From: LANDAS88@SNYPOTVA.BITNET (The Large Guy with Buckwheat's Hair.)
Newsgroups: bit.listserv.i-amiga
Subject: Re: A4000 compatability
Date: 16 Oct 92 16:44:00 GMT
Comments: Gated by NETNEWS@AUVM.AMERICAN.EDU
X-Organization: Potsdam College of the STATE UNIVERSITY OF NEW YORK (SUNY)
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Hi again,

>>I realize that it's actually the mainly the fault of many of the
>>software developers, but if CBM had not allowed them to do so many "illegal"
>>things.  Then 2.0 would run more 1.3 programs.
>
>If you've got any (realistic) suggestions for how Commodore should prevent
>people from writing bad programs, I'm sure they'd love to hear about it.
>C= has been publishing rules for programming the Amiga since day -1, and
>recently has been distributing tools like enforcer and mungwall which make
>it *much* easier to catch some types of programming errors, but they can't
>force people to follow the guidelines, or force them to use the developer
>tools.
>
>One step Commodore is taking to make bad programming practices harder--there
>will not be a Hardware Reference Manual for the AA chips, with all the
>register addresses and such.  Programmers that want to use AA features are
>thus *strongly* encouraged to use the OS.

The above move is exactly what they should have done when they first released
the original OS.  I know there is not a 100% sure way to catch all illegal
hacks to the system, but boy they could have caught more.  Even Apples OS
doesn't do it, and they try to prevent power use at all costs.
        :) *GRIN* Don't get mad MAC fans just a little slam. :)
I don't place all the blame on Commodore, but I don't think you can honestly
say that they did a total win bang job of trying to stop illegal hacks, in the
begining.  It sounds like they are going to now.

I had another quick question,  Why couldn't Commodore have built in a better
1.3 fall back mode into 2.0.  MY friend doesn't have an accelerated Amiga and
2.0 will not run any disk based copyprotected games that we own.  Couldn't
Commodore have slipped a 1.3 chip on board with some kind switching mechanism
to allow 100% compatiblity with 1.3 programs.  Even the hacked ones.

I have an idea, any hardware hackers out there.  I like games a lot, but I also
like to program and want the speed of say a 3000 or 4000.  How about a board
that would take over the system and fall it back into standard 68000 w/1.3
mode.  That way I can sell my 68000 based 1.3 machine and still play all those
neato beneto games. :)  I know there are rom switchers, but what about a
processor switcher.  It'd sorta be like the TURBO switch on a IBM PC.  I know
this sounds silly to slow down a machine, but if you like the old games then
this is the only solution, short of paying for updates if they even become
available, that I can see.    Any comments.

-Nyle
________________________________________________________________________________
|    Nyle F. Landas      |     LANDAS88@SNYPOTVA        |   SPOTVB::LANDAS88   |
|______________________________________________________________________________|
|  C= Amiga  For creative power.                                               |
|                                          CCC                                 |
|                                        CC     CCC    AMIGA                   |
|     Potsdam, N.Y.                      CC                                    |
|                                        CC     CCC    AMIGA                   |
|                                          CCC                                 |
|______________________________________________________________________________|
Comments: Gated by NETNEWS@AUVM.AMERICAN.EDU
Subject: (no subject given)