Conference hydra::amiga_v1

    What is the compatibility of WB1.3 with old printer drivers?  To be
    specific, is my LA50 with the driver from a DECie (excuse me for not
    remembering the author right now) going to work?  If so, are changes
    needed to make it work optimally?

	Paul

(with a copy of Amiga World May 1988 in hand)

They have a 2 page writeup on 1.3. Some highlights:

OS 1.3 comes in 3 pieces. Kickstart disk (or ROM for A500 and A2000), Workbench
and a 1.3 Extras disk. 

The new Kickstart lets you boot from hard disk's which have a special ROM
in their controller (although none currently have one!) No bug's fixed in KS.

Fast File System. Written in Assembly (not BCPL!). Has hashing and cacheing
algorhythms. Reads up to 65K blocks in one I/O. No support for floppies, only
hard disks.

New Floating Point Library. Recognizes existance of the 68881 and automatically
uses it. Software is now transparent.  CA claims speed increase of factor of 6.

New printer drivers. Speed increase of factor of 6. Better dithering and
anti-aliasing. And support for more bitplanes than Amiga can display.
New driver include Epson LQ series, HP diskjet, Xerox 4020 and Calcomp
Colormaster. 

Commodore has licensed Microsmiths FastFonts. Up to 4 times faster. Also
3 new Adobe fonts in 1.3: Times Roman, Helvetica and Courier!

New devices. A recoverable RAM disk (similar to VD0).  The AUX: device to
utilize the serial port. Amy is MULTI-USER!!!  And now for the neat one -
The SPEAK: device... You can now redirect the output of programs to
SPEAK: (just like PRT: or SER: etc) and they'll talk!  And SPEAK: uses better
translation algorhythms so the speach sounds more natural.

New CLI commands. MORE (does what you think). CMD redirects printer to a disk
file. SAVESCREEN (compliments GRAPHICDUMP) saves monitor screen to a disk file.
XICON (guess what this one does). SETFONT (the mystery of it all!) and also
a PIPE command to redirect output from one program to the input of another
(ala UNIX).

Improved CON: device. Now it does command editing, history and a small shell to
to allow aliases and resident commands and to get the current directory
into prompts and batch files.

Now you can have a default file to execute when a CLI starts up (LOGIN.COM
anyone!) 

Improved RUN command that lets go of the parent CLI.

More commands return error codes and some have improved performance.

	ARP is NOT part of 1.3	(partial :-( here)

Notepad handles more fonts. Preferences has more printer options. And an
improved EMACS is on the Extras disk.

Improvements to the Diskfont library allow fonts to be added to the system.

Improvements to the Icon library display more file info from the workbench
menu.


All in all it looks like 1.3 will be a hit!
Commodore would not ellude to it's release date, but looke like 
summer.


John

    Thanks for the info John. I havent picked up a May copy yet, but
    plan on doing so soon. WB1.3 sounds great. Maybe I can get a few
    more people here to give Amy a more serious look.
    
    Rob

One more thing then, Another article (in Amazing Computing or Amiga World, 
can't remember which) there was an article on some company (can't remember
who - strike 2..) that is making a 68030/68882 board at around $1000.

The article ssays that in this configuration, Amiga is faster than
a Sun (whatever thier top of the line one is - is that strike 3?) and
faster than a VAX 8800. Thats right!
                  ^^

Now at, say even $5000 total system cost (hard disk, 68030, RAM etc),
thats not too bad.

John

    The top of the line Sun is a 3/280. It runs a 68020 at 25MHz.
    
    Those guys lie through their teeth. At $1000, they could just afford
    the chips, leaving nothing for a board or MEMORY. Without 32-bit
    wide memory, their speed advantage is drastically reduced. Even
    if they have it, if they don't cache, they won't be as fast. Maybe
    they are talking a tight loop that hits only their internal cache.
    Even so, the price must be bogus. 68030's are selling for $400 for
    16MHz parts, $550 for 20MHz.
    
    I've looked at the '030 manual, and read the analyses in comp.arch.
    It looks like you'd see a 20% to 30% improvement over a comparable
    '020 system.
    
    As for competing with an 8800, maybe if they shut down everything,
    but considering an 8800 has two processors, and V5.0 should let
    them multitask, i'd say the Amiga would be hard pressed to beat
    it!
    
