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From: bryce@hoser.berkeley.edu.UUCP
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga
Subject: Re: sources to dvi2iff, version -1; tcp/ip for amiga
Message-ID: <3934@zen.berkeley.edu>
Date: Thu, 24-Sep-87 03:46:38 EDT
Article-I.D.: zen.3934
Posted: Thu Sep 24 03:46:38 1987
Date-Received: Sat, 26-Sep-87 09:57:23 EDT
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In article <1759@cadovax.UUCP> keithd@cadovax.UUCP (Keith Doyle) writes:
>In article <156@splut.UUCP> stu@splut.UUCP (Stewart Cobb) writes:
>>   Why hasn't Commodore released the source to the operating system?
>
>Probably because they don't own it.  And it's Metacomco's bread and
>butter.  C= is still paying royalties to them I believe.

Please!  Metacomco came in at the last moment and contributed the
file system, "AmigaDOS".  It's that icky, BCPL kludge that causes so
much overhead.

Exec, Intuition, Graphics, Layers, Math and all that stuff
was developed at Amiga (or Commodore or Commodore-Amiga). DOS and
(I think) translator are all that was farmed out.

"AmigaDOS" is one of those tricky terms.  People hear "PC-DOS" for
the PC, so the Amiga must have AmigaDOS.  Oh, you say, AmigaDOS
was written by Metacomco?  When I say "DOS" I mean just the file system;
what handles the disks, directories and files.

I don't think Metacomco's contribution went much beyond that.  A little
more semi-speculation: I think DOS was added in Rev 28 of the OS.
30 was the first one to be released to the public, as V1.0. 31 was
V1.1, 32 was the PAL release, 33 is V1.2.  (I never met an Amiga
until V1.1)


Amiga apparently had a file system that was actually designed to sit
on top of the rest of the Amiga.  I don't know the details of that
other than it never came to life.  They used something I have never
seen, the "Kludge file system", until Metacomco was pulled in to
port a DOS over in just a few weeks of panic.  (Sources: BYTE and
AmiProject)

From a programmer's perspective it is very clear that Metacomco's file
system and the rest of the Amiga are of clearly distinct design.

Commodore-Amiga is still working on the Operating System.  Recent
changes have been made for better multi-tasking 68881 and 68882
math co-processor support.  The huge-screen overscan bug was found
and fixed.  (Source: Dale Luck announcing at a FAUG meeting.  No
release dates mentioned.)

 
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