Cloanto debate

Originally Posted by viddi

Cloanto did / do a great job.

Wrong. Before anyone wastes their money on this crap, note the following points:

1. I tried playing one of their "preconfigured" games, picked one at random (Zoom), and it crashes the whole machine (not just UAE but Windows itself too) before you even get to start playing.

2. The version of UAE they supply is obsolete and unsupported.

3. The Deathbed Vigil DVD supplied is not the extended, digitally-remastered one made by Dave Haynie for DVD release, it is instead one that was digitized from an old VHS tape: image/sound quality is very poor and the extras are missing.

4. There is nothing anywhere to suggest that the commercial games included have been included legally, they are pirate versions. Hypocrites.

5. Most of the software supplied is just demo versions, eg. ClassAct.

6. The ROMs supplied are worse than those that are freely available: they don't work without stuffing around with keyfiles etc.

7. They haven't bothered including a 3.9 ROM, instead they force the warm rebooting of the emulator to apply the patches in RAM every time, making bootup times considerably longer than they need to be.

8. The HDF files that were apparently supposed to be included are missing.

9. The only Workbench which is there in full is 3.1 (6 disks), all the rest are just the first disk only.

10. No support for actually using the thing on anything other than Windows. Eg. like an Amiga. Obviously they don't care about the Amiga community.

All this is for the 2006 "Pro" edition, ie. the one that is supposed to be good!! I only checked it out for about an hour, I'm sure there are many more problems too.

[adolescent]

[QUOTE=Alyria]Wrong. Before anyone wastes their money on this crap, note the following points:

1. I tried playing one of their "preconfigured" games, picked one at random (Zoom), and it crashes the whole machine (not just UAE but Windows itself too) before you even get to start playing.
[quote]

Never had that happen here. Probably a Windows issue (incorrect DirectX, etc.).

2. The version of UAE they supply is obsolete and unsupported.

So update it (if you're using Windows just use the Cloanto Update proggy). It's not like they continuously press CDs to keep up with WinUAE versions.

3. The Deathbed Vigil DVD supplied is not the extended, digitally-remastered one made by Dave Haynie for DVD release, it is instead one that was digitized from an old VHS tape: image/sound quality is very poor and the extras are missing.

I disagree. I have both and they both look the same to me. Neither are DV quality.

7. They haven't bothered including a 3.9 ROM, instead they force the warm rebooting of the emulator to apply the patches in RAM every time, making bootup times considerably longer than they need to be.

There is no official OS3.9 ROM. Why would they include a hacked ROM that may cause compatibility issues???

10. No support for actually using the thing on anything other than Windows. Eg. like an Amiga. Obviously they don't care about the Amiga community.

I installed Personal Paint on my Amiga straight from the AF CD.

Not sure where you got the notion that it is Windows only. You can use everything in the built in KXLight and/or other Linux distributions.

>>1. I tried playing one of their "preconfigured" games, picked one at random (Zoom), and it crashes the whole machine (not just UAE but Windows itself too) before you even get to start playing.

Never had that happen here. Probably a Windows issue (incorrect DirectX, etc.).

Nonsense, the game is fine when I use my own setup, either the configuration provided is plain wrong, or the obsolete UAE provided isn't compatible with it. Either way this is something that would have been caught by the most basic testing. Nothing wrong with my DirectX, I have hundreds of Windows programs that use DirectX, all of which work fine.

So update it (if you're using Windows just use the Cloanto Update proggy). It's not like they continuously press CDs to keep up with WinUAE versions.

Firstly, that assumes an Internet connection, which obviously I do have, but not everyone. Plus why should I have to update it because they have supplied obsolete software? I don't see why they can't press CDs more than once every year or so. It's not my problem, it's Cloanto's responsibility not to include outdated buggy crap.

I disagree. I have both and they both look the same to me. Neither are DV quality.

I have both too, and you are talking crap. From Cloanto's own provided documentation:

"The original sources of all videos usually were NTSC VHS tapes, often chosen from the best version of multiple available ones, and in a few cases combining the best data from different tapes."

Ask Dave Haynie if you don't believe what Cloanto and me are saying. Plus, try watching the damn thing, you'll see that all the extras (which were added to the proper DVD version) are missing, it's based solely on the 1994 VHS release.

There is no official OS3.9 ROM. Why would they include a hacked ROM that may cause compatibility issues???

