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The system will prompt you for your information. ========================================================================== ************ Topic 34 Sat Mar 14, 1992 E.KRIMEN [Ed Krimen] at 21:11 EST Sub: MultiTOS A topic for the discussion of Atari's MultiTOS, a multitasking TOS based upon Eric Smith's MiNT. 199 message(s) total. ************ ------------ Category 14, Topic 34 Message 1 Tue Jan 26, 1993 E.SMITH10 [Eric Smith] at 21:59 EST Some miscellaneous answers to questions asked: (1) MultiTOS doesn't have a "single tasking" compatibility mode; however, you can disable it by holding down the left shift key while booting. (2) We haven't put MultiTOS in ROM yet, but I'm sure that it will require *at least* 512K of ROM. (Not all of the 800K on the MultiTOS distribution disk is taken up by MultiTOS itself, some of it is for the utility programs that come with MultiTOS.) (3) We're looking at various options for putting MultiTOS on 720K disks. Either we will distribute 2 disks, or use some sort of compression to fit it all on 1 disk. We haven't decided yet. Eric ------------ Category 14, Topic 34 Message 2 Tue Jan 26, 1993 D.ENGEL [Thunderbird] at 22:08 EST Thanks, Eric for the informative reply! Wow, 512K or ROM! That's way up there compared to tos1.4! _____________________ \hunderbird ------------ Category 14, Topic 34 Message 3 Tue Jan 26, 1993 J.THOMAS12 [JT] at 22:29 EST Charging for MTOS is a good idea, even if it's only 20 or 30 dollars. If they keep the first couple of revs on floppy, then do ROMs later then they could charge 100 dollars or so. Even at 50 dollars, the floppys would be well worth it. I know that nobody would ever suggest that Atari gives it away just to keep people from pirating it now would they? :^) ------------ Category 14, Topic 34 Message 4 Tue Jan 26, 1993 LEXICOR2 [Ringo] at 23:28 EST Swampy. Maybe it is a compress format! Lets wait and see for the reply. I wanted a LZH version of the "FALCON" but I need to but the hardware parts. Ringo ------------ Category 14, Topic 34 Message 5 Wed Jan 27, 1993 J.TOWLER1 [John] at 00:06 EST JLHOFFMAN [John Hoffman] > >BTW someone posted that apple gives away the versions of there OS. Not >anymore. Since apple has started trying to compete with the pricing of PCs >they've changed their policy. System 7.1 costs $$. > True. You always did pay for System updates, but the cost was hidden in the price of the machine. Now that Mac prices have dropped, the real cost of those updates is becoming apparent. John T. ------------ Category 14, Topic 34 Message 6 Wed Jan 27, 1993 S.DANUSER [Soul Manager] at 00:51 EST I think MultiTOS should be free with the Falcon, and $50 for users of older machines. I recommend charging for it because I would hope that Atari prints a nice manual to go along with the disks. Users shouldn't have to figure out how to install it or multitask through a bunch of README files. At $50, everyone who's going to buy it will buy it anyway. And even if there was only a shipping and handling fee, the usual bunch of idiots will pirate it. At least Atari could justify the printing of a good manual by having a little revenue come in. I sure hope Atari sees MTOS as an investment, not as a moneymaker in itself. MTOS is a _requirement_ for the Falcon to be a viable player in today's market. Soul Manager ------------ Category 14, Topic 34 Message 7 Wed Jan 27, 1993 C.NICHOLLS [BILL] at 01:34 EST I too would vote for a free upload to GEnie of a RAM based MultiTOS, with ASCII manual, and a chip version at near cost. D.Engel's arguments sound pretty good to me. Bill ------------ Category 14, Topic 34 Message 8 Wed Jan 27, 1993 L.W.BENJAMIN [Koloth] at 18:31 EST D.ENGEL, It takes a lot of code to make a multi-tasking system behave, especially if you expect to run it on machines without hardware memory protection. That means lots of extra code is needed to double check that no software steps on anybody elses "toes". You've also got to manage all the other resources so that no two programs (called processes in a multi-tasking system) can access the same device at the same time. Older versions of TOS didn't have to worry about any of these issues. (I have no idea what your expertise level is, so forgive me if this is obvious to you. It may be helpful to others.) ------------ Category 14, Topic 34 Message 9 Wed Jan 27, 1993 D.FLORY [ALERTsys*Cop] at 19:05 EST I'll ad my $.02. I would buy disk based MTos at $100 because I'm a technonerd and want to know how it works and how to handle problems with it, etc. I'd think that was a rather high price, but I'd pay it. I consider $50 a bargain, and would be pleased to pay that and would feel a lot better about Atari Corp. as a whole than I really do now. A download from GEnie would be one heck of a move to improve their PR with their existing users. I love the machines, I have to work with other makes at work. The way the company organism has operated often makes me shake my head in disbelief. But then I used to do that back in the old 8 bit days before the T's, too. Dave Flory, ALERTsys*Cop 07:38 PST - 01/27/93 ------------ Category 14, Topic 34 Message 10 Wed Jan 27, 1993 G.ANDERSON at 20:03 EST I can along with a 'pay as you play' MultiTOS, providing the cost is not too bad. $50 or so is fair though even at that price the pirates will have a field day. This is only for EXISTING ST/TT owners though. All NEW systems, Falcon, TT, or whatever, should have MultiTOS bundled as part of the base price. This will be vital to compete against the cheaper clones that bundle Windoze at similar prices (if for less computer). Keep in mind that you are trying to sell to ATARI OWNERS!!!!! We who hve made a virtue of being cheap and proud of it! Gregg ------------ Category 14, Topic 34 Message 11 Wed Jan 27, 1993 SFRT-ASST [Kenne@SFRT] at 21:27 EST I thought MultiTOS would only work on CPU's with hardware multitasking? ------------ Category 14, Topic 34 Message 12 Wed Jan 27, 1993 D.ENGEL [Thunderbird] at 21:54 EST Koloth: The company I work for has a line of industrial controllers which are based on the MC6809 (16 bit internal, 8 bit external, 16 bit address bus). These controllers run a proprietary operating system which fits in less than 64K, with portions in paged ROM windows, giving it 32K of system RAM, and about 48K of ROM. The OS is capable of preemptive multitasking of as many tasks as RAM/time permits. You program it with a "C" cross compiler run on a clone or Unix box. A RAM paging scheme allows configurations up to a Megabyte for "C" program code. The OS is very flexible in allocating priorities and ease of use, and has support code for literally dozens of expansion boards the product line supports. It is entirely written in 6809 assembler, and is a very good example of the advantages of programming in assembler. Understanding what I've seen done with and old slow CPU with a 64K address space may have spoiled my expectations of multitasking systems. From what I have heard about mtos, I don't think I will be disappointed. I am wondering how much of mtos is written in 680x0 assembler. I hope a lot of it is, as I am a strong proponent of assembly language. I know a lot of people who don't want to pay much (if anything) for mtos. Since Bob Brodie hinted at giving it away, they are upset about hearing that atari might charge for it. I don't think Bob would have said that he was going to give it away if he didn't already plan to. ___________________________ \hunderbird ------------ Category 14, Topic 34 Message 13 Wed Jan 27, 1993 D.A.BRUMLEVE [kidprgs] at 23:21 EST Whoa, Thunderbird! Bob Brodie may have planned to give it away, but he's not the only one involved in the decision. He also didn't "hint", he just offered his own opinion, as follows: "Still to be decided is how we are going to distribute MultiTOS to our customers. Once that decision is made, we'll let you know via an annoucement here on GEnie, and in Atari Explorer Online Magazine...I'm confident that you'd love the pricing I have in mind. I think we should UPLOAD it exclusively to GEnie, and let nature take it's course. I'm not 100% sure that will happen at this point, though...but it might!!" Notice that he clearly indicates that the decision regarding distri- bution has not yet been made. He doesn't promise it will be freely distributed, only that he'll let us know via an announcement here. If they have to charge, I imagine fewer people will get it, but Multi- TOS will be inappropriate for many systems (because of, for example, a 520's memory limitations) and users (because, for example, the preferred programs may not support it), so I don't think it's one of these "must-have" items. It's more of a luxury, and one that will be thoroughly enjoyed by power users and others who want their computers to multi-task, but it's not for everybody, and not everybody will want it or use it. I think free distribution would be great, but I know that nothing is really free...If they have spent a lot of money for MultiTOS's development, either Atari must recoup that money (by charging for it or by increasing the price of the hardware that goes with it) or absorb the loss. I'll be interested to see what they decide. ------------ Category 14, Topic 34 Message 14 Thu Jan 28, 1993 L.W.BENJAMIN [Koloth] at 06:41 EST Thunderbird, My first computer was MC6809 based and I remember both OS9 and some other OS being used with that processor. The 6809 was the bridge between the 8 bitters and the 16 bitters. It is still great in some applications as you have pointed out. I'm not sure if MTOS is in assembly or "C", but I think it's in Assembly. I'm sure Eric will say. I think the rest of TOS is in "C". Remember - no matter how much Bob Brodie _wants_ to give away MultiTOS, it is _not_ his decision - and he'll be the first one to say so too. I feel it is fair for Atari to charge for it - they spent money to develop it. Free for new machines is appropriate too to give them a better chance to compete in the marketplace. ------------ Category 14, Topic 34 Message 15 Thu Jan 28, 1993 J.BRIGHAM at 20:13 EST I think that Atari should give MTOS away free. Yes, free to all who has stuck it out with ST's, since 1985-1993. They received quite alot of free advertising from us without paying us anything. Free to those, who could have upgraded to faster and more impressive IBM compatibles. Free those, who had the funds to buy a cheaper, more powerful Macintosh. Free to those , who now can only purchase ST software by mail order or on the services. MultiTo OS should be a gratitude of thanks for staying loyal to the Atari legend. I am, even though the "power for the price" claim fades. I might accept a very nominal fee ( not $50.00 ), but as dedicated loyal Atarians, don't we deserve something? POWER......MORE POWER.....MORE POWERR R ....... Brig ------------ Category 14, Topic 34 Message 16 Thu Jan 28, 1993 T.MCCOMB [=Tom=] at 22:04 EST I don't think Atari 'owes' me (us) anything. I'm willing to purchase MultiTOS. But I do think it's in Atari's interest to establish MultiTOS as a standard across the platform. To further that interest, I think they should make it available at a very attractive price. $50 for Disks/Manuals or $75-100 for ROMs/Manuals But the best would be a few bux to D/L a GEnie .ZIP file. (then again a Darlah's Treat would be even better) ;-) -Tom McComb {9:59 pm} Thursday, January 28, 1993 ------------ Category 14, Topic 34 Message 17 Thu Jan 28, 1993 K.HOUSER [Kevin MQ Def] at 23:58 EST Hey, if Atari really feels the need to charge for MTOS, why don't they distribute it on GEnie with some kind of "surcharge" (albeit lower than if we bought printed & boxed docs). That way you could just "buy" it by downloading it. :) --Kevin ------------ Category 14, Topic 34 Message 19 Sat Jan 30, 1993 ATARIAUSTRIA [J.Widi] at 13:18 EST Thunderbird: Although I love to _use_ programs that are written in Assembler I sure wouldn't want to look for bugs in someone elses code. And that is what You have often to do, especially in a project as big as MultiTOS. Therefore most current operating systems are at least partially written in high level languages. It makes maintenance easier and sure cuts down on development time. Of cause You have to code time critical parts in Assembler, but You can do this after the system is stable and 'up and running'. A good (or bad) example is the german program 'Tempus, the Editor'. It is coded in Assembler, very tight and fast as lightning. When the programmer turned to other platforms there was almost no improvement for years. Only recently, after the programmer came back, the editor was made TT-compatible but now there is tough competition from some other products. Companies don't take that kind of risk with their operating systems. So the more features an OS has, the bigger part of it is coded in high level languages. Maybe Eric will comment on this as well. -Johannes ------------ Category 14, Topic 34 Message 20 Sat Jan 30, 1993 J.RICHTER [J.RICHTER] at 14:02 EST Philip, I agree!!!! Even with some of the less than positive comments I have made concerning were I thought the Falcon030 should be (Maybe next time)... I think MultiTOS could be a HOT PRODUCT.. and believe $50 is totally reasonable!!! Think of it ... $50 x 100,000 = $5,000,000 .. maybe enough for that 68060 platform or REALLY hot, put MultiTOS on the new Pentium (Intel P5)!!! this thing (100mips) is so hot it could emulate the 68030 Falcon in software and run all that GREAT Windows 3.1 