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From: mykes@zorch.SF-Bay.ORG (Mike Schwartz)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.advocacy
Subject: EA Software problems
Message-ID: <1991Jan16.065908.16719@zorch.SF-Bay.ORG>
Date: 16 Jan 91 06:59:08 GMT
Organization: SF-Bay Public-Access Unix
Lines: 50

The bulk of EA's software compatibility problems lie with their copy protection
scheme.  Seems they used the trackdisk.device in some funky way that is not
software compatible with 2.0.  I would think that CBM would want to figure
this one out and fix it.


I do know of one EA product that works great on the 3000 - Budokan, which I 
wrote.  I took over the entire machine and wrote my own floppy disk drivers.
I find it kind of ironic that the most unfriendly program you can write for
a machine can be the most upwards compatible.  I went to great lengths to
not violate any of the obvious rules (like CPU loop timing, etc.) and tested
the game on a 68030 machine just to make sure.  I told RJ Mical about how I
wrote Budokan and he told me that the 3000 has a new interrupt structure,
and that had me scared.  But CBM must have done this in a friendly way to
allow Budo and programs like it to work.

By the way, I am one of only a few developers for EA that ever took over the
machine, and I believe it shows in the relatively poor quality of their games.
EA has rarely developed a product that was designed to exploit the Amiga.  The
bulk of their games are weak ports of PC games.  I would sure like to see them
change this by making the bulk of their future games great ports of their
Sega Genesis products.  I hope they get the message...

My opinions may seem harsh, but they are obvious fact to me.  And judging from
what I have read on usenet, many of you don't care for their style either.
But to give EA the credit they deserve, they continue to provide the most
(quantity) titles of any publisher for the Amiga.

Dan Silva no longer works for EA, and despite the amazing success of DPaint
on the Amiga, they only have one programmer working on DPaint IV.  DPaint was
once the best program you could buy for the Amiga, but it has not kept up.  One
of the biggest problems I have with it is that it was cross developed from a
PC and because of that, Dan did not put into it the features that those of us
who use the machine daily see done better in other programs.  The program could
easily have a better file requestor, ARexx, Amiga-keys = pull-down menus,
audio support (to go with animations), custom copper driven displays, and more.
I don't blame Dan for the problems, since he used what EA gave him to use -
a PC.  And it was taking him 3 or 4 minutes turnaround time to see the 
smallest of program changes work.

EA had a single programmer working on DPaint IV for the Amiga over a year
ago.  But the programmer was pulled of the Amiga version to work on the
PC version of DPaint II.  I would think it would make more sense to put
4 or 5 programmers on the Amiga version FULL TIME.

If the Amiga community really wanted to see DPaint IV anytime soon, I would
suggest that we each call or write to EA and express ourselves.  Their phone
number is 415-571-7171.  Ask to speak to Trip Hawkins!

Bye