HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: grr@cbmvax.commodore.com (George Robbins)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.advocacy
Subject: Re: Atari BLiTTER
Date: 5 Oct 92 04:34:11 GMT
Reply-To: grr@cbmvax.commodore.com (George Robbins)
Organization: Commodore, West Chester, PA

In article <OA92-901-306p1_9F16D9D5@piraya.bad.se> Hans_Bergengren@p1.thulos.bbs.bad.se (Hans Bergengren) writes:
>  JM> Will this thread about the Atari Blitter ever stop?
> 
> No, it will plague us forever... :)

Some facts would help.

>  JM> IMHO even the amigas blitter outside of the A600 class of machines looks
>  JM> weak today.  Hopefully the chipset after AGA will improve things a bit.
> 
> Hum, the standard ECS blitter manages at best about 4 MB/sec (less if lots of
> DMA is stolen by Denise), does this mean that the AGA blitter manages 16 MB at
> best (4 * 4 = 16...), or is the increased bandwidth in AGA only for video
> (sounds unlikely)? Will other blitter operations be 4x faster? (Line draw: 4
> million pixels/sec - GOSH!)

The blitter runs at the same speed, however more bandwidth may be available
for blitter operation if the enhanced video modes "unload" the chip bus by
doing more efficient fetches.

> Finally, what's the speed of the ST(e)/Falcon blitter? I've got an Atari
> friend (believe it or not!) who's just started programming in assembler, and
> he's interested. If somebody knows this, please tell me. Thanks!

Interesting question.  The old one ran at no better than processor speeds and
it's not clear if it has been enhanced or in what way.
From: daveh@cbmvax.commodore.com (Dave Haynie)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.advocacy
Subject: Re: Open Letter to Dave Haynie!
Date: 2 Oct 92 00:21:28 GMT
Reply-To: daveh@cbmvax.commodore.com (Dave Haynie)
Organization: Commodore, West Chester, PA

In article <1992Sep25.161306.21709@cs.mcgill.ca> storm@cs.mcgill.ca (Marc WANDSCHNEIDER) writes:

>Hi Dave (or should I call you Mr Haynie?!?!?!?);

Better stick with "Dave", my Dad doesn't know much about Amigas...

>	Could you tell me all about the AGA chipset, 

The AA (or AGA if you prefer) specification is over a hundred pages long.  I
can't exactly type that in here, even if it was all for public consumption.
So I'm trying to stick to specific questions.

>and why I can't put it in my Amiga 1000, 

The AA chips (Alice and Lisa, anyway) are not plug compatible with previous
Amiga chips.  You can't expect significant enhancements and still work within
the confines of an ECS chip bus architecture.  Or, for that matter, video bus
architecture.  The A1000 chip bus is 16-bits wide all around, and its video
bus is 13-bits wide.  The AA chips need a 32-bit bus that goes roughly twice
as fast, and they drive a 25-bit pixel bus.

>and why the stupid morons at Commodore decided to put an IDE interface 
>instead of the obviously superior SCSI-II interface???  

It was a management decision, most likely predicated on cost and the theory 
that "50-million PClones can't be wrong".  Now, most of here know that 
50-million PClones must be wrong in some way, or we wouldn't waste any time
with Amigas.  That's not necessarily the opinion of the average A4000 buyer,
only time will tell.  As I have stated, I would prefer SCSI myself.

>I want to have at LEAST 6 hard drives, a tape backup and a CD ROM in my 
>machine.  

I can understand the CD ROM and tape backup, but nobody needs 6 hard drives.
Larger drives go faster, so if you're really performance concerned, you'd
dump the smaller drives or at least set them up as scratch drives.

>IDE just sucks too bad!  What good is a transfer rate of about 2MB per second 
>when I can have 5MB/s with SCSI.  

Maybe because the average hard drive does about 1.5MB/s?

>I need my text editor to show up on the screen REALLY fast!

My text editor's speed (GNUEmacs) has nothing to do with disk speed.  If you're
concerned with startup speed, you're not likely to see much difference between
SCSI and IDE.  Some things will, maybe running compressed animations from disk
or some-such, but nothing based on text editing.  The software folks even claim
compiles are at least as fast over IDE.