    I just hate when these guys lie. Why can't they just say you'll
    see about 4x the speed running job x, etc? Probably because their
    design is a) not implemented and b) skimps on support chips, leaving the
    '030 working hard with piddling resources. ie, it won't be that
    impressive. If anyone comes out with a 2M, 32-bit wide board, with a
    64K cache and a '030, for $1.5K, it's a good buy. Even without the
    cache, come to think of it....
           

I agree. (disclaimer) I was just relaying the article info.

Granted the 030 may reach 8800 speeds, it is by far no match for
a *VAX*	at those speeds. Especially one with SMP!

Not to mention the VAX'es 256 meg of memory (is that the limit or was it 512?)
and it's giga byte's of disk space, high speed tape backup ethernet etc..

Then there's VMS/ULTRIX and the thousands of programs availiable.

But all in all, I'd love to have a 68030 in my A500!

John

    you'd probably not want one in the 500. Unless it is on the side,
    I would imagine the heat would be devestating. I don't remember
    what the '030 radiates, but surely it is more than the '020? One
    thing that's particularly nice about the 500 -- it's absolutely
    QUIET! As I always say, they had to get IBM compatible with the
    2000, right down to the s**tty fan!
    
    dov

    Ahem... getting back to V1.3   ;^)  (drool... slobber....)
    
    I just installed the 1.3 printer drivers and 1.3 preferences.  If
    the rest of V1.3 is as impressive, I can't wait!  The drivers and
    preferences were on ProWrite V2.0 and ExpressPaint V2.0, so check
    any upgrades of future software.  They may contain some parts of
    V1.3.  You can tell if you have the new Preferences easily, since
    the version is now on the title bar.
    
    In the latest AW, I read that 1.3 WILL have a faster DOS for hard
    drives.  This is opposed to what has been talked about on the various
    nets.  Is this typical AW hype or is there hope?  Latest estimate
    is a May release.
    
    john
    

Re: .8

>    In the latest AW, I read that 1.3 WILL have a faster DOS for hard
>    drives.  This is opposed to what has been talked about on the various
>    nets.  Is this typical AW hype or is there hope?  Latest estimate
>    is a May release.

AmigaDOS supports the idea of multiple file systems.  A file system
is a layer between the hardware driver and the DOS.  In the mountlist
for the device, you can specify which file system to use.  The file
system controls how individual blocks of the device are used to store
files and directories.  The low level device driver knows nothing of
files, it simply knows how to read and write physical blocks on the
device.  The file system is what controls the device driver.

Up to 1.3, you didn't have much choice in file systems.  Now with 1.3
there is a new "Fast File System" whose name in mountlist entries is
(I believe) FFS.  The fast file system organizes the layout of files
on the disk much better: the blocks making up a file are kept contiguous.
The structure of data blocks in a file has been streamlined; data
blocks no longer contain any pointers to the next block.  Also, the
FFS will try to read and write large amounts of data at once.  This
allows it to be much more efficient than the old file system which
would only read or write one block at a time.  The FFS will to I/O
directly from/into user buffers without any system buffering.  This
means that the 68000 waste any time moving data from system
buffers into user buffers.  The FFS is also much better at taking
directories.  The AmigaDOS calls that list all the files in a
directory have been speeded up by a factor of 10.

There are three gotchas.  First, the FFS uses a different file layout, so
before you start using it on your hard disk, you will need to back up
the disk, format it again, and restore the backups after mounting the
FFS on the disk.  Second, the Commodore hard drive controller mounts
the old file system on the first partition.  Thus, you will want to
partition the disk will a small first partition since it will be
stuck in the old slow file system.  Third, the fast file system does
not currently work for floppies.  Commodore is thinking about
adopting the FFS as the file system for floppies at some future
date.

    An example of an alternate file system on AmigaDOS that's existed
    since version 1.0 is the RAM: device.  It implements its very own
    file system structure in memory, the details of which aren't
    particularly important to the user, since you can't just pick 
    up a RAM: volume and plug it into another machine.  (This differs
    from the rrd VD0: which uses the default AmigaDOS file system layered
    on top of a ramdisk device driver).

Re: .10

Dawn's right.  For example, the file system used by the RAM: device in
Amiga DOS 1.1 didn't support FileNotes.  They fixed this in 1.2.

    For the sake of us new Amiga owners what has Commodore's policy been
    in the past on upgrading to a new version?  I assume there was a
    charge, was it resonable?  This 1.3 sounds like good stuff.  In fact
    I might put off buying my hard disk until it comes out.  That is
    if it dosent take to long to get it released.
                             
