No Fragments Archive 10: Diskmags/nf_archive_10.iso/MAGS/F_UPDATE/UPDATE_6.ZIP/DATA/TEXT/OMEN.ASC

Text File | 1994-08-01 | 12KB | 213 lines

A GOOD OMEN ?

Richard Davey explores the wonderfully weird world of the OMEN - Open
Multitasking EnviroNment.

It was with trepidation that I approached this system, having been so
used to the oh-so-slow speeds of MultiTOS.  I mean, how good can a
complete multitasking system be if it's shareware?  I copied all the
files to my Falcon's hard drive and, not wanting to jump in feet
first like I do with most software, located the read_me file.

It starts with a message from the president, no thats not the
American one, but the president of Esquimalt Digital Logic Inc, the
people behind OMEn.  It would appear they have big plans for OMEn
'becoming a major operating platform'.  They claim that future
releases will be available for the Apple Mac, Amiga and PC (but only
if it has a 680X0 OMEn processor card).  The idea is that the
software is exchangeable from one format to the other, you can run
the same programs, use the same files and generally behave like you
are all working on the one system, the computer you type your
commands into being only a mere shell.  This system is known as a
ComponentWare environment.

Well, Craig Carmichael certainly has big plans for OMEn, stating that
many third party developers will be jumping in the queue to write
entertainment software, business applications, music software,
industrial and home control and security utilities and more.  But for
all these grand plans to be put into effect the OMEn system would
have to be something rather special wouldn't it?

Well I plunged my Falcon into ST HIGH and double-clicked my way into
this new environment.  It is at this stage that double-clicking
becomes a thing of the past, everything within OMEn can be activated
with a short tap of your mouses left button.  After a short delay the
OMEn system draws itself on your screen.  A commercial message pops
up which tells you that should you use OMEn a lot then you must buy
the full version which will be updated on a regular basis.

The screen has a small menu bar at the top left, a short message
saying its a demo version of OMEn and a Trash box in the top right.
Moving you mouse pointed over the OMEN option on the menu lets you
read the start-up message again, Clear the screen messages (which
removes the 'unlicensed' message also), Find the Trash, Change the
wallpaper, check the GUI user channels and call up the Task Manager.
Selecting Change Wallpaper brings up a text box which informs you
that in order to change the background picture (of which the default
is just a simple pattern) you have to drag a bitmapped graphic onto
the OMEN menu bar.  This system is certainly all about dragging and
dropping things everywhere!

Clicking on the DIRs option is where the action is at!  It opens a
large window with which you will soon become very familiar.  There
are five menu options on the window itself including MEMORY which
when selected returns to the default DIRrectory.  UPDATE which will
let you update selected files, bring in new ones from disk or put
them away on the disk.  VIEW lets you list the files type as either
an icon or text, modify the date on files and space out the window
contents to the right.  SORT acts just like the 'sort by' option in
GEM, ie you can sort by name, type, size or date.  The final menu
option is DIR-MISC from which you can make a new folder, Eject the
disk (Apple Mac only!), Select everything and check the space on your
current drive.

It is worth mentioning that when you click on a menu option, it
presents the options in a box.  This box can itself be picked up and
dragged elsewhere on the workscreen so it could be in constant use
without having to reselect it all the time.

The two options from the default directory are DISK DRIVES and
SYSTEM.  As I mentioned earlier, OMEn uses system independant
software (ie software NOT written to take advantages of GEM!) which
also means that you won't be able to run Fastcopy under OMEn or any
other Atari program for that matter.  The SYSTEM directory contains
all the most important OMEn software and is the best place to get
started.

Click once on the SYSTEM folder and a whole new list of programs
comes up.  The list actually extends longer than the default window
can display so you can either click on the up or down arrow in the
top left corner of the window for paging up and down, or the two
little triangles which will scroll one file at a time.  Alternatively
by selecting the scroll bar on the left you can drag down and the
window will update automatically.  The files are listed as follows :-

  (Filename)           Type  Ver   Size   Modified
--------------------------------------------------------------
w Atari Big Screen     IOCM        21056  1991\07\24  00:00:00
w DOS File             PTCL  0.25   7182  1990\11\15  00:00:00

The TYPE can be either an icon or text (as above) and there are a
number of different types including :-

PROG   Looks like a little dog running to the right!
PTCL   A diamond
PORT   A double headed arrow
IOCM   A diamond with a double headed arrow inside it
OMEN   An OMEn system file

VER is the version number of the program so you can tell if you need
any updates.  SIZE is the size in bytes and MODIFIED is the date the
program was last updated.

Being a little miffed at having to run my Falcon in ST HIGH
resolution I decided to click on the ATARI BIG SCREEN program and do
something about it.  It bought up a box which let you select which
resolution you would like to work in.  There were lots from ST LOW to
Falcon 256 Interlace.  I tried them all and in the end the TT Medium
was the best one to work in for speed and size.  As soon as I clicked
on it OMEn took on a whole new meaning in life!

