AGA Toolkit '97/The AGA Toolkit '97.iso/applications/sid2/sid2.docs

Text File | 1996-09-07 | 11KB | 297 lines

                                 SID v2.00
                               Trial Version

                       The Ultimate Amiga Power Tool



                                  3/28/92




























                    © Copyright 1988-92 by Timm Martin
                       All Rights Reserved Worldwide


Distribution Rules
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The Trial Version of SID2 may be freely distributed with the following
restrictions:

  1) SID2 may not be distributed by PD libraries, bulletin board systems, or
     any other means within Europe until Amiga Computing has released SID2 on
     its magazine coverdisk.

  2) All of the files must be included in their original form without
     additions, deletions, or modifications of any kind.

  3) All copyright notices must remain intact.

  4) SID2 may not be sold commercially alone or as a component in
     another product.  This includes magazine coverdisks.

  5) SID2 may not appear on shareware or public domain disks for which
     the consumers are charged more than a nominal disk copying fee of
     seven dollars (US $7) per disk.

  6) SID2 may not appear on any electronic service which charges more
     than the basic access fee to download SID.

  7) SID2 may not appear on any electronic service that claims copyrights
     to uploaded programs, either alone or as part of a collection.

For variances to the above terms and conditions, please contact the author.
Please report violations of these rules to the author.


Legal Stuff
~~~~~~~~~~~

THE PROGRAM SID2, ALL SUPPORTING PROGRAMS, ON-LINE HELP FILES, AND RELATED
DOCUMENTATION ARE COPYRIGHTED © 1988-92 BY TIMM MARTIN.  ALL RIGHTS ARE
RESERVED WORLDWIDE.  NO PART OF THE SOFTWARE OR DOCUMENTATION MAY BE
REPRODUCED, TRANSMITTED, TRANSLATED INTO OTHER LANGUAGES, POSTED TO A
NETWORK, OR DISTRIBUTED IN ANY OTHER WAY WITHOUT THE PRIOR WRITTEN CONSENT OF
TIMM MARTIN, P.O. BOX 3205, CINCINNATI, OH 45201-3205, U.S.A.

THE SID2 SOFTWARE AND DOCUMENTATION IS PROVIDED "AS IS" WITHOUT WARRANTY OF
ANY KIND, EITHER EXPRESSED OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE
IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.
YOU ARE ADVISED TO TEST THE SOFTWARE THOROUGHLY BEFORE RELYING ON IT.  YOU
AGREE TO ACCEPT THE ENTIRE RISK AS TO THE QUALITY AND PERFORMANCE OF THE
SOFTWARE AND DOCUMENTATION.  IN NO EVENT WILL TIMM MARTIN BE LIABLE FOR
DIRECT, INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES RESULTING FROM ANY
DEFECT IN THE PROGRAM.

Timm Martin reserves the right to make improvements to the product and
documentation at any time and without notice.


Companies
~~~~~~~~~

Companies which wish to use SID2 for more than one employee should purchase a
separate license for each employee.  Enterprise licenses are available for
large companies.  Please contact the author for details.


