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Amiga News and Community Announcements => Amiga News and Community Announcements => Amiga Hardware News => Topic started by: Schoenfeld on July 18, 2004, 06:59:52 PM
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During the first months of this year, we were totally surprised by the overwhelming demand for Catweasel MK3. All stock has been sold, and even our retail partners do not have anything left in stock. The demand was so high that one controller even went for more than 150,- EUR on eBay!
Unfortunately, it turned out that a new production run of the existing MK3-design cannot be done for reasonable prices, so a re-design became necessary. The new controller is now in the first stage before mass production, so we're confident to be able to show the first controllers at the Amiwest (http://http//www.sacc.org/amiwest/) show on july 24th and 25th in Sacramento, Califoria.
Many improvements have been made compared to the Catweasel MK3 that can be summarized under the headline "bigger, better, faster".
Read all about the new controller on the individual Computers website (http://ami.ga/jumpnews99_e.htm).
Should that server be down due to regular maintenance this weekend, please use this alternative link (http://siliconsonic.de/jumpnews_e.htm).
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Cool cool cool.
I've been tempted by one of these babies for a while.
The size and the price are *very* agreeable
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But unfortunately the software support probably won't be so agreeable (at least it wasn't with the CW3), and Jens doesn't make it any better by alienating platform users over petty personal squabbles.
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Well, this is what the homepage says:
The Catweasel MK4 is delivered with drivers for Linux, Windows 98(se)/ME/XP/2000, Amiga OS4, and for Mac OS X at a later date. MorphOS drivers are available for a surcharge.
Looks like most platforms are supported...
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Well, this is what the homepage says:
Quote:
The Catweasel MK4 is delivered with drivers for Linux, Windows 98(se)/ME/XP/2000, Amiga OS4, and for Mac OS X at a later date. MorphOS drivers are available for a surcharge.
Looks like most platforms are supported...
I think what Kenny was getting at was the fact that for all platforms (supported or planned for support) EXCEPT MorphOS get their drivers for free (Yes I know its the developers perogative) and it probably does little to help an already fragmented community
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The game controllers of the Amiga CD32 can now also be used on the Catweasel
Excellent! :-)
I too have been tempted by one of these for a while, and after looking at the full spec of the MK4, I'll DEFINITELY be getting one now!
Steve.
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Can't wait until I can stock these! I get requests for MK3/4 almost daily, excelent product!
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Amidog wrote:
Looks like most platforms are supported...
Classic Amiga and Amithlon are not, if you notice. Also MorphOS users have to pay extra for drivers, probably because of an argument Jens had with Genesi over renting a room years ago that should have been a complete non-issue for any mature person.
One OpenPCI version of the driver would cover MOS, Amithlon and Amiga Classic PCI all in one go, and probably OS4 later too. I can't see why Jens doesn't go this route.
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Well, Jens' hardware is usually documented, so you can write your own driver if you so wish.
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After being attacked @ ANN, Jens posted:
"To be honest, I already regret having offered MorphOS drivers. I better leave everything up to the MorphOS developer pool, and not have to deal with persons who lack basic communication skills. It might cost me a few sales, but the gain is infinitely more valuable: I'm free of people demanding stuff from me.
You want drivers? Make your own. The Catweasel MK4 is not designed for MorphOS or the Pegasos. Any support is experimental."
It seems that Genesi (including DCE facilities) is all they need...
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Yeah, far be it for anyone to support their own hardware. We shouldn't ask too much of Jens. The poor baby.
Perhaps Jens would like to explain to us why anyone would want to buy his hardware when we have to supply our own drivers? Or when his actions are obviously so petty?
Maybe next week one of Hyperion will look at him the wrong way and suddently CW4 'won't be designed for OS4/A1 any more'. You never know.
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We shouldn't ask too much of Jens. The poor baby.
Come now Kenny, is that really called for? Who knows what went on between Jens and the Genesi, but if he doesn't want to develop MOS drivers that's his choice. People don't get furious when Nvidia doesn't make MOS (or AOS4) drivers, because it's expected. The vast majority of MK4 sales will be to Windows users, that's the brutal truth.
