Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!rutgers!cbmvax!daveh
From: daveh@cbmvax.commodore.com (Dave Haynie)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga
Subject: Re: board<>3000 RETRACTION-NEAT NEWSGROUP
Message-ID: <15346@cbmvax.commodore.com>
Date: 23 Oct 90 17:16:16 GMT
References: <10229.AA10229@caleb>
Reply-To: daveh@cbmvax.commodore.com (Dave Haynie)
Organization: Commodore, West Chester, PA
Lines: 52

In article <10229.AA10229@caleb> jdp@caleb.UUCP (Jim Pritchett) writes:

>You seem to forget a very important detail.  I couldn't even get a DOS
>manual for months!  (Nor could many others.)  One new Amiga magazine
>(Amazing Computing if memory serves me correctly) became famous largely
>because they published a list of the DOS commands and how to use them.

Ommitting the DOS manual with the A1000 was a mistake, which they corrected
with the 500 and 2000.  I'll give you that one...

>For a long time, we had to use a magazine article to operate the CLI
>because CBM thought that only the experts would want to use the CLI!
>(Boy, were they wrong about that!)  It was over a year later when I was
>finally able to get a Hardware Manual!  I don't recall ever seeing a word
>in it about multiple SOTS being verboten.  

Here, you obviously screwed up.  You're crazy if you attempt commercial
software development, much less hardware development, without becoming a 
developer.  The "phone book" series, including the Hardware manual, was
available to developers, when the A1000 shipped.  Quite a bit of it was
available long before the A1000 shipped.  The A1000 "Schematics and Hardware
Specifications", which was really the first book that had enough information
to build a correct Zorro I card, was out shortly after the A1000, but 
available ONLY though developer support.  That's not the kind of thing
anyone would include for the casual user.

>I'll take your word for the fact that CBM had documented the "rule" earlier
>than I thought, but they did NOT tell the buyers.  

They told the developers.  Larry knew this because he was involved for real
back at the beginning.

>Yes, but you had access to info that the average user (at least in the US)
>could not get for at least a year.  

The average user DOES NOT build commercial hardware.  And anyone building it
should have enough sense to become a developer.  Even now.  Although the 
necessary information was available through the developer support group even
to non-developers.  But you had to ask for it, they don't come looking for
you.

>> It is not possible to both understand and appreciate Intel CPUs.
>>     -D.Wolfskill

I'll THIRD that one...


>                                                Jim Pritchett
-- 
Dave Haynie Commodore-Amiga (Amiga 3000) "The Crew That Never Rests"
   {uunet|pyramid|rutgers}!cbmvax!daveh      PLINK: hazy     BIX: hazy
	Standing on the shoulders of giants leaves me cold	-REM