Amiga vs. Mac
Moon Roach
AMIGA POWER! the sig of:
A1200HD The Merely Magnificent MOON ROACH!
and a new RUSH CD! (saal...@ultrix.uor.edu)
Nethack addict. It's replaced Civ.
"Perhaps *two* sacks of gold?" --Cerebus (in his quest for meaning)
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Somebody
>I like Amigas better than Macs.
So do I.
Wow. The ultimate argument. Can't argue with it - unless looking
ridiculous is fun for you. Can't deny it. Can't say it's not true...
Wow, this is a first, an argument in a csaa that is easily won. Applause
anyone?
--
J
"Gamera's really neat! Gamera's full of meat! We love Gamera!"
"Joel, do human beings really act like this?" -- Tom Servo
Anthony Bugera
>
>So do I.
Am I missing something here? Is there a point? I'm quite happy that you
like Amigas better than Macs. But maybe I could entice you to state
why.
I have a 486DXII 50(office), A Mac Quadra 800, and an Amiga 2500 (GVP
040). I use them all. I like the Q-800 best hands down. Why? Because of
all the systems, minute for on the system minute, it's the one I spend
the most time _using_, not setting up or configuring. I must also add
the Amiga does have the best shoot'em up games of the lot though.
Anthony Bugera
Internet: abu...@wimsey.com Quadra.... The only way to
Compu$erve: 76470,1560 Fly!
GEnie: A.Bugera
Somebody
>>>I like Amigas better than Macs.
>>
>>So do I.
>Am I missing something here?
Of course.
>Is there a point?
Better check that newsgroups line again. Yep, .advocacy. The answer
should be self-evident.
>I'm quite happy that you
>like Amigas better than Macs. But maybe I could entice you to state
>why.
Because I do. You have yet to show that I do not, in fact, like Amigas
better than Macs. And that includes Big Macs - a piece of plastic, metal,
silicon, and cat hair is better than McDonalds food any day. Though one of
the newer Crays might not be so good - nasty cooling system.
(In case you're confused, I like Amigas better than all Macs. Not just
ones that are "food" - though Big Macs are closer to food than Apple Macs
are to being liked by me)
Jim Woodgett
> saal...@ultrix.uor.edu (Moon Roach) writes:
>
> >I like Amigas better than Macs.
>
> So do I.
>
> Wow. The ultimate argument. Can't argue with it - unless looking
> ridiculous is fun for you. Can't deny it. Can't say it's not true...
> Wow, this is a first, an argument in a csaa that is easily won.
> Applause anyone?
> --
> J
Sorry, but where is the argument??? Mr/Ms. Roach has made a statement.
He/she hasn't qualified the statement (with "because.... etc"), so there is
no argument.
Here is my "statement".....
I think Amigas are (at best) Mac wannabes.
My opinion, not an argument just like the original post...... But what's the
point? Apart from declaring ones bias?
Jim
Mattias Myrberg
: I think Amigas are (at best) Mac wannabes.
Hmm, lets see.. The first Mac was released in 1984, admittedly
it featured a windowing system, not a very good one though.
A Mac Classic looks pretty pathetic next to the original Amiga 1000,
released 1985. Nice GUI and a pretty good sound/gfx engine.
It had preemptive multitasking too..
I'd say the A1000 wins hands down, so..
THHBB!!
: My opinion, not an argument just like the original post...... But what's the
: point? Apart from declaring ones bias?
Yes it is.
No it isn't :-)
--
"She's fast enough for you, old man. What's the cargo?"
Timothy Notting
popularity and Macs preferability. And due to the low low cost you cannot
compare!
--
=========================================================
timothy...@mindlink.bc.ca
Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada
=========================================================
The wild geese do not intend to cast their reflections,
The water has no mind to receive their images"
=========================================================
Mattias Myrberg
: Stop living in the past Amigas are the past with no future due to PC
: popularity and Macs preferability. And due to the low low cost you cannot
: compare!
If the reason for you having a computer is doing 'real work' on it
ie spread sheets, scientific programs, whatever, then this holds
true. Go ahead, be a clonehead, I could care less.
If, on the other hand, you like just fooling around with things,
pursuing ideas of your own, then any computer will do the trick,
the "future" isn't that important.
Here's something I saw in a.s.amiga.demos ...
"I always say that there's not point owning an Amiga if your just going
to be a bystander. If you want to just sit and watch, then you can get
a console or a PeeCee. The Amiga (and C64 before it) are ideal machines
for actually doing stuff on"
Now, let's see some creative Mac users..
I figure all Mac-users are AV-users, with MPEG encoding/decoding
hardware. They probably use a raytracer to create the graphics,
then they digitize music played back with real studio equipment
and stuff the whole thing onto a CD-ROM.
Ever see a nifty audio-visual presentation on a low-end Mac,
crafted and churned out on the same Mac?
Mattias
Kristoffer H{ggstr|m
Kristoffer H{ggstr|m
Stephan_De...@cup.portal.com
Is it because mac OS is crap that 040 mac is 3 time less
expansive then 040 amiga?
Even if they do sell cheap 680x0 based now because of the
PPC future, 850$ for a 040 mac with 4meg and 80meghd beat
the A3000 price when CBM got ride of then.
The worst is , I have a feeling CBM cost per machine is
(Or could be , if a LC was in) less then 040 macs.
I almost want to make an amiga emulator for the macs, hey
It will even be chunky based, scsi, what a treat :)
But seriously CBM need to cut A4000 price at least by
Half... You cant sell cheap machine/design for that price
unless you are forced to buy amiga.
What is best? Sell less machine but still make the same
amount of $, or sell more machine and make the same amount
of $?
I really think those high price make people look at PC
system twice... this mean the user base dont grow has mutch
the other do... this mean less profit in the amiga software
busness... I have no proof, but this is how I feel.
I think having CBM follow aplle or PC price would kill them
cause even at that price people still dont know what amiga
ares, still want PC and Mac software...
But if CBM want to sell machine and not just make the most
$ per pound sold... they would make a A4000 030, they know
how to make those cheap.At ~600$ for a basic no mem, no hd
system.Then let the store complete the system upon user choice
Add a Scsi2/Fastram/040 card, add a big IDE or scsi2 HD, but
X meg of ram on the motherboard or accelerator etc...
CBM would sell more machines and make the user base a bit
bigger, store could offer more service instead of mostly
handing out boxes, and user can afford 'pro' amigas ...
If you want to make me shutup :) Tell me a A4000 EC030
cost more then 500$ to make...
Today the only amiga priced corectly is the CD32, would
those sell at CDTV price? Humm... lets rest and think
Stephan
Mr J Maramis
: I like Amigas better than Macs.
I was going to buy an Amiga 4000 when they first came out. I even got a direct
wholesale price from a friend a C=..
But at the end of the day I did not buy one because -
A) It was very overpriced for C= (even with a $1000 discount)..
B) It would not run C= UNIX (which they stopped supporting anyway)
C) IDE CONTROLLER (YUK!)
D) No upgrade path from 25 MHZ -> Faster unit (33/40) w/ static ram cache.
E) Graphics were fairly crappy with all these stupid 1001 graphic modes and
psuedo 24 bit (AKA HAM 8) color.
F) Could not buy a proper quality Monitor that supported all the scan freq's..
E) C= OS was tied to much to the graphics chips as not to allow add on of
24 bit graphics boards..
And as the time has passed on PC's & MAC have got cheaper while the A4000 has
being getting MORE & MORE OVERPRICED & EXPENSIVE...
I would say it should only be 1/2 the price...
Jim Maramis
Monash University
SpiritWalker
but the point is RIGHT NOW the Amiga is and always has been more advanced than
the Mac, partuculary in the OS portion, not to mention that a LOT of the
Amiga's OS can be sotred in ROM, wheras on the Mac it is largly Disk based,
making it slower. However, Apple has more and more updates than CBM does, but
on the Average Amiga is far more stable than the Mac is.
--
-James
-----------------------------------------------------------------
| The Panther Moderns BBS - Macintosh & Limited Amiga Support |
| (310) 698-7921 v.32bis/v.42bis - FidoNet 1:102/486 |
SpiritWalker
>I think Amigas are (at best) Mac wannabes.
And the Mac is a wannabe of the Amiga, especially when you look at what Apple
calls 'multitasking' (yes, they DO call it that, just read your System 7 box
that you purchaced it in) is NOTHING cmpared to 'real' pre-emptive
multitasking that the Amiga has. What the Mac requires special programming to
do (such as MacIntercomm Lite) the Amiga does as a standard part of its OS.
>Jim
Dale M. Greer
> In <35...@mindlink.bc.ca> Timothy...@mindlink.bc.ca (Timothy Notting) writes:
> >Stop living in the past Amigas are the past with no future due to PC
> >popularity and Macs preferability. And due to the low low cost you cannot
> >compare!
> >--
> but the point is RIGHT NOW the Amiga is and always has been more advanced than
> the Mac, partuculary in the OS portion, not to mention that a LOT of the
> Amiga's OS can be sotred in ROM, wheras on the Mac it is largly Disk based,
> making it slower. However, Apple has more and more updates than CBM does, but
> on the Average Amiga is far more stable than the Mac is.
But the Amiga desktop is *so* *ugly*! Is HAM more advanced than TrueColor?
> --
> -James
--
Dale Greer, gr...@utdallas.edu
"If you want a vision of the future, Winston,
imagine a boot, stamping on a human face, forever." - G. Orwell, _1984_
Jim Woodgett
> In <940105095...@bono.oci.utoronto.ca> jwoo...@ocicl.oci.
> utoronto.ca (Jim Woodgett) writes:
>
> >I think Amigas are (at best) Mac wannabes.
>
> And the Mac is a wannabe of the Amiga, especially when you look at what
> Apple calls 'multitasking' (yes, they DO call it that, just read your
> System 7 box that you purchaced it in) is NOTHING cmpared to 'real' pre-
> emptive multitasking that the Amiga has. What the Mac requires special
> programming to do (such as MacIntercomm Lite) the Amiga does as a
> standard part of its OS.
>
> >Jim
> --
> -James
> -----------------------------------------------------------------
> | The Panther Moderns BBS - Macintosh & Limited Amiga Support |
> | (310) 698-7921 v.32bis/v.42bis - FidoNet 1:102/486 |
Thanks for taking my "statement" totally out of context, using it as bait and
then disappearing off on a tangent.
I'm not biting. I've no need to, I haven't got an inferiority complex.......
Jim
P.S. Exactly what is Limited Amiga Support??????
Mike Ryba
>In article <2gdrhb$4...@news.u.washington.edu>, klu...@u.washington.edu
>(Somebody) writes:
>> saal...@ultrix.uor.edu (Moon Roach) writes:
>>
>> >I like Amigas better than Macs.
>>
>> So do I.
>>
>> Wow. The ultimate argument. Can't argue with it - unless looking
>> ridiculous is fun for you. Can't deny it. Can't say it's not true...
>> Wow, this is a first, an argument in a csaa that is easily won.
>> Applause anyone?
>> --
>> J
>
>Sorry, but where is the argument??? Mr/Ms. Roach has made a statement.
>He/she hasn't qualified the statement (with "because.... etc"), so there is
>no argument.
>
>Here is my "statement".....
>
>I think Amigas are (at best) Mac wannabes.
Hehe...ok. I think you meant to say
'I think Amigas are the best. Mac's are wannabes.'
>
No argument here either. Figure it out yourself.
Stephan_De...@cup.portal.com
Mac/Amiga both suffer from early design mistake... But
amiga didn't learn (Or took) for the mac design, thats why
people 'struggle' today to have true RTG.