Don't bother defending SCSI, you're preaching to the choir...
-- 
Dave Haynie Commodore-Amiga (Cool Advanced High-End Systems You Can't See Yet)
 "The Crew That Never Rests"  {uunet|pyramid|rutgers}!cbmvax!daveh   BIX: hazy
              "I got a pocket full of kryptonite" -Spin Doctors
From: iank@microsoft.com (Ian Kennedy)
Subject: Re: WOC Videotapes at FAUG
Date: 05 Oct 92 06:42:26 GMT
Organization: Microsoft Corporation

In article <1992Oct5.011545.17279@news.iastate.edu> barrett@iastate.edu (Marc N Barrett) writes:
>In article <BvK7s8.Ey3@zorch.SF-Bay.ORG> mike@zorch.SF-Bay.ORG (Mike Smithwick) writes:
>>I'll be showing my videotapes of the Pasadena WOC at the next meeting of
>>the First Amiga Users Group next Tuesday, October 5, at 7:30. It is held
>>at HT Electronics, 275 N. Mathilda Ave, Sunnyvale.
>
>   Great.  That would be like watching old films of the Nazi Holocaust.

Sheesh Marc, what crawled up your butt and died? Not everyone can be the
ultra informed super genius you are. Perhaps you should concentrate more
on graduating and less on flaming Commodore, the Amiga, and its users
in general.

Like many have said before, go buy a goddamn INTEL Box (I suggest the
Gateway 66Mhz 486DX/2) and go torment the OS/2 and Windows users.

Ian.
-- 
/* IanK@Microsoft.com				*/
/* Waiting for what comes after the A4000! 	*/
/* In the meantime I think I'll pick up a  	*/
/* '486 box...					*/
From: xero@pitt.edu (George J Karabin)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.advocacy
Subject: A4000
Date: 29 Sep 92 23:48:28 GMT
Organization: University of Pittsburgh
Originator: xero@unix.cis.pitt.edu

Well, this is pretty much a test article to see if I've got the hang of
the newsposter, but while I'm here...

From the stats that C= has released, the A4000 is just about everything
I've wanted to see this year. I'm impressed with the changes that C=
has made, and the ones that they are planning for the future. Sure,
Commodore's no IBM or Macintosh when you're talking about industry
standards and whatnot, but 3,000,000+ machines sold has to mean something,
I think. If C= can continue to improve the Amiga line, with AGA leading
the way by providing a good architectural base, well, I'll be C= loyal
for years to come.
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.advocacy
From: laire@uni-paderborn.de (Ralph Schmidt)
Subject: Re: A4000(Not 3.0Mill. Amigas,the new number is 4.5Mio)
Organization: Uni-GH Paderborn
Date: Wed, 30 Sep 1992 06:00:48 GMT

xero@pitt.edu (George J Karabin) writes:

>Well, this is pretty much a test article to see if I've got the hang of
>the newsposter, but while I'm here...

>From the stats that C= has released, the A4000 is just about everything
>I've wanted to see this year. I'm impressed with the changes that C=
>has made, and the ones that they are planning for the future. Sure,
>Commodore's no IBM or Macintosh when you're talking about industry
>standards and whatnot, but 3,000,000+ machines sold has to mean something,
>I think. If C= can continue to improve the Amiga line, with AGA leading
>the way by providing a good architectural base, well, I'll be C= loyal
>for years to come.

I only want to correct the number: instead of the old count 3.000000, we
should use now 4.500000:-B



P.S. The number comes from the german CBM president Jost.


Regards...
-- 
Ralph Schmidt                                            laire@uni-paderborn.de
University of Paderborn (Germany)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.advocacy
From: wallmann@backus.pu.informatik.th-darmstadt.de (Natuerlich!)
Subject: Re: REAL FALCON 030 SPECS
Date: Sun, 27 Sep 1992 21:28:18 GMT
Organization: MSD software vault #9 @THD