I've been using such a ROM for nearly a year with no issues. Plus the "OS3.X" they include is not an "official" release and likewise could cause compatibility issues.

I installed Personal Paint on my Amiga straight from the AF CD.

Your point being...? This qualifies as supporting the Amiga, including something that is free (not to mention obsolete) anyway?

Not sure where you got the notion that it is Windows only. You can use everything in the built in KXLight and/or other Linux distributions.

All the user-friendly stuff that is their main selling point is only for Windows though. "ROM and OS files can be used for emulation on other platforms but may be unsupported and may require download and manual installation."

[EmuChicken]

... Are Cloanto giving revenues to Toni for his continued work on WinUAE? If not, well they SHOULD BE! His works the only thing thats making people buy the "cloanto" stuff! - I dont know how it is, but as said, the people who need the amiga roms are the people who've bought an amiga back in the hey day... if you didnt / dont have an amiga, then youd probably not even buy the product anyways cos youd think itd be a waste of cash. - Monopoly, yep, ... I think I'll just make and devote a website to host the roms just to annoy

[blade002]

Originally Posted by EmuChicken

... Are Cloanto giving revenues to Toni for his continued work on WinUAE? If not, well they SHOULD BE! His works the only thing thats making people buy the "cloanto" stuff! - I dont know how it is, but as said, the people who need the amiga roms are the people who've bought an amiga back in the hey day... if you didnt / dont have an amiga, then youd probably not even buy the product anyways cos youd think itd be a waste of cash. - Monopoly, yep, ... I think I'll just make and devote a website to host the roms just to annoy

Its the EMUCHICKEN !!!!!.... Get back to AmigaGames.com before i spank you really really hard on the rear probiscus !!..

[EmuChicken]

I need to think of another word for fanny though

[Legerdemain]

Originally Posted by Alyria

The version of UAE they supply is obsolete and unsupported.

Just like someone already said... update the emulator yourself! They can, of course, not press new CD's to send out every time a new version of WinUAE is released. A rather ridicilous comment, I have to add.

Originally Posted by Alyria

The Deathbed Vigil DVD supplied is not the extended, digitally-remastered one made by Dave Haynie for DVD release, it is instead one that was digitized from an old VHS tape: image/sound quality is very poor and the extras are missing.

So? They have never claimed it to be anything else, either. I would not be surprised if future version could come to include the Dave Haynie version (haven't seen it, so I don't know what I am missing out on). Have you asked Cloanto if this is a possibility?

Originally Posted by Alyria

There is nothing anywhere to suggest that the commercial games included have been included legally, they are pirate versions. Hypocrites.

For you to go around CLAIMING that there are pirate versions of the games included... is a rather nasty thing to do. Give me one proof of that this would be the truth, and I would be surprised. Spreading such information like you just did could under certain circumnstances, at least here in Sweden, even be considered illegal (if untrue).

Originally Posted by Alyria

The ROMs supplied are worse than those that are freely available: they don't work without stuffing around with keyfiles etc.

The ROM's? I am not sure that I understand what you are talking about here? Do you need to 'stuff around' keyfiles to make the different kickstarts to work?

Originally Posted by Alyria

They haven't bothered including a 3.9 ROM, instead they force the warm rebooting of the emulator to apply the patches in RAM every time, making bootup times considerably longer than they need to be.

Just like someone already said... there is no official 3.9 ROM... there is ONLY 3.1 ROM's that have been patched either with the Amiga ROM Update supplied with the 2 different update packs (BoingBags) released for, say, OS3.9 or home made patches of the 3.1 ROM... what I am trying to say here is that it is probably not more complicated than their license not allowing them to make an own patch based on the official 3.1 ROM and send it along together with the AmigaForever package.

Originally Posted by Alyria

No support for actually using the thing on anything other than Windows. Eg. like an Amiga. Obviously they don't care about the Amiga community.

AmigaForever is rather clearly not a product aimed directly at the Amiga community... rather people in general that wants to have a quick and easy way of running the Amiga on their PC's. What would be the point of using AmigaForever on an Amiga? Now, really? Other than possibly on an AmigaOne or Pegasos, which are the only Amiga related (or whatever) contenders that might actually have the POWER to emulate an Amiga500, for example... but how big a market do they offer?

Alyria, so are we going to discuss these details now?

Originally Posted by Alyria

1. I tried playing one of their "preconfigured" games, picked one at random (Zoom), and it crashes the whole machine (not just UAE but Windows itself too) before you even get to start playing.