Maybe Macs have an excuse because they where first on the
block and didn't think about building a multitask exec, and
now are stuck because they cant break out?
Personally I'm glad my amiga dont run unix, or system7.Those
are 2 pushed to the extreme... But I still desire alot from
both of those worlds.
Stephan
DAG GILLIES
I thought everybody knew that there will be a microkernal OS out for the
Mac in the near future. This will feature memory protection, and will only be
35 - 40K. It will only run on machine with a MMU, so goodbye 68000/68020, but
then noone has one of those anyway anymore (before I get flamed for that, yes
I know there's still lots of people with SE's and Classics). Once you have
memory protection, you can do preemptive multitasking easily.
The thing noone seems to metion is why, exactly, you need preemptive
multitasking on a single user machine. All you really need to be able to do
is run several applications simultaneously, and the Macintosh collaborative
system works just fine. Far fewer major context switches means higher speed.
And where did people get this idea that writing multitasking applications
for the Mac is hard, and requires "special programming". All you need to do
is cal WaitNextEvent inside an event loop and bingo, multitasking. To enable
an application I am writing to operate in the background while displaying a
progress bar took about five minutes. You just set up a mini event loop in
the progress dialog box routine, set a few flags in the 'SIZE' resource
and away you go.
So Amigas with Video Toasters are fairly good, but tell me in what way they
surpass Avid's MediaSuite Pro, or Radius VideoVision, or LivePicture? The
Amiga, like the Atari ST, is highly unlikely to exist in five years' time.
And that's not just because an Amiga 4000 costs twice as much as a Quadra 650.
______________________________________________________
David A. G. Gillies (D.A.G....@bradford.ac.uk)
(c) 1993 Wittgenstein's Amazing Underwater Supermarket
---------------REPLIES VIA EMAIL PLEASE---------------
_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/
Steve Baumgarten
>I think Amigas are (at best) Mac wannabes.
And the Mac is a wannabe of the Amiga, especially when you look at
what Apple calls 'multitasking' (yes, they DO call it that, just
read your System 7 box that you purchaced it in) is NOTHING cmpared
to 'real' pre-emptive multitasking that the Amiga has.
Except that System 7 multitasks just fine. What people want -- for
example, decent fonts, WYSIWYG programs and a standard and predictable
user interface -- we've had since 1984. What people don't want -- for
example, preemptive multitasking -- you've got. Commodore should have
gotten their priorities in order a long time ago -- arcade technical
features didn't sell the Amiga; they didn't sell the NeXT; and they
have yet to sell Unix on any platform. (And they're not doing much to
sell Windows NT, I should add.)
I'll take the Mac's user interface and its "unreal" multitasking any
day.
--
Steve Baumgarten | "New York... when civilization falls apart,
PANIX, New York, NY | remember, we were way ahead of you."
|
Email: s...@panix.com | - David Letterman
Dan Hildebrand
DAG GILLIES <D.A.G....@bradford.ac.uk> wrote:
>
>I thought everybody knew that there will be a microkernal OS out for the
>Mac in the near future. This will feature memory protection, and will only be
>35 - 40K. It will only run on machine with a MMU, so goodbye 68000/68020, but
>then noone has one of those anyway anymore (before I get flamed for that, yes
>I know there's still lots of people with SE's and Classics). Once you have
>memory protection, you can do preemptive multitasking easily.
I heard a rumor that the PinkOS group had switched over to Mach, bringing
it more in-line with the other work going on at IBM. True? If so, the
kernel will probably be larger than 35-40K.
>The thing noone seems to metion is why, exactly, you need preemptive
>multitasking on a single user machine. All you really need to be able to do
>is run several applications simultaneously, and the Macintosh collaborative
>system works just fine.
In limited, human-interaction-only environments this may be so, but it
sets limitations for application areas the machine can be easily used in.
--
Dan Hildebrand email: da...@qnx.com
QNX Software Systems, Ltd. QUICS: danh (613) 591-0934 (data)
(613) 591-0931 x204 (voice) mail: 175 Terence Matthews
(613) 591-3579 (fax) Kanata, Ontario, Canada K2M 1W8
Brian Patrick Lee
In article <100...@cup.portal.com> Stephan_De...@cup.portal.com writes:
[deleted stuff]
>block and didn't think about building a multitask exec, and
>now are stuck because they cant break out?
[deleted stuff]
> Stephan
I thought everybody knew that there will be a microkernal OS out for the
Mac in the near future. This will feature memory protection, and will only b e 35 - 40K. It will only run on machine with a MMU, so goodbye 68000/68020, but then noone has one of those anyway anymore (before I get flamed for that , yes I know there's still lots of people with SE's and Classics). Once you have memory protection, you can do preemptive multitasking easily.
I know you already heard this, but in 1985, you could *already do that*
in one half of one meg, on a 68000, with *no* MMU. ;-)
The thing noone seems to metion is why, exactly, you need preemptive
multitasking on a single user machine. All you really need to be able to do
is run several applications simultaneously, and the Macintosh collaborative
system works just fine. Far fewer major context switches means higher speed.
And where did people get this idea that writing multitasking applications
for the Mac is hard, and requires "special programming". All you need to do
is cal WaitNextEvent inside an event loop and bingo, multitasking. To enable
an application I am writing to operate in the background while displaying a
progress bar took about five minutes. You just set up a mini event loop in
the progress dialog box routine, set a few flags in the 'SIZE' resource
and away you go.
The problem is, you had to write some code (albeit simple) to make that
happen. *Any* program, with the exception of some games, that runs on
an Amiga can multitask.
So Amigas with Video Toasters are fairly good, but tell me in what way they
surpass Avid's MediaSuite Pro, or Radius VideoVision, or LivePicture? The
Amiga, like the Atari ST, is highly unlikely to exist in five years' time.
And that's not just because an Amiga 4000 costs twice as much as a Quadra 650. ______________________________________________________
David A. G. Gillies (D.A.G....@bradford.ac.uk)
[some of .sig deleted]
I'll let someone else follow up on the Toaster argument. However,
good marketing always triumphs over good technology. How else would
you explain the popularity of Windows? It's pretty obvious that
the Mac OS is technically and aesthetically superior to Windows.
Commodore is killing the Amiga by not marketing it, not because it
isn't a good machine. Another big factor is cost. (Low end) Macs
are expensive, PC's with Windows are cheaper, Amigas are cheapest.
I'm a starving student. I've had my A500 for 5 years. It may be
slow and not have amazing graphics, but right now, I'm decrypting
a PGP file, printing a doc file, and running a terminal program.
I can do this in 1/2 a meg! I'm sorry, but my wife's Classic II
4/80 chokes up just trying to *print* in the background!
Another problem with the Mac is that it was the first computer to
be released that needed an application (that wasn't bundled with
the computer) to program it. I can live without BASIC, but gimme
a command line, for God's sake! I'll never forgive Apple for that.
BTW, I use Macs, Windows, DOS, and VMS at work, and Unix at play.
I prefer Macs for anything dealing with graphics, and Unix for
everything else. I just can't *afford* a Unix box right now.
--
--
Brian Patrick Lee <bl...@media-lab.mit.edu> <l...@tcm.org>
1D A0 F7 8F 26 CD 05 56 55 5B EA B3 26 4B CC A7 =
key fingerprint. Finger blee for my PGP key.
Gregory R Block
: So Amigas with Video Toasters are fairly good, but tell me in what way they
: surpass Avid's MediaSuite Pro, or Radius VideoVision, or LivePicture? The
Umm, because they're $2000, clean broadcast quality output, and come with
CG, switching, chroma, and some of the best rendering software available
on anything but an SGI?
I'm pretty sure that's the reason(s). Neither the Avid, Radius, or
LivePicture is a toaster, and isn't a replacement. That's why.
Greg
--
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(: "Anyone who sees (assuming it is day) the Newtons LCD only :)
(: remembers forking out $900 for something which thinks he's :)
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(: (: (: (: (: (: (: (: (: (: (: (: :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) Wubba :)
Stephen Keumurian
Macintosh users/owners, I just thought that some people might be interested
in seeing results on this subject. The Mac results are from my Quadra 800,
the Amiga results are from an Amiga user on the net.
Comparison of Amiga 4000 with Emplant (Version 3.5) and Macintosh Quadra 800:
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Please note that the Mac Quadra 800 has a 33MHz '040
and the Amiga 4000 has a 25MHz '040.
Reports were generated with Speedometer 3.23.
System Information Amiga 4000 Quadra 800
------------------ ---------- ----------
Computer: Mac Quadra 700 Mac Quadra 800
CPU: MC68040 MC68040
FPU: Integral FPU Integral FPU
MMU: Mac II AMU Integral MMU
Color Quickdraw: 2.30 (32 Bit QD) 2.30 (32 Bit QD)
System Version: 7.1.7 7.1.6
Finder Version: 7.1.3 7.1
AppleTalk Version: 58 57
LaserWriter Version: Not Found Not Found
StyleWriter Version: Not Found Not Found
ImageWriter Version: Not Found Not Found
ROM Version: $0178 $067C
ROM Size: 256 1024
Bit Depth: 4 16
Horizontal DPI: 64 72
Vertical DPI: 64 72
Primary Screen Size: 640 x 480 832 x 624
Physical RAM: 4352K 24576K
Logical RAM: 4352K 24547K
Addressing Mode: 24 bit 32 bit
Alias Manager: Present Present
Apple Events: Present Present
Comm. Toolbox: 7.1.6 7.1.6
Script Manager: 7.1.6 7.1.6
Text Edit: Version 5 Version 5
Time Manager: Version 3 (Extended) Version 3 (Extended)
P.R. Results (Uses Mac Classic as 1.0)
--------------------------------------
CPU: 12.536 21.625
Graphics: 8.450 25.138
Disk: 1.297 4.386
Math: 71.424 134.791
Performance Rating (OLD PR): 14.951 30.548
Performance Rating (NEW PR): 4.485 13.026
Benchmark Results (Uses Mac Classic as 1.0)
-------------------------------------------
KWhetstones: 178.677 256.849
Dhrystones: 18.660 26.543
Towers: 17.333 24.960
QuickSort: 14.305 23.409
Bubble Sort: 16.875 25.312
Queens: 16.357 25.444
Puzzle: 18.928 30.813
Permutations: 19.543 28.564
Fast Fourier: 105.774 167.728
F.P. Matrix Multiply: 85.355 175.324
Integer Matrix Multiple: 18.413 32.576
Sieve: 13.069 32.789
Benchmark Average: 43.607 70.859
FPU Tests (Uses Mac II as 1.0)
------------------------------
FFPU Fast Fourier: 9.470 14.636
FPU KWhetstones: 4.941 7.000
FPU F.P. Matrix Mult.: 7.288 14.827
FPU Test Average: 7.233 12.154
Color Tests (Uses Mac II as 1.0)
----------------------------
Black & White: 2.189 6.501
4 Colors: 1.199 6.955
16 Colors: 0.994 7.193
256 Colors: 0.437 7.271
Color Test Average: 1.205 6.980
------
Thank you,
Stephen G. Keumurian
Mutant for Hire
>The thing noone seems to metion is why, exactly, you need preemptive
>multitasking on a single user machine. All you really need to be able to do
>is run several applications simultaneously, and the Macintosh collaborative
>system works just fine. Far fewer major context switches means higher speed.
Easy, I want to make sure that one program doesn't lock up my machine.
I want to be able to make sure that one program gets a certain amount
of cpu time no matter what. Most precisely, when I start a downloading
session, I want to be able to run anything in the foreground and feel
safe that its not going to lock out my other programs.
