Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!unisoft!hoptoad!dasys1!schuster
From: schuster@dasys1.UUCP (Michael Schuster)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.atari.st
Subject: Re: TOS 1.4
Summary: What is OFFICIAL upgrade policy?
Keywords: When? How?
Message-ID: <7900@dasys1.UUCP>
Date: 24 Nov 88 00:27:44 GMT
References: <6990@chinet.chi.il.us>
Reply-To: schuster@dasys1.UUCP (Michael Schuster)
Organization: The Big Electric Cat; New York, N.Y. USA
Lines: 31


All this talk of an impending release of TOS 1.4 has reminded me of a nagging
question..... how exactly it will be distributed and retrofitted to existing
ST's and Mega ST's. 

In the days since the Mega's came out, I've seen mention that Atari would
sell the ROMs to 520/1040 owners for a spcified price. I've also seen ads
from folks with EPROM burners who were selling home-made "Blit ROMs" from
memory dumps of the Mega code.

I asked one such guy how he could pirate Atari's code publicly, and he
referred to some "policy" that TOS was intended for free distribution to
user's groups and that he was within his legal rights to distribute it
in this way.

My question to the Atari folks here, therefore:

1. How will TOS 1.4 be distributed? Directly to owners? Through dealers?
   Service centers? Will there be different chipsets? (One with 256 kbit
   roms for 520/1040, one with 1 mbit roms for Megas)
2. Is TOS designed for free distribution to users? Can someone distibute
   homemade roms so long as he does not profit on the affair?
3. What is the _real_ distribution date? I'm still waiting for my
   January 1987 BLiTTER upgrade :-)

---

-- 
l\  /l'   _  Mike Schuster          ...!dasys1!schuster
l \/ lll/(_  Big Electric Cat       schuster@dasys1.UUCP
l    lll\(_  New York, NY USA       DELPHI,GEnie:MSCHUSTER  CIS:70346,1745