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From: kim@amdahl.amdahl.com (Kim DeVaughn)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga
Subject: Compatibility problem(s) with A500?
Message-ID: <8796@amdahl.amdahl.com>
Date: Thu, 18-Jun-87 12:57:23 EDT
Article-I.D.: amdahl.8796
Posted: Thu Jun 18 12:57:23 1987
Date-Received: Sun, 21-Jun-87 13:51:13 EDT
Organization: Amdahl Corporation,  Sunnyvale, CA 94086
Lines: 57
Keywords: new-tek digi-paint A500 incompatibility half-fast ram


[ "Send lawyers, guns, and money ..." ]

I called New-Tek yesterday to check on the status of Digi-Paint, and
heard something that disturbs me more than just a little bit.

I talked with Paul Montgomery, New-Tek's VP of Marketing (BTW, until very
recently, Paul was with EA, and was also one of the Founder's of FAUG, the
First Amiga Users Group).

Anyway, Paul said that Digi-Paint would still be shipping in June, and
then went on to talk about the (latest) stumbling block that's delayed
getting the product out.

Seems that just about the time Digi-Paint was "ready to ship", New-Tek
got their developer A500/A2000 machines in.  Naturally, they tested
Digi-Paint with the new machines, and found that it wouldn't run correctly
on the A500.

The problem(s) were traced to Digi-Paint not working correctly with the
A500's extra "slow fast ram" (sorry, I just *have* to call this kind of
memory "half fast ram" :-) ).  Since discovering the incompatibilities,
they've been busily changing their code to accomodate "half fast".

Up until this point, I have been under the impression that "half-fast"
ram is as transparent to an application as is "fast" ram (albeit, slightly
slower under certain circumstances).  Apparently this is not quite correct.

So ... I'd like to ask CATS what kind of coding one should do (or more
likely, AVOID doing), to prevent having problems with this kind of
memory?  Enlightenment, please!

I'm sitting here wondering now just how many applications that are already
on the market are going to have problems with half-fast, and how many new
Amiga owners will get bitten by this ...


On a positive note, New-Tek is moving into new quarters (6000 sq. ft.), and
now has 13 employees (I think that was the number).  All that from the
Digi-View product ... not bad!  Paul also mentioned they are working on
several new products (mostly hardware).  One that I've heard a little bit
about at a FAUG meeting, is a small box that will allow you to do *color*
digitzation from your VCR, among other things.

/kim


P.S.  If you're interested in "compatibility discussions", tune in over
      on comp.sys.mac ... there is a war going on over there ...


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