🚀 go-pugleaf

     There has been a lot of talk on the net about the Atari Developer's kit
and what is included.  As a slightly cracked user who broke down and bought
the kit, I'd like to share my views on it and its relative worth.

     First, I'll discuss the documentation.  The documentation looks like
a pre-release draft of the Atari documentation, or more accuratly, an
ever-so-slightly modified version of the PC GEM docs.  In the copy that I
got (by the way, I can only speak of *my* copy of the kit...) there was a
note from Atari to "disregard references to CP/M-86K"...was Atari actually
considering shipping the ST with CP/M instead of TOS? (shudder)

     The docs are useful (I only have the Abacus "Internals" book, so I
needed something...) but they are somewhat dissappointing.  The version that
I got had *none* of the figures in the VDI & AES manuals--just blank spaces
above the captions.  In addition, two of the sample programs were missing
(although they did appear in source form on the disks).  There were some
neat docs (like "The Hitchiker's Guide to the BIOS") and some good hardware
docs (data sheets for the LSI chips, sound chip, Floppy controller,
interface chips...but nothing for the 68000 (shucks)).  There is a really
off-the-wall docs for the Line-A handler (the author was either stoned or
just having one hell of a good time writing them...).  There is the standard
DRI C manual (that says there is no floating point support, although Atari
seems to have included the Motorola F.P. library--thanks guys!).  There is
a guide to GEMDOS (that includes neat things like disk directory formats
and other assorted goodies).  Only the VDI & AES manuals seemed incomplete,
and the page count came out to something like 1100 pages.
     The disks (five of them, single-sided) contained all kinds of goodies...
some of which even worked well.  The C compiler has been discussed many times
on the net, but I'll outline a typical session for the uninitiated:

     1.  Use MicroEMACS (ME.PRG, no source included) to edit the program
     2.  From GEM Desktop (the Command shell is the pits...) run the BATCH
            program to invoke a batch file (included) that runs the compiler
            and assembler.  The compiler has a C pre-processor stage, and then
            a two-stage compiler (each a separate program), and then the
            assembler is called.  All intermediate files generated by the
            passes are erased.
     3.  From the GEM Desktop invoke the batch file that links your object
            file and the standard GEM object libraries (the batch files are
            included for applications as well as desk accessories.
     4.  The above step also runs a program called RELMOD that generates a
            GEM .PRG file that can be double-clicked from the desktop.

Either a hard disk, two floppies or a 720K RAM disk are needed to do this
procedure (without changing disks, that is...).

     The Resource Construction Set and Shape Editor are worth their weight in
gold (even though there were **NO** docs for the RCS) but are not perfect.
They do work, however, and save much time in designing resource files.
The utilities include an Archiving utility (for libraries, not like the ARC
utility) for object files, a debugger (at assembly level, not C Source level),
assorted programs to look at maps and tables in object files, a KERMIT program
(for file transfer to and from a mainframe), and several others that I can't
remember at the moment.  If there is interest shown on the net, I'll post a
listing of the directories of the disks with a small description of the files.

     So is it worth $300?  Not really, but it was necessary to do any real
work with the machine.  It needs **much** polishing and improvements
(not to mention GDOS and such...), but it is a good start.  I'm sorry for
boring those of you who already have the kit, but I was in a public
benefactor mood today.  The ST is an incredible machine--all it needs is some
more high-quality software (in the DEGAS tradition).  Best of luck to all
who work with the ST (not because you need it, but because it's time for it
to be recognized as the dynamo it really is).
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"There is a theory which states that  |    Christopher Johnson
    if ever anyone discovers exactly  |    ZSR @ PSUVMB, PSUVMA, PSUVM
    what the Universe is for and why  |          ^^^^^^
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    replaced by something even more   |         Berks Campus
    bizarre and inexplicable.         |
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 There is another which states that   |
    this has already happened."       |
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    (Doug Adams, "The Resturaunt      |
       at the End of the Universe")   |
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