From: breese@monet.imada.ou.dk (Bjoern Reese)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.programmer
Subject: Re: Attn Commodore: You are making a Big Mistake (Hardware
Date: 7 Jan 93 10:05:47 GMT
Organization: Dept. of Math. & Computer Science, Odense University, Denmark

Oh dear, and I thought this thread had almost died...

In article <38369@cbmvax.commodore.com> daveh@cbmvax.commodore.com (Dave  
Haynie) writes:
> In article <Ru5VVB5w165w@lakes.trenton.sc.us> rock@lakes.trenton.sc.us  
(Rockerboy) writes:
> >Don't buy the game if you don't like it.  The fact that some games are 
> >coded by some people who may or may not work within the OS or within the 
> >compatability issues C= has pointed out does not justify banning the 
> >hardware manual.
> 
> Of course it does.  You're missing the point entirely.  No one cares about  
what
> a demo writer is doing.  As a user, you don't pay for demos.  You do pay for 
> other software.  As a user, you have a right to expect something for what you
> pay.

I pay a lot (I didn't say whether it was too much or not) for my
computer, and I have a right to be able to use it as I like
(including hardware bashing.) As nobody pays me anything for my
demos, nobody has the right to expect anything from it. They can
take it or leave it.

>      There's no way you can know if any particular program is written  
according
> to the rules or whether it throws them all out.  If every developer was open  
an
> honest, you'd be able to read on the software package just what level of 
> compliance there is with the Amiga (eg, does it run on all 680x0, with Fast
> RAM, from hard disk, on AA and beyond, etc.).  Since such admissions are  
rare,
> C='s withholding of the register-level details of the AA chip set (which, as
> mentioned 100's of times, are guaranteed to change in the future) will help  
to
> protect the software investment of C='s customers.

If a piece of software doesn't work, it's the fault of the _publisher_
In principle, I still can't comprehend why the computer manufacturer
put these restrictions upon everybody, simply because the publishers
fail to inform their customers properly. I think it a matter between
the publisher and the customer.


The following comments are not directed toward Dave Haynie's posting,
but some previous postings by other people.

People have stated that hardware bashing is slowing down the development
of new custom chips. Maybe so, but these days one might expect downwards
compatibility within all chip families. Take the 680x0 or the 80x86
families for instance. It is expected that new chips in these families
are compatible with previous chips (and yes, I agree that the Pentium
(80586) is looking like a dinosaur.) If C= wants to make new chips
which aren't fully compatible with the previous chips, and they want
us all to use the OS, when they should release the new machines under
a new name (since it is a new machine) and state that it runs KickStart
V99.99 (or whatever.) Then the software packages can state that they
run on KickStart V99.99, or UNIX, or Windows 3.0, etc.

--

Bjoern Reese                   |     Email: breese@imada.ou.dk
Odense University, Denmark     |     Voice: +45 65 932 182 (private)