Path: rcfnews.cs.umass.edu!barrett From: per-espen.hagen@ffi.no (Per Espen Hagen) Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.reviews Subject: REVIEW: Workbench 3.1, disk only (with Kickstart 3.0) Followup-To: comp.sys.amiga.misc Date: 16 Jan 1995 05:56:18 GMT Organization: The Amiga Online Review Column - ed. Daniel Barrett Lines: 285 Sender: amiga-reviews@math.uh.edu (comp.sys.amiga.reviews moderator) Distribution: world Message-ID: <3fd1q2$ino@kernighan.cs.umass.edu> Reply-To: per-espen.hagen@ffi.no (Per Espen Hagen) NNTP-Posting-Host: astro Keywords: OS, system software, 3.1, Commodore, commercial Originator: barrett@astro.cs.umass.edu PRODUCT NAME Workbench 3.1, used with Kickstart 3.0. BRIEF DESCRIPTION In this context, Workbench 3.1 is the disk-based part of AmigaOS 3.1, the latest version of the Amiga Operating System. AUTHOR/COMPANY INFORMATION Name: Commodore-Amiga, Inc. Address: Village Tronic Marketing GmbH Wellweg 95 31157 Sarstedt Germany NOTE As far as I know, AmigaOS 3.1 is NOT packaged and sold in a ROM-less version by Village-Tronic. They only manufacture complete sets with ROM(s), disks, and manuals. However, since there is a demand for ROM-less versions, as well as for standalone Kickstart 3.1 ROMs, many dealers have split the packages accordingly. To the best of my knowledge, this is completely legal; there is no mention in the documentation that such a practice is a breach of any rules or regulations. (Village-Tronic may not LIKE it, but that is another issue.) Due partly to the current state of affairs with Commodore-Amiga, there are lots of pirated versions of AmigaOS 3.1 (especially ROM-less versions) around. However, the package I bought (from a long-time Amiga dealer in Oslo, Norway) was the official one, split in the above manner. I know this for a fact, because we have bought identical packages (with ROMs) for our Amigas at work. The box that my copy came in was originally marked as suitable for the A3000/A3000T. LIST PRICE For the reasons mentioned above, there is no official "list price" on the ROM-less package. I have seen it advertised a few places, at highly varying prices. I paid NOK 290 (about GBP 27, or $40 US). SPECIAL HARDWARE AND SOFTWARE REQUIREMENTS HARDWARE No special requirements mentioned in the documentation. SOFTWARE Kickstart 3.0 or higher required. COPY PROTECTION None. Hard drive installable. MACHINE USED FOR TESTING Amiga 1200 with Blizzard 1230-II, 40 MHz 68030/68882. 12 MB Fast RAM, 2 MB Chip RAM. Toshiba 260 MB 2.5" internal IDE hard drive. Chinon High Density 3.5" internal floppy drive. IDEK MF-5015 multisync monitor. Kickstart 3.0 (39.106). MultiUserFileSystem (muFS) 1.7 on all partitions. INSTALLATION Installation to a hard drive is done with the standard Installer utility. This is usually a very straightforward procedure. Because I use muFS and otherwise have a somewhat non-standard setup, I chose to install the software manually. Although a bit time-consuming, this had the advantage of letting me see what had changed since 3.0 (new files, updated files, etc). There is one known problem with the 3.1 disks; the "pure"-bit is cleared on all files. To set this bit on the files that are actually pure (re-entrant and re-executable), I ran a small script called "Fix_WB3.1". (This script is based on information from Dr. Peter Kittel, ex-Commodore Germany, and can be found on Aminet.) WHAT'S NEW After the installation, I rebooted the Amiga. At first glance, nothing seemed to have changed and everything worked just like before. However, Workbench 3.1 comprises a substantial amount of bugfixes and nice little enhancements at all levels. Therefore, I will just list some of the improvements I have noticed so far myself in the following. One of the most striking features is the enhanced DataTypes system. There is a new "animation" datatype class, with sub-classes for IFF ANIM and CDXL animations. Animations are played back directly from disk, and can also be stepped forwards and backwards. Playback speed is good on custom screens, but (not surprisingly) slow on the Workbench screen. On a related topic; MultiView is also heavily improved. It can now jump back and forth between Workbench and its own custom screen, for any datatype. Even more important; MultiView v40 has an ARexx port! The ARexx interface has 24 commands, mainly corresponding to the available menu choices. Also, the AmigaGuide datatype/library is drastically improved from v39, with lots of features from the old standalone AmigaGuide viewer -- for instance, AmigaGuide files can now be traversed from the keyboard. Another big item for some is the support for CD-ROM through the CDFileSystem. I don't have a CD-ROM drive myself, but we have one on an Amiga at work, and the 3.1 file system seems to work well there. Talking of file systems, CrossDOS now also supports text translation to/from Apple Mac ASCII. On the down side of 3.1 CrossDOS is the ugly custom PC disk icon, which is hard-coded into the file system (there's an easy fix to this; but as it's slightly hack-ish, I won't mention it here). The monitor drivers and Overscan Prefs in 3.1 are much better than their 3.0 counterparts -- they now allow more overscan, and the sync pulses can be moved (thereby shifting the display area horizontally and/or vertically). Most of these have been available for a long time (from the archive Monitor30Patch, on Aminet), but the 3.1 Super72 monitor was not included there. Super72 can now be as big as 912x628. IconEdit was notoriously buggy under 3.0; this seems to have been fixed with 3.1 (although I have only tried it very briefly; I use Chad Randall's excellent _Iconian_ instead). The Format command