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E/D 1.99j and E/L 1.99j are out



Hi folks,

We finally got 1.99j (1.99i was not made available to the general
public) out.  As far as I know, it's much better in all ways but one
than anything else that we've put out so far.  The one exception is
that the DOS version currently will not allow you to run code that
uses SANE (i.e. floating point system calls) on a PC without an FPU.
The file "emu387" is still there, but with the new DOS extender
technology we're using, it's not being used.  This will change by the
time 2.0 comes out.

In addition to 1.99j being more stable, we have added the serial
number, authorization code that I mentioned before.  The user
interface is a bit rough, but we really needed to get 1.99j out there
ASAP, since 1.99h was in many ways the worst experimental version
we've released to date.

So far, we haven't handed out any serial numbers or authorization
keys.  We'll begin doing that tomorrow (Tuesday), when we'll e-mail
information to every Executor/DOS user who put down an e-mail address
on his/her registration card and sent that to us.  At the same time,
we'll be sending serial number/key pairs to all our paid
Executor/Linux customers -- there was no registration card to fill
out; we have your e-mail addresses.

After we do the e-mail mass mailing, we'll do a U.S. mail mailing to
everyone who sent in a registration card but who did not provide us
with an electronic mail address.  If you purchased Executor/DOS, but
did not yet send in your registration card, please do so now.

New orders will automatically be sent with serial numbers and
authorization keys.

I realize that it's a bit ackward to be assigning these numbers after
so many of you have already purchased the product, but in the long
run, such numbers and codes will make it easier for everyone.  Please
don't phone us about these numbers until Thursday, at the earliest.
We had to redo some of our customer database and we still have a
little work to do on that end.

NEXTSTEP users:  within an experimental release or two, we'll start
building Executor/NEXTSTEP experimental versions again.  In some ways
you've been lucky to be spared the ups and downs of 1.99c,d,e,...,h.
That's the good news.  The bad news is we've had very little response
from NeXT in our request to have them give us the documentation needed
to make our color version fast.  We're hoping that after they see a
new version that does everything the other ports do, but isn't as fast
as it can be that they'll give us the time of day.

We believe that 1.99j is fairly stable.  As such, 1.99k won't be out
until we have integrated our new file browser and fixed the filesystem
bugs that remain that show up in the file browser.  After that, we'll
add System 7 spoofing, and as always, we're doing tons of bug fixing
as we add features.

We're sufficiently happy with the 1.99j release that we're putting the
Linux version on sunsite and the DOS version on SimTel.  It will be a
little while before they appear there.

ftp.ardi.com and www.ardi.com will be on-line soon, but they will
initially be (until we get Executor sales ramped up) fairly slow and
we may have to limit access to mirror sites.

	--Cliff
	ctm@ardi.com