Granted, for a preemptive system, you want a powerful scheduler. One
that should be configurable enough to make sure that the foreground
task is as responsive as I need it to be, and to be able to change
priorities on the fly.
>And where did people get this idea that writing multitasking applications
>for the Mac is hard, and requires "special programming". All you need to do
>is cal WaitNextEvent inside an event loop and bingo, multitasking. To enable
>an application I am writing to operate in the background while displaying a
>progress bar took about five minutes. You just set up a mini event loop in
>the progress dialog box routine, set a few flags in the 'SIZE' resource
>and away you go.
Writing Mac applications is hard. There is a lot of Toolbox one has to
be familiar with in order to start a simple program. Skeleton frameworks
are handy, but I long for something more advanced in development tools.
Making them multitasking once you have the basics down isn't hard, but
getting those basics is a pain.
--
Martin Terman, Mutant for Hire, Synchronicity Daemon, Priest of Shub-Internet
Disclaimer: Sticks and stones may break my bones, but flames are just ignored
mfte...@phoenix.princeton.edu mfte...@pucc.bitnet anonym...@charcoal.com
"Sig quotes are like bumper stickers, only without the same sense of relevance"
Christopher Smith
Brian> In article <1994Jan10....@bradford.ac.uk>
Brian> D.A.G....@bradford.ac.uk (DAG GILLIES) writes: In article
Brian> <100...@cup.portal.com> Stephan_De...@cup.portal.com
Brian> writes:
Brian> [deleted stuff]
>> block and didn't think about building a multitask exec, and now
>> are stuck because they cant break out?
Brian> [deleted stuff]
>> Stephan
Brian> I thought everybody knew that there will be a microkernal
Brian> OS out for the Mac in the near future. This will feature
Brian> memory protection, and will only b e 35 - 40K. It will only
Brian> run on machine with a MMU, so goodbye 68000/68020, but then
Brian> noone has one of those anyway anymore (before I get flamed
Brian> for that , yes I know there's still lots of people with SE's
Brian> and Classics). Once you have memory protection, you can do
Brian> preemptive multitasking easily.
Brian> I know you already heard this, but in 1985, you could
Brian> *already do that* in one half of one meg, on a 68000, with
Brian> *no* MMU. ;-)
Brian> The thing noone seems to metion is why, exactly, you need
Brian> preemptive multitasking on a single user machine. All you
Brian> really need to be able to do is run several applications
Brian> simultaneously, and the Macintosh collaborative system works
Brian> just fine. Far fewer major context switches means higher
Brian> speed. And where did people get this idea that writing
Brian> multitasking applications for the Mac is hard, and requires
Brian> "special programming". All you need to do is cal
Brian> WaitNextEvent inside an event loop and bingo,
Brian> multitasking. To enable an application I am writing to
Brian> operate in the background while displaying a progress bar
Brian> took about five minutes. You just set up a mini event loop in
Brian> the progress dialog box routine, set a few flags in the
Brian> 'SIZE' resource and away you go.
Brian> The problem is, you had to write some code (albeit simple) to
Brian> make that happen. *Any* program, with the exception of some
Brian> games, that runs on an Amiga can multitask.
Wait. They can't all multitask? Gee, sounds like my Mac at home. All the
software multitasks, with the exception of a few games. (Mostly old ones
too.)
Brian> So Amigas with Video Toasters are fairly good, but tell me
Brian> in what way they surpass Avid's MediaSuite Pro, or Radius
Brian> VideoVision, or LivePicture? The Amiga, like the Atari ST, is
Brian> highly unlikely to exist in five years' time. And that's not
Brian> just because an Amiga 4000 costs twice as much as a Quadra
Brian> 650. ______________________________________________________
Brian> David A. G. Gillies (D.A.G....@bradford.ac.uk) [some of
Brian> .sig deleted]
Brian> I'll let someone else follow up on the Toaster argument.
Brian> However, good marketing always triumphs over good technology.
Brian> How else would you explain the popularity of Windows? It's
Actually, I'd say it's more having "good technology with a perceivable
benefit". That perception can be created by marketing, but I find that
in general what happens in the real world is not a case of "good
marketing triumphing over good technology", but more a case of "bad
marketing undermining good technology". Good technologies deserve to be
shot if the developers fail to explain to users how the technologies
meet their needs better than anything else.
Brian> pretty obvious that the Mac OS is technically and
Brian> aesthetically superior to Windows. Commodore is killing the
Brian> Amiga by not marketing it, not because it isn't a good
Brian> machine. Another big factor is cost. (Low end) Macs are
Brian> expensive, PC's with Windows are cheaper, Amigas are
Brian> cheapest. I'm a starving student. I've had my A500 for 5
Brian> years. It may be slow and not have amazing graphics, but
Brian> right now, I'm decrypting a PGP file, printing a doc file,
Brian> and running a terminal program. I can do this in 1/2 a meg!
Brian> I'm sorry, but my wife's Classic II 4/80 chokes up just
Brian> trying to *print* in the background!
Well, the Mac may require more memory, but with Connectix's new software
extension your wife's Classic becomes an 8/80. If it's choking when it
prints there must be something funky with your printer layout. The cost
of a Classic II 4/80 is low enough now that it's competatively priced
with current Amiga's. Of course, five years ago, Mac's had system
software that allowed 512k to suffice quite well for running
applications. In fact, 1 MB would allow you quite nice multitasking.
Brian> Another problem with the Mac is that it was the first
Brian> computer to be released that needed an application (that
Brian> wasn't bundled with the computer) to program it. I can live
Brian> without BASIC, but gimme a command line, for God's sake!
Brian> I'll never forgive Apple for that.
Ever heard of HyperCard? It allows for more "programming" to be done
than any CLI I've seen (until you hookup a compiler of course). CLI's
are wonderfull at giving you the impression of having control. In
reality they are an overlay to the OS as much as any GUI. At least in
UNIX they admit it. :-)
If you want to do some programming on the Mac and you don't have $$'s,
there is also plenty of freeware compilers out there. For the relatively
modest price of about $200 you can get a complete programming
environment.
Brian> BTW, I use Macs, Windows, DOS, and VMS at work, and Unix at
Brian> play. I prefer Macs for anything dealing with graphics, and
Brian> Unix for everything else. I just can't *afford* a Unix box
Brian> right now. -- -- Brian Patrick Lee <bl...@media-lab.mit.edu>
Brian> <l...@tcm.org> 1D A0 F7 8F 26 CD 05 56 55 5B EA B3 26 4B CC A7
Brian> = key fingerprint. Finger blee for my PGP key.
You can't afford a UNIX box? Try buying a 286 and installing Xenix. Try
buying a 386 and install Linux. Try buying a Mac IIsi and installing
AU/X. If you really love UNIX, there's a flavour in your price range
somewhere.
--Chris
--
Christopher Smith
cbs...@boomer.uwaterloo.ca
cbs...@undergrad.math.uwaterloo.ca
DC 3527
(519) 885-1211x3581
Shimpei Yamashita
Christopher Smith <cbs...@ccnga.uwaterloo.ca> wrote:
:Well, the Mac may require more memory, but with Connectix's new software
:extension your wife's Classic becomes an 8/80. If it's choking when it
:prints there must be something funky with your printer layout. The cost
:of a Classic II 4/80 is low enough now that it's competatively priced
:with current Amiga's. Of course, five years ago, Mac's had system
:software that allowed 512k to suffice quite well for running
:applications. In fact, 1 MB would allow you quite nice multitasking.
Actually, I would love to hear how this can be done. I have a Mac Plus with
1MB of RAM and System 6.0.8, and it can barely run Finder and another app at
the same time. Seriously, the Mac isn't THAT good at conserving memory.
--
Shimpei Yamashita, Stanford University email:shi...@leland.stanford.edu
Dec 27 -- The Senate votes to give Texas back to Mexico. There is
surprisingly little public opposition to this. --Dave Barry, "Year in Review"
Brian Patrick Lee
Date: Tue, 11 Jan 1994 18:55:46 GMT
Lines: 128
>>>>> "Brian" == Brian Patrick Lee <bl...@media.mit.edu> writes:
Brian> In article <1994Jan10....@bradford.ac.uk>
Brian> D.A.G....@bradford.ac.uk (DAG GILLIES) writes: In article
Brian> <100...@cup.portal.com> Stephan_De...@cup.portal.com
>> Stephan
I thought everybody knew that there will be a microkernal
Brian> I know you already heard this, but in 1985, you could
Brian> *already do that* in one half of one meg, on a 68000, with
Brian> *no* MMU. ;-)
Stephan> The thing noone seems to mention is why, exactly, you need
preemptive multitasking on a single user machine. All you
really need to be able to do is run several applications
simultaneously, and the Macintosh collaborative system works
just fine. Far fewer major context switches means higher
speed. And where did people get this idea that writing
multitasking applications for the Mac is hard, and requires
"special programming". All you need to do is cal
WaitNextEvent inside an event loop and bingo,
multitasking. To enable an application I am writing to
operate in the background while displaying a progress bar
took about five minutes. You just set up a mini event loop in
the progress dialog box routine, set a few flags in the
'SIZE' resource and away you go.
Brian> The problem is, you had to write some code (albeit simple) to
Brian> make that happen. *Any* program, with the exception of some
Brian> games, that runs on an Amiga can multitask.
Wait. They can't all multitask? Gee, sounds like my Mac at home. All the
software multitasks, with the exception of a few games. (Mostly old ones
too.)
Brian> However, good marketing always triumphs over good technology.
Brian> How else would you explain the popularity of Windows? It's
Actually, I'd say it's more having "good technology with a perceivable
benefit". That perception can be created by marketing, but I find that
in general what happens in the real world is not a case of "good
marketing triumphing over good technology", but more a case of "bad
marketing undermining good technology". Good technologies deserve to be
shot if the developers fail to explain to users how the technologies
meet their needs better than anything else.
So, MS explained how Mac Wannabees with segmented memory architecture
could save the brain cells they burn up in DOS by hiding it from them?
(Notice I'm plugging the Mac. As far a GUI's go, I'll admit it's
the best.) Also, developers rarely get to explain much of anything,
the spin is usually handled by Marketroids.
Brian> pretty obvious that the Mac OS is technically and
Brian> aesthetically superior to Windows. Commodore is killing the
Brian> Amiga by not marketing it, not because it isn't a good
Brian> machine. Another big factor is cost. (Low end) Macs are
Brian> expensive, PC's with Windows are cheaper, Amigas are
Brian> cheapest. I'm a starving student. I've had my A500 for 5
Brian> years. It may be slow and not have amazing graphics, but
Brian> right now, I'm decrypting a PGP file, printing a doc file,
Brian> and running a terminal program. I can do this in 1/2 a meg!
Brian> I'm sorry, but my wife's Classic II 4/80 chokes up just
Brian> trying to *print* in the background!
Well, the Mac may require more memory, but with Connectix's new software
extension your wife's Classic becomes an 8/80. If it's choking when it
prints there must be something funky with your printer layout. The cost
of a Classic II 4/80 is low enough now that it's competatively priced
with current Amiga's. Of course, five years ago, Mac's had system
software that allowed 512k to suffice quite well for running
applications. In fact, 1 MB would allow you quite nice multitasking.
I disagree. Putting a task on hold in the background is not multi-
tasking. I know with System 7, you can do things like render in
the background. That's what I'm talking about. Perhaps you don't
understand my last paragraph. If the Mac is *so* efficient, why do
you need 4 megs and System 7 to do a decent job of it? In this
context, I won't even mention DOS/Windows.
