Tech Notes

[Richard Buck]

logan at netxcom.netx.com (Jim Logan) writes:

> 
> I'm an owner and I don't get the Tech Notes.  Why?  What do I
> have to do to get them?!  Without proper documentation I NEED
> them!  Please respond!  (Please, oh please, oh please!)  

Buyers do not automatically receive Tech Notes, because we in engineering
don't know who the buyers are.  Dealers sell boxes; it's up to them, or the
buyers, to decide if they want Tech Notes.  We don't to spent our money -
thereby jeopardizing the continued life of Tech Notes - sending copies to
people who don't need or want them.  To make it easier for people to request
Tech Notes, the last few builds have packed a recent copy of Tech Notes
in the box, so buyers can read an issue and see the address to request future
issues.  You presumably got a box from one of the first two builds, which
did not include any reference to Tech Notes.


> 
> *** FLAME ON!
> Commodore:
> I really wish you would provide a manual that allows me to use
> the Commodore enhancements, rather than wasting my money by
> making me pay for baby books about how to use "vi"!  


Sorry.  You don't agree with our marketing people; I listen to them first.
Many of our buyers are moving UP to UNIX, and the Amiga was positioned as
an easy-to-use desktop UNIX workstation.  With new releases and ongoing
development activity, we're trying to make this the most convenient UNIX
box out there.  

Our documentation is aimed at those people, because they're
the people who cannot make any sense out of the traditional UNIX docs or
man pages.  They need us more than you do.  Advanced developers can use
the UNIX Press books, available at any store; novice users and budget-sensitive
buyers should not subsidize the minority that want, for example, the 
Device Driver Interface/Driver Kernel Interface Reference Manual.

We have noticed that many people want to network at a level higher than is
covered in our basic books, and the UNIX Press networking books are hard
to use.  We are therefore about to complete a pretty advanced network and
administration guide.

Still, we won't have the kind of specialized documentation you want; the
audience is too small.  Note that direct, priority support for UNIX
developers is available through CATS; they may have information on special
development issues for Amiga UNIX.  We added Tech Notes, on the side, to
address specific problems that basic users don't care about.  Finally,
every Amiga UNIX enhancement and driver is documented in our man pages.

We truly believe that we've answered each audience appropriately - for
the desktop market.  


> I have spent
> a lot of time figuring out things that used to be a man-page away.


All our stuff is still a man-page away.  We just don't print the man pages
and pack volumes of dead trees with each box.  We spent a lot of time - A
LOT OF TIME - cleaning up and correcting man pages, both for 1.1 and then
again between 1.1 and 2.0, plus we added a pretty good interface to the
man command.  Our core distribution includes these man pages, because we
believe that UNIX is not UNIX without the man pages.  I hate sitting down
at a disabled machine that has lots of free space but no man pages, and I'm
not any happier if the printed pages are on a shelf in the next room.  man 
pages belong online, and programmers who use them a lot should buy printed 
copies.  Our complete compressed man pages take less than 7 MB.


> Like, where did "fmtflop" go?  It took me quite a while to
> figure out that there is a special device I have to write to!  I
> wasted my time looking for a command to do it!  


Our floppy format command is documented in the
"baby books".  You wasted your time looking for a command whose name you
did not know, instead of checking the index of the manual.

To avoid this problem in the future, the 2.0 release includes a new 
interactive format command, linked so people can find it with either 
"format" or "fmtflop".  The old fdfmt is still there as well.  We aims
to please.


> *** Flame off.

--
		Richard Buck, (215) 344-3019, buck at amix.commodore.com  (5/91)