Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!husc6!cmcl2!nrl-cmf!ames!amdahl!kim From: kim@amdahl.uts.amdahl.com (Kim DeVaughn) Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga Subject: Reports from DevCon: days 1 & 2 Message-ID: <30512@amdahl.uts.amdahl.com> Date: 2 May 88 01:29:03 GMT Organization: Amdahl Corporation, Sunnyvale, CA 94086 Lines: 261 [ Everything in this line may be wrong! (with apologies to Richard Bach) ] Attached are some comments by Charles Conlow that cover the first couple of days of DevCon, that I picked up from a local BBS. Not alot of real specifics, but some interesting hints, etc. I'd be interested in what other attendees have to offer (Leo, Marco, any C-A'ers or CBM'ers, ...). I believe that CBM will be making a set of DevCon notes (and floppies ?) available to those of us who (sniff) couldn't get away. Is that right, Lauren? Mr. Conlow implies that there will be at least one more report from DevCon, so I'll post that here also when and if I see it. /kim vvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvv ----- From the 1988 Amiga Developer's Conference ----- Friday, Day #1 ------------------------------------------------------ Here are my notes, opinions and C-A's (Commodore-Amiga) announcements from the first day (Friday) of the 1988 Commodore Amiga Developer's Conference. Because C-A did not anticipate such a large attendance, the whole shebang got off to a late start. I was in line to register at 8:15 for the 9:00 first speaker, and I noticed that people were STILL registering at 3:00 PM! Everything today was shifted back half an hour. Gail Wellington gave a short welcome and introductory speech in the main conference room. It was equipped with two Amiga 2000's, a big projection screen TV and two BIG monitors (one was CBM's (Commodore Business Machines) own manufacture, a Bi-Synch Super-Hi_Res job). We watched the ever popular "Only Amiga Makes it Possible" Video, and then Gail introduced Dr. Henri Rubin. Dr. Rueben, C.O.O. of Commodore International, gave a short speech about the MEANING of the Amiga series of machines; how far we have come with the multi-tasking aspect, and how little of the machine's promise has so far come to light. He mentioned CBM's past financial emergencies, and how the bottom line ( = money) is always in our minds (CBM, Developers and third party manufacturers). Dr. Rubin went on to say that although the Amiga has been received very well of late (in US as well as abroad), it should, and MUST! do better if we are to see the NEXT generation of Amiga computers. He also mentioned that although Amiga continues to improve and upgrade the quality of the OS, other computer manufacturers STILL can't seem to get a working multi-tasking system off the ground. During Gail's closing remarks, members of the audience (a little over 300) stood when she named their country. Quite an international bunch this weekend... Israel, Austria, Turkey (CBM's fastest growing market), Canada, West Germany, United Kingdom, Denmark, Finland, Italy, Australia, France, Holland and Venezuela were all represented, as well as a goodly number from the good ole US of A (sitting next to me, Leo Schwab, "the man in the cape"). During the morning session, there were several sessions with speakers from CATS, C-A and CBM fielding questions from the audiences and making remarks and comments as they came to light... Bill Koester (CATS (C-A Technical Support)) & R. J. Mical (Amiga Software Engineer) led a group of first timers through the Exec - Intuition - ADos system. Dave Haynie, George Robbins and Jeff Boyer (all C-A Hardware Engineers), led a discussion, followed by a Q & A about the A-500's design; it's expansion port interface limits, power supply requirements and problems, and the documentation for the machine. Dale Luck and Jim Mackraz (Amiga Software engineers) gave the Copper a going over. Speaking of what the Copper is SUPPOSED to do, and what developers are trying to make it do, they attempted to make clear the guidelines for proper use of one of the Amiga's most basic custom chips. Next, Carolyn Scheppner (CATS) went through the latest of the MANY IFF specs; some accepted by CBM, some pending and others... well, maybe. John Toebes of Software Distillery presented their new IFF form, PGTB (ProGram Trace Back), which is of great interest to developers. This form, and the program stub that produces it, dumps to a file all the neat and interesting things that were resident in the system when it GURUed. This allows programmers to look at the environment when someone other than themselves has attempted to use their program. Watch for "Catch". Also, Gary Bonham of Sparta delivered a speech about the ANIM IFF FORM, and its use by Aegis, Inc. He detailed its development as an outgrowth of his work with Space Defense-type systems at Sparta, and how many months of feedback and coding led to a simple, quick compression and playback technique. Bob "Kodiak" Burns raised the point that an ANIM file is not a true IFF FORM, but rather a LIST. Gary admitted that, and also admitted that an awful lot of work had gone into the thing, and was pretty far along in development to re-code for LIST. Kodiak's point, though, is well taken. IFF is SUPPOSED to be a CBM approved standard. FORMs are FORMs and LISTs aren't. They proposed to form a working group to throw this idea around. Keep tuned! Marketing of Amiga products was also discussed with Product support people from CBM, both US and abroad. How to get the most coverage for the smallest amount of money seemed to be the jist of it, but I was listening in from another hall, and will have to get this part straightened out (later guys). In the afternoon, Jeff Porter (Product Development, Commodore Technology Division), introduced us to the new CBM and C-A products. They were not in the room, and no price or release dates were announced. We also were told that many of these hardware thingies are still on the board, so think what you will... We were not asked to sign any non-disclosure agreement, but I tread lightly here, as I VALUE my status as developer and a trusted member of the CADP (C-A Developer's Program). But I think I am safe in