stuff to..to boot FAST ... LINEAR... ------------ Category 14, Topic 34 Message 21 Sat Jan 30, 1993 D.ENGEL [Thunderbird] at 16:46 EST ATARIAUSTRIA: I agree that it is hard to debug assembly code written by someone else. I still believe strongly that assembly code is the best way to go under many circumstances. When designing user interfaces, the ergonomics of the computer/user interaction are very important. A very slow computer with a very fast interface can 'appear' to be a much faster computer than a really fast computer with a slow interface. Just look at tos on my ST compared to the '483- 33 with MMSWindoze I use at work. Now, image the difference it would make if tos were recoded with ONLY the screen operations converted to 680x0. The screen ops can be seen as 'black boxes' which do various things, bitblt, textblit, line, box, fill, etc. Once these basic routines are written and carefully tested/debugged, they can be linked with the slow 'C' parts of tos, producing a OS that is easily debugged, yet Fast!! I use this technique a lot, and it works. You simply put the 'visual' parts of a program into assembly, test/debug the crap out of them, and then use them to speed up 'C' programs. It works. I've gone through many rewrites of my 'C' programs, yet never had to touch the assembly code, and it's been 3 years since I wrote them. I tend to think of the assembly routines as part of the 'C' package (like printf(), open(), etc.) because it's been so long since I touched them. Also, the assembly is commented to death, so when I get a falcon030, I can go in and make it compatable with the new graphics modes. Simple. _and_ painless. All it takes is a little organization, and a dedication to making a program look 'fast'. I hope the nuts and bolts task swapping part of mtos is assembly, since it is running most of the time, and the more seldom used portions are in 'C' for ease of upgrade. _____________________ \hunderbird just my $.02 ------------ Category 14, Topic 34 Message 22 Sat Jan 30, 1993 K.HOUSER [Kevin MQ Def] at 20:20 EST Umm... I doubt you'll use MTOS very often on a non accellerated ST. Useable, yes... but it is probably too slow for constant use on an 8MHz 68000. Hmm... maybe Jim Allen will see business pick up and be allowed to bundle MTOS with his accellerators. :) --Kevin ------------ Category 14, Topic 34 Message 23 Sat Jan 30, 1993 J.BRIGHAM at 22:17 EST For $50.00, I hope it is a very powerful program. Better and faster, more powerful than Windows. I here you can even run video ort T television out put in a window on the desktop. I know I'm not going to see that with MTOS activated. The Atari platform in software has always beee n a better bargain than MSDOS. (example... WordPerfect ST list 180 $180+.....WordPerfec ct t PC $299+). Are there any real stats of what MTOS can do? If yuou ou don't think Atari owes us and ything, just ask a Tandy or TI99 ow wner how much there ir computer investment isd wo worth. Many of us coulk d have left for a more powerful machine, but still hang on hoping. I As go the owners, so goes the software producers. No software, no computer sales.....see the connecting on. Brig ------------ Category 14, Topic 34 Message 24 Sat Jan 30, 1993 D.ENGEL [Thunderbird] at 23:55 EST J.BRIGHAM: Actually, putting video in a window in MS Windows has very little to do with MS Windows itself. What you must do is go buy a moderately expensive addon card (I think I've seen them for $399), and install it. What this card does is scale a video signal and then superimpose it onto a _blank_ window frame on the screen. All MS Windows has to do is tell the card where the window is (and what portion of it is covered, in more expensive cases), and the card does all the work. the only work MS windows has to do is a few checks periodically to see if the window has been moved or altered, or any of the video controls has been modified... very little work, really. I understand that the falcon030 has built-in hardware which helps to make it less costly to do this exact thing on it. All you need is a genlock board capable of scaling the video to fit any rectangle (I don't know what this would cost). Now, multitos simply has to open a tos window, and fill it with the overlay color (a special bit is set in the color bit pattern which causes the incoming video pixel to appear at that pixel instead. The hardware would scale the video to fit the window, and multitos (or any tos) would have to do very little work. Actually, the multitos scheme is cool in that you do not need special hardware to take overlapping windows or objects into consideration. If you moved your mouse over the video window, it would cover the 'overlay' color, and viola! the mouse would appear on 'top' of the picture. Cool, huh? No work for multitos, at all. I betcha that the Lexicor guys have something up their sleeves even as we speak that does this... well guys? Quicktime(tm) for the mac is pitifully slow and uses very, very, very small pictures, so I assume this isn't what you were referring to when you mentioned video in a window. _______________________ \hunderbird ------------ Category 14, Topic 34 Message 25 Sun Jan 31, 1993 FIFTHCRUSADE at 00:58 EST Thunderbird, Even if Windows was written in assembly language, it wouldn't be FAST. There's too much overhead in the way it communicates with applications, and just too much overhead in general. It doesn't seem like it was written with efficiency in mind. Windows isn't any more advanced that GEM in concept or implementation, it's just larger and has a few more features. Ben White ------------ Category 14, Topic 34 Message 26 Sun Jan 31, 1993 L.W.BENJAMIN [Koloth] at 08:59 EST I just downloaded the Atari Explorer Online and it's supposed to have a review of MultiTOS on a 68000 machine. Looking forward to reading that one! ------------ Category 14, Topic 34 Message 27 Sun Jan 31, 1993 J.NESS [Jim] at 12:25 EST Ben White - MultiTOS runs at 59% of the speed of normal TOS, for cpu operations (simple math, for instance). It's not so much that Windows is slow, it's that multitasking as a class is slow. That is a major reason to not use MultiTOS on 8mhz machines. You really need a faster cpu, and maybe even 68030 optimizations, to make it useable. MultiTOS and a 68030 accelerator from Fast Tech or Gadgets will be a very very nice combo. A TT should also be very useable. A Falcon may be borderline, depending upon exactly what you want to multitask with it. A good test is to see whether you can successfully download at 9600bps with ymodem-g (no tolerance for missed bytes) in the background, while you do something productive (a good computer card game - heh heh) in the foreground. Only the faster Windows machines are comfortable with this. -JN ------------ Category 14, Topic 34 Message 28 Sun Jan 31, 1993 EXPLORER.1 [] Ron [] at 13:37 EST Koloth, If you haven't, try to get a peek at the GIF desktop from this weeks issue of AEOin full color if you can. MultiTOS desktop on the TT looks just like the Falcon in 256 color - pretty sharp! Ron @ Atari Explorer Magazine ------------ Category 14, Topic 34 Message 29 Sun Jan 31, 1993 J.RICHTER [J.RICHTER] at 13:41 EST Thunderbird, If these routines are not in the first MultiTOS release, Atari should be HAPPY to put them in assembly shortly thereafter!! Ofcourse what would the CodeHeads have to do then? ... Anyway, maybe now folks here will STOP blasting MS Windows once they see the speed of MTOS on anything but a 33MHZ 030 / 040 !! FifthCrusade, Windows is FAR more advanced than GEM.. just ask the originator of FLASH who has been programing in both Windows and MultTOS (beta)! but GEM is BETTER than DOS, 'cause DOS is just a place holder to jump into Windows... Windows has had two years to progress, and if you don't the MTOS will have to go through the SAME cycle you are living in a dream world! The advantage of MTOS is that it is TRUELY a Multitasking OS! prememptive and all, more like Windows NT will be when it is released. Window NT however will have built-in Networking with peer- to-peer support, and support ALL the major protocols.. ie Novell, Banyan, TCP/IP ... and it has a B1 level of security, built-in!! and it is HUGE 12megs of DISK! hmmm back to MTOS for the home. The future home will need at least a system that supports peer-to-peer networking ... so I hope they include this feature! If they do, MTOS might just be the ONLY true graphically based multitasking system for the home.. ------------ Category 14, Topic 34 Message 30 Sun Jan 31, 1993 T.MCCOMB [=Tom=] at 13:43 EST But if you don't HAVE a 9600bps modem (maybe just a lowly 2400bps), then the point is moot. Or almost moot, or- mooterized by a factor of four- which may make the difference to a 68000 user. -Tom McComb {1:38 pm} Sunday, January 31, 1993 ------------ Category 14, Topic 34 Message 31 Sun Jan 31, 1993 D.ENGEL [Thunderbird] at 15:16 EST J.RICHTER: Windoze is a putt-putt pokey interface _even_ when run with a single application! It is a nightmare to program, and (worse yet) helps to support the almost criminal activities of Bill Gates. If you've ever programmed in XWindows/Motif, you'll know what a joke that MSWindoze really is. WindozeNT will just be _more_ of the same old waste... Windoze is designed by true computing throwbacks, they figure the only way to solve the problems with their program is to keep throwing more hardware at it. Not a good thing for the consumer... _________________________ \hunderbird ------------ Category 14, Topic 34 Message 32 Sun Jan 31, 1993 BRIAN.H [ST~SysOp] at 17:07 EST Just to remind people that this is the MULTITOS topic not a window topic for the IBM. Thanks. *******Brian********* Written on Sunday 31 January 1993 at 05:38 p.m. AST ------------ Category 14, Topic 34 Message 33 Mon Feb 01, 1993 J.RICHTER [J.RICHTER] at 02:54 EST ThunderBird, If you had any experience programing in W______ I might consider your coments valid ones.. With over 5,000 W______ programs written however your points hold little water on this topic...as usual. I would prefer to take the word of Alan Page (Flash) who works extensively with both OS's and proclaims the merits of M_ W______ over G__.. There are some nasties with M_ W______ however.. ie those finiky .ini files for one. Go ahead.. I know you just have to have the last word... ------------ Category 14, Topic 34 Message 34 Mon Feb 01, 1993 L.W.BENJAMIN [Koloth] at 06:38 EST Ron, I looked at it using QGIF on my MSTe and, yes, it does look pretty sharp. I especially like the more than 6 accessories and the multi-tasking. Thanks for including the pictures! J.Richter, Yes, I agree that home users need a system with more humble hardware requirements than Windows (or NT). Keep in mind though that compared to MicroSoft, Atari is a relatively small company. I'm sure they'll do their best. Few of us have ever had a problem with Atari technologically. Tom, _mooterized_ I love it! ROFL Thunderbird, Kinda sounds like Microsoft has taken up IBM's old tactics. Throw more hardware at it and it'll work fine! At least Microsoft doesn't sell hardware - that we know of. ------------ Category 14, Topic 34 Message 35 Mon Feb 01, 1993 JWEAVERJR [John@RSCARDS] at 10:23 EST Of course they do, Koloth - ever hear of the Microsoft Mouse? -JW (off-Topic) ------------ Category 14, Topic 34 Message 36 Mon Feb 01, 1993 D.ENGEL [Thunderbird] at 18:39 EST J.RICHTER: If you had any experience programming _anything_, I might consider your input as credible opinion. However, since you mention 1 program and it's 1 programmer's opinion as your sole evidence to support your claims, I am forced to believe you are making some type of attempt at humor. I will quote Scott Legrand (author of Genesis), Sean Crosson (Author of portions of Enable for Windows), and my own personal experiences (author of a soon to be released program) and express our disapproval of the way MSWindows is written, and the way it must be programmed. GEM is more difficult to write applications from scratch for, however, once you have a working 'shell' of a program (like those provided with most GEM compilers), it is a much more streamlined system, _and_ easier to work with. Of course, nothing can beat X-Windows/Motif, which you've probably never even seen. I don't see why multitos will be any different. I believe mtos programs will not require any special considerations to program with, as long as the standard GEM rules are followed, as they have been liad out since 1985. I betcha that mtos will still be faster than MSWindoze... _____________________ \hunderbird ------------ Category 14, Topic 34 Message 37 Tue Feb 02, 1993 S.JOHNSON10 [Steve] at 02:21 EST EXPLORER.1 - Unfortunately, we all need a Falcon030 (or ST/TT graphics card or IBM-compatible w/ VGA) to see the GIF's of the Falcon030's desktop! I have to take these GIF's over to my brother's place and view them on his Mac IIsi. ------------ Category 14, Topic 34 Message 38 Tue Feb 02, 1993 CBARRON at 06:14 EST Steve GIF is a pallete format, a pallete in a gif file has at MOST 256 colors. A good viewer should easily handle that on a STOCK TT, either in TT lowres or dithering TTmedium. ------------ Category 14, Topic 34 Message 39 Tue Feb 02, 1993 B.BILLJONES2 [BILL JONES] at 21:23 EST Steve, I viewed the Falcon desktop GIF on my 286 w/VGA... (snicker snicker) It's the first use it has seen for many months! The monitor's just waitin' for the Falcon. Bill ------------ Category 14, Topic 34 Message 40 Wed Feb 03, 1993 MUSE [Tomas] at 02:09 EST Steve, Try the