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Path: utzoo!mnetor!seismo!hao!hull
From: hull@hao.UUCP (Howard Hull)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga
Subject: Re: Update for Lattice C Compiler
Message-ID: <479@hao.UUCP>
Date: Sun, 21-Dec-86 14:16:11 EST
Article-I.D.: hao.479
Posted: Sun Dec 21 14:16:11 1986
Date-Received: Sun, 21-Dec-86 20:58:38 EST
References: <787@jc3b21.UUCP>
Organization: High Altitude Obs./NCAR, Boulder CO
Lines: 105
Keywords: Lattice C compiler version 3.10
Summary: are Lattice C 3.10 and CA Developer's C libraries different?

In article <787@jc3b21.UUCP>, fgd3@jc3b21.UUCP (Fabbian G. Dufoe) writes:
> 
>      For those of you who need information about the Lattice C compiler
> update for the Amiga, here is the official word from Lattice.
> 
>      If you bought your C compiler from Commodore instead of directly from
> Lattice you are probably not registered with Lattice and therefore have not
> received any information about updates.  That is my situation, so I wrote
> Lattice about it.
> 
>      I received a letter from Lattice which explained I could become
> registered by sending in my original disk.  I would have to do that to get
> the new version at the upgrade price. 

Thank you very much for providing this information for the net.  Some of us
have wondered about this for some time.  Of course, I am tempted to ask what
CA intended to do with the registration forms we all sent in, and why, once
they evidently decided that they didn't want to do anything with them they
didn't just pass them on to Lattice.  I suspect, however, that addressing
the summary question will make such flames moot.  The following is not first
hand inside information.  It is only what I have been able to figure out by
tracking net discussion.

It became evident to me early on that there were in fact three classes (never
mind version numbers!) of Amiga LC in circulation.  Class 1 is the original
Lattice C.  It was prepared under contract with CA for initial verification of
the CA graft of C-on-top-of-BCPL which is found in the AmigaDOS/Intuition
interface.  It was needed because the CA programmers were cross-developing
Amiga code on Sun workstations using the Green Hills C compiler, and needed
a local compiler for the poor souls in the company who had to debug the code
on actual Amiga hardware.  Lattice had done a nice job of providing on-line
documentation files that supplemented the manuals, this being necessary
because the manuals were cut and paste renditions of manuals written for
the IBM PC (wrack! sploot!).

Class 2 is the dealer's C package which was available from CA as the computer
was prepared for market in September of 1985.  This is a Class 1 package
with a Metacomco Assembler disk and a Lattice C development disk.  Lattice's
documentation files were removed from the C disk to make room for the modified
(and expanded) Commodore Amiga libraries; it included two startup linking
modules, LStartup.obj and AStartup.obj.  The documentation included the cut-
and-paste Lattice C manual and the AmigaDOS Developer's manual.  Recipients
of this fine package got no Registration, no Tech Ref, no RKM, and the update
policy was to leave 'em to turn slowly in the wind.  Price tag was a handsome
engraved $299.00 + $1495 for the Amiga and 1080 monitor.  Quoth J.P. Morgan,
"There's a fool born every minute, and another to chase after him." Those who
puchased this package died on the vine as far as help from CA was concerned,
it being CA's intention that these people would be assisted by their dealers
(dealer competence is reportedly rather stunning).  Anyone in this class who
was able to do anything did so by accessing a net and listening to the screams
of agony from the registered developers.  The registered developers couldn't
figure out what to do even with the RKM right in front of their eyes.  They,
in turn, (and the rest of us as well) were rescued by dedicated CA staff
programmers (who probably had to trade blood for permission) that began as
early as the fall of 1985 to submit examples to the net.  Unlike the RKM
examples (which were earlier work that suffered from CA financial limitations
and publisher lag) the net stuff worked.  The remaining part of the rescue
was carried out by Fred Fish, who spent a zillion hours collecting together
the odds and ends developers and the users groups posted to the nets.  Except
for the obviously middle-management generated condescention of allowing the
CA staff to write directly to the net, CA administration deserves only the
Bronx Cheer from the East end of a West-bound elephant.

Class3 is the developer's C package.  It was produced concurrently with the
affore mentioned Class 2 product, and has the same disks.  Documentation was
much more substantial (see below).  It was made available as soon as CA was
ready to mass-manufacture the Amiga.  CA used it to attract *established*
software developers.  Once CA had determined that they had been approached
by all of the large established developers, they began to open the deal to
the lesser known established developers.  They made the package available,
complete with a set of five manuals - RKM, Intuition, Hardware, AmigaDOS
Developers, and AmigaDOS Technical Reference - available with the purchase
of a developer's Amiga (distinguished by a speakerless but finer dot pitch
and medium-long persistance monitor, model 1070).  This package was first
announced on the net by Lavitsky @ Rutgers.  I don't have the actual net
article on line at the moment, but I believe the price of the package was
$800 to those who sent in a letter claiming that they had successfully
developed a software product for any other computer in the commercial market.
Developers who either wrote the truth or lied were accepted as registered
developers.  This same package, less the Amiga and monitor, was subsequently
offered for $450 to any programmer who sent payment in advance.  Those who
included a letter stating that they were an established commercial developer
with software currently for sale, as above, were entered as registered by CA;
those who carelessly omitted this detail were (quietly) not registered.
Unregistered developers who sent in bug reports were then sometimes added to
the registered list, (or not) depending on who at CA handled the report and
the subsequent correspondence (if any).  Registered developers received free
RKM updates, and new disks including a disk-based Wack.  The unregistered
developers either got nothing, or they got the RKM update - again according
to individual circumstance (such as calling CA and bitching "everyone else
has a new RKM, what happened to mine?).   

So the question of concern is this: what are Lattice and CA going to do to
bring about agreement in the content of Lattice 3.10 and whatever CA is doing
with their copy?  What legitimately can be classed as belonging to Lattice
C 3.10 and thus will be proclaimed as maintained by Lattice, and what can be
identified as "development tools" and is publicly proclaimed as maintained by
Commodore Amiga?  Please get your act together on this, LC & CA.  It *is*
possible; Manx has already (somehow) solved this problem! (True?)  If you can
assure me that you will solve it, then I will purchase the Lattice product.
If not, then I will respectfully thank you for the early efforts that made
the Amiga a reality, and continue to go my merry way with trying to get an
update out of Manx.
								Howard Hull
								!hao!hull