Path: menudo.uh.edu!menudo.uh.edu!usenet From: barrett@cs.umass.edu (Daniel Barrett) Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.reviews Subject: REVIEW: AmigaDOS version 2.1 Followup-To: comp.sys.amiga.misc Date: 12 Jan 1993 02:12:08 GMT Organization: The Amiga Online Review Column - ed. Daniel Barrett Lines: 411 Sender: amiga-reviews@math.uh.edu (comp.sys.amiga.reviews moderator) Distribution: world Message-ID: <1it9doINNcll@menudo.uh.edu> Reply-To: barrett@cs.umass.edu (Daniel Barrett) NNTP-Posting-Host: karazm.math.uh.edu Summary: Yup, the moderator writes reviews too. How about you? Keywords: OS, system software, 2.1, Commodore, commercial PRODUCT NAME Amiga Release 2.1 Enhancer ("Workbench 2.1", "AmigaDOS 2.1") BRIEF DESCRIPTION This is the Amiga system software version 2.1. This review concentrates on the differences between AmigaDOS 2.04 and 2.1, though 1.3 readers will also find much information. AUTHOR/COMPANY INFORMATION Name: Commodore Business Machines Address: 1200 Wilson Drive West Chester, PA 19380 USA (Varies for other countries) Telephone: (215) 431-9100 LIST PRICE AmigaDOS 2.1 comes packaged two ways AS216: No ROM (assumes you already have a 2.04 ROM). 5 disks, 4 manuals. Street price is approximately $45.00 (US). AS2??: Includes a 2.04 ROM. 5 disks, 4 manuals. Street price is approximately $95.00 (US). I am not sure of the part number. SPECIAL NOTE FOR AMIGA 3000 OWNERS: Amiga 3000's require special ROM chips (2 of them instead of just 1). If want a ROM, you should buy the AS216 kit (no ROM) plus a separate A3000 ROM set. Talk to your dealer for details. SPECIAL HARDWARE AND SOFTWARE REQUIREMENTS All Amigas can run AmigaDOS 2.1 except maybe the A1200 and A4000, which require AmigaDOS 3.0 or higher. An Amiga 1000 will need a third-party ROM board because it is not a ROM-based machine. COPY PROTECTION None. MACHINE USED FOR TESTING Hardware: Amiga 3000T (25 MHz 68030 and 68882), 10 MB RAM (8 MB Fast, 2 MB Chip), NEC 5fg multisync monitor, 3.5-inch internal floppy, 210MB Quantum hard drive, ASDG Dual Serial Board, Archive Viper 250MB tape drive, Toshiba XM3301B CD-ROM drive, SupraFAXmodem V.32bis, ECE MIDI interface, FutureSound audio digitizer, HP LaserJetIIP printer, TAC30 joystick :-). Software: AmigaDOS 2.1 (obviously!), WShell 2.0, AsimCDFS 1.1a. REVIEW AmigaDOS 2.1 is the latest version of the system software available for non-AGA (Advanced Graphic Architecture chipset) Amigas. I installed it without any problems simply by following the supplied directions. The installation is accomplished by Commodore's standard "Installer" program. This review will concentrate on the differences between AmigaDOS 2.04 and 2.1. Let's start with some general features. The standard File and Font requesters have been improved. Most noticeably, the file requester is MUCH, MUCH, MUCH faster than 2.04's. For example, displaying the entire C: directory (46 files) took about 0.3 seconds, and a 130-file directory took 1 second to display and 1 more second to finish reading. The file requester scans the directory asynchronously, letting the user select files and drawers even before the requester is finished reading the directory. In addition, the file requester displays not only the names but also the sizes and modification dates/times of the files... a feature that I don't find useful (and it looks a little sloppy) but maybe other people will need it. The file requester also has several nice undocumented features. First, it is an "AppWindow." This means you can drag and drop an icon onto it, and the file requester immediately loads the icon's filename and directory. You still must click "OK" to select it, which is a good safety feature. Second, if you click a second time on the "Volumes" button, the requester display toggles between the Volume list and the previous directory (which you were in when you first clicked the Volumes gadget). A very nice touch! Third, there's a mysterious little box to the left of the "Drawer" gadget. It "lights up" whenever the file requester is reading a directory, to let you know that it's doing work. (It's so fast on a 68030 that I rarely notice the light, though.) The font requester now pops up instantly instead of reading the Fonts: directory immediately. In addition, it reads the Fonts: directory a little faster than before (84 font names in 4.5 seconds), and it caches the Fonts: directory in