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From: mckay@pur-ee.UUCP (Dwight D McKay)
Newsgroups: net.micro.amiga
Subject: Re: yell if you want software....
Message-ID: <3529@pur-ee.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 22-Nov-85 08:36:12 EST
Article-I.D.: pur-ee.3529
Posted: Fri Nov 22 08:36:12 1985
Date-Received: Sat, 23-Nov-85 04:04:56 EST
References: <4225@topaz.RUTGERS.EDU>
Reply-To: mckay@pur-ee.UUCP (Dwight D McKay)
Distribution: na
Organization: Electrical Engineering Department , Purdue University
Lines: 35
Summary: 

In article <4225@topaz.RUTGERS.EDU> biggers@topaz.RUTGERS.EDU (Mark Biggers) writes:
>*** REPLACE THIS LINE WITH YOUR FAVORITE SOFTWARE ***
>
>I have been doing some checking with software distributors and
>companies whose products I would like to see on the Amiga.
...
>	Mark of the Unicorn (creators of Final Word, an Emacs/
>	Scribe subset word processor - rated highly):
>	"We're waiting to see what will happen.  Have had a
>	 few inquiries about FW on the Amiga.  We do have FW
>	 for the Atari 520ST (sound of surprise from me)."
...
>ported to the Amiga, YOU GOTTA ASK for it!  I was kinda surprised to hear
>of FW for the Atari ST, considering that I have yet to see any computer

The Atari is just a more sensible choice for a quick see-if-there's-a-market
port of a piece of software.  Final word has been available at the local
Atari dealer (he also carries Amiga) for about three weeks.  Yes, here in
middle-of-nowhere, Lafayette, Indiana!!  It's just part of about a foot and
1/2 of shelf space full of ST software.

The reason porting to the ST is easier is two fold.  First, and most
importantly the operating system is VERY similar to MS-DOS, CP/M, etc.
Things software companies are familiar with.  Second, the windowing system
is a LAYER on top of the OS.  You can drop it if you want to.  This is what
Final Word does.  It looks almost exactly like it would on an IBM-PC.  And
I'll bet that they had very few code changes to make aside from recompiling
the program to enable it to run on the ST.

It's going to take people time to figure out the Amiga's neato memory map
(do I want this is CHIP memory or not?), it's neato OS, etc, etc.  By then
it may be too late.

--Dwight Mckay, ECN Software Support [mckay@purdue-ecn]
(a happy Atari 520 ST owner)