    Thanks
    Alan

    For the 1.0 to 1.1 upgrade, it was a freebie.  C-A sent all the
    owners a letter, which the owners in turn presented to their selling
    dealer and received in return a bunch of new floppies and
    documentation.  That was a great deal.
    
    For the 1.1 to 1.2 upgrade, you presented any dealer $15 and he
    would hand you three new floppies (kickstart, workbench, extras)
    with a small book documenting the new features.
    
    So far, C-A has been very reasonable about operating system upgrades.
    I doubt that we'll see another deal as good as the 1.0->1.1 upgrade,
    as that was a response to 1.0 being quickly hacked together to get
    the system in the field.  Still, $15 bucks for 1.2 struck me as
    a perfectly reasonable price, and well worth the money.  Considering
    how much it costs to put together a software release containing
    three floppies of STUFF and a moderate sized bit of documentation,
    I can't really see that they were making much if any money off it.

    Future upgrades to KICKSTART may cost more for 500s and 2000s.  There
    is no past experience on ROM upgrades to Amigas.  But presumably it
    will still be reasonable rather than a big revenue source for
    Commadore.

	Paul

    If the ROM upgrades offered by Commodore for the C=128 and its C=1571
    diskette drive are any indication, figure about $7 per chip.  The C=128
    upgrade consisted of three chips for a bit over $20.  If a dealer does
    the upgrade for you, expect that you'll pay a bit more. 

    Another question about 1.3, does it include changes to silence the
    clicking of empty floppy drives?  Or are we going to have to wait
    until 1.4 when they put out the new kickstart? (we're talking 1000
    here)

Re: .16

One of the problems with "fixing" Kickstart to silence clicking empty
floppy drives is the open architecture of Amigas and Commodore's lack
of consistency in choosing drive suppliers.

Sony, the inventor of the 3.5 inch floppy, specified that you should be
able to determine whether a disk had been inserted into the drive by
performing some magic request of the floppy drive (I don't remember the
exact command).  However, some manufactures of floppies ignored this
standard, and thus you could not use this trick to determine if a
floppy had been inserted or not.  Since Commodore seems to have the
policy of switching component manufactures frequently, an sizable
fraction of the drives used in Amigas lack the silent test for
disk insertion.  The "works with everything" solution to the problem
adopted by AmigaDOS was try and seek any empty drive once a second,
an operation that causes the head of the drive to move but also
reports failure if the drive is empty.

Since Amiga's have really taken off, more and more third party floppy
drive have been made available for the Amiga.  There is no telling if
these other drive suppliers are selling drives that support the silent
disk insertion test.

So, I don't expect this feature to make it into future versions of
Kickstart.  (Well, I guess Commodore might make it some type of
optional item selectable through preferences.)  Don't expect it
in version 1.3 because the *ONLY* change to Kickstart 1.3 is
hard disk boot.  Because most Amiga 500s and 2000s will not be
upgraded to Kickstart 1.3 (of course, most will quickly be upgraded
to Workbench 1.3), Commodore is keeping Kickstart bug for bug
compatible!

    this makes no sense to me, since the "patch" to the klicking is
    to step the other direction!  this is what the "patch" does...but
    I wouldn't worry, since if bryce, and the other usenet amiga gurus
    can patch it once, they can patch it again!

    Actually, I never got all that excited about the empty drive clicking.
    After all, everyone seems to agree that a single drive Amiga is
    next to worthless, so why not just pop a floppy into an empty drive?
    Chances are slim that you'd ever be able to do anything worthwhile
    with only one floppy anyway.
    
    By the way, my A2000 has two internal NEC floppys; new models, not
    the style used in my A1000.  The drives are pretty quiet. since
    I can't hear them click.  At least not over the fan noise. :^)
    
    Ed.

>    next to worthless, so why not just pop a floppy into an empty drive?

Thats what I do. Boot one, plug the other's mouth!

    Re: .19  (not strictly related to the WB 1.3 debate)
    
    I got curious about the internal drive on my A2000 after seeing
    $85 3.5" drives at a Computer show.  It's a Chinon, don't have
    the model number with me.
    
    Anybody know if a Panasonic JU-363 or a Toshiba ND352 work with
    the noklick patch?  (those were the $85 disk drives, looked like
    they were the right size and had the right connectors)
    
    I too have eliminated the clicking by drowning it out with the
    A2000 fan noise.  According to usenet, Radio Shack has a replacement
    fan but it is louder than the original.  Has anybody found a quieter
    fan?
    
    re: WB 1.3
    sounds like a lot of really nice features, even if it clicks :-)
    
    -Dave

    Rather than start a new note, I thought I'd pick up here...
    