In article <1a0gjkINNal@uwm.edu> gblock@csd4.csd.uwm.edu (Gregory R Block) writes:
>etxansk@garbod20.ericsson.se (Anders Skelander) writes:
>[stuff deleted talking about C= vaporware]
>
>I'll be honest:  I hope they DON'T sell it with a built-in DSP.  I
>don't personally have a use for it, because there's not a whole lot
>you can use a dinky DSP for.  This isn't a 96001 we're talking about,
>here, the Falcon has a 56001 and about 32k of ram for it, if I
>remember.  That's NOT much.  It will get you realtime audio
>manipulation, and that's about it.  Doing much more is going to be
>tough.
>
>And I'm a bit of an audiophile.  I don't think there's a point to
>16-bit audio if the box it's in is making more noise than a virgin on
>prom night.  I think 12-bit is perfect for a computer, 8-bit being the
>average...  but more isn't necessary, IMHO.  Better that you be able
>to get more data through than increase things bitwise.  8-bit or
>12-bit 44.1KHz is nothing bad, to say the least.
>
>Greg
Greg print your article out, put it in a little frame and hang in in
your bathroom. A year from now whenever you read it you will get a
really good laugh.

Nat!
-- 
 -----   Email: wallmann@backus.pu.informatik.th-darmstadt.de  -----
                "Bang that bit that doesn't bang"                 
 Album of the month: "Psalm 69" Ministry

Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.advocacy
From: boberg@lysator.liu.se (Stefan Boberg)
Subject: Re: Some things...
Organization: Lysator Academic Computer Society, Linkoping University, Sweden
Date: Sat, 26 Sep 1992 10:27:41 GMT

danaf@bray1a.its.rpi.edu (Frank R. Dana Jr.) writes:
>In article <1699@lysator.liu.se>, boberg@lysator.liu.se (Stefan Boberg) writes:
>|>   Another reason why game and demo programmers `had' to toss the OS and
>|> go straight at the hardware was that the earlier Amiga models only had
>|> 512K ChipMem and this could get quite tight when you start making more
>|> sophisticated games (there are ways around this limit however, which
>|> we proved in Project X and Alien Breed, who both play samples from 
>|> FastMemory instead of ChipMem). The AGA Amigas will come with 1M/2M 
>|> ChipMem minimum, so this is no longer true.

>I'm SUUUUURE.      9)

>Come on! 512k was tight with 640x400x4. 

  Yeah, but how many games you know use this resolution? I would say
about 0.0001% of all games. I was talking about GAMES and DEMOS, and
reasons why they would "have" to bypass the OS.

>NOW, we have 800x600x8, one HELL of an
>increase! And the chip RAM has only increased by a factor of four. (Two, 
>really, 1 meg CHIP RAM is not sufficient either, even with old (ECS) 
>resolutions...)

  I don't think we'll see many games in this resolution either. As for
`applications', you're right - 2M chipmem is too little if you want to
run a bunch of Super72 screens. If CBM would rewrite layers.library
to be able to use FastRAM for the backing store things would be better
(is any CBM Software Engineer reading this? :-)).

>=======Amiuser============Frank R. Dana, Jr.============Doc Ami=======     
--
Stefan Boberg - AP & EE student at Linkoping Institute of Technology, Sweden
 Author of LhA, ArjA and LhArcA. Co-author of Alien Breed, Project X ...
  EMail: boberg@lysator.liu.se, lha@augs.se           FIDO: 2:204/404.7
    UUCP:  {uunet|pyramid|rutgers}!cbmvax!cbmehq!cbmswe!team17!boberg
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.advocacy
From: dnavas@oracle.uucp (David Navas)
Subject: Re: Low End AGA Machine
Organization: Oracle Corporation, Redwood Shores CA
Date: Fri, 2 Oct 1992 16:04:22 GMT
X-Disclaimer: This message was written by an unauthenticated user
              at Oracle Corporation.  The opinions expressed are those
              of the user and not necessarily those of Oracle.

In article <1992Oct2.042916.19672@newshost.unh.edu> ggg@kepler.unh.edu (Gregory G Greene) writes:
>	Is this Commodores idea of a joke.  An 020 system selling for $1850
>   with no monitor.  I thought this was supposed to be Commodores low end,
>   low priced AGA system.

It'll have to be half that price to sell in any kind of quantity.
An EC030 might cut it at a price only a little under that, though.

