Release Notes for OMEn Version 2.46, June 3rd, 1994 (C) 1994 Esquimalt Digital Logic Inc. Message from the president Welcome to the first release of the Open Multitasking Environ- ment, OMEn. It runs on Atari series computers. We plan on OMEn becoming a major operating platform, and you are among the first to view it. Future releases for Mac, Amiga, and PC (with 680x0 OMEn processor card) will run the same OMEn software as the Atari does. The accompanying feature sheets ("OMEn Key Features" file) outline the major unique features that make OMEn a really special system, and there are plenty of lesser innovations you will discover as you explore the system and its software. OMEn is the first operating system to really integrate software at the system level. It is a "Componentware" environment where smaller software applications can specialize in doing one thing well instead of having to do a number of things in one package. Although OMEn is not yet perfected in this version, it will improve over time. OMEn is the only system that makes bugs less damaging: control of the computer and work in progress is seldom lost if a program bombs. The OMEn system uses less memory than any other. It was written in compact, fast, assembly language. It loads faster, will run off a floppy, and leaves more space for programs and data. It will eventually run on many types of computers, and even on certain game machines and embedded controllers where a bulky system wouldn't fit. We hope you will find OMEn to your liking and confidently expect there will be many third party software houses writing or porting interesting and useful OMEn software for entertainment, business, music, industrial/home control & security, data acquisition, multi-media, graphics and more. Sincerely yours, Craig Carmichael, Pres. Esquimalt Digital. BBS (Archived) Version The notes below refer to file names which are longer than 8 characters (up to 14) and may be in upper and lower case, using OMEn's DOS/GEM upward compatible filing system. However, when disk files are archived (or copied) using GEM/TOS/DOS software, the filenames shown are chopped off to 8 characters and made into upper case, so the names don't quite match these notes. The fourth character of the file extension and the version number are likewise lost. When many of the files are opened, there will immediately be a 'u' next to them, indicating they should be 'updated', and the complete (up to 47 character) OMEn file name will appear. The 'u' may be ignored. When files are updated, the 14 character file name is restored in the directory. For files where the file's header wasn't saved with the file, the 8 character name remains and there is no 'u'. There was also an unknown problem in archiveing the "Text Ed" binder containing the Text Ed program and its directory icons: Text Ed wouldn't run after expansion and the file sizes were wrong. The binder had to be dropped, and Text Ed placed as a program file in the "Software" folder. Getting Started Startup Like any Atari program, OMEn is started by double clicking on the OMEN246D.PRG icon or name in a GEM directory window. If you boot off a hard drive, then either "Fonts" and "Settings" folders must be on Drive C, or a floppy disk must be in Drive A. Otherwise the system crashes while booting up. OMEn checks drive C first for these folders, then if it doesn't find them (or doesn't find a Drive C), it searches on drive A. On a Falcon, you must boot from an ST compatible video mode. The mode can then be changed as desired from the Atari Big Screen video manager in the System folder. (This was just discovered as we normally boot our Falcon in ST-Medium for other reasons.) Note: GEM/TOS on the Falcon seems to have trouble opening folders/files with lower case in their names. ST and TT have no such problem, and there is no problem on any machine while running OMEn. Finding Disk Software The file management system is not complicated, but it does need a bit of introduction. First, click means just one click: there is no double clicking with OMEn. Second, you have to be very careful not to move the mouse while clicking. If the mouse moves, the system generates "dragging" messages instead of "clicking" messages, and what you expected won't happen. (We hope to improve this in the future.) Finding the disks and programs on the disks: * Click on DIRs at the top of the main window. This opens a directory window. The window starts up looking at the Memory folder, which is the root directory for the whole system. * Click on Disk Drives. This is the root folder for all the GEM/DOS drives and disks in the system. A list of available drives is shown as folders. Drives don't have icons on the desktop. * Click on the drive with the OMEn software. It opens to show the files and folders on the drive. Programs that you can run are shown with a "running animal" icon. * Click on a program to start it up. Getting out