I have nothing against either company, I am a resller for one and customer of the other. I'd like them to get along and for their to be world peace, but neither seem likely to happen any time soon;-)
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Is it called for? Well, sort of. You see this has really pissed many people off, and there are loud murmurings of MOS-based developers doing the same with their software - allowing everyone to use their stuff for free, and charging OS4 users. If there was a way to divide the community further, stunts like this are great. Jens isn't supporting MOS because it's impractical, he's doing it out of pretty obvious spite - he could support multiple platforms just by using OpenPCI! I'm sorry I ever bought my CW3 from him now.
And he's talked himself out of better support for the CW4 SIDs from the MOS side - if you remember itix was the first to support CW3 for Frodo, and left the open source for anyone else to do the same. Needless to say he can't do this again for CW4 if its 'not designed for' the machine he uses.
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Aside from the usual politics squable, I'd like to say w000000000000000000000000000t.
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and there are loud murmurings of MOS-based developers doing the same with their software
Been there, seen that, old news. Many MOS developers openly refuse to do Amiga versions. That's fine and all, can't really argue people should do something they don't want to.
Don't get me wrong! As both a Pegasos owner AND a reseller I'd love for their to be free native MOS support, but it is what it is. No sense of pointing the finger of blame directly at Jens when there is more than one party involved. Maybe Jens doesn't want to make drivers under OpenPCI, again his choice.
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The Catweasel MK4 is delivered with drivers for Linux, Windows 98(se)/ME/XP/2000, Amiga OS4, and for Mac OS X at a later date. MorphOS drivers are available for a surcharge.
I can't believe I'm reading this. This is blatent penalising of a single platform... and by offering even Windows drivers free of charge is clearly just rubbing in the salt... and now trying to hide behind any justifications just makes him look ridiculous.
This is very childish behaviour, and it won't have any good effects. We'll see developers who primary platform is MOS retalliate with similar measures. It's not good for anyone.
"To be honest, I already regret having offered MorphOS drivers. I better leave everything up to the MorphOS developer pool, and not have to deal with persons who lack basic communication skills. It might cost me a few sales,...
And it gets even more childish!! Not only is he charging MOS users extra, he's also insulting them!!! But they're still good enough to take extra money off, right Jens?
I'd say this'll cost you more than a few sales: There are far more Pegasos machines out there than AmigaOnes, you've probably just wiped out 70% of your market.
...but the gain is infinitely more valuable: I'm free of people demanding stuff from me.
You're free of people asking for a bit of fairness and equality?
Punishing users for a private disagreement with someone from a company seems a bit extreme.
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This is NOT flame... This is NOT flame... Although it is OT.
@KennyR
I would REALLY like to see AmiNetRadio for OS4. Currently I can only get v2.5 working. Works great too. I'd like to see the new ones though. Some of those GUIs look crackin!
IIRC they complain about not being able to find a GUI although they are there.
FuZion.
I'll most likely be investing in a Catweasel too. Nice stuff.
FuZion again.
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Fuzion wrote:
I would REALLY like to see AmiNetRadio for OS4. Currently I can only get v2.5 working. Works great too. I'd like to see the new ones though. Some of those GUIs look crackin!
IIRC they complain about not being able to find a GUI although they are there.
This is a problem in OS4, in one of the pattern parsing functions. It's already worked around and will be fixed for the next release. *
Well...that's if Jens Schöfeld's recent actions haven't pissed off Gelb too much, that is.
You won't be able to use transparency though, not unless P96 emulates CGX5 transparency calls...
(* - It would be even nicer if you could convince Hyperion to fix the problem routine, though.)
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I agree with Jens. If you want MorphOS drivers, write them yourself. Like Redrumloa said, the card's primary target is Windows. As far as I know, it's just Jens doing the hardware and a friend doing the software. We're not talking about ATI, nVidia, or Creative here. In my experience, Jens has been nothing but helpful, open, and honest about his products. That's pretty rare in the Amiga community.
Trev
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Jens sure knows his hardware!(http://web.amigarulez.com/logo.asp)
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@KimmoK
You want drivers? Make your own. The Catweasel MK4 is not designed for MorphOS or the Pegasos. Any support is experimental."