between invocations! So, the second time the font requester appears (in the same, or a different, application), it reads Fonts: much faster (less than half a second). Yay. The Devs: drawer has become more usable from the Workbench. Instead of issuing "Mount" commands from the s:User-Startup file, users can simply drag a device icon into the Sys:Devs/DOSDrivers drawer, and the device will automatically be mounted on startup. There is also a Sys:Devs/Storage drawer for keeping your unused devices in a safe place. I think that the implementation of this new feature is truly excellent, particularly as it is 100% backwards compatible. The device icons' files are ordinary Mountlist entries which can still be mounted using C:Mount. Simple and elegant! Speaking of icons, all system icons now have all of their possible tooltypes listed, with the unused ones commented out with parentheses. This is an excellent, self-documenting feature for people who don't want to refer to the manual every time they modify a tooltype. Great! Next, let's examine Preferences. The "Prefs" icon is smaller than before -- now approximately the same size as the system drawer icons. New Preferences programs include Sound, Locale, and PrinterPS. Prior to AmigaDOS 2.1, any terminal "beeps" (control-G character) would flash the screen instead of making noise. Now, the user may choose a default beep (a simple sine wave with variable pitch and duration) or any IFF 8SVX sampled sound file instead of, or in addition to, the screen flash. Locale tells the Amiga to tailor the system software to fit different countries and languages. This changes the text, date and time formats, and other visible parameters to conform to the standards of the given country. Although I live with the USA English setting, I tested a few other countries for fun. Now I know how to say "Insert volume foo: in any drive" in 12 different languages. :-) PSPrinter is a Postscript printer driver. I did not test this new feature. Various other Prefs programs have some new features. "Printer" now has a "Device Unit" gadget (though you must set the UNIT tooltype to make it visible) to select an alternate device number (but not name). "Input" now has a scrolling list of keyboard types for different countries. "ScreenMode" has more detailed descriptions of its screen types. In general, gadgets and text have been rearranged so that (one hopes) they will look good for all possible languages selectable by Locale. CrossDOS, a well-known MS-DOS filesystem for the Amiga, has become part of the system software. It allows MS-DOS disks to be read, written, and formatted using the standard Amiga drives (floppy and hard). Although I was initially confused by the implementation -- see my comments under "BUGS" below -- it works fine. Some people on USENET have complained because CrossDOS displays two icons for every disk: one for the Amiga filesystem and one for the MS-DOS. However, this does not bother me at all. The Format program now knows about CrossDOS as well as the Amiga filesystems. Double-clicking on the Format icon brings up a list of all mounted disk volumes. The Calculator has a new feature: a "show tape" menu item that pops up a window to display all the calculations you have done so far, just like the tape on a real office adding machine. Unfortunately, the tape does not have a scroll bar, so your earlier calculations eventually cannot be seen. In addition, the "tape" window does not share the Calculator's menu bar, but it should. In any case, it's a useful feature. I am sure I have missed some of the new features, but those above are the ones I have noticed the most. I wish that the upgrade kit had included a list of all the new features and bugfixes. (See SUGGESTIONS FOR THE FUTURE below.) DOCUMENTATION AmigaDOS 2.1 comes with a brand new set of documentation. Instead of placing looseleaf pages into a 3-ring binder as in AmigaDOS 2.04, Commodore provides 4 separate, smaller manuals: Workbench 2.1 User's Guide AmigaDOS User's Guide Amiga Hard Drive User's Guid ARexx User's Guide and a cardboard sleeve which fits over all four manuals, keeping them together. I am glad that the dreadful binder is gone!! It was impossible to close unless you shifted all the pages to the left. (I like binders in general, but the 2.04 binder specifically was terrible.) The quality of the documentation is very good. These are