David C. Navas						dnavas@oracle.com
Working for, but not speaking on behalf of, Oracle Corp.
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.advocacy
From: dshipley@cs.umr.edu (Dan Shipley)
Subject: Re: A4000
Date: Thu, 1 Oct 1992 22:53:02 GMT
Organization: University of Missouri-Rolla, Missouri's Technological University

In article <1992Sep24.154014.11496@ra.msstate.edu> skip@tacky.cs.olemiss.edu  
(Skip Sauls) writes:
[lots of stuff deleted] 
> Granted, it is nice to have lots of colors for image processing and other
> graphical applications, but I'd imagine that 256 different colors spread
> among icons, menubars, windows, etc., would look gaudy.
> 
You wouldn't think that after using a Silicon Graphics machine with color  
icons.  The shading on the icons is beautiful.  There aren't many reasons I  
can think of for wanting that many colors on the workbench, except for  
watching pretty raytracing in a window behind your wordprocessor which has  
pretty pictures between the text that look real.  That would be nice, and  
some people need that (I would like it), but many don't and don't want to pay  
for that expense.  That's why we need DIG... so people can buy (add) what  
they need.

--
*****************************************************************************
   dshipley at cs.umr.edu
or r092592  at apollo.civil.umr.edu     (The University of Missouri - Rolla)
or dan      at ee.umr.edu                    UMR ... The BLACK HOLE !!!
***************************************************************************** 
!
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.advocacy
From: ggiles@cie.uoregon.edu (Gregg Giles)
Subject: Re: A4000
Organization: University of Oregon Campus Information Exchange
Date: Sat, 26 Sep 92 22:27:52 GMT

In article <1a2a1iINNa3h@uwm.edu> gblock@csd4.csd.uwm.edu (Gregory R Block) writes:
>
>Again, having two sets of art is done all the time on IBM systems.
>For instance, take a look at Sierra's stuff.  Etc...

   Dynamix is owned by Sierra. As a matter of fact, I'm doing one of their
upcoming MS-DOS products right now. <Grin> BTW, Dynamix no longer bothers with
EGA - all we support now is straight VGA.           

-- 
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Gregg Giles (Dynamix, Inc.)                 BIX: ggiles 
All opinions expressed are my own.          Internet: ggiles@cie.uoregon.edu
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.advocacy
From: wallmann@backus.pu.informatik.th-darmstadt.de (Natuerlich!)
Subject: Re: Atari BLiTTER
Date: Wed, 30 Sep 1992 21:45:25 GMT
Organization: MSD software vault #9 @THD

In article <1731@lysator.liu.se> boberg@lysator.liu.se (Stefan Boberg) writes:
>The problem is that you cannot simply OR an image to the screen. First
>you have to AND the screen bitmap with a mask, and then OR your image
>into the screen bitmap. With the Amiga blitter this can be done in one
>blit, while the Atari blitter would have to run two passes. I.e:
>
>  Amiga :  Dest = Image + (Dest * Mask)  ( D = A + BC )
>
>  Atari :  Dest = Dest * Mask
>           Dest = Dest + Image

Well in the most common operations in a windowing system you don't use a
third source as a mask. For copying bitmaps (soft scrolling f.e.) you just 
need two sources and one destination, which the Atari Blitter is capable
of doing in one pass.

Nat!
-- 
 -----   Email: wallmann@backus.pu.informatik.th-darmstadt.de  -----
                "Bang that bit that doesn't bang"                 
 Album of the month: "Psalm 69" Ministry

Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.advocacy
From: andrey@cco.caltech.edu (Andre T. Yew)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.advocacy
Subject: Re: AGA hidden registers - C= is giving me an attitude
Date: 1 Oct 1992 22:46:31 GMT
Organization: California Institute of Technology, Pasadena
NNTP-Posting-Host: punisher.caltech.edu
Keywords: The worse part is I have the cash for the A4000

kdarling@garfield.catt.ncsu.edu (Kevin Darling) writes:

>This has nothing to do with any future RTG programming incompatibility.

>Go back and read Thorne's posting again.  There are valid reasons for
>having easy access to low-level chip information:  third-party addons,
>repair diagnosis, hobbyist experimentation, and yes, direct-to-the-metal
>programming by companies with special applications.

