Path: utzoo!utgpu!watmath!watcgl!electro!ignac From: ignac@electro.UUCP (Ignac Kolenko) Newsgroups: comp.sys.atari.st Subject: Re: WRITE (retraction of FLAME) Summary: no flames intended!! Message-ID: <458@electro.UUCP> Date: 3 Apr 89 17:32:20 GMT References: <4085@druhi.ATT.COM> <446@electro.UUCP> <1419@atari.UUCP> <452@electro.UUCP> Reply-To: ignac@electro.UUCP (Ignac Kolenko) Organization: Electrohome Ltd., Kitchener, ON Lines: 101 In article <1419@atari.UUCP> kbad@atari.UUCP (Ken Badertscher) writes: >In article <446@electro.UUCP> ignac@electro.UUCP (Ignac Kolenko) writes: >|unfortunately, it doesn't look like there are gonna be any more versions >|from microsoft. so the initial version is the final version. > > That's interesting, Ignac. Where do you get your information? >Last I heard, we are trying to entice Microsoft into updating Write. > >|i don't understand why atari just didn't hire any programmers to fix the >|damn bugs in write. > > Because the damn program belongs to Microsoft, and we don't have the damn >source code. It's damn difficult to hire damn programmers to fix the damn >bugs when you have no damn source. as to my information, i have a friend who had a few work terms at microsoft as a programmer back when they released write. he informed me that microsoft basically just got the program to a working state, then gave the executable to atari to market, since ms has absolutely no interest in any other machine or market than ibm or macintosh. microsoft was supposedly under contract to make updates only if atari was able to sell 50000 copies of ms write, and so far i don't think that they have reached that goal. as to having atari fix the source: stupid comment on my part. i will try to keep my yap shut about things like that in further comments on the net. i stand corrected!!!!! sorry!!! :-) but, write came out, lemee see, what three years ago, and only now you're trying to "entice" microsoft to update it???? to me, that just sounds like microsoft has absolutely no interest in doing anything with the program. (no fault found with atari on this point) interesting to note: my friend from microsoft even had a copy of an internal ms write version that had special code to speed up screen displays when using the standard st font, which i don't believe made it into the release version. this is the version that i have played around with a couple of times and based my comments on. (it may be that his internal version had extra bugs that the release version didn't have.) but that fact alone shows that microsoft itself thought the word pro was just TOO slow. since write was a port from the macintosh, where the program actually, keeps up with a fast typing speed, the reason for the slowness in the atari version must lie in the non-optimized code in atari GDOS, and GEM itself, which handles the plotting of fonts to the screen. >|as it stands, ms write is usable for small jobs. for any large word processing >|jobs, you just can't trust it. > > MS Write is used for Atari internal engineering documentation, and is >being used to maintain and upgrade the developer documentation. It is >a very powerful word processor. i don't disagree with you there Ken. you seem to be a pretty cool guy when it comes to answering problems about the atari computer, so i don't want to get on your bad side (the more friends from atari, the better for all of us!!!) in fact, i wasn't trying to tick anyone off with my "review", but don't you guys find it a little cumbersome trying to edit any document over five or six pages in length. scrolling back and forth is just way to slow. screen updates when you have many font styles on the screen just crawl. this of course is a programmer talking who is accustomed to the lightning speed of screen updates in the text editor tempus. > > I admit, I must sound like I'm gushing, or "holding the company line," ya, it does. but blaming the installation procedures of GDOS as the reason of why write is such a pain to use is not the direction you should be heading. i have always wondered why there *seems* to be no attempt to rewrite ALL of GEM in assembly. if atari has any chance to gain access to the business market here in north america, a *FAST* graphics operating system is a definate necessity. the mac roms are written in assembly, and that operating system really flies (same processor as the atari, yet drastically different apparent speeds!!!) if you guys rewrite ALL font handling code in GEM and GDOS in assembly (or at least use an optimizing compiler), things will suddenly look good for ms write and atari in general. well, keep up the good work Ken. it's nice to even be flamed from atari once in a while. :-) :-) :-) it shows that there is activity down there in sunnyvale. :-) (ps: i was able to see a demo of the ATW on the weekend. wow!!! nice machine. if atari can get it out to the market real soon, atari may be able to make a small fortune. good work atari!!!! pps: software demoed: x-windows, c-compier (*very* intelligent linker!!! the "hello world" program with full window handling was only about 2K long. better than most C compilers on, say, the ibm pc. nice graphic demos. helios seems to be a pretty robust operating system, but with 7 or 8 graphics demos running at the same time, things began to bog down. but then again, so does our sun 3/60 when running a similar number of colour demos. i wish i had 6 grand to plunk down on this machine!!!) -- Ignac A. Kolenko (The Ig) watmath!watcgl!electro!ignac "Those who can't, criticize" (author unknown) "ain't it ironic that according to Rushton, Suzuki is right!"