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Posting-Version: version B 2.10.2 9/18/84; site lsuc.UUCP
Path: utzoo!lsuc!jimomura
From: jimomura@lsuc.UUCP (Jim Omura)
Newsgroups: net.micro.amiga,net.micro.cbm
Subject: Re: Welcome!
Message-ID: <798@lsuc.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 19-Sep-85 09:10:15 EDT
Article-I.D.: lsuc.798
Posted: Thu Sep 19 09:10:15 1985
Date-Received: Thu, 19-Sep-85 10:07:55 EDT
References: <511@petrus.UUCP> <974@druxo.UUCP> <575@sftig.UUCP>
Reply-To: jimomura@lsuc.UUCP (Jim Omura)
Organization: Barrister & Solicitor, Toronto
Lines: 53
Summary:      OS-9 fairly priced

In article <575@sftig.UUCP> rbt@sftig.UUCP (R.Thomas) writes:
>
[Re:  Amiga and 520ST]
>OS9/68K would be an ideal substrate for the 'visual/mac-type' user
>interface that they provide.  Does anybody know why they decided to "go
>their own way" and develop custom OS's for their machines.  Are the OS9
>developers so unreasonable about relicensing that this was impossible?
>Or is there something about OS9 that makes this less sensible than I think
>it is?
>
>Rick Thomas
>ihnp4!attunix!rbt

     The cost of licensing OS-9 isn't unreasonably high.  If you check
around, you'll find that it's generally licenced for about $100.00 U.S.
The Shack is able to sell it for as little as $70.00 Canadian.  There's
no doubt that you could probably negotiate roughly the same cost as
Microsoft charges for 'Mess-DOS' (nice term coined by a Compuserve
OS-9'er).  The only downside is that BASIC09 might cost a bit.  On the
otherhand, the Helix QuadraTerm (4 port OS-9, 68008, 1/2 meg. RAM,
10 Meg. Hard, 1 80 track floppy, OS-9 68K, BASIC09, Stylograph word-
processor, DynaCalc Spreadsheet, mail merge, spelling checker all
*included*) sells for $2695.00 US.  You can add a cheap smart term
for as little as $500.00 Canadian (a very good term at that) and come
out way ahead of the Amiga, the ST520 or *any* legal or even illegal
PC-Clone.  Note that all this software is time-tested and proven!
 
     Why wasn't it done?  Frankly, I intend to find out in detail
and report in on BIX (I'm the moderator of the 'os.9' conference on
the Byte Information eXchange).  I expect that they just didn't want
to pay anybody *anything* for their main system software.  The GEM
system was a must for Atari, in order to beat the Amiga onto the
market.  If Tramiel had the time, I think he would have tried to do
that much in house as well.  The Amiga Software was not begun by
Commodore.  A certain amount was produced by the original designers
of the Amiga.  I don't have all the details in that regard either.
 
     Between the two, my impression is that the current Atari ST5200
would be the easier of the two to set up OS-9 on.  The Amiga's hardware
interface is too dependant on it's current system to interface to
OS-9 and still use it to it's maximum potential.  In short, you'd
end up keeping most of the original software and running OS-9 in the
space remaining, which wouldn't be much.  To create a whole new
optimized set of drivers would be, in this case substantially less
trivial.  Not impossible mind you, but you wouldn't be able to do a
lot of the neato graphics & sound stuff as a coherent production as
easily for quite a while.
 
                                     Cheers! -- Jim O.

-- 
James Omura, Barrister & Solicitor, Toronto
ihnp4!utzoo!lsuc!jimomura