Very nice. I am still learning C++ but I'd love to have a BeOS version for x86 PCs. :-)
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@fuzion
I would REALLY like to see AmiNetRadio for OS4. Currently I can only get v2.5 working.
It is a bug in OS4 dos.library. One of functions gives wrong return code.
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I agree with Jens. If you want MorphOS drivers, write them yourself.
It looks like classic Amiga is not supported either. Only AmigaOne and BPPC/CSPPC with OS4 supported bus board.
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It looks like classic Amiga is not supported either. Only AmigaOne and BPPC/CSPPC with OS4 supported bus board.
A not-so-OpenPCI driver would be a good project for anyone with the motivation to write one. Hopefully, Jens will continue his tradition of publishing low-level hardware information. If the Linux driver isn't open source, I doubt it will be long before some kernel hacker writes one that is.
Trev
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On one hand, I'm happy Jens is able to continue to bring new and improved products to market. On the other hand, this one kind of ticks me off, as it means my MK3 is obsolete before really becoming as useful as advertised......
Improvements to the SID audio part
DC-DC converter eliminates noise
On the Catweasel MK3, it was possible that noises from 3D-graphics cards or high-speed harddrives were coupled into the 12V-power supply of the SID audio part. This cannot happen any more on the Catweasel MK4, because a DC-DC converter is an insuperable obstacle for such noises.
I really wish my Catweasel MK3 had been designed this way. :-( The SID function is probably the coolest thing about the card, but the background buzz, pop, click was annoying enough I ended up pulling the card from my main workstation and putting it in an older machine, and only use the floppy functions to save old disks.
The Atari style joyports are another feature that would have been cool too. But with no hardware counter, using things like an Amiga mouse becomes poling intensive. And then to rub a little salt in the wound, there are no Windows HID device drivers for the joyports. And to rub some more, none of the C64 emulators seem to use them directly, either. So basically, the card has two DB-9 decorations on it. They tempt me to plug things into them, yet they don't actually work in anything.
Driver scarcity always hampered the CW-MK3, and now things look even worse, as an incompatible MK4 is readied, and a MorphOS feud breaks out. :pissed:
Don't get me wrong. I don't regret buying my Catweasel. It's a great card at controlling floppy drives. It's ability to read and write practically any possible disk format has seriously come in handy several times... (And I'm thinking of a project to use it on again...)
But I was just hoping that the "fun" features support would slowly fill in. Unfortunatly, it doesn't look like that is going to happen.
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Yeah, far be it for anyone to support their own hardware. We shouldn't ask too much of Jens. The poor baby.
I thought it was bad enough that people behaved like you on ANN... Let's have a look at the facts:
1. Jens says there's not enough sales to justify the time, effort and cost to support MOS.
2. Plenty of MOS users attack him (at AmiGBG for example, I was there, I saw it).
3. Jens is (despite all the attacks) kind enough to say, "Ok, I'll buy the hardware and make drivers available, but you'll have to pay a small fee to cover my costs.".
4. Rather than being thankful, plenty of MOS users attack him for NO reason at all.
5. He gives up.
I can't blame him, I would've done the same.
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And all this silly political {bleep}ing and biting and bellowing for the support of an obsolete medium... That is the real surprise here.
Edit: since when am I not allowed to use the word b-i-t-c-h any longer? Surely it's not that offensive a word?
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I also find the comment
If you have a Mediator, you're under-privileged ;-)
very childish, but Elbox sure has earned that (But users of their hardware not)
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Guys?
It's Jens' product, and he can do what he wants with it. If there were enough sales possible out of the MorphOS community, I'm sure he'd reconsider. In fact, he didn't say he wouldn't write them, he just has to buy Pegasos hardware in order to write the drivers, and has to recoup the costs of doing so. It's simple economics and the fact that you want to whine and {bleep} because he doesn't support your chosen platform is irrelevant as well as extremely childish. You want him to write drivers for MorphOS, help him buy a Pegasos. It's that simple.
