exxos's Atari, Amiga & retro forum

I have just upgraded a 520STM from TOS 1.00 to TOS 1.04 However, I see very little functional difference between them.

TOS 1.00 UK PAL - has GEM 0.12, AES 1.20 '85

TOS 1.02 UK PAL -has GEM 0.13, AES 1.20 '87

TOS 1.04 UK PAL - has GEM 0.15, AES 1.40 '89

- Has Rainbow coloured Atari logo in Desktop.info
- Has a disk copy facility as part of the File.Format facility
- Is marginally faster at booting.

Other than the above, I observe very little additional user functionality. If I boot from ROM with no floppy I do not see any additional applications nor a ROM drive with any built in programs nor applications.

Other than SYSINFO reporting different TOS, GEM, and AES versions what are the functional changes between the different releases or are they a few tweaks plus bug fixes?


Please advise on what the functional changes are between the versions, what additional features come with each?

Are there detailed release notes for each version documenting the functionality / bug fix changes anywhere?

Thanks

Peter

There's a lot of differences but I never saw any detailed notes on all the changes,

Just look at file selectors, totally different. Centered text on icons etc are things you should notice. Mostly bug fixes are in TOS104. Hard drives tend to malfunction in TOS1.00. I don't remember much anymore as I've been using 104 for the past 25+ years.

If you're wanting more differences then a STE running TOS 206 is a better desktop. But you won't get much more from the things.

As for built in apps etc, what exactly are you expecting in a 192K ROM ? You get the OS in ROM, that's it, its not windows 95 etc with lots of built in bloatware, applications need to be loaded in from floppy or hard drive.

What came with the machine was the system disks https://www.exxosforum.co.uk/forum/viewt ... ?f=25&t=39

Try this, I think it's what you're looking for... :)

From time to time I see people asking about built in applications etc and making a connection between other GUIs, like Windows, but as exxos said, this is a simple ROM based OS in 192K of space, it will be limited, so you need to step away from the Windows comparisons, as you will be disappointed by what you see.

Yes, there is a lot you can add using accessories, auto boot programs and control panels, but essentially these are all extras and are usually used best with a floppy disk to load them at boot, or better still, a hard disk. This is what I do in order to specify things like a clock, control panels, and things like XBOOT that allows for multiple different configs at boot.

In terms of differences between 1.0, 1.02 and 1.04 it is mostly a lot of under the hood performance and bug fixes, there are some details here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atari_TOS#TOS_1

The biggest jump in terms of functionality is going to TOS 2.06, which I have done on some of my STs, as it extends a lot of the menus with some very useful stuff. However you do need an extra hardware decode, so it isn't as simple as just swapping the ROMs out.

Darklord wrote: 08 Feb 2022 06:46 TOS 1.4 Release Notes.zip

Where did you find those ?

I found this on dev-docs

exxos wrote: 08 Feb 2022 11:59
Where did you find those ?

I have to admit to being a bit of an Atari "hoarder". :)

I follow most of the major forums and whenever I
see something that looks valuable, or I think *might*
be valuable somewhere down the road, I grab it and
store it away.

I'm pretty sure I acquired that file when TOS v1.4
was first released. As to the actual "where"...that
I don't remember.

Glad I did though. :lol:

PS Now, I'll take that PDF you posted and put it in
the folder where this file was (on my Kubuntu Linux
laptop).

PPS Hmm, I checked the properties on that file from
my laptop - it says last modified 2015....

See also: https://github.com/th-otto/tos1x#differ ... s-versions