It works here but if you really think it is caused by AF and not your PC, why don't you write a short bugreport to Cloanto instead of mentioning it here? As a customer you get a support.

Originally Posted by Alyria

2. The version of UAE they supply is obsolete and unsupported.

Things burned of CD often gets obsolete. That's why there is an online updater.

Originally Posted by Alyria

3. The Deathbed Vigil DVD supplied is not the extended, digitally-remastered one made by Dave Haynie for DVD release, it is instead one that was digitized from an old VHS tape: image/sound quality is very poor and the extras are missing.

Originally Posted by Alyria

I have both too, and you are talking crap. From Cloanto's own provided documentation:

"The original sources of all videos usually were NTSC VHS tapes, often chosen from the best version of multiple available ones, and in a few cases combining the best data from different tapes."

So you knew (or at least you could read it) it's based on VHS before, why do you complain now?

Originally Posted by Alyria

4. There is nothing anywhere to suggest that the commercial games included have been included legally, they are pirate versions. Hypocrites.

Wohooo, come on, are you serious?

Originally Posted by Alyria

5. Most of the software supplied is just demo versions, eg. ClassAct.

yes, and MUI as well.

Originally Posted by Alyria

6. The ROMs supplied are worse than those that are freely available: they don't work without stuffing around with keyfiles etc.

WinUAE supports them, WHDLoad supports them too... What is the problem? Needless to say the ROM keyfile is part of the license agreement.

Originally Posted by Alyria

7. They haven't bothered including a 3.9 ROM, instead they force the warm rebooting of the emulator to apply the patches in RAM every time, making bootup times considerably longer than they need to be.

First, such a ROM is not official and therefore it is not an object for licensing thus it cannot be included. Second if you have such a ROM, why you don't use it? Why you want it to be included on CD? Man, this is really the issue why people should not buy the AF.

Originally Posted by Alyria

8. The HDF files that were apparently supposed to be included are missing.

What to say. Cannot you return the product within 30 days or so?

Originally Posted by Alyria

9. The only Workbench which is there in full is 3.1 (6 disks), all the rest are just the first disk only.

Yes, another "important" issue.

Originally Posted by Alyria

10. No support for actually using the thing on anything other than Windows. Eg. like an Amiga. Obviously they don't care about the Amiga community.

c00l, what a conclusion.

Originally Posted by Alyria

All this is for the 2006 "Pro" edition, ie. the one that is supposed to be good!! I only checked it out for about an hour, I'm sure there are many more problems too.

Yes, sure, for example my favourite apple pie is not included as well.

I am sorry for such an ironic tone, but those "problems" you mentioned do not seem very important to me.

[Anubis]

Legerdemain,

few years back Cloanto was charging 40-60 US dollars for AF 4.0 at the time the games worked only without the sound on most of the computers.

What logic at that point of time was to sell their not-workin' product and rest of the stuff?

And their version of WinUAE was couple years old, and update option is not good excuse to give faulty product in beggining.

Good morning, it's Tuesday and Cloanto still sucks.

still rains there?

[Anubis]

No,
it's raining only on this topic where all die hard cloanto users trying to prove Cloanto is helpin' amiga community, while it's killin' it.

[Legerdemain]

Originally Posted by Anubis

No,
it's raining only on this topic where all die hard cloanto users trying to prove Cloanto is helpin' amiga community, while it's killin' it.

I am no die hard Cloanto user. I am just trying to point out where I see really illogical reasons for bashing Cloanto and their AmigaForever package.

And still you have NOT managed to explain how Cloanto are killing off the Amiga community. Interesting. Because it is the one thing you keep on repeating. Is it a mantra of yours?

[Anubis]

If you till now did not see that overpriced kickstart roms together with the rest of junk they sell is one of the reason a lot of newbies will see as obstacle (as long as they don't like to illegaly obtain roms), then I doubt anyone will be able to explain you how cloanto is killin' this community.

If closure of couple of amiga dedicated web sites together with rest of sites on the same account is not good enough reason for you to see how Cloanto is killin' amiga community, still no one will be able to help you here to see...

How many amiga's web sites got closed because of Cloanto??

[Legerdemain]

Originally Posted by Anubis

If you till now did not see that overpriced kickstart roms together with the rest of junk they sell is one of the reason a lot of newbies will see as obstacle (as long as they don't like to illegaly obtain roms), then I doubt anyone will be able to explain you how cloanto is killin' this community.