Brian> Another problem with the Mac is that it was the first
Brian> computer to be released that needed an application (that
Brian> wasn't bundled with the computer) to program it. I can live
Brian> without BASIC, but gimme a command line, for God's sake!
Brian> I'll never forgive Apple for that.
Ever heard of HyperCard? It allows for more "programming" to be done
than any CLI I've seen (until you hookup a compiler of course). CLI's
are wonderfull at giving you the impression of having control. In
reality they are an overlay to the OS as much as any GUI. At least in
UNIX they admit it. :-)
I've used HyperCard. I've written a couple of short scripts.
It's slow. It's black and white. It needs extensions for multimedia.
Only the *player* comes bundled with the Mac. My point--you can't even
*do* simple shell programming. HyperCard can't replace a command
line, because Mac's don't have one. At least if your using XWindows
with Unix, you *have* the option of GUI or command line. HyperCard is
*not* a shell! I know, PC's have Spinnaker Plus, Visual BASIC for
Windows, and then there's vanilla BASIC, whatever it takes to bring any
level of functional programming to the masses. That's not what I'm
looking for. Gimme my shell!
If you want to do some programming on the Mac and you don't have $$'s,
there is also plenty of freeware compilers out there. For the relatively
modest price of about $200 you can get a complete programming
environment.
Brian> BTW, I use Macs, Windows, DOS, and VMS at work, and Unix at
Brian> play. I prefer Macs for anything dealing with graphics, and
Brian> Unix for everything else. I just can't *afford* a Unix box
Brian> right now. -- -- Brian Patrick Lee <bl...@media-lab.mit.edu>
You can't afford a UNIX box? Try buying a 286 and installing Xenix. Try
buying a 386 and install Linux. Try buying a Mac IIsi and installing
AU/X. If you really love UNIX, there's a flavour in your price range
somewhere.
--
Christopher Smith
Chris, here's the reasons I prefer the Amiga:
* Integrated shell and windowing environment
Compare this to Windows/DOS - I've spent quite a bit of time
explaining this to users. It's a pain.
* Real multitasking, not just task switching, from day one.
128K Mac's did not do that. Remember Switcher?
Then MultiFinder? Now, finally, System 7? Last I heard,
4 megs of RAM is a good starting point. I'd rather use an
O/S that leaves me some room for applications.
nda like X for cheapskates. (Without the high resolution
graphics.)
* All of the above and more with extremely little overhead.
The reason I made the original post was to get some
real answers, hoping someone had a non-resource-hog
O/S that I just wasn't aware of. I get the feeling
that you've never actually used an Amiga. If so, then
how could I expect you to understand all of this?
Show me a 1/2 meg Mac or PC running 3 tasks, like
PGP, printing, and terminal emulation, and you will
*answer my question!* Good luck!
--
--
Brian Patrick Lee <bl...@media-lab.mit.edu> <l...@tcm.org>
Finger blee for my PGP key. Opinions stated are mine.
Evan Kirchhoff
>
>Wait. They can't all multitask? Gee, sounds like my Mac at home. All the
>software multitasks, with the exception of a few games. (Mostly old ones
>too.)
I thought many (all?) the Mac 3D rendering software didn't multitask. I
assumed that this wasn't because there was no way to make it multitask
somehow, but because of the Mac's inability to dynamically allocate memory
to already-running programs -- Mac rendering programs presumably have to
grab all the RAM they might ever need as soon as you start them, and for
rendering programs "all the RAM they _might_ ever need" is all your RAM,
period. Just a guess...
>Ever heard of HyperCard? It allows for more "programming" to be done
>than any CLI I've seen...
Can you do a wildcard file-copy with it? ;)
--
Evan Kirchhoff, kir...@ccu.umanitoba.ca
...searching for a .sig that can't be misunderstood...
Steve Baumgarten
Of course, five years ago, Mac's had system
software that allowed 512k to suffice quite well for running
applications. In fact, 1 MB would allow you quite nice multitasking.
I disagree. Putting a task on hold in the background is not multi-
tasking. I know with System 7, you can do things like render in
the background.
You don't know System 7, do you? Have you ever used it? Maybe I
should comment on what the Amiga can or cannot do, since the last time
I used one was 1985. Let's see, you can't install Adobe fonts on
Amigas, can you? (Maybe you can, but like you, I'm just going to
comment on something I haven't really researched.)
System 7 multitasks. Processes switched to the background run,
they're not suspended. What are you thinking of?
Chris, here's the reasons I prefer the Amiga:
* Integrated shell and windowing environment
Compare this to Windows/DOS - I've spent quite a bit of time
explaining this to users. It's a pain.
The Mac has no standard shell -- doesn't need one.
* Real multitasking, not just task switching, from day one.
128K Mac's did not do that. Remember Switcher?
Then MultiFinder? Now, finally, System 7? Last I heard,
4 megs of RAM is a good starting point. I'd rather use an
O/S that leaves me some room for applications.
4 megs to run 2 or 3 applications at a time -- that doesn't seem too
bad. Which applications are you running on your Amiga in less than 4
megs of memory? What do they do? How do they compare with the ones
you'd be running on the Mac?
* All of the above and more with extremely little overhead.
The reason I made the original post was to get some
real answers, hoping someone had a non-resource-hog
O/S that I just wasn't aware of.
The overhead is what makes the Mac so pleasant to use. There are
windowing systems with far more overhead that are far less pleasant to
use -- X Windows comes to mind.
2 megs for Finder + 1 app seems reasonable. Why split hairs over 1
meg these days? It's 1994, you know, not 1984.
I get the feeling
that you've never actually used an Amiga. If so, then
how could I expect you to understand all of this?
Show me a 1/2 meg Mac or PC running 3 tasks, like
PGP, printing, and terminal emulation, and you will
These are 3 very lame tasks. A shell, background printing, and PGP.
Whoop-dee-doo. Run Illustrator or Quark (or whatever their
equivalents may be in the Amiga world, assuming there even are
equivalents) in your 1/2 meg and then come back and brag.
I might as well say that my original 128K Mac could run 4 programs at
once -- multitasking, mind you. Of course, they were the Puzzle, the
Note Pad, the Scrapbook and the Finder.
If the "low overhead" Amiga is so wonderful, why can't it run better
applications in such a small amount of memory? Or is this talk of
overhead just another way for Amiga owners to brag about their own
computers' lack of equivalents to the software the rest of the world
uses?
Dariusz Bolski
>In article <1994Jan10....@bradford.ac.uk>,
>DAG GILLIES <D.A.G....@bradford.ac.uk> wrote:
>>
>>The thing noone seems to metion is why, exactly, you need preemptive
>>multitasking on a single user machine. All you really need to be able to do
>>is run several applications simultaneously, and the Macintosh collaborative
>>system works just fine.
>
>In limited, human-interaction-only environments this may be so, but it
>sets limitations for application areas the machine can be easily used in.
Right. My users execute remote jobs on Amiga from SGI machines not thinking if
there is some other user doing something else on it or not.
As the remote execution is ofthen a part of job scripts running on UNIX
there is often no way to provide human assistance/interatcion to them.
Today, one of animators/programmers has asked me if I could set up a similar
solution for the macintosh. My answer was "no". Might be Dag Gillies would
care to explain why I was wrong if I was.
>Dan Hildebrand email: da...@qnx.com
Dariusz Bolski
Systems Manager and Graphics Programmer :: XAOS, San Francisco
de...@xaos.com
DAG GILLIES
multitasking on the Mac might be nice, it is not strictly necessary for the
vast majority of applications. Single users almost invariably perform one
task at a time. They might want that particular task to be a different one
at any given moment, but that is catered for by the application switching
features of System 7 or MultiFinder.
If your users want to execute remote jobs on Amigas from SGI machines, fine.
But if you are writing a report and you just want to flick to Illustrator to
fine tune a graphic you are pasting into an XPress document, true multitasking
is overkill.
It is only a matter of time before System 7 (or 8?) becomes truly multitasking.
Andrew Francke
steve > programs at once -- multitasking, mind you. Of course, they
steve > were the Puzzle, th Note Pad, the Scrapbook and the Finder.
blee >That's task switching. Those tasks sit idly by, 'til you click on
blee >'em. Could you print in the background?
No, those tasks don't sit idly by until you click on them. Desk
Accessories are drivers, which get time when any application polls for
an event.
Anything that can run System 6+ with Multifinder on can print in the
background. Earlier Macs (128K, 512K) must use SuperXXXXSpooler.
Brian Patrick Lee
<100...@cup.portal.com> <1994Jan10....@bradford.ac.uk>
<BLEE.94Ja...@media-lab.media.mit.edu>
<CBSMITH.94...@ccnga.uwaterloo.ca>
<BLEE.94Ja...@media-lab.media.mit.edu>
In article <BLEE.94Ja...@media-lab.media.mit.edu> bl...@media.mit.edu (Brian Patrick Lee) writes:
Of course, five years ago, Mac's had system
software that allowed 512k to suffice quite well for running
applications. In fact, 1 MB would allow you quite nice multitasking.
I disagree. Putting a task on hold in the background is not multi-
tasking. I know with System 7, you can do things like render in
the background.
You don't know System 7, do you? Have you ever used it? Maybe I
[deletions]
System 7 multitasks. Processes switched to the background run,
they're not suspended. What are you thinking of?
First off, what I was talking about is *efficiency*. A better
comparison would be a 256K Mac, and a 256K Amiga 1000, both
available by 1985. I do know that System 7 multitasks. With
an Amiga, however you don't have to select whether you want
something to run in the background--anything that uses the O/S
just does. No clicking in info boxes. Second, my point was
that you need System 7 to have something actually do anything
in the background, rather than just stay memory-resident.
I'm not talking about desk accessories, I'm talking about
applications. System 7 *is* good for that, but Apple (and
MS) were not the first on the block with multitasking on PC's.
BTW, I use System 7 at least once a week on the job.
[deletions]
Okay, one shell out of the three in my example is printing.
The command is a simple <copy text prt:>.
Again, you're talking about software. If you haven't used PGP,
you don't know that it takes a while on a slower processor.
It *is* convenient to have it run in the background.
If you read my original post, you'd see that I think the Mac
has the nicest GUI, and I prefer it for anything to do with graphics.
Let me add desktop publishing to that. I am not arguing about the
quality of commercial software at all.
I might as well say that my original 128K Mac could run 4 programs at
once -- multitasking, mind you. Of course, they were the Puzzle, the
Note Pad, the Scrapbook and the Finder.
That's task switching. Those tasks sit idly by, 'til you click on 'em.
Could you print in the background?
If the "low overhead" Amiga is so wonderful, why can't it run better
applications in such a small amount of memory? Or is this talk of
overhead just another way for Amiga owners to brag about their own
computers' lack of equivalents to the software the rest of the world
uses?
See above. I'm talking about O/S issues, not software.
Also, I'm just pointing out what I don't like about the Mac.
There are a lot of things I *do* like. It's better than Windows,
for one.
--
Steve Baumgarten | "New York... when civilization falls apart,
What about pipelining? What about wildcard file copying?
What about doing something simple without a dialog box to remind
you to think? Are these all lost arts?
--
--
Brian Patrick Lee <bl...@media-lab.mit.edu> <l...@tcm.org>
Finger blee for my PGP key. Stated opinions are mine.
Gerald G. Washington
>bl...@media.mit.edu (Brian Patrick Lee) writes:
>
> I disagree. Putting a task on hold in the background is not multi-
> tasking. I know with System 7, you can do things like render in
> the background.
>
>You don't know System 7, do you? Have you ever used it? Maybe I
>I used one was 1985.
Hint: This is 1994.