GIFs in PhotoChrome. ===Tomas=== February 02, 1993 @ 9:16:49 pm PST ------------ Category 14, Topic 34 Message 41 Wed Feb 03, 1993 L.W.BENJAMIN [Koloth] at 07:01 EST John@RSCARDS, I think you know I meant that Microsoft doesn't sell _whole_ systems. Steve, I recommend QGIF for viewing GIF files on the ST as it makes the Atari screen a "viewport" into the whole GIF picture. It's in the file library, but I don't know the number offhand. ------------ Category 14, Topic 34 Message 42 Wed Feb 03, 1993 JWEAVERJR [John@RSCARDS] at 08:48 EST Actually: no I didn't, Koloth. You're correct - Microsoft doesn't (yet) sell whole systems. ------------ Category 14, Topic 34 Message 43 Wed Feb 03, 1993 AEO.5 [Ed Krimen] at 16:09 EST I viewed the Falcon desktop GIF in TT medium. It's only a 16-color 640x480 GIF. You could view it in ST low with something like MonSTEr or Bigscreen, or even ViewST (VIEW132D). ------------ Category 14, Topic 34 Message 44 Thu Feb 04, 1993 S.JOHNSON10 [Steve] at 02:12 EST CBARRON - My point was that the Falcon030 is the only Atari machine (other than their IBM clones) that comes standard with 640x480x256 VGA graphics. Granted, most of the GIF's of the Falcon030's desktop that have been uploaded have only been up to 640x480x16, so they COULD be displayed in TT medium resolution. I just meant that, unless someone has a graphics board or a TT, they can't view the GIF's that have been uploaded (full-screen, anyway) on their Atari machines. ------------ Category 14, Topic 34 Message 45 Thu Feb 04, 1993 A.FASOLDT [Al Fasoldt] at 06:48 EST QGIF? I'll look for it. Doesn't ring a bell at all. Al ------------ Category 14, Topic 34 Message 46 Fri Feb 05, 1993 STEVE-J [FunkPopARoll] at 00:39 EST MUSE - I did. PhotoChrome (or any GIF converter that squashes 640x480 GIF's into 320x200 pictures) is only really good for digitised picture GIF's, not for graphics like screenshots and the like. The best I can do with my STE, it just view them with QGIF.TTP and scroll the display around to see it all. L.W.BENJAMIN - Yeah, but seeing the whole picture at once (and in the resolution it was intended) is FAR better than seeing it in bits and pieces. I know because I DID look at them at full 640x480 resolution on my brother's Mac IIsi -- and they look NICE. ------------ Category 14, Topic 34 Message 47 Fri Feb 05, 1993 J.RICHTER [J.RICHTER] at 02:04 EST Thunderbird, Thanks... I can always trust that you will let us ALL know what we have and have not done, or have and have not seen!.. It's nice to know we can check with you first! .... yes, 64k segments suck.. but I have yet to see Atari Dev's match Turbo's products (ie debugger..) for the PC. When the "true" 32 bit dev's come out (soon).. it will not even be an issue... ------------ Category 14, Topic 34 Message 48 Fri Feb 05, 1993 JLHOFFMAN [John Hoffman] at 03:54 EST I use fastgif. It will display the gif files. In fact most any gif viewer or converter will rescale and remap colors into something that is viewable. It doesn't always look good but it does work. Anyway check out fastgif it's not the best but it is real fast and works good enough. I believe it is available in the libraries. Another one is gif2spc. This one is supposed to have very good quality but be ready to wait about 10 times the amount of time that it takes fastgif. John ------------ Category 14, Topic 34 Message 49 Fri Feb 05, 1993 M.POCHE [Mick] at 05:38 EST Steve-J (FunkPopARoll, huh?) I agree about the TT GIF screen shot. There really aren't any programs that can do it justice on the ST. When converted down to 320x200, the details get lost, especially the text. Scrolling around the picture gets you the full details and all, but not the full effect. I'm actually more interested in seeing MTOS on a Falcon _on my desk_ than a screen-shot teaser! - Mick ------------ Category 14, Topic 34 Message 50 Fri Feb 05, 1993 L.W.BENJAMIN [Koloth] at 06:37 EST Steve-J, Yes, but given the hardware limitations of most of the Atari ST's (all flavors) out there, QGIF (or a similar viewport scroller) is the only way to see the details _at all_. ALL, ST Informer has several good articles on the Falcon030 and Multi-TOS. Whatever the distribution method/price I'm looking forward to Multi-TOS. ------------ Category 14, Topic 34 Message 51 Fri Feb 05, 1993 D.ENGEL [Thunderbird] at 21:04 EST J.RICHTER: I felt _obligated_ to tell YOU what you have and have not done, ONLY because YOU tried to tell EVERYONE what I _have not_ done, without checking with me first to find out if your statement was utter horsehockeypucks. By the way, who is this "Turbo" company that you refer to, and how come no PC owner I ask knows for sure either??? They must not be that much better than the atari dev's, since they don't seem to be very well known... ______________________ \hunderbird ------------ Category 14, Topic 34 Message 52 Fri Feb 05, 1993 A.FASOLDT [Al Fasoldt] at 22:08 EST John, Yes, fastgif is excellent for a quick look at a gif. On my TT, it shows gifs about as fast as a 50 mHz '486 PC. Al ------------ Category 14, Topic 34 Message 53 Sat Feb 06, 1993 L.W.BENJAMIN [Koloth] at 10:13 EST Thunderbird, J.Richter is probably refering to BORLAND, who did Turbo Pascal. It originally came out for the CP/M machines many years ago and thus they have had a long, long time to develop their products. They now have a full line of languages and applications. - I don't see what this has to do with MultiTOS anyway. ------------ Category 14, Topic 34 Message 54 Sat Feb 06, 1993 BRIAN.H [ST~SysOp] at 12:26 EST Koloth, > - I don't see what this has to do with MultiTOS anyway. Neither do I. *******Brian********* Written on Saturday 06 February 1993 at 12:56 p.m. AST ------------ Category 14, Topic 34 Message 55 Sat Feb 06, 1993 D.ENGEL [Thunderbird] at 13:33 EST Koloth, Ohhhh! Now I get it... BORLAND! Isn't _that_ the company who wrote "Turbo C" for the ST? I've heard a lot of good things about that compiler. Even the PC version of it is supposed to be pretty good... almost (but not quite) as good as the ST version, or so I've been told by a good number of programmers who have used both. I wonder what they have to do with multitos? Maybe it was written in Turbo C, for speed or something. ____________________ \hunderbird ------------ Category 14, Topic 34 Message 56 Sun Feb 07, 1993 L.W.BENJAMIN [Koloth] at 08:56 EST The last I remember hearing abotu Turbo C for the ST was that someone was going to import it from Germany and that they weren't sure if they would translate the manuals or not. I think MultiTOS needs to pushed as a productivity tool for the power user and the knowlegable business user. Someone posted a compatibility list (for the falcon030, but some of it will apply to other systems with MultiTOS installed) and also emphasized how they could handle interuptions in their work better with a multitasking system. As in: I'm woking in a spreadsheet and someone comes into my office and wants a phone number for a contact. While my spreadsheet is recalculating, I open a phone book application and get the number. Then they ask about the new logo we're designing, so I open a picture viewer. Another application somebody mentioned is being able to convert picture files, or do ray tracing in the background while you're doing other stuff with the machine in the foreground. With well-behaved software and a little resource management all these things are possible with a multi-tasking system. ------------ Category 14, Topic 34 Message 57 Sun Feb 07, 1993 D.A.BRUMLEVE [kidprgs] at 12:09 EST Those interested in Turbo C should inquire in the Gribnif Category below. ------------ Category 14, Topic 34 Message 58 Sun Feb 07, 1993 STEVE-J [FunkPopARoll] at 15:32 EST M.POCHE - re: "FunkPopARoll"... I was just in an odd mood after getting my GEmail address changed (I was formerly S.JOHNSON10) and was just having fun with new nicknames since "Steve" is now in my GEmail address. The nickname means something, though, and a FEW people should get it. Anyway, I too would like to see a Falcon030 SITTING ON MY DESK rather than be stuck with all these teasers. L.W.BENJAMIN - That's precisely why I had to view them on my brother's Mac! ------------ Category 14, Topic 34 Message 59 Thu Feb 11, 1993 C.CASSADAY [Chris C.] at 02:29 EST A few days back, Eric Smith mentioned that manuals for MultiTOS were being printed. Would it be safe to assume that Atari will make an annoucement about the intended distribution method of MultiTOS when the manuals are ready? Printing of manuals suggests MultiTOS will be sold. (Unless manuals for MultiTOS will be provided with the Falcon.) Since MultiTOS is now officially finished and will be packaged with the Falcon, I would like to assume that it ready to be sold as a seperate product. I'm primarily interested in when the annoucement will be made, and when I can expect to purchase it. (That is of course if it _will_ be sold and not freely distributed. [;) Chris Cassaday ------------ Category 14, Topic 34 Message 60 Sat Feb 13, 1993 J.RICHTER [J.RICHTER] at 20:28 EST Here is something I picked up on the Internet.... > [my feelings about MiNT] I've decided I have to be a bit careful what I say. As a developer un dernon- disclosure I could be commenting on pre-release software (a serious no-no) without realizing it. I'm not sure if what I have is MiNT like the rest of the world has seen, or something not yet released. Still, I don't like it. It's too slow to be usable. It's confusing a s hell to use, what with some programs replacing the desktop, other programs not doing so (leaving you with program B running over program A's desktop). If you don't have it configured just right, it doesn't work at all and doesn't give you any indication why not. (It was two days before I figured out the incantation for getting a plain old TOS or TTP program to run. I can't imagine how a non-tech user would make things work at all.) From a programmer's point of view, it gets in your way and slows down the machine, and there's no way to turn it off programmatically. In developing an animation graphics product, I found that it just slows the system down so much that you can't achieve realistic playback speeds or smooth cursor movement during drawing. That means I have to tell customers to run the product only when MiNT is not active. Are they going to perceive (correctly) that MiNT is at fault? Probably not, they're more likely to think my product is broken. Atari shouldn't put me in that position. It seems to have been designed with text-mode applications in mind, with GEM support as an afterthought. That's exactly backwards of what it should be. In fact, in my opinion, Atari screwed up bigtime by having a character-mode BIOS and the idea of a non-GEM application supported at all. If all applications for the ST line were GEM programs, this machine may have become the user-friendly tool it was originally intended to be (and thus a commercial success), instead of being a cheap toy for unix-head programmers. ========================================================================= - Ian Lepore | If Mama Cass had given half that ham sandwich to Karen | Carpenter, two fine singers would still be with us today. ========================================================================= ------------ Category 14, Topic 34 Message 61 Sun Feb 14, 1993 D.ENGEL [Thunderbird] at 09:09 EST At least we can see from the discussion of MiNT on Internet that it appears to be at least _slightly_ easier to set up and use than MS Windoze. ____________________ \hunderbird ------------ Category 14, Topic 34 Message 62 Sun Feb 14, 1993 L.W.BENJAMIN [Koloth] at 10:40 EST What Ian talks about sounds like the later versions of MiNT as it was originally text based (like UNIX) and had minimal GEM support. The fully integrated version (MultiTOS) _should_ overcome this. Another point is that for certain CPU intensive applications, like animation, I would expect to have to dump the multitasking extensions and revert to plain-old TOS. That's one reason the Falcon030 will ship with TOS 4.0 in ROM and MultiTOS as an add-on. On the MacIntosh, you don't HAVE TO use multifinder if you've got a CPU intensive application and on 'BM machines you don't HAVE TO use MS Windoze. Multitasking takes time. If you need that time, don't run the multitasker. If you need the multitasking - use it. ------------ Category 14, Topic 34 Message 63 Sun Feb 14, 1993 J.NESS [Jim] at 11:29 EST Thunderbird - ST users, those who have been spitting on the speed of Windows for the last few years, are going to get real quiet the first time they get MultiTOS up and running on their 68000. Surprise! Those thousands of programmers at MS aren't stupid afterall. Multitasking a graphics OS (like GEM or Windows) makes things visibly slow. If Atari rewrote the whole thing in optimized assembly language, it would help, but that's an awfully tough task. Just as you need at LEAST a 80386DX to do a good job on Windows, you'll need at LEAST a 68030 for a comfortable MultiTOS. NBM says 59% of normal speed, for both the 68000 and 68030 kernals (on a Mega ST). And that's with no ACCs and no other programs running besides NBM itself. I would have preferred to have each program's desktop in its own window, to reduce the confusion, but it's still a very nice system. And with a bang-up 68030 accelerator from Fast Tech or Gadgets, the word slow will never enter your mind. -JN ------------ Category 14, Topic 34 Message 64 Sun Feb 14, 1993 M.DORMAN1 [Mike Dorman] at 12:04 EST Koloth- No, I think