certainly the most clear and professional-looking manuals Commodore has produced for the Amiga. I have found a few spots with incorrect information, mentioned elsewhere in this review, and I have sent the bugs to Commodore. I have not read all the manuals carefully, mainly because I am already very familiar with AmigaDOS, and many of the new features are easy to use without documentation. LIKES AND DISLIKES My biggest like is the faster file requester. The speed is terrific!! I also like the new Sound preferences tool; it is a much more reliable replacement for the Public Domain program I was using to turn screen flashes into audible beeps. CrossDOS has come in handy several times when I needed to send data to companies who require MS-DOS format disks. And the small bugfixes (see BUGS FIXED, below) are much appreciated. I am disappointed that Prefs/Printer STILL does not allow the user to specify an alternate device name for printing. My printer is connected to an ASDG serial board which uses siosbx.device, not serial.device, so I have to hack the printer.device with a binary file editor to make my printing work! It would be a trivial change to add a string gadget or a file requester (perhaps limited to DEVS:#?.device) to let the user choose an alternate device. Another gripe is that, by default, ARexx is not invoked when booting the machine. It is up to the user to drag its icon into sys:WBstartup or invoke the program in s:User-Startup. It was a surprise when I installed AmigaDOS 2.1 and suddenly my scripts were failing. I think Commodore should make the default system invoke ARexx. Finally, I am disappointed that "More" still cannot accept wildcards and multiple filenames, nor read properly from WShell's pipes (it inserts blank lines). Other text viewers such as the freely distributable "Less" can read from pipes without a problem. COMPARISON TO OTHER SIMILAR PRODUCTS Compared to AmigaDOS 1.3, 2.1 is a huge improvement. It is bigger, more consistent, more stable, better-looking, and more professional in many respects. Some older and poorly written programs (mainly games and PD hacks) will fail to run under 2.1. Compared to AmigaDOS 2.04, 2.1 is a much smaller upgrade. There are some obvious and very worthwhile improvements -- localization, CrossDOS, faster ASL file requester, Sound preferences, Postscript printer driver, new manuals, many bugfixes, etc. -- so I recommend that serious 2.04 owners buy it. Compared to AmigaDOS 3.0, only available on the A4000 and A1200 (currently), 2.1 is missing AmigaGuide, DataTypes, the Directory-Caching Filesystem, support for the AGA chipset, and some other things. BUGS AND MISFEATURES I found several bugs and "questionable features" in AmigaDOS 2.1, all of which I have reported to Commodore. o If you double-click on an icon created by Prefs/Input, this generates an Enforcer hit: long-read from address 0. o The Workbench 2.1 manual, pages 7-1 and 7-2, claim that clicking on the PC0 icon invokes CrossDOS and causes 2 disk icons to appear for disk drive 0. This did not happen for me: CrossDOS started up, but no second disk icon appeared while an Amiga disk was in the drive. When I moved PC0 to devs:DosDrivers and rebooted, the two disk icons appeared. o Several programs have no menu but still respond to the right mouse button. Tools/Keyshow and System/Fountain are two examples. They should ignore the right mouse button (RMBTRAP) instead of displaying a blank menu bar. o System/Format's volume requester shows my CDROM drive as: CD0 (15M capacity, 976% used) instead of the correct 610M capacity, 100% used. This might be a bug in AsimCDFS or in Format. c:Info gets it right. o None of the programs in sys:rexxc have Version strings. o c:Version does not accept wildcards. BUGS FIXED A number of 2.04 bugs have been fixed in 2.1, although I could not find any documentation of these fixes. o Prefs/WBPattern's "Test" button now works. Under 2.04, testing the pattern using "Test" and then clicking CANCEL would not cancel the effect of the "Test" button. Now, "Test" + CANCEL works properly. o Multi-selecting file requesters -- those that let the user select multiple files before clicking "OK" -- now correctly exit when the user double-clicks a filename. o Under 2.04, Snap 1.62 (a shareware text and graphics cut and paste program) would sometimes fail to cut text properly. It seems to work reliably all the time