In my many meetings with Jens, I have always found him to be incredibly professional, incredibly helpful, friendly, and incredibly talented. The personal attacks on him for his professional choices of which platform to support are completely unwarranted, and totally unacceptable.
I know that I wouldn't put that amount of money into a Pegasos just to be able to give away free drivers. I very much fully support and understand his decision.
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Poster: Wayne Posted: 2004/7/20 10:38:19
It's simple economics and the fact that you want to whine and {bleep} because he doesn't support your chosen platform is irrelevant as well as extremely childish.
Is it childishness or Scortched Earth operation? I fear it's a combination of the two.
Dammy
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Here's my 2cent...
I own a Mediator board and I would love for it to be supported but I somewhat understand how Elbox work (I't just as with wimen... you won't ever understand em compleatly) and I understand that it prevent Jens from supporting that platform so instead of complaining about it I'll accept it and just settle for a MK3 if I desperatly need those features.
As said before... Jens don't have a Peg and so to be able to support that platform he will first have to buy one... a small fee to motivate this is in order I think. With new projects the fee would probably lessen untill the hardware was payed for and you would also get free drivers for your platform. This is not a multinational billion dollar industry but a oneman pashion to support our platform and the old "stuff" we associate with it.
Namecalling and childish behaviour won't ever make you reach your goal... especialy when you do it to someone you expect later to do something for free... even spend his own money on you.
I laugh at the claim 70% is gone if MOS isn't supported... the big market is Windows and there goes your 80% or so... the last 20% is A1, MOS, Classic etc.
So clean up your act or crawl back under that ANN rock you came from. :pissed:
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Wayne wrote:
It's Jens' product, and he can do what he wants with it.
Of course, but one can also advise people not to buy it because he's so childish, that's well within our rights too, no?
Not that it really matters - I suppose a self-done CW driver would be better than any of the very poor official ones...
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@Brian
In my opinion problems with Catweasel drivers prove only that Jens is childish and very unprofessional person.
As far as Mediator drivers are concerned the only problem was that Jens refused to sign NDA with Elbox. Jens has not decided to sign this NDA declaring lack of sufficient knowledge of his lawyer on international agreements of this type. Signing an NDA document was the only condition for Jens to receive Mediator SDK documentation free of charge.
See the quoted Elbox post on the Mediator ML http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Amiga-Mediator/message/15765
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Of course, but one can also advise people not to buy it because he's so childish, that's well within our rights too, no?
No. You can't, and no it is not within your "rights" to libel another person based on your personal opinion.
Your opinion of whether Jens is "childish" is irrelevant. The FACT is that you're simply pissed off because he made the economic choice that in order to pay for the hardware required, he would need to charge for drivers. Nothing more, and for you to sit here and argue semantics make you look even more transparently silly than you already do.
"Jens isn't giving me something for free for a platform he doesn't own, so he's being childish" Don't you realize how stupid that sounds?
Simply stated, you are wrong. If I were Jens, I simply wouldn't have mentioned MorphOS in the press release, then you'd have nothing to cry over, but then again, you've never been short of any subject to cry over.
As a matter of fact, if I were Jens, based on the actions of MorphOS zealots like you, I wouldn't support MorphOS or the Pegasos at all.
All you've done is given potential developers reason to think twice about supporting a bunch of childish zealots and a platform with little chance of actual sales.
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In my opinion problems with Catweasel drivers prove only that Jens is childish and very unprofessional person.
Now there's an earth shattering shock :lol:
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Wayne, it is not about drivers. It is about how Jens Schönfeld is in person and way he handles MorphOS customers.
BBRV was not nice to Schönfeld and Schönfeld was not nice to MorphOS users. Schönfeld can't expect respect from others if he is an {bleep}.
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Wayne wrote:
Your opinion of whether Jens is "childish" is irrelevant. The FACT is that you're simply pissed off because he made the economic choice that in order to pay for the hardware required, he would need to charge for drivers.
Doesn't look like an economic choice from where I'm sitting, Wayne, or OS4 would be an even less attractive option than MOS. Maybe you should try looking harder through Schönfeld's sophistry and at some of the other times he's been accused of childishness in the past before blindly writing this one off as camp-against-camp fighting.
