Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watmath!clyde!att!mtuxo!mtgzy!mtgzz!drutx!druhi!med
From: med@druhi.ATT.COM (Myron Drapal)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.atari.st
Subject: Re: Bugs in new BETA ROMS?
Summary: Bugs, yes, but stupid simple bugs, no.
Message-ID: <3479@druhi.ATT.COM>
Date: 31 Aug 88 15:03:48 GMT
References: <3446@druhi.ATT.COM> <447@forty2.UUCP>
Distribution: comp
Organization: AT&T, Denver, CO
Lines: 46

In article <447@forty2.UUCP>, poole@forty2.UUCP (Simon Poole) writes:
> In article <3446@druhi.ATT.COM> med@druhi.ATT.COM (Myron Drapal) writes:
> >
> [Description of a bug in the beta test version of the new TOS deleted]
> 
> Now come on, what do you expect from a version of a OS that is in beta-test?
> -> It has bugs! <-
> (why would one do a beta-test otherwise?)
> 
> What you should do: is to make sure whoever told you, reported the bug
> back to Atari with their new SPR  system (which incidentlly works very
> well, a lot better than a few other companies I know about....).

But you see, Simon, I don't know any official BETA testers... Read below.

> 
> >P.S. Has anyone else heard of any new bugs introduced in the BETA ROMS?
> >     Are there any (real) BETA testers out there who would like to comment?
> >     Any news from the *official* Atari mouthpieces?  Inquiring minds
> >     want/need to know...
> 
> As you know beta-testers are NOT  allowed  to  comment on the testing,
> while I did not   sign a formal   agreement,  I have  no  intention of
> breaking my promise to keep my mouth shut.
> 

Well, Simon, since you are the only person I know who sounds like they might
just be a beta tester ;-}...  Seriously, this bug and another regarding the
PC compatible diskette format, rank right up there as bugs which should be
found in 5-10 minutes of developer testing (e.g. Allan and Co. should have
found these).  This indicates two things to me: 1) the level of developer
testing was probably done by the compiler ("It compiles, let's ship it..."),
and 2) there may be *NO* official beta testers out there (I know of a number
of unofficial testers out there, but I fear this is another MEGA ROM fiasco).
While I never expected to hear that the BETA ROMs were bug free, I would
expect that bugs which were reported months ago have had sufficient time
to be tested and fixed (like PC compatible format... Oh, by the way, have
any of the testers checked to see if the disk free function works properly
yet - the old version reported number of free bytes off by at least
2 clusters).

By the way, I didn't intend to imply that you should break your promise... ;-)

						Myron Drapal
						AT&T Denver
						att!druhi!med