Ian's talking about MultiTOS, since I know Ian wouldn't touch MiNT alone with a big stick. He doesn't like character-based interfaces, and realistically, that's all that MiNT supports. I on the other hand like MiNT and CLIs, so I keep up with it. And why would you _expect_ to have to dump multitasking for animation? I notice that you mention the Macintosh and the IBM, but not the Amiga. They don't have to ditch their multitasking capability for animation. And if you're running an animation program under Windows (for which there are several), you _don't_ have the choice of dumping multitasking. So why do you _expect_ this? Mike. ------------ Category 14, Topic 34 Message 65 Sun Feb 14, 1993 JLHOFFMAN [John Hoffman] at 17:05 EST I think that it's absolutely absurd that anyone would expect users to know that in order to run their applications they would need to ditch MultiTOS and run under plain TOS. I know that if I have an ST I won't run multiTOS as anything other than a toy because the ST isn't enough machine to really run multitasking. Consider running windows on a 286 you can, but almost nobody does. On the ST the best you could hope for is a task switcher. That would give you the ability to switch tasks but it wouldn't give you multitasking. Kinda like multifinder. But I don't think it would be in Atari's best interests to worry too much about the ST line of computers. For Atari the Falcon, perhaps the TT, and MultiTOS must be the focus of the future. This is the only platform that can hope to compete with upcomming home multimedia market. This market is the next step in home computing and there are lots of companies that will be competing for this market. If I buy a Falcon I would certainly want all my applications to run under MultiTOS. I don't see Atari's move of not putting MultiTOS in ROM as something that was done to provide flexibility it was done because MultiTOS wasn't done soon enough and MultiTOS wasn't stable enough to commit to ROM. I would hope that future machines would have MultiTOS in ROM. One last comment, I get real bothered when I see people spending time bashing other products. I use MS Windows at work all day long. I run on a 386/25 with a non-accelerated VGA adapter at 1024x768 and 8MB of memory. If I were to call Windows Slow it could only be in comparision to DOS Character I/O. If I were comparing it to my MegaST or the Mac IIcx in my office I would definitely not be calling it slow. In terms of Speed it is faster than the ST and comparable to the Mac. On a 486/33 with accelerated video card windows is FAST compared to anything! Believe me I've worked on just about every computer that exists. So if you are using the term Windoze you are either very immature or don't know what you're talking about! John ------------ Category 14, Topic 34 Message 66 Sun Feb 14, 1993 D.ENGEL [Thunderbird] at 18:10 EST J.Ness: What happens if you run something like NBM in two multitos windows at the same time? Can it be done? J.Hoffman: I've used MS Windoze (tm) on a '486-33 with local bus video, and it is about as fast as my 1986 520ST _stock_ with DISK TOS 1.0!!! It _is_ TOO SLOW! I've talked to MS programmers (tm) and they _do not_ seem to care if their code is speed optimized because they feel that people will just BUY more hardware if they want to run things faster. Not only that, but it is a NIGHTMARE to get running on anything but the most basic system... that Apple (R) commercial ("We're making our computer easier to use so we can be more productive") is 100% correct. Windoze (tm) is pure trechery to program too. If you've only experienced Windoze (tm) as an end user, then you are either very immature or you don't know what you are talking about. I do not have multitos yet, but I can say with a high degree of certainty that it cannot be as WRETCHED (tm) as MS Windoze (tm). _____________________ \hunderbird (tm) Call back when Windoze NT (tm) is available... ------------ Category 14, Topic 34 Message 67 Mon Feb 15, 1993 B.REHBOCK [BILL@ATARI] at 01:06 EST Well, for what it's worth, there are several ways to request more (or all) of the CPU time if one is doing time-critical output. I do wish Richter would have included the date of Ian's post, we have been in touch with Ian and there haven't been any complaints as such lately. -Bill@Atari ------------ Category 14, Topic 34 Message 68 Mon Feb 15, 1993 J.RICHTER [J.RICHTER] at 02:43 EST Koloth, I thought System 7 was strictly MultiTasking!! System 6?... John Hoffman, Yeah.. it IS nice to know not ALL ATARIANS are burying their heads in the sand!! It does NOT help ATARI one bit to be running from the truth.. just keep working hard to get us that TRUE 32 bit data bus and 32bit BliTTER so we can be at least competitive (speedwise) to the rest of the Marketplace. Thunderbird... It is obvious to everyone here that has run Windows at work on a video accelerated 486-33 PC that you are BADLY mistaken, so please try and choose subject matter you are more familiar with.. BILL@ATARI, The date for the IAN post was 2/10/93... sorry.. and I am not saying I am in agreement with him (might have had a bad programing day) as I have seen MultiTOS at Comdex and it seemed to run at least as fast as a 386SX-20 in Windows.. Bill, let IAN know any secrets you have for time critical output.. If you like, I will relay this to him on Internet... if you have no access.. ------------ Category 14, Topic 34 Message 69 Mon Feb 15, 1993 ATARIAUSTRIA [J.Widi] at 03:53 EST J. Richter: One thing I would be interested to know is how OLD that internet message is because both MiNT and MultiTOS did evolve quite rapidly during the last few months. Second, the distribution version of MultiTOS will come with a user friendly installation program so it's all 'click and go' for the non-tech users. I admit it's been a bit more rough for developers but I bet installing the first releases of OS/2 was little fun too :-) -Johannes ------------ Category 14, Topic 34 Message 70 Mon Feb 15, 1993 J.NESS [Jim] at 12:45 EST Thunderbird - I haven't tried two instances of NBM running at the same time. The program is not graphically MTOS-compatible yet, so I'd probably get a headache trying to read the screen while both instances wrote over each other. Maybe I'll try it anyway. I suspect that the result would be both instances showing half of the 59% shown by one. Also, I only have 2megs of ram. I'm not sure that I have the room to run two NBMs at the same time. Maybe. MTOS will be a lot nicer in rom... Bill R. makes a good point. You can, just like in Windows, give more time slices to the most time-critical program. So, one copy of NBM might get 50%, while the other gets 9%. -JN ------------ Category 14, Topic 34 Message 71 Mon Feb 15, 1993 F.BELL1 [Frank @ Home] at 13:12 EST Johannes, 'Click and go' is just what I need. It seems the older I get the less time I have to install something. :-) Frank... ------------ Category 14, Topic 34 Message 72 Mon Feb 15, 1993 JLHOFFMAN [John Hoffman] at 17:36 EST Thunderbird, Looking back through the various messages posted to this topic I noticed that you were the only one posting messages casting stones at other types of computers. I didn't mean for my message to single any particular individual out. I am an engineer, programmer and system integrator and have written several major applications under contract. This topic is for Multitos and I believe that there is a topic for flames. If you need to post inflamatory messages perhaps the another topic would be more appropriate. John ------------ Category 14, Topic 34 Message 73 Mon Feb 15, 1993 R.WATSON15 [Wayne Watson] at 19:34 EST If/when MultiTos goes ROM, will the speed of an application running increase? I mean will the percentage of CPU time available increase? I am not that multitasking aware so if this is wrong, please correct. In a single- tasking system, the application basically gets 100% of CPU time. Under MultiTos (or other MT environments), there is only (say for instance) 90% of CPU time available for all applications with MT being in RAM. Will that increase to say 95% or whatever? Also, I hope there will be a way to kick MultiTos out of the system once it is put in ROM. ------------ Category 14, Topic 34 Message 74 Mon Feb 15, 1993 M.EVERHART2 [MIDIMIKE] at 20:22 EST A task switcher would save me hours of time. I'll take it any day! ------------ Category 14, Topic 34 Message 75 Mon Feb 15, 1993 D.ENGEL [Thunderbird] at 20:57 EST J.RICHTER: I suppose the next thing you'll tell me is that every morning I hallucinate the way my 486-33 requires 5-10 cold boots before it gets running? Then you'll tell me that I imagine the 1-3 unexplicable windows fatal errors I see every day doing simple DTP and a little drawing. After that, you'll conclude that I must be taking 'meth' at work, because that would explain my hallucinations, and my distorted sense of speed, right? I don't cotton well to being called a drug abuser... OR a liar... choose your words more carefully. JLHOFFMAN: I'll cast stones at whatever glass houses are erected in the path to truth and enlightenment. If you choose to build a case for Intel out of smoke and mirrors, single me out with compliments like 'immature', then pretend that you are Mr. Innocent... I will be more than happy to knock the props out from under your glass menagerie. You're not the only one here who is an engineer, or has written major applications, and I'm not the ONLY one who knows how feeble Intel 80x86 CPUs really are. In plain english... there isn't a windowing OS around as kludged and uncomfortable as Windows. Call back when Windows NT is out. I happen to know that _then_ you will have some semblance of a leg to stand on. ______________________ \hunderbird 'cause Intel CPU's are markedly inferior to Motorola's. ------------ Category 14, Topic 34 Message 76 Mon Feb 15, 1993 M.DORMAN1 [Mike Dorman] at 21:08 EST Bill: Ian posted that on Usenet about 7-10 days ago. I think Ian was also trying to make a point to some of the people who were singing the praises of the way that MiNT emulates/imitates Unix--a system that Ian has some well-documented biases against. Probably a "Bad Programming Day" as someone said a couple of messages ago. Wayne: In a word, putting MultiTOS in ROM will probably slow things down, since ROM is not generally accessable at the same speed that RAM is. You're conflating memory consumption with processor-cycle consumption. Mike. ------------ Category 14, Topic 34 Message 77 Mon Feb 15, 1993 M.DORMAN1 [Mike Dorman] at 21:13 EST Thunderbird: You could be hallucinating, or you might not have your MS-DOS machine set up correctly. That could explain all the problems you have mentioned. Stay calm. Mike. ------------ Category 14, Topic 34 Message 78 Mon Feb 15, 1993 T.MCCOMB [=Tom=] at 22:20 EST It's snowing in New York, but there's plenty of Hot Air flying around _here_. Jeeeesh. -Tom McComb {9:57 pm} Monday, February 15, 1993 ------------ Category 14, Topic 34 Message 79 Tue Feb 16, 1993 K.HOUSER [Kevin MQ Def] at 00:58 EST Even with a correctly configured MS-DOS based Windoze system I'll easily get Protection Faults while drawing with Corel Draw (which is a nice program, but seems inefficient at drawing large #'s of objects). Occasionally my True Type fonts get screwey with a printout. AND even my machine will sometimes NOT boot the 1st time it is turned on! This is a perectly fine and NEW system by a major & reputable manufacturer. My computer at work is a '486DX/33 with 160meg hard drive and 800x600x256 SVGA graphics. It is a nice machine, but Windows is NOT a utopian dream come true. The user interface design of most Windoze programs could use an overhaul by Mac or ST programmers who know how to use & program for a GUI. --Kevin ------------ Category 14, Topic 34 Message 80 Tue Feb 16, 1993 J.RICHTER [J.RICHTER] at 02:41 EST Thunderbird... Hmmm.. sounds like your still using OLD Windows 3.0! haven't had those problems for at least 8 months now.. MicroSoft offers Windows classes.. you might find them helpfull.. I must admit I can't wait to see what happens when true 32 bit Windows is released later on this year!! (Uky 64k segments!)