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@itix
The problem isn't just with MorphOS users. Schönfeld has being doing this to customers before the Pegasos was even available.
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BBRV was not nice to Schönfeld and Schönfeld was not nice to MorphOS users. Schönfeld can't expect respect from others if he is an {bleep}.
I have nothing against MorphOS users. I would even classify my feelings towards them (as a whole) as completely apathetic.
However, this is not about Jens, this is yet another gorilla attack by CERTAIN MorphOS users who are displeased that Jens chooses not to donate more of his money to Genesi in order to write free drivers for the Pegasos. Nothing more.
Based on some of the comments I've read, I don't blame Jens at all if he decided to never support the Pegasos. There are ways to convince someone to support a platform, and calling them childish (and worse) names is the exact WRONG way to do it.
If it were really a concern to MorphOS, BBRV would have sent Jens a Pegasos for the express purposes of writing a driver.
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Poster: itix Posted: 2004/7/20 14:12:26
Wayne, it is not about drivers. It is about how Jens Schönfeld is in person and way he handles MorphOS customers.
Let's see here, evidently he got screwed by Genesi and he is not happy. He at first offered, for a price, to support the customers of the company that screwed him. Sounds reasonable to me. Now that he's been roasted, he's withdrawling any offer of support. Would an outsider blame him for doing so?
BBRV was not nice to Schönfeld and Schönfeld was not nice to MorphOS users. Schönfeld can't expect respect from others if he is an {bleep}.
The one of a very few third party Developers that develope anything for the Amiga Community gets insulted and flamed on major (well for Amiga Community atleast;) message boards, called names and his work libeled. This is just for him in considering support MOS and you critize him for getting upset? :-?
Dammy
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Doesn't look like an economic choice from where I'm sitting, Wayne, or OS4 would be an even less attractive option than MOS. Maybe you should try looking harder through Schönfeld's sophistry and at some of the other times he's been accused of childishness in the past before blindly writing this one off as camp-against-camp fighting.
Considering my experiences with BBRV, I'm very well aware of how Jens MIGHT feel, and you know what? If that's the case, I fully understand and support his choice. I do not have any proof of that however, and neither do you.
Attitudes like yours is exactly why it's very hard to support the Amiga community, no matter which "side" you're on.
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It is okay that he doesn't supply MorphOS drivers. I would not mind if he blows up Bill's car. It just is not ok when he treats MorphOS users like he would treat Bill Buck.
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It is okay that he doesn't supply MorphOS drivers. I would not mind if he blows up Bill's car. It just is not ok when he treats MorphOS users like he would treat Bill Buck.
Judging by some of the attitudes I've seen regarding this subject, some MorphOS users deserve it.
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This is a problem in OS4, in one of the pattern parsing functions. It's already worked around and will be fixed for the next release. *
Kool, I look forward to it
You won't be able to use transparency though, not unless P96 emulates CGX5 transparency calls...
Nice as the transparency is, the functionality is the main thing for me (Well... For now ;-))
(* - It would be even nicer if you could convince Hyperion to fix the problem routine, though.)
I'll see what I can do next time we're in the pub ;-)
Yup, I'm looking forward to the latest version. Got an ETA? "When It's Done" for example :-D
FuZion.
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One OpenPCI version of the driver would cover MOS, Amithlon and Amiga Classic PCI all in one go, and probably OS4 later too. I can't see why Jens doesn't go this route.
Speaking of alienating: OpenPCI was supposed to become the standard PCI solution under AmigaOS 4.0 until such time as they got G-REX support, at which time OS 4 support was suddenly no longer possible. From what I've heard (*) OpenPCI G-REX support was tied to the condition that no OS 4 version would emerge.
Go figure.
(*) Footnote: From what I heard. I am not saying it is so or the other way, to keep the blood pressure of the flame throwers low. If it is true or not I don't know, but I find it strange nonetheless.
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It is a bug in OS4 dos.library. One of functions gives wrong return code.
Can you tell me what function that is? We can then subsequently fix the problem, instead of having application programmers work around it.
