Folks -

I have just placed a beta release of Squeak 2.0 on the uiuc server.
	(Hey, it's still Friday in Hawaii ;-)

It is stored in mac binary form as a self-extracting archive containing image, changes, and a new VM (Mac only).  Although this is just a beta release, it would be nice if someone else could see to the appropriate repackaging for the other major platforms.  You should have a new VM.  While the image may not crash on an old VM, every bitmap gets expanded on access and compressed at snapshot, and this may be slow on a 1.31 VM.

This is a Beta release of Squeak.  It is intended mainly for testing and so that developers can get started now on converting any code that has been rendered incompatible since the last major release.

Please DO read all the explanatory windows so that you will understand what to expect.  Also, please do NOT be alarmed by the bulk of this release.  We have intentionally left lots of stuff in, and have not condensed source code so that developers can trace old versions if necessary (the changes file is 8MB).  We have also not had time to update the various shrinking removals that will be supported in the final version of release 2.0.

Here is a summary of what is included in this release:

	More responsive cursor tracking in Morphic
	Flex morphs (meaning any morph can be scaled and rotated.
	High-speed compression and a compact forms package
		We have improved Squeak's bitmap compression and compiled
		it into a primitive.  It is possible to compress every form in the
		system, and only decompress when BitBlt acutally needs it.
	Project zooms
		As an option, when you enter a project it zooms visually.
		You can turn this off to save time and space, by choosing
		preferences... in the help... menu, and changing
		showProjectZoom to false
	A Mac interpreter that supports full-screeen display
	Numerous Swiki tweaks
	Numerous improvements to music
	Many numeric cleanups that have been discussed on the Squeak list
		Thanks especially to Hans-Martin Mosner, Tim Olson,
		Wim Boot, and Leandro Caniglia and friends
	A fast string comparison primitive
	And... Yes!  Support for serial ports.

In addition you will find several works in progress in this image.  We hope to say more about these, and maybe even document them when 2.0 is officially released.

Enjoy

	- The Squeak Team