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Path: utzoo!lsuc!jimomura
From: jimomura@lsuc.UUCP
Newsgroups: comp.sys.m6809
Subject: Re: Level 2 OS9 Comments, HInts
Message-ID: <1717@lsuc.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 13-Apr-87 18:52:27 EST
Article-I.D.: lsuc.1717
Posted: Mon Apr 13 18:52:27 1987
Date-Received: Thu, 16-Apr-87 23:47:35 EST
References: <1576@ihwpt.ATT.COM> <2335@tektools.TEK.COM>
Reply-To: jimomura@lsuc.UUCP (Jim Omura)
Organization: Consultant, Toronto
Lines: 45
Summary: Yes and no

In article <2335@tektools.TEK.COM> jonh@tektools.UUCP (Andy Davidson) writes:
>
>I have a question.  We don't have Level II around here yet,  and I keep hearing
>this rumor that Tandy left a bunch of the commands out of L II and is selling
>them in a second package with a bonus (for THEM!) price.  True or False?
>thanks,

     It's a pretty dirty trick to load the question via you're current
wording.  Then again, I've been known to do it too. :-)

     What's happened essentially is this:  Tandy has packaged the equivalent
of Microware's "Personal OS-9".  That is to say, if you buy OS-9 68K you
have a choice of 3 packages you can buy.  If you get the "Personal"
version, you only get X number of utilities, Microware BASIC and Scred
(I *think* you get Scred--not sure).  If you buy "Professional" OS-9
you get a bunch more utilities, MicroEMACS instead of Scred and C
instead of BASIC.  Either way, you can buy anything you didn't get in
your package separately.

     Level II from Tandy follows the "Personal" OS-9 pattern, but you
don't get Scred, but you *do* get the window driver system.  I understand
that a utility kit will be available for somewhere around $100.00 (don't
quote me, it's just a rumour as far as I know).  The price makes sense.
When you bought Level I you didn't get BASIC09.  As such you're paying
about the same for the whole shot when you get Level II as you did for
Level I.  The pricing is quite fair.  If you consider what you get for
your dollar it still beats any other system I know (easily better than
MS-DOS or Unix in value received).  We can always hope that Microware
or Tandy will, some day, decide to give even more for your dollar.
Until then, the question is whether what is offered is good value.

     Oh, and by the way, there's always the public domain too.  Public
domain versions of many of the utilities are already around.  I expect some
others will show up as well.  Also, in terms of assemblers, you may want
use the assembler which comes with the C compiler instead of the 'asm'
assembler.  There are many who argue that it's sufficiently better.

     Anybody know if a new version of the C compiler is coming?



-- 
Jim Omura, 2A King George's Drive, Toronto, (416) 652-3880
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