Hello,

 my overall impression of OS 3.5 is that a great job has been
done to fix bugs and enchance the subsystems that were missing
those features that users demanded for a long time. I'm very
impressed by the ability of the developers involved with the
project, and I appreciate very much the attention they have
dedicated to every detail. I'm happy I could get rid of many
(but not all) of the small patches in my Startup-Sequence.

 Following the beta program was a very interesting experience
for me, so I think it's a shame that most of the 3.5 customers
won't be aware of the efforts behind it.

 Putting away my enthusiam for the project, I must admit that
my Amiga has not changed that much with 3.5. In the past years,
like most other Amigans I've replaced many of the programs that
shipped with the original OS3.1 with enhanced versions from
Aminet. These replacements are usually similar (sometimes even
better) to the enhancments made in OS 3.5. So before OS 3.5
we already had a better Workbench and better datatypes. There
were some replacements for Multiview, most shell commands and
many libraries and devices. As for the e-mail, browser and
tcp stack, all of us already had them for ages, didn't we?
Since 1993, the community of freeware develper has filled the
gap left by Commodore with thousands of small and big utilities.

 Unfortunately, every Amiga system was becoming a unique OS due
to the variety of available updates and different implementation.
Most of us have had enough of updating the OS replacing its
components one by one, being careful about compatibility
issues and sometimes loosing the system stability because of
some buggy programs.

 With OS 3.5 the AmigaOS finally evolved in one, well defined,
direction. We have all the new features we wanted in one package.
There is now a common base on which application developers will
be able to rely. And, more important, the application developers
will not have to waste their time trying to rewrite OS components
that became obsolete. I think the greatest advantage of OS 3.5
will become clear once the developers will start releasing
applications that take advantage of its new features.

 Even if 3.5 is just an update and not an all-new product,
it poses a solid base from which a new, more innovative version
of AmigaOS can be drawn. I'd have a thousand requests and
ideas for the next version, but this is not the right time to
discuss them. When the development of OS 4.0 will start,
I hope I will be able to take part as a beta tester
(or, better, as an active contributor).

 As for the bugs still left in the product. There's no perfect
computer program. OS 3.5 is probably the only piece of Amiga
software that has been betatested so deeply. That's why so many
bugs have been discovered. No, it's not perfefect, but for sure
it's a lot better than anything we had before.

-- 
   _  Bernardo Innocenti <bernie@cosmos.it>
_ //  Amiga & UNIX developer - Sysop of SystemShock BBS
\X/   WWW: http://hermes.cosmos.it/~bernie - IRC: Bernie