of a folder. To exit a folder to its parent folder, simply click on the name of the current folder, which is just above the list of files (on the second line of the directory window). On a colour screen, this name is on a blue background. To exit out from several levels of folders at once, click on the name at the very top of the directory window. If you are anywhere on a drive, it will exit to the Disk Drives folder showing the list of drives. If you are already in that folder, it will exit to the Memory folder. Since the Memory folder is the root folder, there is no way to exit outwards from it and clicking on this name will have no effect. The other folder shown in the Memory directory when you boot-up OMEn (besides Disk Drives) is System. It contains software which is always placed there when OMEn starts up. Copying Files Files in the Memory folder are not saved on a disk; they will disappear when you exit from OMEn or turn off the computer. This applies as well to any new files copied into the System folder, which is also in memory. To copy a file: * Two directory windows are required. If only one is open, click again on DIRs to open a second one. * Get to the folder where you want to copy the file to in the second directory window. (You have to be viewing inside that folder, seeing its files.) * Drag the file from the first directory window to the second one. It will be copied. Copying Between Floppies; Changing Floppy disks To copy files between disks with just one floppy drive: * Copy the files into the Memory folder from the first disk. * Swap disks. When you swap floppies, exit from Drive A in the directory window (back to Disk Drives, see above) and then re-enter Drive A to open (read-in) the new disk. * Copy the files from Memory back to the new disk. * Delete the files from memory if they aren't to be used. To select several files, click on each one with the RIGHT mouse button. If a disk has a "volume label" (a name), this name will be shown instead of "Drive A" after the disk is opened. OMEn handles any Atari or MS-DOS disk format properly, including 5-1/4" disks. If you are using a 5-1/4" external drive, you should run Atari Disk Drives I/O port in the System folder (click on it like a program) and set the "Floppy Seek Speed" to 6 or 12 milli- seconds instead of 3 milliseconds, which is too fast for most 5-1/4" drives. Starting Text Ed Program to Read/Edit the TEXT Files * Locate Text Ed in the Software folder on the disk. * Click on it to start it running. * Locate the document to be opened. * Drag the document from the directory window to the File button in the Text Ed window. Text Ed will read it off the disk and open it. Note: The Text Ed you see in the Software folder is a binder directory called "Text Ed". It contains the Text Ed program and three different sizes of icons also called Text Ed for different screen resolutions. A binder is similar to a folder except that it doesn't open to show the files. Instead, it works as if the entire binder with all its files was one file. (To open it like a folder, rename it so that the name of the binder is different than the name of the program or change its extension from ".BIND" to ".FOLD" with the "FileInfo" program.) Ordering The demo contains all the features that the licenced version currently contains. The licenced version will be upgraded for free in the coming months with many more features, and the upgrades will be automatically shipped for free to licenced users. We are pleased to have users run the demo, experiment with it, create and print text and colour pictures, and play sounds. However, if you find you are using OMEn productively you are expected to support the product by ordering the licenced version. OMEn can only become a major system with user supported funding to speed up further development and improve system quality. We hope to sign up distributors and dealers in various regions in the coming weeks, and, of course, OMEn can be ordered directly from Esquimalt Digital (604-384-0499, fax 604-384-0575). Details are under "Licencing OMEn" under the "Help" menu while OMEn is running. Macintosh, Amiga, PC All the features put into OMEN-Atari which are not specific to the Atari are automatically included in the versions for other computers without extra work. Thus, the porting of OMEn to other types of 680x0 based computers is relatively simple, at least in principle. The Macintosh version isn't ready to release, and it doesn't run on all versions of the Macintosh, especially among the newest models. It does, however, run the same OMEn software as the Atari off a 720K format DOS or GEM disk (except for original Macs, Mac+, and some SE's that won't read DOS/GEM type disks at all). For software developers who want to see this with their own eyes, we'll slip you a pre-release Mac copy. With OMEn-Atari release priorities aside, work will soon resume on the Macintosh version. An