
(Rev) December 15th, 1994


                      Message from the president


Welcome to the Open Multitasking Environment, OMEn. This demon-stration copy runs on Atari series computers.

We plan on OMEn becoming a major operating platform. The fundamentalease of learning how to program the system, simplicity of programmingand debugging, the many features and ability to add new interfaces,plus widespread availability for a growing number of computer typesare expected to make it the system of choice for many programmers ina wide range of application fields.

The value to programmers is matched in value for the user by thegeneric "drag-and-drop" interface, the simplicity of configurationand use, and the ability to fully operate several applications atonce, and even have them working on the same document.

Future releases for Mac, Amiga, PC (by 68000 emulation), and Power PC(also by emulation) will run the same OMEn software as the Atariversion does. (This can already be demonstrated on the pre-releaseversions for Mac and PC, which are operational now.)

OMEn contains major unique features that make it a special system(see "OMEn Key Features" paper), and there are plenty of lesserinnovations you will also discover as you explore the system and itssoftware.

OMEn is the first operating system to really integrate software atthe system level. It is a "Componentware" environment where smallersoftware applications can specialize in doing one thing well insteadof having to do a number of things in one package just to attainbasic functionality. And OMEn makes software bugs less damaging:control of the computer and work in progress is not usually lost if aprogram bombs.

The OMEn system uses far less memory than any other comparablesystem. It was written in compact, fast, assembly language. It loadsfaster, will run off a floppy, and it leaves more space for programsand data. Not only will it eventually run on many types of computers,and even on certain game machines and embedded controllers where abulky system wouldn't fit.

OMEn is improving over time. Release 3.00 represented a leap from "itworks!" to a system where most features function exactly as intendedwith few minor glitches. 3.03 improves font handling and adds theability to run programs written in "C" with an Atari C compiler. OMEnis now a product to be proud of and it continues to improve.

Except for the Micro Word word processor (fonts are coming!), thesoftware supplied with the demo was written mostly to test operatingsystem functions and should be considered as a means to explore it,not as an indication of the quality of software to be expected bythird party developers who can focus their development effort on asingle application or product.

For programmers, there is a sample Eazy Asm source code file in withthe software in the demo's "Software" folder. The softwaredevelopment kit was (finally!) available in November, and is free.Orders are being taken now.

We hope you find OMEn to your liking and confidently expect therewill be many third party software houses writing or portinginteresting and useful OMEn software for entertainment, business,music, industrial/home control & security, data acquisition, multi-media, graphics and more.


                                  Sincerely yours,
                                  Craig Carmichael, Pres.                                  Esquimalt Digital.


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