Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.programmer Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!uupsi!sugar!peter From: peter@sugar.hackercorp.com (Peter da Silva) Subject: Re: Information on Amiga Technical Reference Seri Message-ID: <1991Jun17.143559.3122@sugar.hackercorp.com> Organization: Sugar Land Unix -- Houston, TX References: <3036@public.BTR.COM> <22455@cbmvax.commodore.com> Date: Mon, 17 Jun 1991 14:35:59 GMT In article <22455@cbmvax.commodore.com> peter@cbmvax.commodore.com (Peter Cherna) writes: > >What *may* scare CBM is clones of the OS. Now it has > >already happened to the PC BIOS, Apples ROMS, > Apple II ROMs and PC BIOS ROMs are quite trivial compared with the > Amiga ROM. Let me add that the reason that the IBM-PC and Apple-II bogged down, and were unable to make significant enhancements beyond the early '80s, was because of all the software that took advantage of knowing the internals of what I will charitably term their operating systems. Apple, with the IIGS, was able to dump all this old software and launch a new set of system software that didn't depend on the old ROMs. IBM has been trying to do it with OS/2, but have lost out because OS/2 was too ambitious and complex. On the Mac, however, they have been able to make enhancements in some areas that weren't documented. They are still stuck with a lot of backwards- compatibility problems, though, because they haven't been fascist enough about breaking stuff. I'm glad that Commodore has, and don't want them to change. -- Peter da Silva. `-_-' . 'U` "Have you hugged your wolf today?"