independent contractor is porting OMEn to the Commodore Amiga. (alas, a bit too late for Commodore, it seems!) Unfortunately, this isn't running just yet, although some of the routines are reported to be functional. Best guess of a time line is another two to four months for the Amiga version, especially depending on the contractor and on porting of the display manager. Amiga display techniques will be very close to the Atari's, which will simplify matters. The 68331 circuit card for OMEn-PC has been fabricated and populated but is not yet tested. With all the other work to do, it won't be running OMEn for a while unless a potential agreement is concluded with a local PC software development company to speed up development. The version number: 2.46 This is the 246th version of the original OMEn source code, which was begun on March 7th, 1990. It was decided to retain the original version numbers in the releases to avoid any chance of future confusion. The Late OMEn System Once expected to debut in 1993, OMEn would have been a very premature product at that time. Originally scheduled to ship in March 1994, OMEn was delayed until April and then until May. Now it is early June. Sigh! But if the improvements and added features made in April were seen, everyone would know that the extra month was well worth the wait. And May's documentation and extra attention to system details were also necessary. (Where would you be without release notes?) The "upward compatible colour palettes" were a late May innovation. The delay of the system has also caused the delay of the OMEn Herald newsletter. It was intended to ship the demo and the newsletter in the same package to reduce labour and shipping costs. The newsletter has thus been put off for two extra months along with the system. It should be out sometime in June. Bugs Regrettably, neither the operating system itself nor the software supplied is totally bug free. The OMEn system does take much of the frustration out of bugs that stop software by seldom crashing or losing your work when an application does bomb. Even the user interface can usually crash without causing problems! A monitor re-starts the user interface if it quits, without affecting other software which may be running. This is, however, not foolproof. If an application passes bad values to the system or to an I/O manager, the system or manager can crash during the call with, say, the screen locked or the Atari's BIOS/XBIOS locked, hanging the system. And being a multitasking system where applications share files with each other and with the system, OMEn is also very sensitive to applications accidentally writing to memory they haven't allocated to themselves. Program Bombs and Disk Integrity A detail affected by the above memory sensitivity is that the directories and file allocation tables for disk drives are cached in memory. It is planned later to use CRC checks to verify that vital disk information is intact, but currently this is not done. It is therefore recommended that if there is any reasonable chance that a crashed program may have trashed memory (which might be indicated by file names being messed up, the display trashed or other suspicious signs) then don't save to your hard drive. Remove the current floppy disk, put in another and save your unsaved work to that. Then quit and re-start OMEn. Opening a new floppy disk ensures that new disk information is read off of the disk, replacing the potentially bad data in memory. This is an unlikely situation. We have very rarely re-booted the system after a program crash and the hard drives are all still fine -- and while developing software, there are lots of program crashes. But it's a possibility that needs to be mentioned. Display Bugs The most obvious annoyance is the mouse wrapping around from the right side of the screen to the left. This will be eliminated in an upcoming free release. Real bugs include little bits of window or mouse left over after a graphical operation, spare cursors in Text Ed and other such problems. These are known and are being tracked down, on occasion, one at a time (one you won't see was cured yesterday). As a multi- tasking graphical system, OMEn displays need careful programming attention. Moving the mouse, opening, closing and moving windows or bringing them to the front or back all cause complex display interactions between concurrently running programs. The translation of logical to pixel co-ordinates that helps make OMEn device independent is also causing trouble on occasion. Enough excuses... we take heart that some Macintosh software also occasionally leaves bits of mouse behind, or blank areas that aren't redrawn. Software Development Package The OMEn software development package will be out in two or three weeks unless there are unexpected delays. The software is ready, but the documentation needs further revision if it is to be helpful instead of misleading.