..and talk about speed.. WEW.. Seems like only NeXT Step '486 is using the TRUE power of the Intel chip.. I personally think the '486 is slightly superior to the '040 and ofcoarse BLOWS- AWAY the '030... Kevin.. If you think MultiTOS is going to be "Utopian".. well you are a dreamer, thats for sure... ------------ Category 14, Topic 34 Message 81 Tue Feb 16, 1993 STEVE-J [FunkPopARoll] at 02:42 EST L.W.BENJAMIN - If you use System 7 on the Mac (which you HAVE TO on newer models), you HAVE TO use MultiFinder since it IS the System 7 Finder (MiNF - MultiFinder is NOW Finder! ). ------------ Category 14, Topic 34 Message 82 Tue Feb 16, 1993 S.DANUSER [Soul Manager] at 03:40 EST MultiTOS sounds great, but I think users will probably find that as the power level of their OS increases, the complexity of the software will increase as well. Installations will become more complicated, conflicts between programs will become more pronounced, and hard drives will become more cluttered. There is always a price to pay for increased power. Atari users will find that their OS is no longer just sitting there, handling things for them. They may have to put some effort into getting things to work the way they want. As for the speed of Windows, I am running a 486/33 with an Orchid 24 bit VLB card, and at 1024x768x256 non-interlaced, Windows beats the pants off the stock ST running 640x400x2, even with a screen accellerator. Sorry, but it's true. As for crashes, the only real problem I've had is when a friend of mine opened about 40 applications after I left the room for a minute. It's been pretty stable otherwise. Mind you, I've been searching high and low for a File Manager replacement that works anything like Neodesk. Windows is far from perfect. But, at least from an application standpoint, it is very smooth. If anyone thinks they're not going to go through some serious growing pains with MultiTOS, they're be sadly mistaken. Soul Manager ------------ Category 14, Topic 34 Message 83 Tue Feb 16, 1993 L.W.BENJAMIN [Koloth] at 05:42 EST Mike, The expectation is for maximum speed. The term animation covers a whole range of speeds. I have no direct knowlege of the Amiga, so I didn't mention it. People have to understand that the amount of processing _any_ CPU can perform is finite. I guess we'll find out how livable MultiTOS is for each of our tastes when it's generally available. I find that I'm generally not too picky about speed. Others will be. No, I can't afford the hardware to run Windoze. J.Richter, I haven't seen System 7. I've been away from the office for about 20 months. All I can relate is what I saw last. I guess I better shut up since I don't have access to the latest or greatest of _any_ system! ANYBODY - What's NBM ? ------------ Category 14, Topic 34 Message 84 Tue Feb 16, 1993 S.WINICK at 06:18 EST J.Richter, JR> ... MicroSoft offers Windows classes.. That pretty much says it all, along with that HUGE and complex owner's manual that comes with Windows. Then there's the special installation procedures for EVERY Windows application since even the program icons must be installed into the directory. As a user-friendly GUI, Windows can indeed learn an awful lot from Mac and Atari. On the other hand, I can't think of anyone with better marketing skills than Bill Gates and crew. He's taken the world's worst operating system and least user-friendly GUI and turned it into a virutal monopoly of the worlds personal computer marketplace. Now if only he would run classes on marketing instead, I can think of a few top executives who could definitely benefit from THAT type of course. ;-] Sheldon (Computer STudio - Asheville, NC) ------------ Category 14, Topic 34 Message 85 Tue Feb 16, 1993 BRIAN.H [ST~SysOp] at 06:22 EST Let us keep this on topic. The topic is .... MultiTOS. There has been complaints and I don't want to lay down the heavy hand of the topic cop [grin]. *******Brian********* Written on Tuesday 16 February 1993 at 07:05 a.m. AST ------------ Category 14, Topic 34 Message 86 Tue Feb 16, 1993 K.HOUSER [Kevin MQ Def] at 07:44 EST J.RICHTER [J.RICHTER] at 02:41 EST No, MultiTOS is not the _perfect_ OS. I should know. I've tested my stuff with it on an 8MHz STf. My stuff works with it fine. BUT, if you looked at some of my previous posts about wanting an accelerator card to use with MTOS you'd have seen that. I use MS-DOS evry day with Win3.1. I use it to do the same job I can do with my 1040STf at home. And the STf was just as productive for the job at hand. Well... a few of you guys sling around all of the personal stuff I'll go back to testing/writing software that uses M-TOS & Speedo. :) --Kevin ------------ Category 14, Topic 34 Message 87 Tue Feb 16, 1993 K.SCHAFER4 [Necromancer] at 21:52 EST Well, I suppose I'll add my $.02 I've had the opportunity to play around with a beta version of MultiTOS, and on my 16 Mhz MegaSTe, it runs a little quicker than a normal 8 Mhz ST. Any ST with an accelerator should be a very comfortable MTOS environment. Warp 9 does not work on the beta version, but it is my understanding that the final release of MTOS *WILL* uses the exec_os vector, allowing Warp 9 to function properly. That would make for a VERY nice multitasking system, and with one of the available '030 accelerators, it would be simply fantastic! If any one is interested, I can crank out some benchmarks. Bear in mind this would alll be beta stuff, and may or may not be indicative of the finished product. As an aside, Let me point out that I also find myself using Windoze(tm), both at work on the high-end PC's, and at home on my PS/2, and the MTOS environment is quicker than both. I'd say MTOS on my MSTe at 16Mhz with the AlberTT card at 1024x768 is about the same as Windoze(tm) on a 386/33 at 640x480. Soul Manager writes: "I am running a 486/33 with and Orchid 24 bit VLB card and at 1024x768x256 non- interlaced, Windows beats the pants off the stock ST running 640x400x2..." You're racing a 33Mhz '486 against an 8 Mhz 68k, the scales seem tipped a wee bit in the '486's favor. Betcha a TT030 will burn the pants off Windoze. -Ken ------------ Category 14, Topic 34 Message 88 Tue Feb 16, 1993 J.STANFORD2 [John@Lexicor] at 23:10 EST Brian, Would it be possible for you to start a Multitos/Windows/Random arguements topic in CAT 18 and help move these discussions there, as little of it seems pertinent or appropriate for this topic? John Stanford - Lexicor ------------ Category 14, Topic 34 Message 89 Tue Feb 16, 1993 D.ENGEL [Thunderbird] at 23:17 EST Mike Dorman: I believe you're correct in your assertion that my PC isn't configured properly. The trouble is that our PC installation guy and our top software engineer spent about 7 hours fiddling with this and that whilst WADING through the setup manuals, and it STILL isn't right. I understand multitos comes with a setup program which is quick and painless. Sheldon: It's only fitting that the world's worst GUI run under the least user friendly GUI... but to put both on the kludgiest hardware with the klunkiest CPU was the greatest joke ever played on the electronics consumer! With enough money to burn, I betcha you could convince people that the _HAD_ to have GEOs running on a 66Mhz C=64 with 64Megs of RAM! Some people would even believe they had something to brag about... Kevin MQ Def: Thank you for being the voice of reason in this heated debate. It's good to have someone with mtos experience to give experienced views. Thanks. I was a beta tester for MidiTasking, so I'm convinced that mtos is doable and fast. _____________________ \hunderbird ------------ Category 14, Topic 34 Message 90 Tue Feb 16, 1993 J.NESS [Jim] at 23:51 EST Wayne - The overhead for MTOS is much higher than 10%. More like 40% right now. And, whether the code is in rom or ram, its speed is based on the cpu speed and whether or not a cpu cache is present. All that would be gained by putting MTOS in rom is ram space. Lots of ram space. Ken - Sure, let's see what LHARC.TTP does with a specific file on your 16mhz machine under MultiTOS. Make it a large file - maybe the second to last AEO, which was over 100k, I think. That will be a good indicator. Don't forget to tell us if you did anything special in your setup. Don't forget to load the TOS window emulator first. -JN ------------ Category 14, Topic 34 Message 91 Wed Feb 17, 1993 S.NOAH [Stu] at 01:42 EST With both MultiTOS and SpeedoGDOS to be expected sometime soon, the following question comes to mind: At boot time, which will need to be run first MultiTOS or SpeedoGDOS ? In regards to the comparisons being drawn between various GUI's and computer sytems... This Roundtable has many members who, on various issues, have thier minds set in stone and they are not about to change their minds. We all know where we stand, and not even 500 wild horses (or gagle of professional logicians) could drag some people across to the other side of an issue. You have to view this place as you might view the United Nations; a place where many patently absurd views are espoused and tolerated. So next time you read someone telling you that black is white, or vice versa, do like they do in the UN.... ignore them and/or leave the room. You know the old saying about giving a person enough rope, right ? Stu ------------ Category 14, Topic 34 Message 92 Wed Feb 17, 1993 R.WATSON15 [Wayne Watson] at 01:50 EST Jim, Yes, the 10% figure was just a guess/example as I didn't know what kind overhead it had. I just hope that you can give a single task ALL of the CPU time. At the moment that will be possible by just not running MultiTos but, what happens when it goes into ROM? I hope I will be able to kick it out so that I can get that 100% CPU time if need be. I wasn't sure if it running in RAM or ROM would make a speed difference. ------------ Category 14, Topic 34 Message 93 Wed Feb 17, 1993 A.FASOLDT [Al Fasoldt] at 03:42 EST Mike, It should be easy to tell MTOS to load itself into RAM (TT RAM, for those with TTs) once it is on a chip. I do that with my TT ROM as it is, and the speedup on the TT is 40 percent in some measurements. Al ------------ Category 14, Topic 34 Message 94 Wed Feb 17, 1993 BRIAN.H [ST~SysOp] at 18:22 EST John, There is a Windows and miscellaneous topics in Cat 18. Now that I am over the flu, I hope, this area will be eyed more closely [grin]. Thanks for the suggestion and future messages will be examined, thanks. *******Brian********* Written on Wednesday 17 February 1993 at 07:03 p.m. AST ------------ Category 14, Topic 34 Message 95 Wed Feb 17, 1993 M.DORMAN1 [Mike Dorman] at 18:54 EST Al Well, yeah, you can move from ROM to RAM. Which means that my answer that moving MultiTOS into ROM won't speed things up is doubly true. :-) Mike. ------------ Category 14, Topic 34 Message 96 Wed Feb 17, 1993 D.MCNAMEE [Dan @ Atari] at 20:12 EST Stu, Eric says it shouldn't make any difference which one runs first. Dan ------------ Category 14, Topic 34 Message 97 Tue Feb 23, 1993 J.FRENCH2 [James French] at 01:45 EST In the February 1993 issue of Byte I read about a proposed standard called Unicode. Unicode would be a 2-byte standard for character sets that would "allow encoding of all the major world languages, including Chinese and Japanese". Is Atari moving towards Unicode compliance for Multi-Tos? As a customer I would certainly like to see this. The article also implies that Windows NT will be Unicode compliant. (Byte Feb.1993, "Correspondence that Looks Good Globally", pg.220) ------------ Category 14, Topic 34 Message 98 Tue Feb 23, 1993 B.REHBOCK [BILL@ATARI] at 11:41 EST One of the reasons for going to the Bitstream Speedo font scaler was its inherent ability to handle 16-bit character sets. The VDI already supports passing 16-bit values into the v_gtext and v_ftext calls. As Unicode and the ISO-Shift Japanese standards pan out, we will be able to easily support them. -Bill@Atari ------------ Category 14, Topic 34 Message 99 Tue Feb 23, 1993 J.FRENCH2 [James French] at 20:48 EST Bill: Thanks for the reply! ------------ Category 14, Topic 34 Message 100 Thu Feb 25, 1993 S.SCHAPER [Meneldil] at 00:45 EST Unicode would also be good for telecommunications and word processing programs. Hope it is a go. Depends on market response, I suspect. ------------ Category 14, Topic 34 Message 101 Sat Feb 27, 1993 JLHOFFMAN [John Hoffman] at 16:17 EST Does anyone know if multitos will support threads? And are there extensions to the OS APIs to support the use of such a paradyme? John ------------ Category 14, Topic 34 Message 102 Sat Feb 27, 1993 E.SMITH10 [Eric Smith] at 20:44 EST John: Yes, MultiTOS supports threads. There is a new Pexec mode (104) which starts a child process which will share the parent's address space (at least, that portion of the address space which was allocated before the Pexec; the parent and child both continue after the call, and either one can then allocate new memory which will *not* be accessible to the other). The freeware MiNT library (which should be available here, look for "mntlib25" or something similar) has a function, tfork(), which hides all the messy details. To start a new process you say: childpid = tfork(func, arg); and this will fork off a thread which will execute the function "func" with the 32-bit argument "arg"; "arg" can, obviously, be a pointer to an array containing more arguments. Eric ------------ Category 14, Topic 34 Message 103 Sun Feb 28, 1993 D.FLORY [ALERTsys*Cop] at 12:39 EST Hey, Eric, Welcome to GEnie. Really good to see you getting on here. Now people can get MultiTos info' from the horses mouth. (-: Happy Bytes :-) Dave Flory, ALERTsys*Cop 09:22 PST - 07/04/79 ------------ Category 14, Topic 34 Message 104 Sun Feb 28, 1993 DARLAH [RT~SYSOP] at 18:21 EST Eric, welcome to GEnie. Looking forward to hearing all about Multi-Tos from the man himself. If you need anything, just let me know...... ------------ Category 14, Topic 34 Message 105 Mon Mar 01, 1993 F.BELL1 [Frank @ Home] at 15:27 EST I heard a few days ago that MultiTos 1.0 is out and in the hands of some Beta testers - and it works too. :-) Anybody anywhere know when the rest of us can get a hold of it? Buy it? Or whatever? Frank... ------------ Category 14, Topic 34 Message 106 Tue Mar 02, 1993 M.EVERHART2 [MIDIMIKE] at 20:27 EST I haven't seen any info yet on this: do you have to set up your programs to Multitask at boot, or can you load and unload programs 'on the fly'. What happens to GDOS applications and other AUTO programs? Do all your GDOS apps have to use the same ASSIGN.SYS, or will GDOS even work with MultiTOS? ------------ Category 14, Topic 34 Message 107 Wed Mar 03, 1993 TOWNS [John@Atari] at 13:27 EST You can run and terminate programs just as you do now with your ST computer. GDOS applications work just fine under SpeedoGDOS and MultiTOS. Since SpeedoGDOS is considered to be a part of the overall Operating System, all GDOS applications will