I use a Quadra 800 at work every day. I used to be stuck with a 950. I
wish System 7 had real multitasking every time I use my Mac. I don't like
staring at the little spinning wheel in MacDraw Pro. I don't like waiting
around every time I insert a floppy. I don't like having a dialogue box
take over the whole system.
>System 7 multitasks. Processes switched to the background run,
>they're not suspended. What are you thinking of?
Hmm, let me download a file with ZTerm. Now I switch to MacDraw to load
some clipart. MacDraw seems to be having a little trouble; perhaps it is
because I only have 32megs of RAM with 20megs allocated to MacDraw.
MacDraw quits with a "type 1" error. ZTerm tells me that the connection
timed out during the download. Great.
>The Mac has no standard shell -- doesn't need one.
This seems to be the trend here. "Mac doesn't have preemptive multitasking,
doesn't need it... etc."
>The overhead is what makes the Mac so pleasant to use. There are
>windowing systems with far more overhead that are far less pleasant to
>use -- X Windows comes to mind.
On the contrary, I love using X-Windows with the HP-VUE interface on my
HP-9000/750. Comes with a lots of shells, preemptive multitasking, etc.
>If the "low overhead" Amiga is so wonderful, why can't it run better
>applications in such a small amount of memory? Or is this talk of
>overhead just another way for Amiga owners to brag about their own
>computers' lack of equivalents to the software the rest of the world
>uses?
Hmm, maybe so. After all, the Amiga can multitask System 7 with AmigaDOS.
I'd say System 7 is pretty pathetic software. B^)
-- Gerald
Detlef Johannsen
> I thought everybody knew that there will be a microkernal OS out for the
> Mac in the near future. This will feature memory protection, and will only be
> 35 - 40K. It will only run on machine with a MMU, so goodbye 68000/68020, but
> then noone has one of those anyway anymore (before I get flamed for that, yes
> I know there's still lots of people with SE's and Classics). Once you have
> memory protection, you can do preemptive multitasking easily.
I heard this rumour too, but i know two Mac-Developers and both didn't know
anything about it, so it will not happen in the near future. (And when it arrives,
most likely it will be only for the new PowerPC-Macs :-( )
>
> The thing noone seems to metion is why, exactly, you need preemptive
> multitasking on a single user machine. All you really need to be able to do
> is run several applications simultaneously, and the Macintosh collaborative
> system works just fine. Far fewer major context switches means higher speed.
I'm afraid it works not that fine. I often miss real multitasking at work.
(And for speed: my IIsi at work is a real pain speedwise. A Amiga with
68030/20mhz would be much nicer).
> And where did people get this idea that writing multitasking applications
> for the Mac is hard, and requires "special programming". All you need to do
> is cal WaitNextEvent inside an event loop and bingo, multitasking. To enable
> an application I am writing to operate in the background while displaying a
> progress bar took about five minutes. You just set up a mini event loop in
> the progress dialog box routine, set a few flags in the 'SIZE' resource
> and away you go.
> So Amigas with Video Toasters are fairly good, but tell me in what way they
> surpass Avid's MediaSuite Pro, or Radius VideoVision, or LivePicture? The
> Amiga, like the Atari ST, is highly unlikely to exist in five years' time.
> And that's not just because an Amiga 4000 costs twice as much as a Quadra 650.
Five years are a long time. Maybe then there will be no Amigas, but i think C= will
be around.
> ______________________________________________________
> David A. G. Gillies (D.A.G....@bradford.ac.uk)
> (c) 1993 Wittgenstein's Amazing Underwater Supermarket
>
> ---------------REPLIES VIA EMAIL PLEASE---------------
> _/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/
-Detlef
*************************************************************
* Detlef Johannsen * Email: din...@camelot.hanse.de *
* Alsterkrugchaussee 344 * ||| / *
* D-22297 Hamburg * / | \ - 800XL + \/ A3000 *
*************************************************************
Anthony Bugera
face) little discussion. When the chips are down though, I feel it's
the computer that you _use_ the most that is the winner. And may I also
point out that this will of course be different for everyone.
In article <2h22m5$4...@cronkite.seas.gwu.edu>
ger...@seas.gwu.edu (Gerald G. Washington) writes:
> ...deleted text...
>
> I use a Quadra 800 at work every day. I used to be stuck with a 950. I
> wish System 7 had real multitasking every time I use my Mac. I don't like
> staring at the little spinning wheel in MacDraw Pro. I don't like waiting
> around every time I insert a floppy. I don't like having a dialogue box
> take over the whole system.
Yup, uhuh, I enjoy having my requesters show up on a window in the
background where I can't see it. You know, that important rendering
that 'just has to get done' is on hold for 3 hours because you didn't
flip screens/windows in time to act on the requester. Sounds like an
Amiga feature to me.
> ...deleted text...
> Hmm, let me download a file with ZTerm. Now I switch to MacDraw to load
> some clipart. MacDraw seems to be having a little trouble; perhaps it is
> because I only have 32megs of RAM with 20megs allocated to MacDraw.
> MacDraw quits with a "type 1" error. ZTerm tells me that the connection
> timed out during the download. Great.
Yes this can happen on the Mac. Seems the responsibility for having
programs task properly is in the hands of the programmers. Hmmmm....
can you say 'programmer'? Funny but I use the lastest version of
MacTCP, MacPPP, CD Remote, Word, Datebook Pro, Touchbase Pro, and
Internews all at the same time with NO PROBLEMS! Get some real software
that you _pay_ for stop complaining about the shareware stuff.
> >The Mac has no standard shell -- doesn't need one.
>
> This seems to be the trend here. "Mac doesn't have preemptive multitasking,
> doesn't need it... etc."
My house is bigger than yours, my dog is better than yours, etc, etc...
make some points here, use some examples, I can get rhetoric anywhere.
> On the contrary, I love using X-Windows with the HP-VUE interface on my
> HP-9000/750. Comes with a lots of shells, preemptive multitasking, etc.
Let's keep this arguement in the realm of the affordable shall we?
> >If the "low overhead" Amiga is so wonderful, why can't it run better
> >applications in such a small amount of memory? Or is this talk of
> >overhead just another way for Amiga owners to brag about their own
> >computers' lack of equivalents to the software the rest of the world
> >uses?
>
> Hmm, maybe so. After all, the Amiga can multitask System 7 with AmigaDOS.
> I'd say System 7 is pretty pathetic software. B^)
Oh give me a break! Grab a brain! Do you think the CPU in your Amiga
just sits around waiting for more tasks so it can 'run' faster. I
think.... NOT.
I have one example of how I think Sys 7 excels over other OS's, the
clipboard. Point out where the Amiga or for that matter MS-DOS/Windows
has a clipboard like System 7. I can actually clip postscript from App
to App. Along with TIFF, Text, etc, etc. Now I'm sure you'll come up
with some example of the Amiga doing something similar, but remember, I
have an Amiga and there is no such feature.
I have a Quadra 800, various Amigas, and a MessyDOS box that I use all
the time. The Quadra has the most productive software for my needs. If
something better comes along I'll drop my Mac and use it.
A computer is, after all, a tool!!!! :)
Anthony Bugera
Internet: abu...@wimsey.com Quadra.... The only way to
Compu$erve: 76470,1560 Fly!
GEnie: A.Bugera
Gerald G. Washington
>ger...@seas.gwu.edu (Gerald G. Washington) writes:
>>
>> I use a Quadra 800 at work every day. I used to be stuck with a 950. I
>> wish System 7 had real multitasking every time I use my Mac. I don't like
>> staring at the little spinning wheel in MacDraw Pro. I don't like waiting
>> around every time I insert a floppy. I don't like having a dialogue box
>> take over the whole system.
>
>Yup, uhuh, I enjoy having my requesters show up on a window in the
>background where I can't see it.
Wow, does your Mac do that, too? This never happens on my Amiga. System 7
needs a serious overhaul, anyway. The Mac to give dialogue boxes with a
full set of one option--"Restart".
>> Hmm, let me download a file with ZTerm. Now I switch to MacDraw to load
>> some clipart. MacDraw seems to be having a little trouble; perhaps it is
>> because I only have 32megs of RAM with 20megs allocated to MacDraw.
>> MacDraw quits with a "type 1" error. ZTerm tells me that the connection
>> timed out during the download. Great.
>
>Yes this can happen on the Mac. Seems the responsibility for having
>programs task properly is in the hands of the programmers. Hmmmm....
>can you say 'programmer'?
Sure, but it is hard to blame them when they have such a poor tool to
work with. System 7 is fighting against them.
>Funny but I use the lastest version of
>MacTCP, MacPPP, CD Remote, Word, Datebook Pro, Touchbase Pro, and
>Internews all at the same time with NO PROBLEMS! Get some real software
>that you _pay_ for stop complaining about the shareware stuff.
Brilliant. I should buy software for the computers I use at work. Should
I carry around a whole set of applications for each computer I go to? You
Mac users have odd philosophies. Hmm, if I see a vandalized road sign,
should I buy a new one? If I don't like the seats on the subway, should I
bring my own little pillows?
Thanks, but last I heard, MacDraw Pro was not sharewhare, nor was Freehand,
or Illustrator, or Persuasion, or Powerpoint, or Photoshop, or most of the
other apps I use regularly which all must be victims of this bad
programming you mention.
>> This seems to be the trend here. "Mac doesn't have preemptive multitasking,
>> doesn't need it... etc."
>
>My house is bigger than yours, my dog is better than yours, etc, etc...
>make some points here, use some examples, I can get rhetoric anywhere.
I did. You didn't read them. You're reduced to a sniveling idiot. There,
that's a valid point. B^)
>> On the contrary, I love using X-Windows with the HP-VUE interface on my
>> HP-9000/750. Comes with a lots of shells, preemptive multitasking, etc.
>
>Let's keep this arguement in the realm of the affordable shall we?
Why? I didn't buy the Mac, the 486, or the HP I have to use everyday, but
obviously someone did.
>> Hmm, maybe so. After all, the Amiga can multitask System 7 with AmigaDOS.
>> I'd say System 7 is pretty pathetic software. B^)
>
>Oh give me a break! Grab a brain! Do you think the CPU in your Amiga
>just sits around waiting for more tasks so it can 'run' faster. I
>think.... NOT.
See the smiley? Of course not. I know it's hard to read with your head
up your ass. Your statements are not even relevant. Oh, I see; you're
demonstrating the ill logic behind the design of System 7.
>I have a Quadra 800, various Amigas, and a MessyDOS box that I use all
>the time. The Quadra has the most productive software for my needs. If
>something better comes along I'll drop my Mac and use it.
I don't have the option of dropping the Quadra my boss gives me to use,
though I do wish for it.
>A computer is, after all, a tool!!!! :)
Of course, so lighten up.
-- Gerald
Mutant for Hire
>First off, what I was talking about is *efficiency*. A better
>comparison would be a 256K Mac, and a 256K Amiga 1000, both
>available by 1985. I do know that System 7 multitasks. With
>an Amiga, however you don't have to select whether you want
>something to run in the background--anything that uses the O/S
>just does. No clicking in info boxes. Second, my point was
>that you need System 7 to have something actually do anything
>in the background, rather than just stay memory-resident.
>I'm not talking about desk accessories, I'm talking about
>applications. System 7 *is* good for that, but Apple (and
>MS) were not the first on the block with multitasking on PC's.
>BTW, I use System 7 at least once a week on the job.
A few corrective points. First off, comparing 256K anythings
at this point is rather silly. I don't know of anyone who
uses less than a meg of memory, and 4 meg is the current
standard for compujters.
With a Mac, you don't have to select whether you want something
to run in the background. Anything written with Multifinder in
mind does that already. No clicking in the info boxes.
