re: official tos 1.4 release
Message-ID: <1734@atari.UUCP>
Date: 19 Oct 89 23:51:10 GMT
References: <4634aec9.14a1f@force.UUCP>
Distribution: comp.sys.atari.st
Organization: Atari Corp., Sunnyvale, CA
Lines: 45

in article <4634aec9.14a1f@force.UUCP>, covertr@force.UUCP (Richard E. Covert) says:
>
> The problem Greg is that you just plain and simply can't count on
> Atari for support!! If Atari was going to support the ST, why didn't Atari
> license GPLUS from Charles Johnson and include it in TOS 1.4??
> 
> Why didn't Atari make any improvments in GDOS for TOS 1.4?? I have over
> 3 megs of GDOS fonts for my SLM804 and if it wasn't for Charles Johnson's
> GPLUS I wouldn't use any of them!! The GDOS support in TOS, even TOS 1.4,
> is almost zero compared to what GPLUS offers. And GPLUS has been out for
> a year now, so Atari could have licensed it from Charles Johnson.
> 
> And Atari didn't even want to admit that there was a bug in the serial
> port code in TOS 1.4 until the Canadian hacker showed Atari the actual
> bug in the code. Pretty responsive of Atari, huh?? And this is for an OS
> that has been under development for 2 years!! After 2 years, you would think that
> Atari would have it right!!!
> 
> Boy, a good outline font system, aka the macintosh system, would really be
> great for the ST!! But asking Atari for anything like that is like jumping
> to the moon, you'll never get there!!
> 
> I like the third party support starting to appear for the ST. My favorite
> product is the Turbo16 product from FAST TECHNOLOGY. T16 really speeds up
> my Mega ST!! It is great!!!
> So, lets support the good 3rd party enhancments to the ST and hope that
> things will get better IN SPITE OF ATARI!!
> 
> Rich (Proud owner of a souped up T16ed Mega ST4!!) Covert

First, TOS 1.4 is a product. GDOS is a product. They are COMPLETELY 
independent of each other. 

As for the serial port, We found the problem and we fixed it via the 
TOS 1.4 patch. Unfortunately, it was not found until after the release of
the ROMs. To verify this, we did not receive a single SPR on this problem
from the developers that had the Beta version of TOS 1.4 or any reports 
from anyone until AFTER the ROMs had been finalized.

But, the end result is that the problem was reported, we looked into it, 
found there was a problem, fixed it, and released a patch program via the
Networks and Dealer Network. What more do you want from us??

-- John Townsend				ames!atari!towns
   Atari Corporation