use the same ASSIGN.SYS file. However, ASSIGN.SYS files are read when an application is started. Therefore if you loaded up GDOS application A and then changed the ASSIGN.SYS file, then loaded Application B, Application B would use the new ASSIGN.SYS file. Please note: There is no provision in SpeedoGDOS to allow the switching of ASSIGN.SYS or EXTEND.SYS files automagically. I hope this answers your question. -- John Townsend, Atari Corp. ------------ Category 14, Topic 34 Message 108 Wed Mar 03, 1993 J.EIDSVOOG1 [CodeHead] at 17:38 EST John Townsend, >Please note: There is no provision in SpeedoGDOS to allow the >switching of ASSIGN.SYS or EXTEND.SYS files automagically. Are you leaving this option for a 3rd-party developer to come up with, perhaps? John ------------ Category 14, Topic 34 Message 109 Wed Mar 03, 1993 TOWNS [John@Atari] at 18:03 EST I leave it to your imagination, John! ------------ Category 14, Topic 34 Message 110 Wed Mar 03, 1993 E.SMITH10 [Eric Smith] at 18:56 EST Dave and Darlah: Thanks for the welcome. Actually, I have been around GEnie for a little while, but I tend not to have a lot of time to spend :-(. Hopefully that will change soon... Eric ------------ Category 14, Topic 34 Message 111 Wed Mar 03, 1993 J.SPANDE [John Spande] at 19:47 EST Since there has been some concern expressed regarding memory usage and system slowdown with MultiTOS, I thought I would give a couple of results I have found. When I compiled a rather large program using Pure C, it required 46.1 seconds on a MSTE system and 76.4 seconds on the same system running MultiTOS so the slowdown was 66%. This should be a reasonalby real world test as opposed to some benchmark. I also found that running a program with and without MultiTOS, I had 1,192,038 bytes less available memory with MultiTOS. All in all, I think most users will be very pleased with MultiTOS. ------------ Category 14, Topic 34 Message 112 Wed Mar 03, 1993 D.MCNAMEE [Dan @ Atari] at 20:37 EST Mike, Speedo GDOS works just fine under MultiTOS. Speedo only uses 1 ASSIGN.SYS (Printer drivers and old GDOS bitmap fonts) and 1 EXTEND.SYS (Speedo fonts and cache info) file, so all applications would have to use that one setup. All applications, as long as they play nice will run under MultiTOS, this includes AUTO folder programs and Accessories. No, there is nothing special you as a user has to do to a program to get it to work. You just run and quit programs as you normally would on a non-MultiTOS system. Dan ------------ Category 14, Topic 34 Message 113 Wed Mar 03, 1993 R.NOAK at 22:07 EST Gee, maybe I'm a little slow, but, since, with Speedo, one can change fonts, printer, and cache on the fly, and Speedo works with everything that GDOS worked with with _one_(1) ASSIGN.SYS file, I fail to see why anyone would need/want to be able to use multiple ASSIGN.SYS files. This is a non-problem. Why go through the hassle of creating/managing multiple files when they aren't needed? Randy @ Southlake, Inc. ------------ Category 14, Topic 34 Message 114 Wed Mar 03, 1993 D.ENGEL [Thunderbird] at 23:40 EST Does anyone know if multitos has any sort of provisions for dynamically adjusting priorities so as to give the 'active' application more time while it is doing user I/O? What I mean is this: If I am scrolling through a big document in AW, can multitos recognise that I am an impatient person and give AW more CPU cycles for screen I/O. When I stop scrolling and let go of my mouse to read the screen of text, can multitos then determine that I am a slow reader and give my compiler in the background more cycles? I am worried that the 66% slowdown reported earlier will show up as a 66% more sluggish mouse and screen. Since I have heard that the f030 in 256 color mode is about as fast as an ST in mono, I don't think I would be comfortable on a computer 66% slower than a ST. ______________________ \hunderbird ------------ Category 14, Topic 34 Message 115 Sat Mar 06, 1993 L.W.BENJAMIN [Koloth] at 15:19 EST John Spande, Thanks for your real-world comparisons. You don't say if you had anything else running while you did your testing.... ------------ Category 14, Topic 34 Message 116 Sun Mar 07, 1993 J.SPANDE [John Spande] at 11:55 EST No, I had nothing else running for those comparisons, just Pure C. That means the slowdown results only from the overhead required by MultiTOS. Note that I have an MSTE and it is conceivable that the percentage slowdown is dfferent on an '030 machine (the processor that MultiTOS is primarily aimed at). ------------ Category 14, Topic 34 Message 117 Thu Mar 11, 1993 M.POCHE [Mick] at 23:30 EST Does MultiTOS have any provisions for programs that hog all of the memory they can get? I messed around with MultiGEM (Pam Software) when it came out, and it lets you define the maximum amount of memory that each, or any, program is allowed to use. Does MTOS have something like this? - Mick ------------ Category 14, Topic 34 Message 118 Fri Mar 12, 1993 C.OATES2 [Chris] at 05:25 EST I too have been running MultiTOS on my MegaSTE (in fact I'm running it right now) and 60-70% is what an old copy of QINDEX told me (when it didn't crash, it's not fully MTOS compatable) but as far as my day-to-day operations it doesn't seem to be that slow really, as far as scrolling of windows & general redraws, which are pretty much at normal speed. THen again, it may just be that I've gotten used to the dramatic slowdown of running at 800 x 600 x 16 colors on my Crazy Dots that the extra slowdown isn't noticed... :) But the color icons and 3D gadgets are definitely worth it... T-bird, I think that maybe that estimate of Falcon speed already takes MTOS into effect, since my Mega running 8x6x16 is just about the speed of a regular ST, maybe a bit slower... ~Chris ------------ Category 14, Topic 34 Message 119 Fri Mar 12, 1993 L.W.BENJAMIN [Koloth] at 06:48 EST Mick, I suspect that MultiTOS doesn't have a way to set maximum memory for each process (but it might) because during the Brodie Conference (#6) somebody asked about Aladdin running with something else. Aladdin tends to grab all the memory it can get and they said that it seemed to work fine under MultiTOS with other things, as long as the other things were loaded first and Aladdin was started LAST. That way the other stuff could grab the memory they needed and Aladdin could have the rest. C.OATES2, Thanks for the user info on MultiTOS. ------------ Category 14, Topic 34 Message 120 Fri Mar 12, 1993 FAIRWEATHER [David] at 10:00 EST Does Midi Music Maker work with Multitos? Can I use it to play SMF files in the background while I'm using Atari Works or BBS'ing? ------------ Category 14, Topic 34 Message 121 Fri Mar 12, 1993 AEO.3 [Lyre] at 20:54 EST Just a quick comment concerning Aladdin and MultiTOS. Please realize that Aladdin v1.50 will be replaced in the near future with Aladdin v2.0. I am not aware if Aladdin v2 will be more circumspect in its memory usage, but I do know that several alterations / enhancements were intended for the new version. This might be one area that is altered. Lyre 8:15 pm, March 12, 1993 ------------ Category 14, Topic 34 Message 122 Sat Mar 13, 1993 E.SMITH10 [Eric Smith] at 02:08 EST Thunderbird: MultiTOS does automatically adjust process priorities. In general, a process that is "nice" (doesn't use much CPU time) will be given higher priority at the times that it does need the CPU. In your example, while you're reading a page of text in AW, AW probably doesn't need *any* CPU time. So when you then go to scroll to the next page, AW should be given a very high priority. Exact details depend on the application, of course. The slowdown for MultiTOS affects CPU intensive applications (e.g. compilers) the most. There are several reasons; one of them is the aforementioned dynamic prioritization. What happens is that the desktop and GEM are always running, and are "nice" applications (they give up the CPU regularly). When a CPU hungry application like a compiler comes along, MultiTOS gradually decreases the compiler's priority as it notices it eating more and more CPU time. So as a result, the compiler takes longer to finish. Screen updates and mouse movement generally aren't slowed down nearly so much. M.POCHE: MultiTOS does have ways to limit the amount of memory programs are allowed to use, but they're not built into the desktop. It's possible that Atari or a third party may produce an accessory or CPX to do this sort of thing. ------------ Category 14, Topic 34 Message 123 Sat Mar 13, 1993 J.EIDSVOOG1 [CodeHead] at 08:52 EST Aladdin does not grab all memory when it runs. It allocates it as it needs it. As I type this in Aladdin on a 4-meg machine, I have 1.7 megs free. I normally have about 2.3 megs free at my HotWire screen. John ------------ Category 14, Topic 34 Message 124 Sat Mar 13, 1993 D.ENGEL [Thunderbird] at 10:08 EST Thanks for the info Eric. Your answer gave me another question, though. What are the possible 'priorities' an application can have (0-255?), and can mulitple apps have the same priority at the same moment? ___________________ \hunderbird ------------ Category 14, Topic 34 Message 125 Sat Mar 13, 1993 ATARIAUSTRIA [J.Widi] at 13:02 EST Mick: If MiNT did not change substantially in the final release then You can do the following: Add a line to MINT.CNF that looks like MAXMEM=1024 This would prevent any process to grab more than 1024 KB of memory after startup. You can vary the figure to suit Your needs. I also think that You could add something like the MultiGEM method to MTOS but it's not in release 1.0 yet. -Johannes ------------ Category 14, Topic 34 Message 126 Sat Mar 13, 1993 D.D.MARTIN [Swampy] at 20:26 EST Sounds like the MAC way of assigning Memory for any program through the "Get Info" dialog box would make a wonderful utility for the next CodeHeads project. Hugs...Swampy ------------ Category 14, Topic 34 Message 127 Sun Mar 14, 1993 E.SMITH10 [Eric Smith] at 01:40 EST Thunderbird: Process priorities run from -20 to +20 (0 is the default). Any number of applications can occupy a priority level. The actual amount of time a process gets depends not only on its priority level but also on the amount of CPU time it has used, i.e. a higher level process will eventually be preempted, so that if you have a +20 priority process the other processes will get (a little bit) of time. Johannes is quite correct that you can set a system wide maximum memory limit for processes by editing the MINT.CNF file. Eventually there should be a CPX that does this for you. ------------ Category 14, Topic 34 Message 128 Sun Mar 14, 1993 L.W.BENJAMIN [Koloth] at 11:12 EST E.SMITH10, Thanks for the specific answers to some of our questions! We are really fortunate to have you here. It's unfortunate that the MultiTOS release is going to have to wait for the Falcon030 release, which is waitin on ... ------------ Category 14, Topic 34 Message 129 Sun Mar 14, 1993 F.BELL1 [Frank @ Home] at 14:09 EST What other parameters can be changed via the Mint.cCg file beside Johannes' MIMMAX parameter? How is it possible to change a process priority? Limit the number of active programs, preempted something (or someone)? Etc... What other neat goodies exist in MT. Would it be possible for somebody at Atari to post some more MT information, an existing 'ReadMe' file or something? (Eric, Johannes, John, Bob...). Or is MT info going to be partialed out piece by piece? Frank... ------------ Category 14, Topic 34 Message 130 Mon Mar 15, 1993 ATARIAUSTRIA [J.Widi] at 03:42 EST T-Bird priorities range from -20 to +20 and yes, apps may have identical priorities. -Johannes ------------ Category 14, Topic 34 Message 131 Mon Mar 15, 1993 A.FASOLDT [Al Fasoldt] at 03:46 EST Chris, Speedmet (here in the library) runs on all STs and TTs to show system speed. I understand it runs nicely on the Falcon and should work fine under Mtos. Al ------------ Category 14, Topic 34 Message 132 Mon Mar 15, 1993 TOWNS [John@Atari] at 18:03 EST Frank.. hopefully very soon. The TOS Group has been putting the final touches on the first release of MultiTOS. -- John ------------ Category 14, Topic 34 Message 133 Wed Mar 17, 1993 S.SCHAPER [Meneldil] at 19:37 EST John, Does that mean that Jerry Pournelle will finally get to look at a Falcon? ------------ Category 14, Topic 34 Message 134 Wed Mar 17, 1993 SFRT-ASST [Kenne@SFRT] at 21:48 EST Jerry saw a Falcon at the Glendale Show. I _don't_ think he saw MTOS, or Speedo, though. I think he'd rather like to see a lot of good, solid, _current_ applications, but that's just reading into his sparse comments at the Glendale Show. ------------ Category 14, Topic 34 Message 135 Thu Mar 18, 1993 S.SCHAPER [Meneldil] at 00:09 EST Kenne, Quite so, I would imagine. It is just that he won't do the article until he has the items and has had a chance to work with them, then there is Byte's three month publishing delay. ------------ Category 14, Topic 34 Message 136 Thu Mar 18, 1993 E.SMITH10 [Eric Smith] at 01:06 EST Frank: We have been working on complete developer's documentation for MultiTOS. There's really so much new there that it's not possible to list it all here. You can get a copy of the freeware version of MiNT (I think it's available here on GEnie) and look at the docs for it; that covers some of the new features. But of course MiNT has been improved a lot for MultiTOS, and there's a lot more to MultiTOS than just MiNT. Documenting a new operating system can take a little while... To answer your questions briefly: there are a