TD64 or NSD for new storage drivers?

[Heiroglyph]

 This is another example of how developer hostile AmigaOS has become.

After finding examples of software that does use NSD, I see they all reference devices/newstyle.h which doesn't exist in the 3.9NDK.

Why is it all secret and paid for these days?  Assuming I can even buy a developer CD.  The RTG lockdown from a 3rd party developer is stupid enough, but a 10+ year old public interface in the OS itself?

I may end up doing TD64 just because I can do it without paying to ship a hard to find CD from Europe or becoming a pirate.

This is why we can't have nice things.

[matthey]

Why is it all secret and paid for these days?  Assuming I can even buy a developer CD.  The RTG lockdown from a 3rd party developer is stupid enough, but a 10+ year old public interface in the OS itself?

I may end up doing TD64 just because I can do it without paying to ship a hard to find CD from Europe or becoming a pirate.

Don't get all upset. There's no money here for the pirate police to make money off of. Maybe a few politically correct immature types will complain but it looks like this material is copyright but freely redistributable. Go figure why the documentation is not in the 3.9 NDK.

http://www.heywheel.com/matthey/Amiga/NSD.lha

[pjhutch]

I have the DEveloper CD V2.1 (made by Schatztruhe for Haage-Partner). In the DEvinfo section there are some docs about NSD device and also Trackdisk64. It is mainly consists of NSDPAtch, NSDQuery tool, Install and Readme.Guide. For TD64 there is just a readme file.

It is pretty much the same as this file on Aminet: disk/misc/NSDPatch43_20.lha.

[Heiroglyph]

Don't get all upset. There's no money here for the pirate police to make money off of. Maybe a few politically correct immature types will complain but it looks like this material is copyright but freely redistributable. Go figure why the documentation is not in the 3.9 NDK.

http://www.heywheel.com/matthey/Amiga/NSD.lha

Thanks.

It's just frustrating.  A platform this old should be well documented and wide open, but I've hit brick walls for the last few years every time I want to work on anything hardware related.

It's like a concerted effort to prevent new hardware from being practical.

If it was my first stumble it wouldn't mean a thing, but it's so far beyond that, that it's a sensitive subject now.

[Heiroglyph]

Just looking over the docs, I don't see what all the fuss was about and I don't see why a driver can't support both, which seemed to be implied in the arguments I've seen.

Like anything it could be improved, but it doesn't look like the end of the world that it was made out to be.

Yes, it sucks that people had to rewrite drivers after just having added support for TD64, but the standard itself isn't hideous.  I do agree that AI should have just gone with the defacto standard that was already available though.  That was a waste of everyone's time as far as I can see.

It looks like this poll is a moot point.

Thanks guys!

[freqmax]

Now I know why I like free open source stuff

Points to consider:
 * Reliability - clearly defined API etc (trashed filesystem is bad)
 * Compatibility
 * Performance (CPU and kB/s)

Probably the documentation CD etc.. was created in a propietary setting. And when the financial trouble started there was the likely hood that a corporate buyout deal might happen etc. When things run out in the sand, everything got stuck in a big mess. Because I suspect that when Commodore  was working you would had the info with a bit of cash (+NDA?) without any problems.

This is why systems with documentation in your physical possession is such a good idea.

[Heiroglyph]

Now I know why I like free open source stuff

Points to consider:
 * Reliability - clearly defined API etc (trashed filesystem is bad)
 * Compatibility
 * Performance (CPU and kB/s)

Probably the documentation CD etc.. was created in a propietary setting. And when the financial trouble started there was the likely hood that a corporate buyout deal might happen etc. When things run out in the sand, everything got stuck in a big mess. Because I suspect that when Commodore  was working you would had the info with a bit of cash (+NDA?) without any problems.

This is why systems with documentation in your physical possession is such a good idea.

Amen brother.

[nicholas]

 This is another example of how developer hostile AmigaOS has become.

After finding examples of software that does use NSD, I see they all reference devices/newstyle.h which doesn't exist in the 3.9NDK.

Why is it all secret and paid for these days?  Assuming I can even buy a developer CD.  The RTG lockdown from a 3rd party developer is stupid enough, but a 10+ year old public interface in the OS itself?

I may end up doing TD64 just because I can do it without paying to ship a hard to find CD from Europe or becoming a pirate.

This is why we can't have nice things.

Those two choices aren't mutually exclusive.  I bought my dev CD about 10yrs ago from a well known European Amiga dealer and it is quite obviously a CDR with an inkjet printed label stuck to the disc.

[TheBilgeRat]

If you haven't read Ralf Babel's "Why NSD is broken as designed", you probably should:

http://babel.de/amiga.html#doc

Can you read that without finding him rare out of print books?

[Heiroglyph]

Can you read that without finding him rare out of print books?

lol, I actually sent him a link to buy one.  He already had one in "OK" quality like the one I found.

[TheBilgeRat]

I wonder if that cantankerous old fart has heard of kickstarter now?  he could at least cover his publishing cost to be sure.

[Heiroglyph]

I wonder if he's been asked?  I'd definitely pay for a couple of books to get the updated one.

Edit: I just asked him, we'll see.  I just hope he doesn't come unglued at the mention of the book.

[nicholas]

I wonder if he's been asked?  I'd definitely pay for a couple of books to get the updated one.

Edit: I just asked him, we'll see.  I just hope he doesn't come unglued at the mention of the book.

I have the original print edition of the Guru Book but I'd definitely pay in advance for a copy of the new edition.

[Heiroglyph]

He's not interested.

It's a shame.  He put a lot of work into something a lot of us want.

[nicholas]

He's not interested.

It's a shame.  He put a lot of work into something a lot of us want.

Perhaps he is full of sh1t......

[SpeedGeek]

TD64 is probably the easiest to support from a coders point of view (i.e. a simple extension of TD32) but since NSD64 became the official OS 3.5/3.9 standard I think it should always be supported. There is simply no point in continuing the debate about which is better now.
 
Also, support for TD64 is optional since NSDpatch can patch TD64 to emulate NSD64.