now. SUGGESTIONS FOR THE FUTURE Here are a few suggestions for future versions of the Amiga system software: o I would like to see a new Preferences tool for controlling the standard (ASL) file requester. The user should be able to control: * Different text modes (bold, JAM1, etc.) for different types of files (plain files, links, directories). The word "Drawer" isn't enough of a visual indicator, in my opinion, to distinguish directories from files. * A default file-matching pattern if none has been supplied by the calling application. * Whether drawers should appear first, last, or interleaved within the list of entries. (Currently, they are last. Boo hiss.) o I think that the grouping of programs into the System, Utilities, and Tools drawers is arbitrary and unnecessary. Why is "Lacer" not in the System drawer? Why is "KeyShow" in Tools when "Clock" isn't? Why are "MEmacs" and "Ed" in different drawers? Why are "Type" and "More" in different drawers? I suspect that the location of programs is historical and won't be changed. But I'd like to see some programs moved around. I can never remember whether program XYZ is in Tools or Utilities. o Commodore should provide, with each released version of the system software, a list of all bugs fixed and features added. It should not be necessary to read the entire manual to find out all the new features. We know that such lists exist since "pirated" lists taken from Amiga developers have appeared on USENET. While this is probably a political and managerial issue more than a technical one, I think it would be a positive move. Some of us have created our own "workarounds" for various system behaviors. If the behavior gets changed, and we aren't told about it, the workarounds stay in place and are eventually forgotten... even though they could be removed! o The Workbench Icon font, by default, is set to "Text" rather than "Text and Field." This makes icon text look lousy if a window WBPattern is being used. Commodore should make "Text and Field" the default. o When deleting a file using Workbench, the confirming requester that pops up has truly horrible wording. "OK to delete 1 file(s) and 0 drawer(s) (and their contents)?" it says! Surely Commodore's programmers can write a simple test for proper use of plurals, and eliminate the unnecessary "0 drawers" reference completely. SUPPORT I have not had much experience specifically with Commodore's support of AmigaDOS 2.1. However, I have contacted several CBM employees by e-mail to ask questions and make suggestions, and I have found all of them to be friendly, helpful, and serious in their consideration of my suggestions. I am very grateful that so many of them spend their own time monitoring USENET and offering help to their users. WARRANTY Media are guaranteed for 90 days (free repair or replacement). After that, damaged disks may be sent to Commodore for replacement at a cost of $10.00 (US) per disk. I hope that people will make backups of their disks and store the originals in a safe place so they never have to bother sending them back to Commodore! CONCLUSIONS AmigaDOS 2.1 is an evolutionary, not revolutionary, upgrade to 2.04. However, some of its features -- notably the faster file requester -- are incredibly helpful. I recommend it to all Amiga owners, especially those who are still running applications with AmigaDOS 1.3 or below. If you use your Amiga only for games, the upgrade is probably not worth it, since some incorrectly written (but fun) games fail under version 2. AmigaDOS 2.1 is a solid product, and I'm glad I bought it. COPYRIGHT NOTICE Copyright 1993 Daniel J. Barrett. All rights reserved. This review may be freely distributed as long as it is distributed unmodified and in its entirety. It may not be published by any commercial publication without the written permission of the author. Dan //////////////////////////////////////\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\ | Dan Barrett -- Dept of Computer Science, Lederle Graduate Research Center | | University of Massachusetts, Amherst, MA 01003 -- barrett@cs.umass.edu | \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\///////////////////////////////////// --- Daniel Barrett, Moderator, comp.sys.amiga.reviews Send reviews to: amiga-reviews-submissions@math.uh.edu Request information: amiga-reviews-requests@math.uh.edu General discussion: amiga-reviews@math.uh.edu