This article is by Alan Reeve (formally of Reevesoft) about the differences between GOS and GOE. It was taken from the newsnet, transferred using UTIL on an IBM PC, and tidied by Dean Garraghty.¢-----------------------------------¢¢It's interesting to see that people are still talking about Diamond GOS and GOE. Business is dead in that market for me so it was a surprise getting two EMail messages on the subject when I checked in yesterday. To differentiate between the two and maybe a brief history of GOS type items for the 8-bit here goes:¢¢Zobian Controls had their RAT product and promised a Graphic Interface which turned out to be a basic GOS like DOS shell. Their product never did much.¢¢David sullivan released a text mode program called G.O.S. which was also a DOS shell.¢¢We (REEVEsoft) annouced Diamond and later head that David Sullivan was working on a new, better G.O.S. called GOE which would be marketed by Merrill Ward. Later then got in touch with us and basically all I can say there is things didn't work out. Long sad story.¢¢Anyways, G.O.E. was a very pretty program and Mr. Sullivan filled the airwaves with claims. G.O.E. was never produced so now I kind of chuckel when I read about how inferior Diamond was. It's like saying a blueprint is better than something that works.¢¢Re: Diamond only uses 1/3 of the cart and Diamond doesn't use 320 by 192 mode and how it's full of bugs (although of course no specifics, huh?), that's misinformation. A lot of misinformation was spread at the time. It leaves me with a pretty bad taste in my mouth as far as the Atari market, but overall I love the 8-bit and learning how to program it was very educational.¢ A. Reeve¢¢P.S. Anyways, we're sold out of Diamond carts and getting more would be rough. We've been in contact with some people about taking over the project with no success. We still offer support as best as we can, but aside from that we're no longer involved in any significant 8-bit development. That's the current state of things.¢¢