stating... As per the Hanover Announcement, the A-2500.AT and A-2500.UX will bring IBM-PC.AT performance / or / Unix support to the A-2000. These are not NEW machines, but bundled software of CBM's already announced (but not yet available) AT card and Unix (AT & T Unix 5 release 3.1.). Also announced was the 1.3 and 1.4 systems, with vague references to 1.5 (and you thought all they did was answer phones in West Chester!). There is an Enhanced Chip Set to be available SOON (New Fattest Agnes, New Denise and New Gary chips) to allow for 640 x 400 non-interlaced screens with 4 out of 64 colors. This chip set will also allow for software control of EITHER PAL or NTSC (did I hear someone say horizontal scrollable screens?). Some new monitors were also discussed, which have the SMARTS to be able to handle all these new different video modes, as well as all current ones. And most (if not all) of this new technology is backwards compatible, meaning your existing 500's and 2000's can use the new chip set, monitors and enhanced OS (Unix). Some other hardware goodies... a self contained 20 meg SCSI hard drive for the A-500. This would be the first hard drive from CBM in many years, since the 90x0 line in the late seventies. It would have a smart external power supply, that will turn itself off and on as the A-500 is turned off and on. For the 2000, look for 2 different GenLocks (of quite different quality), the 68020 Bridge, the 80286 Bridge, the 2090A (auto-boot hard disk controller), and KickStart 1.3 in ROM (also for 500). Yes friends, 1.3 is STILL not ready! Gamma 7 releases were made to developers, but there is still no firm date for public release for a rock solid KickStart or WorkBench/ADos for 1.3. That's all the time I have to write this up this evening, but I have more about 1.3 and 1.4, the new preferences, sound, 'C', OverScan and Libraries from today! not to mention Saturday and Sunday! Keep tuned kiddies, and be patient with Uncle Andy (Finkel)! ----------------------- EOF -------------------------- FileName: DevCon-1.Txt Created: 29-Apr-88 23:00 Author: Charles Conlow (GEnie = C.CONLOW) ============================================================================ ----- From the 1988 Amiga Developer's Conference ----- Late Friday, Day #1 & Saturday Day #2 ------------------------------------------------------ Friday, in the afternoon sessions, some more technical material was discussed, including the following... Jim Mackraz and Hedley Davis offered their (very considered) opinions of how the Amiga systems should handle FONTS / TEXT and GRAPHICS when using the newest view modes (VERY_HIGH resolution). Using the Gray Scale monitors, OverScan and HAM, system parameters may seem tossed to the wind... there is so far a general rule about this, and 1.4 should bring a STANDARD (i.e. iff or IFF.2) about FONTs, COLOR_FONTs, and VIEW_Modes. Rob Peck (Author of the Audio Tools Library) and Dan Baker (CATS) covered the Amiga's multi-tasking limits with regard to the sounds / music she can make (and what beautiful music!). Rob Peck has been a major contributor to the Amiga Developer's world of audio, and has also followed up on his original implementation of the Audio Tools Library. Andy Finkel has given us a pretty good idea of what 1.3 can and cannot do... There are reasons why we CAN do some things, and reasons why we CAN'T do others. Major revisions of 1.3 are the printer.device and associated drivers (quite fast, and really VERY clean for dot matrix), the FFS (Fast Filing System) for hard drive users (FFS will be standard on all devices as of 1.4) and smaller - faster C: commands ( bye-bye BCPL). Other Friday Topics were Math Libraries (including the support for the various co-processors), Creating your own libraries (remember the interrupt?), 'C' on the Amiga, What hardware implementation of 1.3 and 1.4 require to auto-boot and what 1.3 preferences is all about. Friday, several disk of source code were distributed which contained the examples (object and source) of most of the Conference's projects, as well as Gamma 7 of WorkBench 1.3 (Still, no release date kiddies!). Saturday, I will have to rely on other people's notes, as I had to duck in and out all day... During the morning hours (yawns!), hardware and software was shown in the computer rom from companies such as... Aegis, MicroSmiths, Manx, Lattice, Software Distillery, and of course CBM / C-A / Commodore Int'l Then Dave Haynie, George Robbins and Jeff Boyer talked about the slots of the A-2000. There MAY be mods to future machines, there probably will not, but there will CERTAINLY be a backward compatible path on this matter as the 2000 is THE AMIGA as far as C-A is concerned. The stress of this matter is that the 2000 is the ANCHOR of the series, and all future machines MUST allow for its existence. Also on Saturday, the implementation of multiple ports was discussed. In 1.x (4, 5, 6?) there will be allowed a multitude of ports available for the end user, with a total of number of 65536. Be these serial, parallel or user, the protocol of manufacturer ID, placement, power drain and access methods all need to be set in stone... an important step toward true MULTI-USER status, especially if a windowed UNIX is to be supported. In addition to the multiple ports issue, the idea of the TRANSPUTER was raised. Now the Amiga, already a multi-tasking machine, lends itself well to the multi-processing stage of the transputer (I know this, but you know how to :whatever: it, here it is, send it back [fixed]; thanks so much)... Well, here we go again... ! Gosh - this reporting bit is harder than I thought! Well guys, I will finish Saturday's report tomorrow, and also the Sunday "chats" with Hardware, Software and Marketing people, as time and typing skills allow.... ----------------------- EOF -------------------------- FileName: DevCon-2.Txt Created: 30-Apr-88 18:00 Author: Charles Conlow (GEnie = C.CONLOW) (CI$ = 74116,3067) ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ -- UUCP: kim@amdahl.amdahl.com or: {sun,decwrl,hplabs,pyramid,ihnp4,uunet,oliveb,cbosgd,ames}!amdahl!kim DDD: 408-746-8462 USPS: Amdahl Corp. M/S 249, 1250 E. Arques Av, Sunnyvale, CA 94086 CIS: 76535,25