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MegaDisc 06 (1988)(MegaDisc Digital Publishing)(AU)[m][WB].zip
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MegaDisc 06 (1988)(MegaDisc Digital Publishing)(AU)[m][WB].adf
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1.3Software
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1988-03-28
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54 lines
THE NEW IMMINENT 1.3 SYSTEM SOFTWARE
Commodore has just released Test versions of the new 1.3 software to
registered developers, and it promises to be quite an improvement over
1.2. For those who are new to the Amiga, a word of explanation may be
required - most computers have their fundamental operating system
software "burnt into" the innards, so that it just works invisibly in the
background to let you compute. When the Amiga was released this software
had been written in a few short months and was far from being a finished
product, so the decision was taken to provide it on disk until such time
as it was a final product. Hence early Amiga buyers received version 1.1
on their Kickstart disk which was upgraded before too long with version
1.2. This version found its way into the innards of the A500 and A2000 as
they now are, but still has quite a lot of room for improvement. Hence
1.3 which should be available to A1000 owners on disk and to other Amigas
on chip (one way or another). Some of the features of the new software
are (according to Commodore):
* users will be able to boot up from a hard disk or similar
expansion device with complete compatibility with 1.2
* greater speeds of hard disk access up to 7 times faster
* hard disk partition limits are raised to 2 Gigabytes (!)
* graphics printing up to 6 times faster
* Colour-correction will be possible (ie, the printed output is the
same colour as the screen)
* anti-aliasing for smoother graphics will be automatic
* the Maths library is faster and is configured for 68881 maths
co-processor chip
* text output to the screen is much faster
* there will be a Recoverable Ram disk (ie, whatever's in the Ram
disk will remain there until you turn the computer off)
* there will be new screen fonts as standard fonts (about time,
considering those weird gem fonts)
* by use of AUX: a second person will be able to use the Amiga,
thus bring multi-user capabilities to the multi-tasking Amiga
* there will be speech capabilities for most programs
* there will be numerous new commands for greater ease of use of
the Workbench.
Now while many of these capabilities have been around for a while,
such as the Recoverable Ram Disk, on the public domain (to use this
yourself, see VDK_RAMDISK in the PROGRAMS drawer), the new software
will be integrated and bugfree and easy to use. The decision to make
this software upgradable was a wise one and benefits us the users. If
Commodore had seen fit to release a copy to your dedicated reporter, you
might have got some harder information - next time perhaps.
Tim Strachan
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ END OF 1.3SOFTWARE ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~