	I think very much that RTG and DIG have everything
to do with this thread.  What you're proposing threatens
to make future RTG and DIG implementations very difficult.
Just look at the MS-DOS world for backwards-compatible
inertia holding down progress.

	As for your other concerns, here are my personal
answers:  third-party addons are fine, but they would
have to talk to C= in the first place anyway.  I think
the days of garage components are out.  Repair?  Replace
the motherboard -- there is nothing you can do to
repair a broken chip.  Hobbyist experimentation is a
more personal thing -- exploring OS3.0's features are
going to occupy me for a while already.  People who need
to write such special applications should contact C=.  I
certainly wouldn't want to stick a board in my Amiga
that was designed by people who never even got technical
support and advise from Commodore

--Andre

-- 
             Andre Yew andrey@cco.caltech.edu (131.215.139.2)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.advocacy
From: kjetilja@stud.cs.uit.no (Kjetil Jacobsen)
Subject: Re: REAL FALCON 030 SPECS
Organization: University of Tromsoe
Date: Mon, 5 Oct 1992 14:35:08 GMT

In article <jbickers.0gg1@templar.actrix.gen.nz>, jbickers@templar.actrix.gen.nz (John Bickers) writes:
>Quoted from <u894776.718087648@bruny> by u894776@bruny.cc.utas.edu.au (James McCoull):
>
>> Please try and keep personal attacks out of news groups.
>> [Attack what someone says not the person]
>
>    There's a level of density below which this is not possible.
>    Someone says or believes something _because_ they are stupid, not
>    because they have been misled or are misinformed. So when you try
>    to explain why they are wrong, you're really having to point out
>    that they are stupid.
>
>--
>*** John Bickers, TAP.                   jbickers@templar.actrix.gen.nz ***
>***    "Radioactivity - It's in the air, for you and me" - Kraftwerk    ***

Well, I'm interested...And who is supposed to set "the level of density" ? You ?
Ronald Reagan ?....
Attacking persons instead of arguments is a typical way of avoiding the fact
that you don't have any powerful contra-arguments.

-Kjetil.
From: doiron@starpt.UUCP (Glenn Doiron)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.advocacy
Subject: Re: The A4000 SUCKS! Commodore BITES! Marc BELCHES! Film at ele
Date: 29 Sep 92 04:32:11 GMT
Organization: 68K Software Development
X-NewsSoftware: GRn 1.16e (7/4/92) by Mike Schwartz & Michael B. Smith

In article <66689@cup.portal.com> Gleeep@cup.portal.com (Dave - Silon) writes:
> blazemonger, blazemonger, rah, rah, raaaaaaahhhhh.
  ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

SHOUT IT!  SHOUT IT!

> -Gleeep

Glenn Doiron
--
Amiga UUCP+
Origin:  uunet!starpt!doiron     (Organization:68K Software Development)
         BIX: gdoiron
** Not enough memory to perform requested operation.  Add 4 megs and retry.
From: mlelstv@specklec.mpifr-bonn.mpg.de (Michael van Elst)
Subject: Re: REAL FALCON 030 SPECS
Organization: Max-Planck-Institut f"ur Radioastronomie
Date: Wed, 30 Sep 1992 13:08:10 GMT

In <u894776.717825905@bruny> u894776@bruny.cc.utas.edu.au (One Way Mail) writes:
>	Sure it would be good if users didnt have these setups,
>but they do - and all those other machines I mentioned work
>extremely well in the base setup - the amiga does not.

Then please include the ST260 with 512k RAM and the ROM image on disk
which leaves 256k free.

Even with the A500 those people that actually write programs have at
leasts 2 floppies and 1 Meg RAM.

>to wait ages for a directory listing?  A good OS not only has a good design
>but is also a pleasure to program and use - in all setups.

You mean like TOS that slows down on _large_ setups with >300 Meg disk space ?
Or which can't handle an arbitrary number of directories since it uses
a fixed table to record memory allocations ?

