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From: daveh@cbmvax.commodore.com (Dave Haynie)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga
Subject: Re: The Inevitable 1.4 Rom Problem (was Re: Ferrari Formula One and Kickstart 1.3?)
Message-ID: <9211@cbmvax.commodore.com>
Date: 4 Jan 90 18:04:07 GMT
References: <7797@cognos.UUCP>
Organization: Commodore, West Chester, PA
Lines: 59

in article <7797@cognos.UUCP>, gords@cognos.UUCP (Gord Smith) says:

> A friend of mine has a 1000 and has confirmed that FF1 does not work with
> KickStart 1.3.  Of course, for him it's just a matter of changing KickStart
> disks and powering down/up.

> What about us lucky folk with KickStart in ROM??

> I've been looking at hard disks for my 500, but would rather live without
> autoboot than have to junk FF1 and God-knows-what-else.

> Inevitably, however, we'll all have to upgrade to 1.4 KS/WB.  What happens
> then?

Perhaps you're thinking of it in the wrong way.  What if, instead of breaking
under 1.3, this program broke at random, during play.  In such a case, I'd
feel the program was unusably buggy, and I'd be pretty angry at the vendor
for shipping such drek.  

Well, believe it or not, breaking under 1.3, or when there's a 68020 instead 
of a 68000, is an equivalent bug.  Buggy programs should be fixed.  Period.
Any company that won't fix the mistakes they've made isn't a company I'd want
to make any purchases from in the future.  

> How about something along the lines of the 68020/68000 boot-up on 2000's where
> holding down the left mouse button causes it to boot in 68000 mode?

> We could use the right mouse button for KS1.2 mode instead of KS1.4.

> How about it Commodore?   

As far as Commodore is concerned, the current OS is what's supported.  Any 
program that doesn't work under it is broken, and should be fixed by the
vendor.  It's not like Commodore pulled some trick on developers between
any of the ROM revisions; most of the rules for proper operating under the
Amiga OS were published and in the hands of developers well before the
first A1000 shipped with 1.0.

>Other folks?

Third parties are always free to do whatever they like, even kludgery
like this.  I saw a demo of a thing like this in Germany last year.  It
let you load KickStart into some RAM, then boot from either a normal ROM
or this RAM in a 500.  I don't know if this was ever built or not.

But the bottom line is, broken software should be fixed.  If no one ever
tells the vendor their old software doesn't work under 1.3, it may be 
awhile before they notice on their own.  Any broken program that gets 
fixed serves the whole Amiga community.  Conversely, any attempt to keep
around old versions of the OS for general use fragments the Amiga software
base and is bound to hold back the growth of the system.  It may seem
like it's easier just to boot 1.2 somehow than get Company X to fix their
bugs, but in the end, you're doing yourself a disservice.

> D. Gordon Smith         Voice: (613) 738-1338 ext 6118       P.O. Box 9707
-- 
Dave Haynie Commodore-Amiga (Systems Engineering) "The Crew That Never Rests"
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                    Too much of everything is just enough