few parameters in the MINT.CNF file that can be tweaked, but the MAXMEM one is probably the most interesting one from the user's point of view. It's also possible to execute programs from MINT.CNF, and to set environment variables. Process priority can be changed by a new GEMDOS system call, Prenice. It isn't possible to limit the number of active programs (well, you could create a really big ramdisk so there isn't much memory left :-)). You can put CPU time limits and several types of memory limits (on how much memory the application is granted initially, and on how much it can allocate after it starts) on processes with the Plimit() system call. We've provided a *lot* of new functionality to build on for the future. For example, there are hooks in the OS to allow multi-user operation, and new system calls for reading directories that will not have the 13 character limit imposed by DOS. Eric ------------ Category 14, Topic 34 Message 137 Thu Mar 18, 1993 K.BROOKS1 [New Horizon] at 01:42 EST I have MultiTOS sorta working on the TT with my beta setup for the developer. Eric, just how do you edit the MINT.CNF to configure maximum memory and so on? Also, wasn't there some mention at one time that the 6 desk accessory limit had been eliminated with TOS 4.0 or MTOS? What is the purpose of the CHPROT.APP? Thanks Eric - *really* like the new AES - 3D icons - WOW! Keith New Horizon ------------ Category 14, Topic 34 Message 138 Thu Mar 18, 1993 TOWNS [John@Atari] at 12:17 EST CHPROT.APP is used to set the memory protection level of a program to global protection. You should only use that program when you have a program that isn't working properly. It's interface is simple. You run it, select the name of the program from the File Selector and that's it! It's done. If you have any other questions, please ask away. I will do my best. -- John Townsend, Atari Corp. ------------ Category 14, Topic 34 Message 139 Fri Mar 19, 1993 A.FASOLDT [Al Fasoldt] at 18:25 EST Keith, I've been told by Mtos beta testers that they have been able to load more than 6 DAs. Al ------------ Category 14, Topic 34 Message 140 Fri Mar 19, 1993 S.NOAH [Stu] at 23:16 EST Eric, Since you mentioned hooks for multiple users... are there hooks to allow remote access to the system, ala Carbon Copy, Close-up, etc. ? Also is there any way for the programer to define a default file icon for a program as is done in windows. By the way has any one else noticed that, as windows installations become more customized (ie. replacement icons, menu bars, etc) they seem to become less intuitive ? Sometimes, when I am doing field support, I have to rea...ly search to find the exact icon that a user has assigned to a particular program. Stu ------------ Category 14, Topic 34 Message 141 Sat Mar 20, 1993 JLHOFFMAN [John Hoffman] at 01:21 EST Eric, You mentioned memory a while back and it got me to thinking. Does MultiTOS support Virtual memory or paging? John ------------ Category 14, Topic 34 Message 142 Sat Mar 20, 1993 F.BELL1 [Frank @ Home] at 06:02 EST Thanks for your replies John and Eric. Its nice to know that we'll be able to do a little configuration on our side. Frank... ------------ Category 14, Topic 34 Message 143 Sun Mar 21, 1993 TOWNS [John@Atari] at 11:30 EST As someone who is on his way out.. I guess I should be careful what I commit my soon-to-be former co-workers to! To answer your questions.. 1. I know that a remote access package for TOS is something that we would like to see. I don't know if Atari has the resources to develop it, but I am sure that Atari would be willing to work with developers to help them reach that goal. 2. MultiTOS doesn't currently support Virtual Memory or paging at this point. I understand that these things are on the long list of things to consider (along with networking support for TOS) -- John ------------ Category 14, Topic 34 Message 144 Sun Mar 21, 1993 D.A.BRUMLEVE [kidprgs] at 11:33 EST Leaving us, John? ------------ Category 14, Topic 34 Message 145 Sun Mar 21, 1993 D.D.MARTIN [Swampy] at 18:24 EST Gee Dot, If you had read STReport this week you'd know. Hugs...Swampy ------------ Category 14, Topic 34 Message 146 Sun Mar 21, 1993 A.FASOLDT [Al Fasoldt] at 18:26 EST Dot, John announced last week that he was leaving for a job at Taligent. Al ------------ Category 14, Topic 34 Message 147 Sun Mar 21, 1993 D.A.BRUMLEVE [kidprgs] at 19:40 EST Sorry to hear that, John. You'll be missed. ------------ Category 14, Topic 34 Message 148 Sun Mar 21, 1993 POTECHIN [Nathan] at 21:43 EST Actually it would be far more accurate to point Dorothy to this message, posted by John and carried in all the magazines days later: Atari-ST RoundTable Category 14, Topic 13 Message 109 Wed Mar 17, 1993 TOWNS [John@Atari] at 19:51 EST Read the post Dorothy. It explains all. ;-) Nathan (Atari RT Sysop) ------------ Category 14, Topic 34 Message 149 Sun Mar 21, 1993 TOWNS [John@Atari] at 22:25 EST Thanks for the pointer to the right topic, Nathan. And yes, I am leaving Atari.. check out my message in topic 13 of the area for more details. (BTW.. I am saving all of the messages posted there so feel free to leave me any last messages there or in Email) Now we return you to your regularly scheduled topic.. MultiTOS! If you have any questions, fire away! -- John Townsend, Atari Corp. (for now ;-) ------------ Category 14, Topic 34 Message 150 Mon Mar 22, 1993 R.MORROW10 [Bob M.] at 00:37 EST Has the RS-232 bug that causes the "phantom typist" and whacky CPS rates in TOS 1.0-3.06 been swatted for TOS 4.0? Would be nice. (For those that don't know, such a bug exists and is fixed with Serial Fix v2.0.) ------ About John's departure from Atari, check out the latest AEO for more info.. ------------ Category 14, Topic 34 Message 151 Mon Mar 22, 1993 K.BROOKS1 [New Horizon] at 02:04 EST I am am sorry to see a long time Atari Corp. supporter going off to make his mark elsewhere. I don't know that you can top your positive approach, your patience and your enthusiasm John, but I do wish you all the best at Taligent. I won't wish you luck since I believe one makes their own luck to a great degree. Your talent will serve you well. Drop by and say hello from time to time! | &Now back to regularly scheduled stuff..... John, just how does one ~O' Ggdouble click on an .ACC anywhere and have it run. So far, I have only been able to "SHOW, PRINT or CANCEL" but maybe you have a trick I'm missing! Keith Brooks New Horizon ------------ Category 14, Topic 34 Message 152 Mon Mar 22, 1993 A.FASOLDT [Al Fasoldt] at 06:50 EST Bob Morrow, Hey, this is the first time I've seen a reference to the Phantom Typist in a while! You mean Serial Fix 2.0 cures the OS of the PT? At last? Al ------------ Category 14, Topic 34 Message 153 Mon Mar 22, 1993 WAYNED. [Wayne] at 19:19 EST Keith, If you have MultiDesk Deluxe you can install MULTDESK.PRG as an application with ACC as an extender then you can just double click on an ACC and it will automatically load MultiDesk Deluxe and it in turn will load the ACC. MultiDesk Deluxe is the best thing to happen to Accessories since the dialogue box! Wayne ------------ Category 14, Topic 34 Message 154 Mon Mar 22, 1993 D.ENGEL [Thunderbird] at 23:35 EST Good Luck John!!! ______________ \hunderbird ------------ Category 14, Topic 34 Message 155 Mon Mar 22, 1993 E.SMITH10 [Eric Smith] at 23:46 EST Keith: MultiTOS removes the 6 DA limit; there is no limit to the number of desk accessories you can have under MultiTOS. CHPROT.APP is used to change an application's memory protection (so that its memory is no longer protected; this is necessary for some programs that make their memory available to other applications, for example STalker and STeno). We'll be sending out details on the MINT.CNF file as part of the developer's documentation. Stu: Yes, remote access to the system is possible. I'm sure developers will have no trouble providing such facilities. John H: As Towns already said, virtual memory is not built into MultiTOS at this time. There are 3rd party products that provide it already, though (even for normal TOS). Eric ------------ Category 14, Topic 34 Message 156 Tue Mar 23, 1993 A.FASOLDT [Al Fasoldt] at 03:43 EST Good point, Wayne. and many DAs these days will run as programs if you rename them to APP or PRG, too. Al ------------ Category 14, Topic 34 Message 157 Wed Mar 24, 1993 BOB-BRODIE [Atari Corp.] at 16:06 EST BTW, Eric's address here on GEnie just changed, he's now ERIC.SMITH So, don't get confused by the new address. He's still the same Eric working for Atari, just has a new account name, that's all!! :) regards, Bob Brodie ------------ Category 14, Topic 34 Message 158 Wed Mar 24, 1993 R.MORROW10 [Bob M.] at 20:06 EST Al- Roger that! If you install Serial Fix 2.0, you should no longer have the "phantom typist" and other things that hobbled the RS-232 handling routines. It is an OS patch, much like TOS14FX or POOLFIX3. I don't know if it works on Modem 2 and/or Serial 2 for the MSTe and TT, though. ------------ Category 14, Topic 34 Message 159 Thu Mar 25, 1993 S.SCHAPER [Meneldil] at 00:24 EST Eric, Can you name some of those products? I don't have much HD space left, and have enough (Ha! there is never enough!) memory now, but it would have been very helpful back when I had only 1 meg, and I suspect a lot of people are in that position. ------------ Category 14, Topic 34 Message 160 Fri Mar 26, 1993 K.BROOKS1 [New Horizon] at 01:25 EST Has anyone managed to get a DA to execute by double clicking?????? Has anyone made WordUp work in MTOS????? Oh, the saga continues. Another configuration to learn. Quirks to solve, software to abandon. But hey, "What..... me worry?" Keith New Horizon ------------ Category 14, Topic 34 Message 161 Sat Mar 27, 1993 J.ROY18 [Jonathan] at 18:57 EST Does Serial Fix 2.0 fix typing too fast with a shift key? :) If I'm typign quickly in caps via the shift key, my keypresses get mapped to teh function keys for some reason... ------------ Category 14, Topic 34 Message 162 Sat Mar 27, 1993 R.WATSON15 [Wayne Watson] at 20:12 EST Jonathan, Nope, Serial Fix 2.0 doesn't fix that as it is something to do with the keyboard system. It's just that the keys you press fast like appear to the keyboard as another scancode and thus it acts upon that. I still have it pop up occasionally and I have Serial Fix installed. It's just the way it is. ------------ Category 14, Topic 34 Message 163 Sat Mar 27, 1993 A.FASOLDT [Al Fasoldt] at 21:01 EST Jonathan, I believe SilkMouse's DA (there is a CPX also) fixes that bug. It's the only utility I've seen that actually does something about the Fkey bug. Here's an excerpt from the SM docs: Function key guard feature ========================== All Atari computers manufactured to date (at least, the ones I've used) have a problem in the keyboard. It happens when a shift key is held down and two other adjacent keys are pressed at about the same time. The keyboard will in that case sometimes erroneously report a shift-F1 or shift-F3, in addition to one or both of the keys actually pressed. If you've never noticed, it's because you are an exceptionally careful typist, or because none of your programs does anything interesting when you press shift-F1 or shift- F3 anyway. But it is a problem for a number of people. The keyguard feature of SilkMouse effectively cures the glitch. This feature must be turned on with the SMC utility in order to work; it is off by default because of possible conflicts with key-macro utilities. Such conflicts can also often be resolved by changing the order in which your AUTO programs run. Al ------------ Category 14, Topic 34 Message 164 Thu Apr 01, 1993 TOWNS [John] at 11:46 EST I don't have a machine to try this, so excuse me if I am wrong, but I think that if you add the ACC to the TOSEXT environment variable in the GEM.CNF file, you can then execute Accessories by doubling clicking on them from the Desktop. The TOSEXT environment variable tells the Desktop what file extensions are executable. This is just one of the many things that you, the user can configure to your liking in MultiTOS. But, I guess I should shut up now and let the Atari folks answer this stuff. -- John ------------ Category 14, Topic 34 Message 165 Thu Apr 01, 1993 K.HOUSER [Kevin MQ Def] at 13:11 EST So John, Are you now officially an EX-Atarian? Have you started at Taligent yet? --Kevin ------------ Category 14, Topic 34 Message 166 Thu Apr 01, 1993 F.BELL1 [Frank @ Home] at 14:27 EST As per Eric's suggestion I been going back and rereading many magazine articles (German articles) concerning Mint (MultiTos). All I can say is 'Gee Wiz'. The stuff, configurations, options, files, programs etc. that are supported is fantastic. There even seems a way to support extended file names in the latest version of Mint using an external program in the Auto folder (and a free harddisk parition). Really neat. Frank... ------------ Category 14, Topic 34 Message 167 Fri Apr 02, 1993 TOWNS [John] at 13:43 EST Yes, I am offically an unoffical Atarian. ;-) ------------ Category 14, Topic 34 Message 168 Fri Apr 02, 1993 R.WATSON15 [Wayne Watson] at 19:21 EST Yep, he is one of us now. Just a plain ole Atari owner. Good to see you back online John. Maybe now you give tell us some of those well kept secrets. :-) ------------ Category 14, Topic 34 Message 169 Sat Apr 03, 1993 L.W.BENJAMIN [Koloth] at 09:39 EST John [Towns], Hey, man, it matters not who you work for, or even if your information is correct. We appreciate the willingness to participate