Next, Multifinder was existant before System 7. My Mac history
isn't sharp enough to remember when it kicked in, but there are
System 6.07 out there multitasking away.
As for being first, I don't particularly care about that. The
Amiga does have some advantages over the Mac. It is far more
efficient in its usage of RAM, it gives better graphics for
the price, and it pre-emptively multitasks. Cheaper RAM prices
have weakened the first point, the second point is slowly
declining in value as graphics boards get cheaper and slowly
eat into the margin between Amigas and Macs, and the last
will probably be fixed by the end of the year.
Amiga was *way* ahead of everyone else when it came out.
Unfortunately Commodore has been fumbling the ball over and
over, and so that lead has been shrinking over time. I see
them having a good future in the home video game market,
but at best a niche existance in the computer market.
>What about pipelining? What about wildcard file copying?
>What about doing something simple without a dialog box to remind
>you to think? Are these all lost arts?
Applescript, now nicely installed on my computer, will start to
take care of some of those problems at least. Pipelining is
tricky when you're not working on text streams. At least its
not as simple as Unix, where nearly everything is a text
stream at some point. Unfortunately, I have to wait for the
scriptable Finder for some of it. Or I get MPW and get a
command line shell for the Mac.
Russ Taylor
Amiga owners are even dippier than I thought.
Anthony Bugera
... and Mr. Bugera is hit with a vicious swing.... he returns with a
fast jab... Gerald is hit....
In article <2h2fu0$4...@cronkite.seas.gwu.edu>
ger...@seas.gwu.edu (Gerald G. Washington) writes:
> >Yup, uhuh, I enjoy having my requesters show up on a window in the
> >background where I can't see it.
>
> Wow, does your Mac do that, too? This never happens on my Amiga. System 7
> needs a serious overhaul, anyway. The Mac to give dialogue boxes with a
> full set of one option--"Restart".
Yes, restart sometimes shows up as the only option. I didn't say the
Mac was perfect. However, even with the latest Amiga software I do get
regular visits from the GURU. So what's better? Guru or Reset?
> Sure, but it is hard to blame them when they have such a poor tool to
> work with. System 7 is fighting against them.
System 7 is one of the better programming environments I have come
across. With the Mac the look and feel of all apps are common but there
are still allowances for special features. Drag and drop, clipboard,
extensions, etc. The tools and support I have received from Apple
surpass anything I have come across on the Amiga. I have developed for
both systems, on the Mac since system 6.0.x, and the Amiga since
AmigaDOS 1.0. You know, I can't find anything like ResEdit on the
Amiga, some programs that act like ResEdit but not nearly as full
featured as it is.
Convince me that AmigaDOS 3.x is better than system 7.1. I have both
right here. Note I didn't say AmigaDOS is useless, I'm simpling
pointing out what I think the advantages of the Mac OS are.
> >Funny but I use the lastest version of
> >MacTCP, MacPPP, CD Remote, Word, Datebook Pro, Touchbase Pro, and
> >Internews all at the same time with NO PROBLEMS! Get some real software
> >that you _pay_ for stop complaining about the shareware stuff.
>
> Brilliant. I should buy software for the computers I use at work. Should
> I carry around a whole set of applications for each computer I go to? You
> Mac users have odd philosophies. Hmm, if I see a vandalized road sign,
> should I buy a new one? If I don't like the seats on the subway, should I
> bring my own little pillows?
Now who's being a sniveling idiot? Convince your boss it would be more
cost effective to purchase software that works more effectively. It
would help you both out. You seem to have set your mind against the Mac
platform. Maybe it wouldn't be so bad if you took the time to get to
know the interface better, rather than looking at the Mac through Amiga
coloured glasses.
> Thanks, but last I heard, MacDraw Pro was not sharewhare, nor was Freehand,
> or Illustrator, or Persuasion, or Powerpoint, or Photoshop, or most of the
> other apps I use regularly which all must be victims of this bad
> programming you mention.
Funny, I use Photoshop 2.5.1 and Persuasion, Freehand, etc and I don't
have a problem openning two/three at a time. I have Photoshop in the
background now. The big question is.... why run apps like that at the
same time? I want Photoshop to have ALL (read: MOST) of the CPU cycles
it can get when I'm using it. Helps get the work done a great deal
faster.
> >> This seems to be the trend here. "Mac doesn't have preemptive multitasking,
> >> doesn't need it... etc."
> >
> >My house is bigger than yours, my dog is better than yours, etc, etc...
> >make some points here, use some examples, I can get rhetoric anywhere.
>
> I did. You didn't read them. You're reduced to a sniveling idiot. There,
> that's a valid point. B^)
I was refering to the statement "Mac doesn't have preemptive
multitasking, doesn't need it... etc." relax! :) The new thread manager
for 7.1 will greatly improve tasking on the Mac. Not that I found
multitasking all that usefull even on the Amiga (and yes, I will admit
it does operate a little smoother on the Amiga, but at what cost?)
> >Let's keep this arguement in the realm of the affordable shall we?
>
> Why? I didn't buy the Mac, the 486, or the HP I have to use everyday, but
> obviously someone did.
OK, so let's keep it to what we use then. :)
> >> Hmm, maybe so. After all, the Amiga can multitask System 7 with AmigaDOS.
> >> I'd say System 7 is pretty pathetic software. B^)
> >
> >Oh give me a break! Grab a brain! Do you think the CPU in your Amiga
> >just sits around waiting for more tasks so it can 'run' faster. I
> >think.... NOT.
>
> See the smiley? Of course not. I know it's hard to read with your head
> up your ass. Your statements are not even relevant. Oh, I see; you're
> demonstrating the ill logic behind the design of System 7.
>
> >I have a Quadra 800, various Amigas, and a MessyDOS box that I use all
> >the time. The Quadra has the most productive software for my needs. If
> >something better comes along I'll drop my Mac and use it.
>
> I don't have the option of dropping the Quadra my boss gives me to use,
> though I do wish for it.
Like I said before, if the Mac you use at work sucks so bad, Convince
the boss otherwise. It could only make you more productive to have a
better tool. However, maybe it's not the Mac that is the problem. Maybe
you haven't taken the time to learn to use it productively. Something
must have convince your boss to buy the system. What _do_ you use it
for anyway?
> >A computer is, after all, a tool!!!! :)
>
> Of course, so lighten up.
Take the time to get to know your Mac, learning to use it better can't
hurt you. I still use Amiga and Dos stuff, but after really getting to
know the Mac I find it's my most productive tool.
Lars Sundstroem
Lee, bl...@media.mit.edu writes:
>First off, what I was talking about is *efficiency*. A better
>comparison would be a 256K Mac, and a 256K Amiga 1000, both
>available by 1985. I do know that System 7 multitasks. With
>an Amiga, however you don't have to select whether you want
>something to run in the background--anything that uses the O/S
>just does. No clicking in info boxes.
There is no clicking in info-boxes to make applications running
when they aren't frontmost on the screen. The order in which
the applications appear on the screen has nothing to do with
the execution of applications. However, many applications
notice when they aren't the frontmost and take advantage of this.
>BTW, I use System 7 at least once a week on the job.
Obviously not enough for you.
>>>
Lars Sundstrom, Lund University, Dept.of Applied Electronics
P.O. Box 118, S-221 00 LUND, SWEDEN. EMail: su...@tde.lth.se
Phone: Int+ 46 46 10 95 13 Fax: Int+ 46 46 12 99 48
C.P. Brown
[stuff deleted]
|> Yup, uhuh, I enjoy having my requesters show up on a window in the
|> background where I can't see it. You know, that important rendering
|> that 'just has to get done' is on hold for 3 hours because you didn't
|> flip screens/windows in time to act on the requester. Sounds like an
|> Amiga feature to me.
Hold on, let me get this right, are you saying that the way Mac requesters work
is better than the way Amiga requesters work because the Amiga requester can
appear on a background screen and you may not notice it? If so, then your
argument is conceptually flawed in a number of ways..
1..If a program running on a background screen pops up a requester, then the
screen would generally be brought straight to the front, to bring the requester
to the attention of the user.
2..The Amiga multitasks properly anyway, so another programs requester would not
put your rendering program 'on hold for 3 hours' or anything of the sort.
3..Mac requesters generally cause the system to hang. this means if your disk
becomes full during a write operation, you have to cancel the operation, because
you can't go away and make space on the disk by deleting/compressing something
else. IMO this is a fundamental flaw in the Mac's UI.
[more stuff deleted]
|> I have one example of how I think Sys 7 excels over other OS's, the
|> clipboard. Point out where the Amiga or for that matter MS-DOS/Windows
|> has a clipboard like System 7. I can actually clip postscript from App
|> to App. Along with TIFF, Text, etc, etc. Now I'm sure you'll come up
|> with some example of the Amiga doing something similar, but remember, I
|> have an Amiga and there is no such feature.
Er, excuse me, but you're talking crap. The Amiga clipboard can be used to
transfer data of arbritary type between any applications that use/want it. Not
only that, but data can be stored simultaneously on the clipboard in a variety of
formats. I can, for example, draw a brush in DPaint AGA, selsct copy from the
brush menu, flip the screen to the back, exposing the workbench screen, where I
am running IconEdit, in which I select paste, and the brush appears in my
IconEdit window. I can do the same with text between a shell window and a word
procesor too. This is all using the clipboard. For someone who says he uses an
Amiga, you seem to be very ignorant in the basic opperation of it's user
interface.
--
Chris Brown
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Amiga 1200, 6MB, 80 Meg harddisk, 25MHz 68882, 262144 colours on screen
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Finger me at cpb...@hermes.cam.ac.uk for my PGP public key
Susan Pinochet
>If you want to do some programming on the Mac and you don't have $$'s,
>there is also plenty of freeware compilers out there. For the relatively
>modest price of about $200 you can get a complete programming
>environment.
That works? I'd like to know what you are referring to? Care to enlighten
me? :=)
--
+----------------------------------------------------------------+
| susan d pinochet -- charlotte, nc usa -- (pino...@vnet.net) |
+----------------------------------------------------------------+
Steve Baumgarten
Hold on, let me get this right, are you saying that the way Mac
requesters work is better than the way Amiga requesters work
because the Amiga requester can appear on a background screen and
you may not notice it? If so, then your argument is conceptually
flawed in a number of ways..
No, the Mac's implementation is better because nearly all programs use
the Notification Manager. This gives the user notification -- in a
consistent, predictable, non-intrusive way -- that something of import
has happened in a background application. The background application
can request that the Mac beep; display a dialog; or just flash its
icon in the Applications menu on the right. Selecting that menu
reveals a check mark beside the application that wants attention.
You can try this out for yourself by printing to a printer using
manual feed. The background print spooler (Print Monitor) uses the
Notification Manager to ask the user to put paper in the manual feed
slot on the printer.
Once again, we see another standard part of the Mac interface that
apparently no one else has improved on -- let alone incorporated into
their own OS in the first place.
1..If a program running on a background screen pops up a requester,
then the screen would generally be brought straight to the front,
to bring the requester to the attention of the user.
This is fairly horrible, isn't it? Nothing like having your focus of
attention snatched away from you just because a program wants to tell
you something. I thought the user was always supposed to be in
control of the interface? This reminds me of one of the worst
features of SunView -- pointer warping. Glad SunView has been
relegated to the ash heap of history...
--
Steve Baumgarten | "New York... when civilization falls apart,
Martin Charest
Just my 2 cents in this boring discussion:
The Mac is not multitasking? But, I RUN right now ZTerm, Photoshop,
Nisus, ResEdit, and Space Madness (a big space game, now in background),
ALL AT THE SAME TIME, and they are all big applications, not just
desk accessories! And I have only a Mac IIci with system 7.1. Not
a big Quadra. I have LOTS of INITS and usefull add-on for the OS.
