🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <8911280802.AA18983@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU> JOHNBARNES@ENH.NIST.GOV writes:
>Why Not, I ask?  If people want to burn their own ROMS, why not let
>them?  Atari should even provide diagnostic files that can be run to
>test the validity of user-generated ROMS.

I agree.  I've been to two Atari dealers a number of times (most recently San
Jose Computer a couple of hours ago, which is why I'm motivated to write
this,) and have always been told that they were out of 1.4 ROMs.  If I had a
binary image of the thing, I could go put it on EPROMs and have it in my
machine tonight, as could a number of Atari-owning friends of mine.

I realize that Atari doesn't want to deal with trying to support hundreds of
modified versions of 1.4, which would inevitably arise if the OS were released
in this way.  There are two solutions to that problem.  The first, and easiest,
is to put something like

	THIS CHIPSET IS PROVIDED AS A COURTESY TO THE ATARI COMMUNITY,
	AND IS NOT AN OFFICIALLY SUPPORTED RELEASE.  ATARI ASSUMES NO
	RESPONSIBILITY FOR PROBLEMS ARISING FROM ITS USE.  FOR THE
	LATEST OFFICIAL OPERATING SYSTEM RELEASE, SEE YOUR LOCAL DEALER.

in the Desktop "About..." dialog box.  Then Atari will be able to separate
the real 1.4ers from the EPROMmed ones, and deal with each appropriately.
(Actually, ideally the startup code would do a CRC or checksum on the OS
image, inserting that message if it found a difference -- but putting it
there all the time is fine, too.)

The second is to really do interim OS releases on disk.  Apple and Commodore
have been doing that for years, and they haven't had the problems Atari
is afraid of.  I don't expect this to happen, but it would be nice.

So far I've restrained myself from finding someone with 1.4 and just copying
the whole kit and kaboodle to disk; I'd rather have an official set of chips.
I imagine many others are in the same position.  They, and I, aren't going to
hold off much longer.

Well, that's my turn on the soapbox.  Standard disclaimer here.

---
"                                                  !" - Marcel Marceau
Steven Grimm		Moderator, comp.{sources,binaries}.atari.st
sgrimm@sun.com		...!sun!sgrimm