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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
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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
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| Dan Barrett -- Dept of Computer Science, Lederle Graduate Research Center |
| University of Massachusetts, Amherst, MA 01003 -- barrett@cs.umass.edu |
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