ALL IS RUNNING PERFECTLY FINE AND TRANSPARENTLY. I can do lots of
usefull things, like image rendering, data manipulations, word processing,
playing games, downloading stuff, etc... and I can switch between those apps
anytime.
Of course, it is humanly impossible to use all those things at the
same time, as we don't have six arms. So I can't prepare an image rendering,
type the commands for dowloading a file, playing a game and typing some
text in the word processor, all at the same time!
My machine is not powerfull enough to do a big rendering in Photoshop,
formating a diskette, downloading a big file, and typing some text in
Nisus, all at the same time and in some reasonable time. Actually, the
Mac OS does not really allow this, even if we accept some long delays or
a slow down of the machine for those operations.
But the point is that I RARELY need to do all that at the same time!
In this way, I agree that the Mac does not do "real" multitasking, but I
don't care. If I really need to do all those things at the same time, AND
in reasonable time, I should buy a SUN workstation. NOT A DEAD END AMIGA!
Anyway, we all know that there are almost no serious softwares for
the Amiga. And this machine will die soon with the near PPC.
Also, I know that (because I played with the Amigas before buying my Mac)
an Amiga can't do all those serious tasks IN REASONABLE TIME.
By serious tasks, I mean CPU intensives operations like Photo
manipulations, Ray tracing calculations, word processing, etc. Damn,
the most powerfull Amigas only use a 68040 CPU. They are not RISC based.
So I don't care about little real multitasking, for little tasks. I
care about real multitasking for serious stuff (intensives operations).
An Amiga is not powerfull enough for that. So I have no interests
in this machine, except perhaps for the good games made for it.
'nuff said.
-Martin.
Mattias Myrberg
: Just my 2 cents in this boring discussion:
: The Mac is not multitasking? But, I RUN right now ZTerm, Photoshop,
: Nisus, ResEdit, and Space Madness (a big space game, now in background),
: ALL AT THE SAME TIME, and they are all big applications, not just
: desk accessories! And I have only a Mac IIci with system 7.1. Not
: a big Quadra. I have LOTS of INITS and usefull add-on for the OS.
: ALL IS RUNNING PERFECTLY FINE AND TRANSPARENTLY. I can do lots of
: usefull things, like image rendering, data manipulations, word processing,
: playing games, downloading stuff, etc... and I can switch between those apps
: anytime.
To each his own, I guess. What you think of as tolerable may not appeal
to someone using a system with 'real' multitasking.
: Of course, it is humanly impossible to use all those things at the
: same time, as we don't have six arms. So I can't prepare an image rendering,
: type the commands for dowloading a file, playing a game and typing some
: text in the word processor, all at the same time!
Looks like you missed out on the recent discussion on multitasking.
: My machine is not powerfull enough to do a big rendering in Photoshop,
: formating a diskette, downloading a big file, and typing some text in
: Nisus, all at the same time and in some reasonable time. Actually, the
: Mac OS does not really allow this, even if we accept some long delays or
: a slow down of the machine for those operations.
: But the point is that I RARELY need to do all that at the same time!
: In this way, I agree that the Mac does not do "real" multitasking, but I
: don't care. If I really need to do all those things at the same time, AND
: in reasonable time, I should buy a SUN workstation. NOT A DEAD END AMIGA!
Yay, it's probably a dead end, that does not make Macs any better though.
: Anyway, we all know that there are almost no serious softwares for
: the Amiga. ^^^^^^^
Oh yes, you said the almighty word. I've been waiting for it to appear,
say it again, it makes the Mac stand out in such a glorious way!
: And this machine will die soon with the near PPC.
You predict the death of Amiga because of *PPC* !!??
: Also, I know that (because I played with the Amigas before buying my Mac)
Yeah, right. You played with them, for a couple of secs.
: an Amiga can't do all those serious tasks IN REASONABLE TIME.
Ooooh, there it is again, neat.
/Mattias
Spamoni
>|> background where I can't see it. You know, that important rendering
>|> that 'just has to get done' is on hold for 3 hours because you didn't
>|> flip screens/windows in time to act on the requester. Sounds like an
>|> Amiga feature to me.
>
>Hold on, let me get this right, are you saying that the way Mac requesters
>argument is conceptually flawed in a number of ways..
Ho, ho. His argument is conceptually flawed, period. There are
commodities that will bring the screen that the reqester is on to the front
and when that requester is selected it will bring your original screen back. I
think KCOMM offers this capability, but I forget. I have too many commodities
running on this system to remember what they all do. :)
I guess the point is, if you can find some superficial deficiency in
the Amiga's user interface, you can usually pick up shareware from FTP that
will resolve that inadequacy. The best part about it (with 2.0 and up, mind
you) that most of these wonderful utilities are very stable and integrate
themselves excellently into the system, to the point that you can no longer
notice that they are there. As a result, I have customised my
system to work the way I want it to, and not how someone thinks it should.
Good stuff.
-----
nver...@scripps.edu
Bruce Grubb
>With a Mac, you don't have to select whether you want something
>to run in the background. Anything written with Multifinder in
>mind does that already. No clicking in the info boxes.
is not the same as a program written _for_ Multifinder.
There are many well written programs from 1986-1987 days that
run well _under_ Multifinder but were certainly _not_ written _for_ it.
>Next, Multifinder was existant before System 7. My Mac history
>isn't sharp enough to remember when it kicked in, but there are
>System 6.07 out there multitasking away.
The first time _I_ ever saw Multifinder was with System 4.1 back in 1988.
And before Multifinder there were Multifinder-like programs like
Servant and Switcher {1986 or 87, I believe.}
The biggest problem with Multifinder is that _it was not always on_
until System 7.0.0 {1991}. This means that as resently as 1990 there
were Multifinder-conflicting programs being made {with 'turn off
Multifinder' in the documentation.}
Even today there are Multifinder-UNaware programs being made
{Bane of the Comic Forge by Sir Tech being one of the worse that I have
ever saw.}.
Gregory R Block
: the computer that you _use_ the most that is the winner. And may I also
: point out that this will of course be different for everyone.
If there were three million different types of computers, that would be
true. Fortunately, there are only a handful, so it's highly probable
that you'll find people that use the same computer.
Duh. ;)
: Yup, uhuh, I enjoy having my requesters show up on a window in the
: background where I can't see it. You know, that important rendering
: that 'just has to get done' is on hold for 3 hours because you didn't
: flip screens/windows in time to act on the requester. Sounds like an
: Amiga feature to me.
No, auto-popping that screen to the front would be an Amiga feature, one
you've obviously overlooked.
: Yes this can happen on the Mac. Seems the responsibility for having
: programs task properly is in the hands of the programmers. Hmmmm....
: can you say 'programmer'? Funny but I use the lastest version of
: MacTCP, MacPPP, CD Remote, Word, Datebook Pro, Touchbase Pro, and
: Internews all at the same time with NO PROBLEMS! Get some real software
: that you _pay_ for stop complaining about the shareware stuff.
Uh, perhaps that's the point to make. When you ask the developers to do
your work for you in a co-op environment, you rely on several things:
That they do it at all.
That they do it periodically within heavy computations, rather than
waiting until the event loop returns to do it.
That they don't do things that Apple is forced to break in order to get
it to work properly in future revisions.
That it doesn't get to expensive, because since you've got to randomly
distribute the call all over your code, you can't base things on the
efficiency of the CPU that is running it.
: My house is bigger than yours, my dog is better than yours, etc, etc...
: make some points here, use some examples, I can get rhetoric anywhere.
Umm, the existance of a shell is actually rather important. The mac
could use it, and MPW doesn't count, unless you like a program that acts
like a big, blocking dialog box.
: Let's keep this arguement in the realm of the affordable shall we?
His point is just as valid with ANY graphics and windowing system that
has a shell. Which is all of them, except for Apple. Windows, if you'll
grant me the latitude, OS/2, Linux/X, AmigaOS, all of them have this
ability, the ability to let you work in two different interfaces,
dependent on the kind of work you're doing. You know, let your interface
fit the job at hand? Hell, the Amiga's ARexx is designed to be a THIRD
interface that can be used to control a program, making it GUI, shell,
and REXX. Most every program sports two out of the three to control
every aspect of it.
: Oh give me a break! Grab a brain! Do you think the CPU in your Amiga
: just sits around waiting for more tasks so it can 'run' faster. I
: think.... NOT.
The CPU in my Amiga spends most of its time waiting for input.
Fortunately, when that isn't true, I don't feel it. The
computationally-intensive stuff gets set to take up "free" cpu cycles
that would have normally been spent doing nothing, so my system does what
it needs to, and I don't feel the impact from it AT ALL.
: I have one example of how I think Sys 7 excels over other OS's, the
: clipboard. Point out where the Amiga or for that matter MS-DOS/Windows
: has a clipboard like System 7. I can actually clip postscript from App
: to App. Along with TIFF, Text, etc, etc. Now I'm sure you'll come up
: with some example of the Amiga doing something similar, but remember, I
: have an Amiga and there is no such feature.
Uhh, programmers documentation could tell you otherwise. Any kind of
data can be clipped into the clipboard. When pasting, programs look for
the data in formats they understand. The GOOD way of doing this is to
write the file into the clipboard in as many formats as you can handle,
in an IFF FORM. The app will look for what it understands, and use it.
Perhaps you're angry that the programs don't support more advanced
clipping functions, and that's valid. But the Amiga's clipboard is MORE
functional than the Mac's. Why? Because there's 256 of them. I've
written a program that I'll be releasing soon that allows you to allocate
some of those to update themseves when a file changes and reload
themselves, others for a "backing store", a history buffer of clips.
It'll view anything in any unit with datatypes, and support erasing,
copying, and moving of the unit's contents.
So, from first hand experience, I can honestly say that the Amiga's got
the more advanced, and underused, of the two.
: A computer is, after all, a tool!!!! :)
Nyah. My tool is bigger than your tool, and I've even got a hole to put
a key in. Don't you feel like the pre-pubescent one? Heh.
Greg
--
(: (: (: (: Have you overdosed on smileys today? Why NOT!?! :) :) :) :)
(: "Anyone who sees (assuming it is day) the Newtons LCD only :)
(: remembers forking out $900 for something which thinks he's :)
(: ordering chinese food when he signs his name." -Mike Noreen :)
(: (: (: (: (: (: (: (: (: (: (: (: :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) Wubba :)
Gregory R Block
: Of course, it is humanly impossible to use all those things at the
: same time, as we don't have six arms. So I can't prepare an image rendering,
: type the commands for dowloading a file, playing a game and typing some
: text in the word processor, all at the same time!
: My machine is not powerfull enough to do a big rendering in Photoshop,
: formating a diskette, downloading a big file, and typing some text in
: Nisus, all at the same time and in some reasonable time. Actually, the
Crock of shit, frankly. Why? Let me tell you.
Image processing/rendering is computational in nature, it isn't
dependent on input. In a preempting environment, you'd set this so that
it took up "spare" CPU cycles. In a real-time environment, you might
make sure it gets a minimum of 5-10% CPU.
Downloading is I/O-bound. To avoid dangerous character loss on some
systems, you -MAY- have to set this high. If you're using an 030, this
isn't the case, so I'd set it at the "standard" priority level, or one up.
Formatting is I/O bound. Set it at standard priority.
Nisus is keyboard bound, mostly. This will take up the -LEAST- amount of
CPU time in a preempting environment, because it'll spend it's time
waiting for the USER, whereas the rest of your stuff is either CPU bound
or waiting on fast IO.