The screen quickly flicked in full VGA mode (640x480), the menus
became a nice coloured affair, the font was easier to read and the
background looked a whole lot nicer!  Falcon 256 Interlaced was tried
and although the colours were a lot better I could not put up with
the speed of scrolling!  Anyway now I had a nice huge screen to work
in, from this Atari Big Screen program I could also choose to make
the mouse wrap, ie if I scroll too far off the right it comes back on
the left again!  I tried to test it to see if I scrolled off the
bottom of the screen would it appear at the top? and this is when I
got the shock of my life.

No the mouse didn't wrap around to the top of the screen, but the
whole work screen scrolled down!  The worktop is about three normal
screens high and you can drag and drop your boxes, folders and
programs all over it.  This was very interesting, being able to use a
virtual workspace twice, if not three times the size I was previously
used to was a dream come true.  OMEn suddenly went up in my
estimation a lot, not only can you have some amazing resolutions, but
you have a massive desktop area also.  Incase you were wondering, in
TT Medium resolution the scrolling is VERY fast indeed.

Next I tried the MOUSE program, this allowed me to define the mouse
move scaling for both the vertical and the horizontal axis.  Setting
vertical to 25 and horizontal to 30 I soon had a VERY fast mouse
working.  This was getting fun, what else could I configure?  Well a
little program called JOYSTICK_MOUSE let me move the mouse pointer
using my joystick instead, the OBJECT GRAPHICS DEMO seemed to be just
a basic little program for drawing eliptical lines until I realised I
should try dragging a graphics file onto it, then it became an
instant picture viewing utility!  Wait a minute, can't I change the
wallpaper by dragging a picture onto the OMEN menu?  I tried it, it
worked!  I had the paisley picture pasted onto my wallpaper and very
nice it looked too!

The next program I tried was called ST_STe Audio Manager.  It just
let me select which playback frequency I would like, either the ST
Original or STE and TT DMA Sound.  Well it had to be DMA really
didn't it?!  You could also configure the MIDI Channels to route your
output.  This had set-up my sound, now to play something...  I loaded
a little program called Play It Again Sam which opened nothing more
than a small grey box with the words 'Drag Sound Files Here (Click to
Record Sound)' in it.  I quickly went to the DIRs menu, opened a new
window for Disk Drives and worked my way into the supplied SOUNDS
folder.  There were four 'sounds' including Chimes, Teleman, Vivaldi
and Welcome.  I dragged Vivaldi onto the sound files box.  WOW!  A
short burst of Stereo sound jumped from my speakers.  I tested out
the other three and after a bit of frequency fiddling all was well.
The real test would be to drag a sample that wasn't supplied and see
if that worked, I quickly located my AVR folder and dumped a 62K
sample into the little grey box.  It worked!  I must admit I was very
impressed, it had even placed it at the correct frequency for me.

Try as I might however I couldn't drag a PI1, NEO, IFF, GIF or PI3
picture onto the graphics box.  Oh well, maybe they are only planning
to create a universal graphics format.

More software allowed you to view OMEn fonts, this was quite
impressive, you dragged the font you wished to view onto the font box
and it displayed some text in that font after a few seconds.  The
four fonts supplied included University Roman, Megastar, Letter
Gothic and Columbia.  One other important thing I must mention is
that when loading software from disk you are presented with the
standard GEM 8 letter file name, however OMEn filenames are longer,
much much longer and once you select an OMEn file it replaces that
name in the list with the complete full title.  This is a very nice
feature indeed.

Other pieces of software included in the disk and not in the system
folder are a Paint Booth which lets you try and draw pictures (I
think, I never had much luck), a Stereo Sound rate reducer which
takes a sample, halves it and saves it back again, a Mouse reporter
which let you set some points on the screen for the mouse so by
pressing one of the function keys it could jump there automatically.
The Font Demo I mentioned, a File Information program which let you
alter details about programs (like read only, etc.) an ASCII to OMEn
conversion program and a complete Binary Editor program which is very
well written indeed, almost like a mini version of Knife ST.

One thing that it is important to mention is that all the while you
are working, files dragged and dropped into boxes are kept in memory,
so it is important to clear those files from memory you don't need by
dragging them into the Trash.  This does not mean deleting them from
disk but simply removing them from memory, thus freeing up more space
for your work.

Finally I have to tell you that under the Set Screen Zoom in the
Atari Big Screen program you can configure the size of the text and
windows, ie you can set it to 4 by 7 and have an absolutely MASSIVE
work area due to the small size of the font, equally you can set it
to 16 by 18 but things get a little silly here.

So, what is the future of this operating system?  Well, who can tell?
It's only a new release so given that it should take some time for
public awareness I think that there is a possible market for
something this powerful.  Once you are used to using it there is a
wealth of power to be found lurking in the depths of OMEn, it is very
robust, fast and intelligently written.  It could certainly do with
some more extensive doc files, but the on-line help is very good.

One thing OMEn is not and that is a desktop replacement.  This is a
GEM replacement!  If it does see the light of day on the Apple Macs,
Amigas and PC's then things look really good for this system.  All it
needs is software, the shell is already there.ə