If you 'till now did not see that the kickstart roms are included in a package that no one is forced to buy and also failed to see that the newbies most likely will obtain their needed roms in a completely different fashion, no matter legal or not, if they decide not to buy the AmigaForever package I'm hard pressed to say that I am sorry if you honestly think that Cloanto is the reason for newbies not getting into the Amiga emulating scene.

I find your statement just as ironical as you find Cloantos statement about how they have rescued the community from having to deal with lawsuites concerning illegal emulation, and so forth...

Besides, like having been said something that feels like a thousand times... Cloanto is not the owners of those ROM's, they have simply licensed them... and if Cloanto isn't interested in offering a simplpe ROM package for a greatly reduced price, then it isn't Cloanto that should be bashed for the lack of legally free ROM's... it is the owners! It might very well be that Cloanto isn't allowed to do anything with the ROM's but to include them in the AmigaForever package... their license might forbid it! Why is that possability so hard to see? Why is it so hard to understand that there might be other things at work here others than 'Cloanto being greedy bastards'?

Originally Posted by Anubis

If closure of couple of amiga dedicated web sites together with rest of sites on the same account is not good enough reason for you to see how Cloanto is killin' amiga community, still no one will be able to help you here to see... How many amiga's web sites got closed because of Cloanto??

Cloanto might have filed for closure of a certain site... while the company hosting the sites might have decided to close all of the sites down, or, Cloanto might have been aiming at closing all the related sites down already from the start. What do I know? Which sites have Cloanto been part, directly or indirectly, of closing? Based on what reasons? As far as you know?

In any way, Cloanto might hold a responsability of protecting what they have licensed... forcing them to not pretend like what they are supposed to protect isn't spread all over the net. I mean, there are SO MANY FACTORS which I don't have the slighest clue about... why this or that have happened...

PLEASE enlighten me... and stay to the facts...

Originally Posted by glwxxx

It works here but if you really think it is caused by AF and not your PC, why don't you write a short bugreport to Cloanto instead of mentioning it here? As a customer you get a support.

I doubt they would have the knowledge to fix it. And they don't really deserve for me to waste my time pointing out bugs in their products that should have been caught in testing. If they pay me to do testing for them, THEN I'll send them bug reports.

So you knew (or at least you could read it) it's based on VHS before, why do you complain now?

Well, that quote was from the docs supplied with the package, I doubt whether it's on their site. And if they are legally licensed to include it, why not include the high-quality version??

WinUAE supports them, WHDLoad supports them too... What is the problem? Needless to say the ROM keyfile is part of the license agreement.

Point is that the Kickstarts that are freely available are BETTER than the ones supplied, because they don't need a keyfile. If Cloanto signed some stupid agreement with these lame conditions, that's their problem.

First, such a ROM is not official and therefore it is not an object for licensing thus it cannot be included.

You have a copy of the licensing agreement do you?

Second if you have such a ROM, why you don't use it? Why you want it to be included on CD? Man, this is really the issue why people should not buy the AF.

Just one of 10 or more technical reasons, plus all the ethical reasons, for not buying it. Such as fuck rewarding you for your disgusting behaviour.

What to say. Cannot you return the product within 30 days or so?

Doubt it. It's not like I paid for it though so why bother?

Yes, another "important" issue.

Doesn't matter to you that Cloanto are lying on their website? And by your association with them that tarnishes YOUR reputation likewise? If they say that 1.3 is included, for example, they should include it! Are you too stupid to understand this?

Were they too tight to pay for the rights to the Extras-Basic disk? So people who want to have WB1.3 STILL have to go download an "illegal" copy.

I am sorry for such an ironic tone, but those "problems" you mentioned do not seem very important to me.

[/quote]

Well, lying has never seemed to be a problem for you OR Cloanto has it?

Saying something is included and not including it isn't important? So if you bought it from them, they could just ship you a blank CD and that would be alright would it? You total dickhead.

Just like someone already said... update the emulator yourself! They can, of course, not press new CD's to send out every time a new version of WinUAE is released. A rather ridicilous comment, I have to add.

At the prices they charge they could afford to burn each copy individually!
[quote]

For you to go around CLAIMING that there are pirate versions of the games included... is a rather nasty thing to do. Give me one proof of that this would be the truth, and I would be surprised. Spreading such information like you just did could under certain circumnstances, at least here in Sweden, even be considered illegal (if untrue).

