🚀 go-pugleaf

daveba@hpsad.HP.COM (David Ballo) asks:

| Would some knowledgeable person kindly outline the differences
| between [ROM TOS (1.0) and Mega TOS (1.2)]?

The major difference between the original ROM TOS and Mega TOS is
BLiTTER support.  Some VDI operations were optimized a bit in Mega TOS
as well.  GEMDOS uses a larger amount of memory by default in Mega TOS,
so some programs which barely fit in a 520ST ran out of memory in
Mega TOS.

| Also, is it worth it to upgrade to TOS 1.4 (for a hundred bucks!)? 

Well, I'll let the rest of the netters who have the upgrade answer this,
because anything I say on this subject is tooting Atari's horn <grin>.

But I'll offer the following:
 Many, many TOS bugs are gone in Rainbow TOS.
 Many internal limits in TOS have been lifted.
 Hard disk I/O is much, much faster.
 Program launches can be made much faster.
 You can rename folders, no more making a new folder and then copying
all the files in, then removing the old folder.
 The Desktop is much more convenient, preserving the time/date stamp of
your files on copies.  The Rainbow TOS Desktop lets you _move_ files and
folders, using Control-drag.  You can abort a file copy or move operation
by pressing [Undo].  A lot of the dialogs are more intuitive.
 The AES gives you a much nicer item selector, with buttons for all the
drives, and an optional title string when supported by software.  The
Rainbow TOS AES also lets you auto boot a GEM application, configured
by the "Set Preferences" menu item in the Desktop.

 That's only the stuff that came to mind as I was typing, there's more...

-- 
   |||   Ken Badertscher  (ames!atari!kbad)
   |||   Atari R&D System Software Engine
  / | \  #include <disclaimer>