now supports a few ToolTypes -- VOLUMENAME and TRASHCAN. Saves you from always de-selecting the "Put Trashcan" checkmark when you format floppies. You still have to set the file system manually, though; there aren't any ToolTypes for this. There's a new command, LoadResource, which is used for pre-loading (and optionally locking) fonts, libraries, devices, or catalogs into RAM. This is mainly of interest for floppy-only users, but it can be useful for HD users as well. Plus lots of minor things... the height of MultiView's file requester is now dependent on the screen height -- under 3.0, it was irritatingly small on large screens (Perhaps it's a bit _too_ tall now, but that's a matter of taste). HDToolbox now displays the help texts when you press the "Help" key -- under 3.0, you had to click the "Help" button. In Palette Preferences, you can select an item (e.g., "Dark Edges") by clicking on it in the sample window. There was also a bug with Pointer Prefs in 3.0, in that the three pens it locked weren't released on exit. This has been fixed. And so on, and so forth. COMPATIBILITY After about one month's operation, I haven't noticed any problems whatsoever with any of my 3.0 compatible commodities, utilities and applications under Workbench 3.1. Also, I haven't had any errors or crashes that can be attributed to the Kickstart 3.0/Workbench 3.1 combination (my Amy crashes about once a week on average; mostly when I'm testing new software or when I make silly mistakes in my own programs). So, although the use of this combination is not mentioned anywhere in the 3.1 manuals, I assume that it is a "safe" one. WHAT YOU DON'T GET So why would people want to upgrade their Kickstart from 3.0 to 3.1, if you get all of the above with just a Workbench upgrade? Well, there ARE a few things you don't get without the new Kickstart. For instance, the "Workbench->Execute Command", "Icons->Rename" and "Icons->Information" windows are fully font-sensitive with Kickstart 3.1; they even work with proportional fonts. With Kickstart 3.0 however, you still get that ugly Topaz/8 interface. The same is true for any other change in the gadtools, workbench, dos, intuition, layers, graphics, utility, exec, expansion, and other ROM-based libraries, devices, residents and so on. I don't have a complete list of all the changes. DOCUMENTATION The package comes with three manuals; Workbench, DOS, and ARexx. There is also a Quick Reference card with short descriptions of all the AmigaDOS commands. The manuals are similar to the 3.0 versions, but somewhat better organized. In general, the manuals are fairly good for beginners and experienced users alike, but there are some holes in the coverage. As an example, I haven't been able to find any information about the keystrokes used to traverse AmigaGuide documents (Tab, Shift-Tab, Enter, /, <, >) -- I just happened to discover them by chance. (No, they aren't documented in the online amigaguide help file either; that one hasn't been updated since 3.0.) Another negative thing about the manuals is that the covers are (in my opinion) extremely ugly; the 3.0 manuals were much prettier in that respect. Not terribly important, but definitely irritating. (Note: There are two different versions of the covers, the other one is much brighter and less hideous than mine.) LIKES What can I say? I like all the new features, especially the enhanced MultiView/AmigaGuide/DataTypes. DISLIKES AND SUGGESTIONS Well, there are of course the usual complaints about Workbench -- most of the Workbench programs (prefs editors, Commodities, etc) are still Topaz/8 only, the default "look" is immensely boring, etc. And the manual covers are ugly... but apart from this, I don't have any complaints at all. One suggestion to the new Amiga company (if any) would be to include one or two disks with alternative preferences and unsupported third-party Workbench enhancements and other generally useful tools; things like ToolManager, Yak, DiskSalv, and KingCON, plus some more DataTypes. I would also like to see an AmigaGuide help file for all the standard commands. COMPARISON TO OTHER SIMILAR PRODUCTS Nothing compares to AmigaOS. BUGS I've already mentioned the missing pure-bits "bug". Another similar problem is that the stack size specified in MultiView's icon is much too low for animation files. This often results in crashes when such files are used. Increasing the stack size to 20,000 bytes solved this problem for me. VENDOR SUPPORT Not much point trying to contact Commodore-Amiga these days... :-( WARRANTY No warranty is mentioned in the documentation. CONCLUSIONS First of all, I think this shows that the Kickstart 3.0/Workbench 3.1 combination is a viable option. It is especially interesting for A1200 users who want to retain the PCMCIA support (otherwise, the full Kickstart+ Workbench package for the A4000 can be used). A1200 owners will also get some things that aren't shipped with the 1200 as standard: AmigaDOS and ARexx manuals; the Install disk (with HDToolbox, Installer and the disk-based FastFileSystem); scalable fonts on the Fonts disk. The ROM-less upgrade is usually a lot cheaper than the full package, and you still get MOST of the new features in AmigaOS 3.1. If you use Workbench much, this upgrade is definitely worth the cost. I'd rate the package 4 stars out of 5. COPYRIGHT NOTICE Copyright 1994 Per Espen Hagen. All rights reserved. --- Daniel Barrett, Moderator, comp.sys.amiga.reviews Send reviews to: amiga-reviews-submissions@math.uh.edu Request information: amiga-reviews-requests@math.uh.edu Moderator mail: amiga-reviews@math.uh.edu Anonymous ftp site: math.uh.edu, in /pub/Amiga/comp.sys.amiga.reviews