Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!husc6!bbn!mit-eddie!bloom-beacon!gatech!mcnc!rti!sas!walker
From: walker@sas.UUCP (Doug Walker)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga
Subject: Re: Reports from DevCon: days 1 & 2
Message-ID: <491@sas.UUCP>
Date: 4 May 88 13:57:09 GMT
References: <30512@amdahl.uts.amdahl.com> <6744@swan.ulowell.edu>
Reply-To: walker@sas.UUCP (Doug Walker)
Organization: SAS Institute Inc, Cary NC
Lines: 41

In article <6744@swan.ulowell.edu> page@swan.ulowell.edu (Bob Page) writes:
>	All companies there got a KS1.3 ROM.
Yes, a KS1.3 ROM.  KS 1.3 is identical to KS 1.2 except for autoboot stuff,
so it is stable.  WB 1.3 is still flakey, although I have been running it
for a while in beta test and it has been fine for me.

>	Perry & Eric advanced the concept of Amiga Working Groups,
>	  sort of like technical steering committees to hammer out
>	  ideas.  Just about everybody liked the idea, including CBM.
This was a CRUCIAL item.  If this idea gets off the ground, it will
revolutionize the Amiga community.  There are a lot of talented people
willing to do real design/coding work for the Amiga, but the resulting
stuff will not be accepted as 'standard' unless C-A blesses it. C-A has
agreed in principle to foster these groups and examine what they come up
with.  Of course, they are under NO obligation to do anything with the
results, but if the specs generated in a working group seem to solve a 
recognized problem, why not?  It was decided that all members of AWG's
would need to be registered developers, both to control what was going
on and so we could (maybe) use the C-A newsletter for progress reports
and so forth.  AWG's were discussed in such areas as IFF, Expansion
Peripheral conventions (getting rid of devs:mountlist?), User Interfaces
and more.

>	During the "beyond 1.4" talk, about 6 presenters brought
>	  up ARexx.
"Use Rexx!" was definately the rallying cry of the conference.

>	Leo suggested CBM throw away Exec/DOS and start over.
I believe Leo actually suggested the CBM throw away COMPATIBILITY
with the current Exec/DOS.  For example, align long structure elements
on longword boundaries to increase 68020/68030 performance.  He also
indicated his desire to see innovative new hardware, perhaps incompatible
with the old, to keep the Amiga ahead of the competition.

>	SubLogic demanded CBM recode everything in assembler.
"Because it's easier to debug."

> I think a good time was had by all!
Speaking for myself, I had a ball!

Doug Walker, Software Distiller