Give me one proof that it is NOT the truth! The copyright notices on the games do not say Cloanto, they say other companies. So the onus is on Cloanto to show that they are not illegally pirated versions. Plus, the fact that they are cracked versions shows that they have obviously engaged in piracy at some point to get their hands on them.


Originally Posted by Alyria
They haven't bothered including a 3.9 ROM, instead they force the warm rebooting of the emulator to apply the patches in RAM every time, making bootup times considerably longer than they need to be.


Just like someone already said... there is no official 3.9 ROM... there is ONLY 3.1 ROM's that have been patched either with the Amiga ROM Update supplied with the 2 different update packs (BoingBags) released for, say, OS3.9 or home made patches of the 3.1 ROM... what I am trying to say here is that it is probably not more complicated than their license not allowing them to make an own patch based on the official 3.1 ROM and send it along together with the AmigaForever package.

Well, I haven't read their license agreement, if they have signed such restrictive clauses it's their own fault. So if they don't have the rights to such a ROM why are they trying to shut down sites that have it!? Obviously they aren't the copyright holder are they?

And expecting people to use their illegal, unofficial "OS3.X" with Kickstart 3.1...well, as I pointed out that's just wasting the user's time every time they boot the emulation.

What would be the point of using AmigaForever on an Amiga? Now, really? Other than possibly on an AmigaOne or Pegasos, which are the only Amiga related (or whatever) contenders that might actually have the POWER to emulate an Amiga500, for example... but how big a market do they offer?

Haven't you ever used AmigaUAE? It is a solution to a large variety of compatibility issues, otherwise why do you think it was ported to Amiga in the first place? You lamer. By your reasoning there would also be no point in having DOSBox, VMWare, or any other kind of IBM virtualization/emulation software on an IBM.

[Anubis]

Legerdemain,
it is irony that you trying to prove Cloanto as amiga community supporting company, while at the same time you are saying that users most likely will illegaly get roms, and reason its illegal is Cloanto and license holder.

Search function still works well at EAB. If you have so much interest in Cloanto, then you should spend a bit more time to get all facts...

[fisken uno]

Originally Posted by EmuChicken

... Are Cloanto giving revenues to Toni for his continued work on WinUAE? If not, well they SHOULD BE! His works the only thing thats making people buy the "cloanto" stuff!

I've been dying to know this too. If they ain't paying Toni, he should get one of those (open source) licenses that prevent people from making money off of it. I'd love to see Cloanto trying to sell AF with WinFellow only Or why not DosUAE/DosFellow?

Oh, by the way I'm not bashing WinFellow. I used to love it but WinUAE is light years ahead of it by now...

[Legerdemain]

Originally Posted by Anubis

Legerdemain,
it is irony that you trying to prove Cloanto as amiga community supporting company, while at the same time you are saying that users most likely will illegaly get roms, and reason its illegal is Cloanto and license holder.

Search function still works well at EAB. If you have so much interest in Cloanto, then you should spend a bit more time to get all facts...

It is rather apparent that this discussion is going nowhere. While I have at least tried to be constructive concerning some of your posts... like the ones with factual errors and such... you don't even try to be constructive about what I write.

It doesn't even seem like you do read what I write. at times... so, I think I'll back out of this disussion (with you) completely. If you feel like saying 'hey, I won, he gave up, hahahaha', go ahead... if you just would like to add one final comment, go ahead... if you would like just to ignore this post... go ahead... if you feel like posting a logical response to this... go ahead... you see, I just can't bother about discussing something with someone that doesn't even seem to TRY to see the bigger picture while at the same time coming to conclusions about what I think about this or that without even having enough material to do so. Seriously.

[Anubis]

And your bigger picture is that people will get roms, one way or another? (and most likely illegal way)

Just as I said, use search engine or better yet, ask your friend Glwxxx what sites are closed. One of them is where most of us got their WHDLoad packs.

Don't forget, we don't have to agree. While I think Cloanto sucks, you are allowed to love it.

[Marcuz]

as reported by Tolismlf in another thread :
http://www.petitiononline.com/amikick/petition.html

the thread:
http://eab.abime.net/showthread.php?t=16083

"end of 2001"...

[edit] sorry: twistinGhost came first;
http://eab.abime.net/showthread.php?t=2661