and to at least TRY to help when you think you can. Even if the information is not correct, at least you tried. I for one appreciate the fact that when there was virtually _no_ Atari presence on "the official Atari resource" we still got occasional inputs from one "Mister Towns". Good luck in your new position and I for one hope that we see you around here in the months and years to come. Take Care, Lee B. MGAUG Newsletter Editor ------------ Category 14, Topic 34 Message 170 Sat Apr 03, 1993 S.SCHAPER [Meneldil] at 13:29 EST MiNT is Not Taligent? ------------ Category 14, Topic 34 Message 171 Sat Apr 03, 1993 J.NESS [Jim] at 15:26 EST Meneldil - Re: "Mint is Not Taligent" Careful! You'll start a rumor that Eric Smith is joining all the former Atari programmers at Taligent.. -JN ------------ Category 14, Topic 34 Message 172 Sat Apr 03, 1993 M.SLAGELL [Mark] at 17:18 EST What's this I hear about Eric Smith joining all the former Atari programmers at Taligent? ------------ Category 14, Topic 34 Message 173 Sat Apr 03, 1993 B.GOCKLEY [Brian G.] at 17:39 EST I heard that Taligent will be using MiNT, and that the new OS will be TOS! (g) Brian G. @ ST Informer Magazine ------------ Category 14, Topic 34 Message 174 Sat Apr 03, 1993 A.FASOLDT [Al Fasoldt] at 21:03 EST So Eric is joining Taligent? :) Al ------------ Category 14, Topic 34 Message 175 Mon Apr 05, 1993 C.OATES2 [Chris] at 01:54 EDT John, TOSEXT or GEMEXT? ~Chris ------------ Category 14, Topic 34 Message 176 Mon Apr 05, 1993 SFRT-ASST [Kenne@SFRT] at 03:10 EDT It's been around for at least a few days now. So what's the bad news? What no- longer-supported software is not MTOS happy? ------------ Category 14, Topic 34 Message 177 Mon Apr 05, 1993 S.DANUSER [Soul Manager] at 03:56 EDT Brian, you heard wrong. Taligent will be running TINT (Taligent Is Not TOS). Soul Manager ------------ Category 14, Topic 34 Message 178 Mon Apr 05, 1993 J.NESS [Jim] at 12:03 EDT Kenne - I'd go so far as to say that 90% of programs with .PRG extensions will have problems with MultiTOS, without some tweaks. The problems may not be fatal. For instance, the program may just not let you access another task while it's running. You could live with it, but it would be frustrating. Also, many program use all available ram, when they load. There is a way to put a global limit on this, but the practical limit you set would still allow too much ram to be used at any one time (if you set the value too low, some programs would not run...). So, you end up with limited space to multitask. Of course, hardly any games will run. These aren't problems with MultiTOS, as such. The people who wrote the existing software packages did not anticipate having to share the system with another program. They assumed they had access to all the resources. -JN ------------ Category 14, Topic 34 Message 179 Mon Apr 05, 1993 TOWNS [John] at 12:43 EDT Hmm.. to be honest.. I don't remember whether it was TOSEXT or GEMEXT. It should be documented in the GEM.CNF file however. I will have to stop by Atari and see my good friend Eric Smith and get the right answer to this question. -- John ------------ Category 14, Topic 34 Message 180 Tue Apr 06, 1993 ERIC.SMITH [Eric Smith] at 01:30 EDT Chris & John: (hi John!) Neither GEMEXT nor TOSEXT has any effect on the desktop; it's used by the AES internally for certain new shel_write calls, but the desktop doesn't use those calls (replacement desktops and applications may). J.Ness: It's certainly true that some .PRGs will have trouble with MultiTOS, but "90%" is a gross overstatement. I suppose it depends on what .PRG programs you usually run, but most GEM based programs that I've used work fine with MultiTOS. A good rule of thumb is that any program that works in any resolution and with any version of TOS will probably work with MultiTOS. All: It's interesting to see how rumors get started, but let's squelch this one right now. I'm not leaving Atari, not even to go to Taligent (although it does sound like John and the other ex-Atari people there are doing some neat things, and I wish them the best of luck :-)). ------------ Category 14, Topic 34 Message 181 Tue Apr 06, 1993 B.GOCKLEY [Brian G.] at 21:25 EDT Hi Eric, I guess that all that weeding out I did when I upgraded to a TT will pay off when it comes to MultiTOS! That's good news for me. Of course with all those new Falcons Atari's gonna sell, we'll hope to see some upgrades. Brian G. @ ST Informer Magazine ------------ Category 14, Topic 34 Message 182 Wed Apr 07, 1993 MUSE [Tomas] at 03:40 EDT Eric, This idea of multitasking on my ST is a bit tantalizing. Of course, compatibilty with my existing software is a big issue as others have mentioned. I was very interested in your response to the question about .PRG's. Is there any difference in the way resident software will work under MultiTOS or does nearly anything have the potential to be resident software? ===Tomas=== April 07, 1993 @ 0:08:11 am PDT ------------ Category 14, Topic 34 Message 183 Wed Apr 07, 1993 DENNYA [Denny Atkin] at 17:02 EDT Anyone remember the good old days when Uncle Jack used to say "you don't want or need multitasking--it just slows the computer down." :- ) ------------ Category 14, Topic 34 Message 184 Thu Apr 08, 1993 BOB-BRODIE [Atari Corp.] at 13:45 EDT Yes, I do... Seems to me that we were selling computers with just 8 Mhz 68000s at the time. And we still feel the same about it. Virtually every message you've seen from Atar regarding the use of MultiTOS cautions owners of ST's that while it will work, it will be slow, and prone to crash. The 68030 is much better suited to multitasking than the 68000. Nice to see you, Denny! best regards, Bob Brodie ------------ Category 14, Topic 34 Message 185 Thu Apr 08, 1993 DENNYA [Denny Atkin] at 23:48 EDT Bob, Well, I multitasked fine with a 7.14MHz 68000 for about five years before I got my 030. :-) I was just digging through my old magazines and found some of the old Creative Computing, Byte, and COMPUTE! issues when the ST was first shipping the Amiga had been announced but not shipped, and I caught that remark about multitasking. I just thought it was pretty amusing in retrospect. :) Cheers, ...Denny ------------ Category 14, Topic 34 Message 186 Fri Apr 09, 1993 ERIC.SMITH [Eric Smith] at 11:56 EDT Tomas: Programs that terminate and stay resident will often work correctly under MultiTOS (as long as they don't try to use undocumented features). You may have to do some adjusting of the AUTO folder; generally TSR's should run before MINT.PRG, but there will be a few that have to run after MINT.PRG. New MultiTOS aware programs generally shouldn't stay "resident", since there's no need to -- under MultiTOS you can have as many programs open at the same time as your computer will hold, so there's no need to resort to the old style of resident code. ------------ Category 14, Topic 34 Message 187 Fri Apr 09, 1993 WAYNED. [Wayne] at 21:53 EDT >New MultiTOS aware programs generally shouldn't stay "resident", >since there's no need to -- under MultiTOS you can have as many > programs open at the same time as your computer will hold, so >there's no need to resort to the old style of resident code. Does that include all the bazillion Auto folder fixes I use? Also things like Warp 9, CodeKeys, UIS, etc? Wayne ------------ Category 14, Topic 34 Message 188 Sat Apr 10, 1993 S.SCHAPER [Meneldil] at 01:56 EDT Would that 68020 emulator make MTOS more bullet proof on older machines? ------------ Category 14, Topic 34 Message 189 Sat Apr 10, 1993 BOB-BRODIE [Atari Corp.] at 14:13 EDT No, it wouldn't. Wayne, You will have to run UIS after MiNT, not sure about the other ones, or the bazillion auto folder fixes that you're running I run SERFX2.PRG, Folder300, CACHE090, SAM, and AUXINIT before MiNT. Seems I've managed to cut down from a bazillion to just a few now a days! I do remember the days of running 27 programs in my auto folder, though. regards, Bob ------------ Category 14, Topic 34 Message 190 Sat Apr 10, 1993 WAYNED. [Wayne] at 23:57 EDT Bob, Eric, Here's what I'm presently running in my Auto folder..... CALSHOW PRG CODEKEYS PRG CODE_RAM PRG DESKMG33 PRG HOTWIRE PRG POOLFIX4 PRG SERIALFX PRG SX PRG TOS14FX2 PRG UIS_III PRG WARP9_ST PRG Most is pretty self-explanatory except for SX.PRG which is a program that came with my Omnimon MultiSync which keeps the computer from rebooting if the res changes. That way I can run Revolver if I like with a mono and color setup and switch between the two. It's not something I do very often. The main reason I keep it (SX.PRG) on all the time is that static can cause the Omnimon to switch from color to mono and vice-versa. Not a problem in the summer, but in the winter with the dry air it is. I've got the last version of MiNT that was posted, but haven't installed it yet. I'm BETA testing Flash II and the next update is going to be for compatibility with MTOS. How close would my testing with MiNT be to running MTOS? Wayne ------------ Category 14, Topic 34 Message 191 Mon Apr 12, 1993 S.SCHAPER [Meneldil] at 01:23 EDT Ah, Bob, but wouldn't it be fun? Run the 68020 emulator to run MultiTOS, and run PC-Ditto as a process, and run GEMulator in PC-Ditto. Why, you might get speed similar to an old Altair! ------------ Category 14, Topic 34 Message 192 Mon Apr 12, 1993 ERIC.SMITH [Eric Smith] at 13:45 EDT Wayne: I haven't tried all the programs in your AUTO folder, so I don't know which will and will not work with MultiTOS. Obviously there's going to be a period of "shaking out" where we find out which things will need upgrades for MultiTOS compatibility. If a program works with just plain MINT.PRG, then that's an indication that it *might* work with MultiTOS; but MultiTOS does consist of more than just MiNT, so it's not a guarantee. ------------ Category 14, Topic 34 Message 193 Mon Apr 12, 1993 WAYNED. [Wayne] at 20:34 EDT Meneldil, Why not at a Spectre GCR, running SoftPC in that chain. :-) Let's see..... Run the 68020 emulator, run PC-Ditto as a process, Run GEMulator in PC-Ditto, Run Spectre GCR from the GEMulator, Run SoftPC on the Spectre, then run another GEMulator to run your Atari programs. Let's see that would give you 3 Atari's, 2 PC's, and 1 Mac all to run a program on your Atari. :-) --------------- Eric, I did install MiNT and tried it out for a bit. I didn't notice any major slowdown, but it seems quite a bit of my PD stuff didn't work all that well. Admittedly I didn't fool around a lot with settings and such, and I have very few TOS programs to run in the background. I was hoping to use it to help BETA Test the MTOS changes to Flash II, but have been told that enough has changed since .95 (the last uploaded MiNT that I know of) and the true MTOS Beta that it may not be worth the effort. True? BTW, just from the little I saw of .95 it's come a long way and is much nicer that the earlier version I played around with over a year ago. Nice job. Wayne ------------ Category 14, Topic 34 Message 194 Wed Apr 21, 1993 L.TRAPANI [Lou][Machine] at 05:12 EDT Was just wondering... I came across one of the GIFs I received with AEO (I believe) and I have one called MTOS_TT. I think that it is a screen shot of MTOS on a TT. If this is the case, it is then MTOS that gives you the color icons and 3D window gadgets and not TOS 4.x that I had thought. So if I run MTOS on my TT, it will give me full color icons (depending on the resolution I am in) and so on even on a TOS 3.06? I just wanted to clear that up.... --Lou T.-- ------------ Category 14, Topic 34 Message 195 Wed Apr 21, 1993 TOWNS [John] at 21:59 EDT I hope the TOS Gods will forgive me for answering questions.. but.. Lou, the answer is yes. The AES that comes with MultiTOS supports the 3D buttons, color icons, etc just as TOS 4.01 supports them. (At least it did when I left Atari and I am pretty sure this hasn't changed) So, if you run MultiTOS on your TT, you will get color icons and all the rest of the user interface improvements that you see in TOS 4.01. This is yet another reason to upgrade to MultiTOS once it is available. -- John PS. Atari people: If you find that I am wrong or want me to be quiet, just speak up and tell me to shut up! I just thought I would share a few of the things I remember. ------------ Category 14, Topic 34 Message 196 Thu Apr 22, 1993 AEO.MAG [?] Travis [?] at 01:12 EDT Lou, The version of MTOS that I am running on my TT030 does include a GEM.SYS file. (Designed for pre TOS 4.xx machines.) When someone runs MTOS on a non- Falcon030, it loads in the new GEM.SYS, giving TOS 4.xx functionality. (Near total functionality, as far as I can tell.) The General Setup CPX (along with other applications) reports TOS 3.06, but you'll have the new windows, icons, etc. The whole nine yards. John, Please _don't_ shut up! While Atari Corp. has lost your talents, :-( the users can still make use of your insight and experience. :-) --Travis Guy Atari Explorer Online ------------ Category 14, Topic 34 Message 197 Thu Apr 22, 1993 NEVIN-S at 01:13 EDT How's the new job, John? --Nevin ------------ Category 14, Topic 34 Message 198 Thu Apr 22, 1993 A.FASOLDT [Al Fasoldt] at 09:07 EDT John, Keep those answers coming! You're a living resource, or something. (Doesn't that make you sound like some 125-year-old guru?) Al ------------ Category 14, Topic 34 Message 199 Thu Apr 22, 1993 J.EIDSVOOG1 [CodeHead] at 11:31 EDT John Townsend, That's right. There's are still some of us who remember you back when you were with Atari. John :^) ------------