    Has anyone seen FFS (Fast File System) yet?  I keep reading blurbs
    on PLINK from people who are thrilled over the performance gains
    realized under 1.3.  Where are these guys getting it?  Are developers
    leting copies slip out?
    
    I got tweaked up last night when I found a file description for
    a mountlist for the Amiga's floppies that would allow FFS to work
    on them.  (FFS only runs on MOUNTable devices).
    
    So 'fess up; anyone out there secretly have FFS? 
    
    Ed.
    

Heck, Ed. If you don't know, I doubt anyone else does  :-)    

	
	We have received a Gamma version ( I think #4 ) for review from
	Commodore Italy. Unluckily they have no documentation.
	It INCLUDES FFS. It has been installed and it's running since 
	a week. No problems.
	It is very difficult to say how FASTER it is. 
	Beppe ( the guy using it ) has `the impression' of a 20-40%
	increase in speed ( far from the 10 times mentioned some place !!)
	I cannot judge it due the the very different environment we are
	using ( A2090 and Bridge Board, different drives) and we 
	were not supposed to mesaure it. The only data I got is that it takes
	10sec. to load KANANKAS. The speed seams close to that of the
	RAM device.

	I would be glad to post FFS in uucoded format, but I don't want to
	infringe any copyright. After all, anyone is going to buy WB1.3
	as soon as it's available ! What do you think ??
	marco.

    If I were you I would not upload it.  In fact, since you have no
    documentation I suspect you already have a pirated copy.  If I were
    you I'd destroy it.
    
    Of course, I'm not you.
        John Sauter

   
    Beppe ( the guy who has it ) is the larger Amiga dealer in this area.
    He got the copy from the Sales Mgr. of Commodore Italy ` for evaluation
    by him and his staff '. I suppose he was intitled to give it out
    for evaluation.
    What I don't know is if I can upload it. I will check with Commodore.
    ( This won't be against DEC interest, will it ?? )

    I hope nobody who has access to EasyNet is on the staff of an Amiga
    dealer.  From what you said, I doubt he was entitled to give it
    out for evaluation beyond persons on his staff.
    
    I suspect Commodore is suffering from the same problem that DEC
    sometimes suffers from: the salesman gives away software to make
    his customers happy, without bothering with license agreements,
    non-disclosure agreements, warranties, documentation, etc.  I don't
    like this when it happens to DEC, so I don't want to encourage it
    in Commodore.
        John Sauter
    

    that "giving it out" was a big problem with 1.2, too many dealers
    were giving out beta and gamma copies of it with each new system.
    
    It might be fun to play with, but things like a new file system
    with bugs could be very painful for a new user.  CBM will want
    wide distribution of the real 1.3, but I suspect they do not want
    too many copies of pre-release 1.3 drifting about.
    
    -Dave

    Re: *.27       
    
    I was going to write a flamer, but ...
    
    You're entitled to your opinions about where problems originate 
    and who's the real culprit.
    
    Just remember, if a customer bought that jewel of a product that
    you sweated to develop, most of the time, some DEC salesman busted
    his/her butt to sell it to them.
    
    Tim (Peddler) Hicks 8^)
    
    P.S. As I recall, that note said it was the Commodore SALES MANAGER
    that gave away the software...THERE'S the REAL source of such
    shenanigans!!! 

    re: .29---Sorry to be offensive.  I have trouble distinguishing
    between a salesperson and a sales manager.
        John Sauter

	re .-1

>    This is a private (DEC) conference and with the sensitivity around
>    not propagating a gamma version throughout the "world", I believe
>    we can maturely take a look at V1.3 gamma without any ill effects.
    
	"Mature" software piracy, what a quaint notion !  I think 
	uploading another company's (unrealsed) operating system
	for general use puts Digital in a very questionable legal
	position.  It would be a shame to see this notesfile get
	shut down for this kind of thing.  Please don't...

    I agree.  Don't do it.  Using DEC resources for this sort of thing is a
    bad idea.  If I wanted to see a pre-release version of 1.3, I would
    find some way to get a copy without using DEC computers in the process. 

    And, as has been said, everyone *is* going to buy it anyway.  So why
    look at it now?  It's in all our futures, so I'm willing to be patient
    and let someone else get the bugs out.  I got V1.2 beta and gamma.  I
    remember what a hassle they were.  No thanks. 

    -jim