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From: felixh@tornado.Berkeley.EDU (Felix Hack)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.games
Subject: Re: 688 Attack Sub: Why not modem support?
Message-ID: <1990Nov2.020935.3892@agate.berkeley.edu>
Date: 2 Nov 90 02:09:35 GMT
Sender: usenet@agate.berkeley.edu (USENET Administrator)
Reply-To: felixh@tornado.Berkeley.EDU (Felix Hack)
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Organization: ucb
Lines: 32


  The fact that EA didn't actually program 688 or Starflight itself does
not in any way excuse them.  They are responsible for the quality of the
software released under their label.  Period.
  If I were running a company that solicited outside designs and packaged/
distributed them, I'd insist on the following points in my contracts
with the programmers:
 
  - No direct ROM calls which are incompatible with OS upgrades (like the
     original Ferrari Formula 1, or Archon and SkyFox)

  - Compatibility with Fatter Agnus/1 Meg Chip RAM
 
  - Compatibility (or even enhanced play) with 68020/68030
 
  - Compatibility with Fast RAM
  
  - The programmer must fix documented bugs or provide the source so they
     can be fixed by someone else.

  - No on-disk copy protection; hard disk installation would be nice

  - Ports of software from other machines must function in substantially
    the same way they originally did; no dropping modem support for no reason.

  Well, I'm not EA and don't know what their business practices are.  But
 I would be very skeptical of any claims that the above list contains un-
reasonable requirements.
  BTW, after experimenting I managed to install Starflight to HD, you have
to use NewZap to change references to the original floppy, as well as run
SetAmiga with Starflight's system-configuration to get the mouse pointer's
color right.