It's a kind of MagiC... Part 5!
By Domhnall Dods
In the very first issue of Atariphile you may recall that I raved about the joys of Multitasking which had at long last become a realistic option for Falcon owners with the arrival of MagiC 4. This had to be one of the most long awaited software releases on the Atari scene ever, a problem made even more frustrating for UK Atari users by the fact that the rest of Europe had been happily using MagiC for months before it finally hit the UK market.
Well I am pleased to say that with the release of MagiC 5 we are at long last keeping up with our neighbours on mainland Europe. No sooner had MagiC 5 been announced in the German Atari press than it was available right here in the UK. There had been very little in the way of pre launch publicity when version 5 was let loose on an unsuspecting public at the autumn '95 Atari shows.
The update from MagiC 4 to five comes on two floppy disks but without a manual. The reason for this is that System Solutions feel that there are insufficient new features to justify a new printed manual. For anyone already used to MagiC 4 all the necessary information has been included on a readme file on the disk. To be honest, they may well be right about this as the readme file does cover all of the new features well enough to get you up and running. If however you are upgrading from version 2 to version 5 then I am told that you will be provided with a printed manual.
As with previous versions installation is simply a matter of running the install programme... well that's the theory anyway. In practice I would suggests that you completely remove all traces of any previous version of MagiC before attempting installation. For reasons that still escape me, when I tried to install over the top of MagiC 4 things got very confusing indeed. Although the installation appeared to have gone according to plan, the reality was different. Config files had become hopelessly confused and the system behaved very erratically indeed. Having deleted everything and installed form a clean system everything went much more smoothly and MagiC 5 is now rock steady. As I say, I cannot explain why this happened, but it did. You have been warned, I would strongly recommend removing previous versions before attempting the upgrade.
So what exactly do we get with the latest version of what is fast becoming the new standard in Atari operating systems? Well you get all the features we have come to expect from MagiC, it still runs faster than standard TOS, it still multi tasks brilliantly....in fact at first glance it seems exactly the same. So what exactly is all the fuss about?
Those of you who have seen or (worse still) had the misfortune to use
PCs running under Windows 95 may well have come across a nifty little
feature cunningly entitled "long filenames". Rather than using the
standard "8+3" method of naming files as we have all been used to, the
latest development on the Intel machines is to allow you to give your
files names with up to 64 characters. Thus instead of naming your
file "magicrvw.htm" for example, you could call it "version one of the
magic 5 review". This may seem a trivial development for those of us
who have long since become accustomed to the somewhat cryptic names we
all give our files, but the difference it makes to organising your
hard drive is something you just won't want to be without once you've
tried it.
Put simply, MagiC 5 brings long filenames to your Atari. It does this using the VFAT file system which is set up using the snappily titled "vfatconf.prg". To start using long file names you need to tell MagiC which partitions you wish to have set up for long file names. This can be done on either a temporary or a permanent basis. As the name suggests, "temporary" lasts only until you shut down the computer, whereas "permanent" means that the new configuration will be saved to your MagiC config file. You do not have to reformat your drives to activate long file names so your existing data remains intact and can then be renamed in the new format.
The readme file however does contain a few words of warning on the subject and they do bear repeating here for anyone (like me) who is prone to skipping out things like manuals and readme files. DO NOT attempt to optimise any drive which has long file names activated. If you do, you risk losing all of your data. If you want to optimise the drive, deactivate the long file names first.
Unfortunately not all programmes will support long file names but that
doesn't prevent you using them because MagiC also creates a standard
"8+3" filename for each file so that non compliant programmes can
cope. Personally I was very disappointed to find that my favourite
desktop, Ease, once hailed as the perfect partner for MagiC, does not
support the new file names. Although they are activated Ease displays
my long names in their truncated form. Apparently support will be
introduced in Ease 5 which is due "real soon now". Nevertheless when
selecting a file they are shown in their full glory by Freedom. If you
use the built in Mag!XDesk or the shareware alternative Thing then
you should also have no problems.
That's all folks!
And that's about it. There are, I am assured, new features which will
be appreciated by programmers, but if like me you're just a user there
is nothing else that's new. No wonder System Solutions feel that a
single side of A4 covcers everything, to be fair I think they are
right.
Is it worth it? Well I've only had the new version installed for a few days now and already it has made a huge difference to my word processor files. I regularly produce a number of very similar looking documents and the ability to give them more descriptive file names has improved things no end. Already I would not want to be without long file names. If you were at the autumn Atari shows you could have picked up the upgrade for ten pounds, and I have to say this would be a fair price. However, the normal price is œ19.95. For a package that does nothing more than add long file names and doesn't even come with a printed manual I would think twice before paying nearly twenty pounds. The situation would be different if, for example, you regularly transfer files between your Atari and a Windows 95 machine using long file names, but if you're happy using MagiC 4 and the standard Atari file system you may wish to stick with it. If you're still suing standard TOS however what are you waiting for? Get out that wallet and join the multitasking world!
Contact: | System Solutions on 01753-832212 | ||||
E-Mail: | ssolutions@cix.compulink.co.uk | ||||
Price: | £69.95 | v2 to v5 upgrade: | £39.95 | v4 to v5 upgrade: | £19.95 |