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It is a bug in OS4 dos.library. One of functions gives wrong return code.
It would have been nice to actually receive a bug report. To the best of my knowledge this hasn't happened.
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Rogue wrote:
Can you tell me what function that is? We can then subsequently fix the problem, instead of having application programmers work around it.
MatchPatternNoCase(). But it probably effects all Match#? dos functions.
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The Catweasel MK4 sounds like a very (http://www.amiga.org/images/subject/icon18.gif) upgrade.
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redfox
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Kenny,
not sure why you are complaining...by all accounts the MK3 works just fine on your Peg 1. I have received support for my MK3 with the Peg2, simply by writing a nice email to Jens. (of course support is limited to MK3 and mdisk363)
For what it's worth, we have been doing some investigation as to why it does not work on Peg 2 (via the rather non-scientific testcatweasel program but still)....and have concluded that:
1. Either testcatweasel program is broken on pegasos 2
2. Pegasos 2 openfirmware changes somehow killed CW3.
We tried current OpenPCI (1.2? 1.4?) and beta version 2.0 on two different catweasel's (Jens had initially concluded that my hardware was broken...but I wasn't so convinced.)
If you could download the amiga catweasel disk and try the testcatweasel program on your Peg 1/MK3 and post the result here or PM me on amiga.org then that would be a step forward for us.
Program needs a non-write protected floppy in unit 0.
Sorry to be only slightly 'on-topic'
Regards,
Steve
FWIW The symptom on a Peg 2 with MK3 is that you can only read floppies and not write to them.
Also, Jens did not close the door to MorphOS support, it would just have to be someone he really trusts doing the dev work...and possibly under NDA. If he changed his mind after all the childish insults then shame on the trolls!
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MatchPatternNoCase(). But it probably effects all Match#? dos functions.
Ah, yes. I remember a discussion about this on the Dev list. The problem is that the autodoc never was really very specific about the error code ("Result: Success or Failure") and was supposed to return DOSTRUE in the case of success, which is -1. OS 2 and OS 3 returned 1 instead, which is, technically speaking, wrong.
That's another example for the unfortunate BCPL legacy.
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To Whom It May Concer,
Just adding my $0.02...
I've had the pleasure of meeting Jens Schoenfeld at two Amiga shows I attended and threw tech support requests via e-mail. In all cases I found him to be a genuinely nice, accomadating, and very personable individual. From those impressions I tend to believe that if Jens were to mistreat some one, they probably deserved it. Of course I don't know all the details of the current 'dispute'. So I can only speak to what I know... There are plenty of others far more deserving of scorn than Jens. The mere fact that Jens is still producing after all the whining and winging, broken promises, and failed dreams that plague the 'Amiga' Community.
I for one think he deserves a little more respect. I also hope he sees this message and knows that not everyone in the Community is quite so... ... ... For lack of a better word, selfish.
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Where is the Windows 3.1 support?
Why doesn't that piss anybody off? :lol:
C Snyder
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It should do, because for sure more people use Windows 3.1 than will ever use OS4.
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I detect a fragile sense of humor.
C Snyder
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Actually, it would be pretty cool to have an MS-DOS TSR that hooks drive letters and understands various disk formats. However, unless Jens has worked out some magic for detecting drives, he'd need to include some sort of static register to hold the device configuration which would help the driver work dynamically. Without that, one could require parameters on the TSR command-line. Could be a fun project.
Trev
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MS-DOS is certainly more practical than Windows 3.1
C Snyder
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MS-DOS isWindows 3.1, to all intents and purposes! :)
For the people complaining about paying for MorphOS drivers - since when has it been ok to moan about not getting something for free? Someone has to write the drivers, and why the heck shouldn't he charge? He's not writing them for himself, so he has every right to!
For myself, I'll probably buy 2 - one for my A1, one for my Prometheus A4000. And that's on top of the MkII I have in my 'disk factory' (an A1500/Catweasel with no less than 5 disk drives of various sorts attached).
All this complaining makes me more and more glad I went with AOS4 not Pegasos like I was going to.
Keep up the good work Jens!