Regard,
-- 
Michael van Elst
UUCP:     universe!local-cluster!milky-way!sol!earth!uunet!unido!mpirbn!p554mve
Internet: p554mve@mpirbn.mpifr-bonn.mpg.de
                                "A potential Snark may lurk in every tree."
From: stelmack@eggo.tmc.edu (Gregory M. Stelmack)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.advocacy
Subject: Re: Amiga 4000... when
Date: 2 Oct 92 03:12:45 GMT
Organization: University of South Florida, Department of Computer Science and Engineering

We were told by Commodore that our 4000s shipped yesterday, and we are
expecting them by Tuesday (10/6).

--
-- Greg Stelmack (stelmack@eggo.csee.usf.edu)
-- FullTime Grad Student, PartTime Amiga Salesman, PartTime Amiga Developer
-- Author of: Spades, Pro Port Analyzer Plus, more to come...
-- DISCLAIMER: The opinions reflected here are mine and mine alone.
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.advocacy
Subject: Re: REAL FALCON 030 SPECS
From: jbickers@templar.actrix.gen.nz (John Bickers)
Date: 6 Oct 92 11:45:41 PST
  <jbickers.0gg1@templar.actrix.gen.nz> <1992Oct5.143508.28037@news.uit.no>
Organization: TAP

Quoted from <1992Oct5.143508.28037@news.uit.no> by kjetilja@stud.cs.uit.no (Kjetil Jacobsen):
> In article <jbickers.0gg1@templar.actrix.gen.nz>, jbickers@templar.actrix.gen.nz (John Bickers) writes:
> >Quoted from <u894776.718087648@bruny> by u894776@bruny.cc.utas.edu.au (James McCoull):

> >> Please try and keep personal attacks out of news groups.
> >> [Attack what someone says not the person]

> >    There's a level of density below which this is not possible.
> >    Someone says or believes something _because_ they are stupid, not

> Well, I'm interested...And who is supposed to set "the level of density" ? You ?

    No, it isn't some level that you pick and choose, it's a state,
    like adding 1 + 1 to give 2. Either the person is arguing some
    point because they're stupid, or they actually have some line of
    rational argument, even if based on mistaken facts.

> Attacking persons instead of arguments is a typical way of avoiding the fact
> that you don't have any powerful contra-arguments.

    No, THIS statement of yours is a typical excuse for people posting
    shit but not admitting that they're thick.

> -Kjetil.
--
*** John Bickers, TAP.                   jbickers@templar.actrix.gen.nz ***
***    "Radioactivity - It's in the air, for you and me" - Kraftwerk    ***
From: ifenton@crc.ac.uk (I. Fenton)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.advocacy
Subject: Re: 24 hours of advocacy...
Date: 2 Oct 92 20:03:06 GMT
Organization: MRC Human Genome Resource Centre

In article <1992Oct2.183640.7951@usl.edu> das9674@usl.edu (Stephenson Daniel A) writes:
>In article <1992Oct2.155415.9818@crc.ac.uk> ifenton@crc.ac.uk (I. Fenton) writes:
>>dear net,
>>
>>looking at teh various advocacy groups here, i notice what 24 hours worth
>>of advocacy leads to :-
>>
>>  comp.os.os2         103 postings (mostly os/2 vs. windows-nt)
>>  comp.sys.amiga       89 postings (mostly amiga vs. atari falcon)
>>  comp.sys.mac         62 postings (mostly mac vs. pc's)
>>  comp.os.mw-windows   24 postings (mostly is windows an os ?)
>>  comp.sys.next        15 postings (mostly should nextstep be cheaper)
>>  comp.sys.acorn        5 postings (mostly about acorn's share price)
>>
>>as can be seen most of the discussion is about one system vs. another, rather
>>than discussion about that particular os/system.  this is interesting as most
>>groups have their zealots saying that other people should leave their group
>>alone.  does the net have any comment on these figures ?!
>
>One.
>
>Did you read those groups for 24 hours and COUNT all those 
>posts??
>
>>IAIN FENTON                             | All errors of spelling, grammar &
>-- 
>*Dan Stephenson   das9674@usl.edu  

no, i didn't, by mail-program tells me how many un-read postings there are...

i was trying to say that most 'amiga' advocacy message are about the atari
falcon, most os/2 advocacy messages are about windows-nt etc...

Iain FENTON