User Groups
~~~~~~~~~~~

Because SID2 is now registered to each individual, User Group discounts are
no longer feasible.


A Programmer's Plea -- if you haven't registered
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

SID is shareware.  If you find this program useful, please send $25 to:

    Timm Martin
    P.O. Box 3205
    Cincinnati, OH 45201-3205
    U.S.A.

Please send payment in one of the following forms:

    U.S. cash (be careful!)
    U.S. check in U.S. dollars
    U.S. money order in U.S. dollars
    U.S. Postal money order
    Canadian Postal money order in U.S. dollars

In return for your contribution of $25 or more, you will receive a diskette
containing the most recent version of SID, its support programs, on-line help
files and complete documentation.  You will also gain free access to the SID
Electronic Bulletin Board where you may ask questions, leave comments and
download minor upgrades for free.  A separate registration form is included
with this file, or you can print a registration form from within SID.

Please promote the shareware system by making a contribution to the authors
of the shareware products you commonly use.  There are many advantages to
the shareware system:

    You can receive quality programs at a decent price.  Had this been a
    commercial program, you could expect to pay at least $49.95.

    You can thoroughly examine a shareware program before reimbursing the
    author.  Once you've purchased a commercial program, however, you're
    stuck with it.

    You promote the creation of a number of exciting and diverse programs
    that would otherwise not reach the public if commercial marketing was the
    only alternative.

To encourage shareware contributions (rumor has it that only one in every two
hundred SID v1.06 users sent in a contribution), I've released a Trial
version which is fully functional and doesn't have any annoying "guilt"
screens, but will not save user preferences.  Thus, people can enjoy all of
SID's features, but if they want to use it on a long-term basis, they're more
likely to become a registered user.

To discourage software piracy, the full name and address of each registered
user will be encoded in their own personalized version of SID2-Professional.
To see this, select "Registration" from the "Program" menu.


Special Thanks
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

There are a number of people I would like to thank for helping me make SID2 a
reality:

    Vicki Wilson
        ...for catching me up on all my administrative duties, for sifting
        through the piles of mail, and for filtering me from some of my more
        abusive "fans."  Thanks for having the patience and faith in me that
        others seemed to lose.

    Jeff Hoag
        ...for helping me through the "Dark Ages," for reminding me that bad
        news is better than no news at all, and for sharing the fun trips to
        Australia.

    Mary Beth Benkin
        ...for nursing me through my last illness.  I would have never made
        it through October without you.

    Tim Perez
        ...for getting me addicted to "The Simpsons," for teaching me the
        finer points of racquetball, and for being the primary reason that
        SID is so late!  ;)

    ~~~~~~~~~~~

    Queensrÿche
        ...for keeping the metal sharp enough to carry me through those long
        programming sessions.

    The Procter & Gamble Company
        ...for actually paying me to play with technology.  Man, what a job!

    ~~~~~~~~~~~

    ...and my beta testers; Richard Stanton for the wonderful submarine ride;
    Ray Lambert Jr. for some expert programming advice; Mike Monaco for the
    pattern-matching routines and assembler assistance; Ron Sudweeks, Gustav
    Mussmann, Wolfgang Strobl, and Ray Burt-Frost for contributions over and
    above the call of duty; Scott Fry, Vernon Marcum, and Dick Raymond for
    not losing the faith; and all of you who bothered to send me a shareware
    contribution and have been defending me on the electronic boards.

    Thank you!


A (Somewhat) Brief History
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

SID began in October 1988 when a friend of mine wanted me to collect some
public domain software for a friend of his who just purchased an Amiga.
Specifically, he wanted some type of program that would make file
manipulation easier.  As a die-hard hacker, I had always used the CLI and had
never even seen a directory utility before, but in my search for this
collection of PD software, I came across DirUtilIII.  Now this was a very
ambitious program for the Amiga in its infancy, but after using it for five
minutes, the arrogant programmer in me told me that I could do better.

My best friend Jeff Hoag was also using this program to maintain files on his
BBS, so when he heard of my interest in writing a new DU, he immediately
handed me a wish list.  The most important things were an improved user
interface and no limits (he had thousands of files in each directory, but
DUIII could only handle 300 at a time).

I released SID v0.49 in early 1989 to Jeff and some friends in the local user
group.  The general consensus was that SID had great potential but could
use some improvement.  So I gathered suggestions and rewrote SID from
scratch.  It took me hundreds of hours, but I released SID v1.03 locally
as shareware in the summer of '89 and used it for my senior project in
college.  After a few more revisions, I released SID v1.06 to the world in
December 1989.

What was the beginning of a wonderful period in my programming life was also
the beginning of a disastrous part of my personal life, affectionately known
as "The Dark Ages."  I moved in early 1990, and in the hustle and bustle lost
most of the source code to SID v1.06.  (This is when I began a system of
seven rotating backups including two offsite).

Unfortunately, as certain deficiencies were uncovered in 1.06, I was helpless
to fix them.  These included the "SeparateDirs" bug that blackened screens, a
cryptic config file, problems with Kickstart v2.0, and only a single
configurable button.  In the spring of 1990 I decided to write a completely
configurable SID with interactive editing--the way it was meant to be on the
Amiga.  After three months of design, I started writing SID that summer.

For the next year I spent over a thousand hours writing SID before compiling
a single byte of code!  I was receiving enough shareware fees to keep up my
interest in SID2, but unfortunately not enough to forsake my day job and
program full-time for the Amiga--a dream I've always had.  Thus, while
spending nights on SID, I spent days working and finishing my last year in
college.

Spring 1991 was a particularily enjoyable time in my life.  I graduated from
the "seven-year plan" with honors, I accepted a job at Procter & Gamble in
Cincinnati, and I released a beta version of SID2.  I fully expected to have
SID ready for general release in the summer, but look out!  My new job and
life consumed most of my free time, and suddenly SID fell behind.

Then in October I contracted a mysterious virus (my second in three months)
that landed me in the hospital.  I spent the entire month of October in bed,
then the entire month of November in bed as soon as I got home from work.  I
became especially frustrated when a commercial developer released a directory
utility that looked strikingly similar to SID2-beta, so much so that some
people wondered if this was the commercial version of SID2.  (I guess that's
the ultimate form of flattery).

History, cont'd
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I began to doubt if there was still a future and interest in SID2.  But
having invested so much time and effort, I decided to keep on plugging.  From
December through February I averaged just over five hours programming seven
days a week--on top of the 9-11 hours per day at P&G.  The result, after 2300
hours