From: ucacmsu@ucl.ac.uk (Mr Stephen R Usher)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.atari.st
Subject: Re: GEM.. what needs to be fixed, and soon!
Date: 28 Aug 92 09:33:46 GMT
Organization: Bloomsbury Computing Consortium, London

In article <1992Aug27.162122.6521@pbhya.PacBell.COM> dbsuthe@PacBell.COM (Daniel B. Suthers) writes:
>FORWARD:  MR. Usher describes several TT troubles.  Most appear to be
>due to a virus or hardware trouble specific to his machine.
>

Hmm.... (Have you ever worked for IBM's fault report service? :-))

>
>In article <1992Aug27.100551.4716@bas-a.bcc.ac.uk> ucacmsu@ucl.ac.uk (Mr Stephen R Usher) writes:
>>
>>From what I've heard, the new version of GEM for the FALCON seems a great
>>improvement. I hope that at least some of the following gripes I have with
>>GEM are fixed, and the rest to be fixed ASAP if the Atari machines are to
>>get anywhere:-
>>
>>(1) Response time for mouse button presses.
>>
>>	Has anyone noticed that it takes about a second for a mouse press to
>>be acted upon under GEM? This delay is the same on the TT as on the ST. This
>>has put off a large number of people when I've tried to promote the ST/TT
>[ TEXT DELETED ]
>THIS IS A PROBLEM WITH YOUR COMPUTER.  MY SON'S ST HAD A BAD HARD DRIVE THAT
>CAUSED SIMILAR PROBLEM.  ALL THREE OF MY STS PROVIDE INSTANT MOUSE RESONSE.

This happens on all the ST's and TT's I've seen from an old 520STM with TOS
1.0 right through to the TT030 with TOS 3.05, and a friend has reported the
same problem with TOS 3.06 on the TTs he uses at work.

>
>>(2) Printer drivers have to be assigned at INSTALL time or by editing a
>>file.  [ TEXT DELETED ]
>FONT GDOS ALLOWS YOU TO HAVE MULTIPLE DRIVERS DEFINED.  JUST LIKE WINDOWS,
>YOU MUST EXIT AND RESTART IF YOU WANT A TOTALLY NEW ONE INSTALLED FROM A FLOPPY.

Hmm... an improvement.. but I still think that you should be able to add
them on the fly.

> 
>>(3) GDOS IS AN OPTIONAL EXTRA.
>[ TEXT DELETED ]
>FONT (OR FSM)  GDOS SHOULD BE INCLUDED WITH ALL NEW SYSTEMS (I HOPE )

Preferably in the ROM with a small set of fonts.

>
>>(5) The low speed of the VDI routines.
>>
>>	The speed of plotting a pixel on the screen using VDI on the TT is
>>so slow... dumping a 320x240 picture using point plotting with VDI can take
>>up to a minute.. the is UNACCEPTABLE.
>
>IF I HAD SUCH PROBLEMS, I TOO WOULD AGREE.  IT APPEARS YOUR SYSTEM HAS 
>A SERIOUS TROUBLE.  MINE WORK AT "BLINDING ELECTRONIC SPEED".

Are you talking of applications you have written yourself, or about programs
you have obtained from elsewhere? If the latter, how do you know the
programmer has used the VDI routines to plot the picture?

>
>Daniel B. Suthers,  CCP
>Technology Consultant, PCS & IN Development Lab,        Pac*Bell
>Voice: (510) 671-1325               UUCP:  dbsuthe@Pacbell.COM
>================================================================================
>=  Commit unexpected kindnesses and senseless acts of beauty.                  =
>================================================================================

Please don't take this as a flame, I'm not shouting at you, I'm merely
replying to your points. The smiley at the begining is there because you
reminded me of the usual response from the IBM user support team.

Steve
--
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