Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!uunet!mcsun!ukc!icdoc!syma!grahamt
From: grahamt@syma.sussex.ac.uk (Graham Thomas)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.atari.st
Subject: Re: 1040STE, at last!
Message-ID: <1998@syma.sussex.ac.uk>
Date: 15 Jan 90 12:44:46 GMT
References: <2573@pkmab.se>
Organization: SPRU, Univ. of Sussex, Brighton, UK
Lines: 45

From article <2573@pkmab.se>, by daniel@pkmab.se (Daniel Deimert):
> In article <9001060801.AA03913@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU> 01659@AECLCR.BITNET (Greg Csullog) writes:
>>The following would not run from my auto folder (activated after the
>>tests on the software listed above):
>>
>>Pinhead
>>UIS II
>>Headstart
> 
Apologies if I'm the 1000th person to point this out (we're a bit
peripheral with our news feed), but I thought that TOS 1.4+ did away
with the need for both Pinhead and Headstart.

Pinhead bypasses the bit-clearing routines used by TOS 1.2- when loading
programs, and from the reviews I've seen TOS 1.4 doesn't do bit-clearing
(or at least gives you the option).  Headstart auto-loads a GEM program,
which TOS 1.4 also allows you to do.

I guess that Headstart does have the additional feature of letting you
choose from a list of programs to auto-run, so there is probably some
point in adapting it to the new TOS versions.  I doubt that this has
escaped the notice of Charles Johnson, and I'm confident that if it can
be done it will be, in the not too distant future.

(As you might have guessed, I'm a CodeHead/Little Green Footballs fan)

By the way, as of last week, Atari UK were still saying they don't have
any TOS 1.4 ROMs to distribute, though some are apparently on order.  I
guess it makes sense for them not to bother.  They see the ST range as
basically just for games, and market it accordingly.  Games players
probably don't need TOS 1.4 (in fact, there's been a lot of fuss over
here about how the STE & TOS 1.6 are breaking lots of games).  The only
trouble with this strategy is that the Amiga is - let's be honest - a
better games machine and is accordingly now outselling the ST in the UK.
The ST's advantages in programming, word processing, DTP, hardly show,
given that most places that sell the ST here stock very few non-games
applications & utilities.

Graham

-- 
Graham Thomas, SPRU, Mantell Building, U of Sussex, Brighton, BN1 9RF, UK
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