Don't tell me that a 68000 can't do this, because it can. If a 68000
can, so can you.
: Mac OS does not really allow this, even if we accept some long delays or
: a slow down of the machine for those operations.
Good. Label the problem where it belongs, the Mac OS.
: But the point is that I RARELY need to do all that at the same time!
It's interesting that you actually spend time thinking about the limits
of your machine, and what you can safely do at once. If you -KNOW- them,
then you're in trouble.
: In this way, I agree that the Mac does not do "real" multitasking, but I
: don't care. If I really need to do all those things at the same time, AND
: in reasonable time, I should buy a SUN workstation. NOT A DEAD END AMIGA!
Regardless of your opinion of the state of health of the Amiga, it's
obvious that you've gotten the point: Coop has serious flaws, and not
even Apple is willing to stick with it. Defending it makes you look like
an idiot, and there's simply no point to it, since you're bound to make
the fatal flaw of killing your argument with it.
: Anyway, we all know that there are almost no serious softwares for
: the Amiga. And this machine will die soon with the near PPC.
Yup. After all, us developers just -LOVE- clinging to dead-end
machines. And Real3D -COULDN'T- be useful, because it's not on the Mac,
even if it's on the SGI now. And LightWave is OBVIOUSLY a Mac tool,
because a puny little Amiga simply couldn't handle something with balls
the size of the Video Toaster. Nope, not serious. Scala's a joke, it's
only the best multimedia program out there, and it won't be any good
until the port of it to OS/2 is complete, where those same features will
OBVIOUSLY be better than the Amiga version.
: Also, I know that (because I played with the Amigas before buying my Mac)
: an Amiga can't do all those serious tasks IN REASONABLE TIME.
I can honestly say I've done them, and you're wrong.
: By serious tasks, I mean CPU intensives operations like Photo
: manipulations, Ray tracing calculations, word processing, etc. Damn,
: the most powerfull Amigas only use a 68040 CPU. They are not RISC based.
Neither are Macs, as of this moment. So your point is really, really
pointless and stupid. Compiling is a CPU-intensive operation, and I've
done my share of it, as is image-processing. I do downloads all the
time, and I run UUCP and a little replacement for it that I'm working on
in the background constantly, which, without the preemptive nature of my
system, I wouldn't be able to pull off.
If you think it takes an 040 to multitask, you've been using a Mac too
long.
: So I don't care about little real multitasking, for little tasks. I
Unfortunately, if you're doing real work, you're not DOING little tasks.
: An Amiga is not powerfull enough for that. So I have no interests
Tell that to J Michael Straczynski, and the Babylon 5 crew.
Nuke'd
Martin Charest <char...@IRO.UMontreal.CA> wrote:
>
>Just my 2 cents in this boring discussion:
>
>The Mac is not multitasking? But, I RUN right now ZTerm, Photoshop,
>Nisus, ResEdit, and Space Madness (a big space game, now in background),
>ALL AT THE SAME TIME, and they are all big applications, not just
>desk accessories! And I have only a Mac IIci with system 7.1. Not
>a big Quadra. I have LOTS of INITS and usefull add-on for the OS.
>ALL IS RUNNING PERFECTLY FINE AND TRANSPARENTLY. I can do lots of
>usefull things, like image rendering, data manipulations, word processing,
>playing games, downloading stuff, etc... and I can switch between those apps
>anytime.
>
O.K. format a disk. Now, run MacWriteII and print something.
What?!? You can't do it? Why not? Maybe because the mac does TASK
SWITCHING instead of MULTITASKING! Once the disk starts formatting,
you can't do anything else, even on a quadra (68040). It's not that
the formatting program needs all of the cpu cycles, but because it's
been programmed not to switch from that task. Amiga can do it without
breaking a sweat, even on my 68010! Get a life. Get an Amiga...
--
Mike Doerner | doer...@osu.edu | mdoe...@top.magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu
--------------------------IRC handle: Gears------------------------------
You know, you may not be able to hug your children with nuclear arms,
BUT YOU SURE CAN KEEP 'EM WARM!
Russ Taylor
: In article <CJL9I...@IRO.UMontreal.CA>,
: Martin Charest <char...@IRO.UMontreal.CA> wrote:
: >
: >Just my 2 cents in this boring discussion:
: >
: >The Mac is not multitasking? But, I RUN right now ZTerm, Photoshop,
: >Nisus, ResEdit, and Space Madness (a big space game, now in background),
: >ALL AT THE SAME TIME, and they are all big applications, not just
: >desk accessories! And I have only a Mac IIci with system 7.1. Not
: >a big Quadra. I have LOTS of INITS and usefull add-on for the OS.
: >ALL IS RUNNING PERFECTLY FINE AND TRANSPARENTLY. I can do lots of
: >usefull things, like image rendering, data manipulations, word processing,
: >playing games, downloading stuff, etc... and I can switch between those apps
: >anytime.
: >
: O.K. format a disk. Now, run MacWriteII and print something.
: What?!? You can't do it? Why not? Maybe because the mac does TASK
: SWITCHING instead of MULTITASKING! Once the disk starts formatting,
: you can't do anything else, even on a quadra (68040). It's not that
: the formatting program needs all of the cpu cycles, but because it's
: been programmed not to switch from that task. Amiga can do it without
: breaking a sweat, even on my 68010! Get a life. Get an Amiga...
Really? I format disks in the background all the time :) Even while downloading.
Yes, I do this on a Mac. Ever heard of thread manager?
James Skee
>Yup, uhuh, I enjoy having my requesters show up on a window in the
>background where I can't see it. You know, that important rendering
>that 'just has to get done' is on hold for 3 hours because you didn't
>flip screens/windows in time to act on the requester. Sounds like an
>Amiga feature to me.
Not on the Amiga's I have seen. One of my friends does graphic arts for a
small buisness, and when a program he has switched into the background
needs info, it beens and an icon flashes.
>> ...deleted text...
>> Hmm, let me download a file with ZTerm. Now I switch to MacDraw to load
>> some clipart. MacDraw seems to be having a little trouble; perhaps it is
>> because I only have 32megs of RAM with 20megs allocated to MacDraw.
>> MacDraw quits with a "type 1" error. ZTerm tells me that the connection
>> timed out during the download. Great.
>Yes this can happen on the Mac. Seems the responsibility for having
>programs task properly is in the hands of the programmers. Hmmmm....
>can you say 'programmer'? Funny but I use the lastest version of
>MacTCP, MacPPP, CD Remote, Word, Datebook Pro, Touchbase Pro, and
>Internews all at the same time with NO PROBLEMS! Get some real software
>that you _pay_ for stop complaining about the shareware stuff.
No, the responsibility of deciding when programs get run is a
responsiility of the OS, NOT the program. COmmodore understood this and
this was a basic part of their philosophy.
Now, as for your little example about running multiple programs is
COMPLETELY different from what the original poster descibed. Why dont you
get ANY terminal (Except for MacIntercomm) for the Mac and try to do what
he described: start a file xfer and do ANYTHING else in teh background,
and DONT tell me that it went full speed ahead (or at least damn close to
it). If you do, you are lying, unless you used MacIntercomm. I, too, can
start Hermes, Public Address, MacWrite II, FileMaker Pro, and have no
problems; anyone with enough RAM can do that; but Ill start a littl e
search and replace in MWII, then start a print taks in the background...
hmm, that $3000 Q800 suddenly slows to a halt (that is, after MWII
finishes its text search). Give some real examples of REAL multitasking.
>> >The Mac has no standard shell -- doesn't need one. >>
>> This seems to be the trend here. "Mac doesn't have preemptive multitasking,
>> doesn't need it... etc."
>My house is bigger than yours, my dog is better than yours, etc, etc...
>make some points here, use some examples, I can get rhetoric anywhere.
Why didnt you use some examples of WHY the Mac doesnt need a shell? I tend
to agree that it isnt absolutely nessesary, but why not?
Well, to me, stuff like widlcards are redundant in a GUI enviornment. If
you need to select multiple files, just click and drag or shift-click.
Although, pipes would be nice...
>> On the contrary, I love using X-Windows with the HP-VUE interface on my
>> HP-9000/750. Comes with a lots of shells, preemptive multitasking, etc.
>Let's keep this arguement in the realm of the affordable shall we?
Lets try to read others posts before you qutoe and take them out of
context. His repsonse was to antohers that XWindows was not the greatist.
>Oh give me a break! Grab a brain! Do you think the CPU in your Amiga
>just sits around waiting for more tasks so it can 'run' faster. I
>think.... NOT.
He never said it runs faster by having more processes. He DID say that it
can run more than one process without sacrificing way too much of anothers
application (ie, becomming out of balance). That is what Pre-emptive is.
have one example of how I think Sys 7 excels over other OS's, the
>clipboard. Point out where the Amiga or for that matter MS-DOS/Windows
>has a clipboard like System 7. I can actually clip postscript from App
>to App. Along with TIFF, Text, etc, etc. Now I'm sure you'll come up
>with some example of the Amiga doing something similar, but remember, I
>have an Amiga and there is no such feature.
This is true; the clipboard is very convineinet; however, its not
something that makes the macs OS the vastly superior one just because of
that fact.
--
James
| The Panther Moderns BBS - Macintosh & Limited Amiga Support |
| (310) 698-7921 v.32bis/v.42bis - FidoNet 1:102/486 |
Anthony Bugera
a fight. :)
>Hold on, let me get this right, are you saying that the way Mac requesters work
>is better than the way Amiga requesters work because the Amiga requester can
>appear on a background screen and you may not notice it? If so, then your
>argument is conceptually flawed in a number of ways..
>
>1..If a program running on a background screen pops up a requester, then the
>screen would generally be brought straight to the front, to bring the requester
>to the attention of the user.
Not all applications do this! Can you say programmer dependant? And
even so,
if the Mac needs to put up a requester from a task in the background,
it doesn't
interupt the user, a notification appears in the menu bar! I don't like
being interupted
by the OS for things that can wait.
>2..The Amiga multitasks properly anyway, so another programs requester would not
>put your rendering program 'on hold for 3 hours' or anything of the sort.
Did I say it would put another program on hold? I said the app that
posted the
requester would be on hold till you attended to the requester!
>3..Mac requesters generally cause the system to hang. this means if your disk
>becomes full during a write operation, you have to cancel the operation, because
>you can't go away and make space on the disk by deleting/compressing something
>else. IMO this is a fundamental flaw in the Mac's UI.
I use speedyfinder and it allows me to format etc as a separate task.
Granted, not
having access to your HD to clear up space is a bit of a bother but,
most apps let
you save your work so far. I'll give the Amiga a point in it's favour.
>>I have one example of how I think Sys 7 excels over other OS's, the
>>clipboard. Point out where the Amiga or for that matter MS-DOS/Windows
>>has a clipboard like System 7. I can actually clip postscript from App
>>to App. Along with TIFF, Text, etc, etc. Now I'm sure you'll come up
>>with some example of the Amiga doing something similar, but remember, I
>>have an Amiga and there is no such feature.
>
>Er, excuse me, but you're talking crap. The Amiga clipboard can be used to
>transfer data of arbritary type between any applications that use/want it. Not
>only that, but data can be stored simultaneously on the clipboard in a variety of
>formats. I can, for example, draw a brush in DPaint AGA, selsct copy from the
>brush menu, flip the screen to the back, exposing the workbench screen, where I
>am running IconEdit, in which I select paste, and the brush appears in my
>IconEdit window. I can do the same with text between a shell window and a word
>procesor too. This is all using the clipboard. For someone who says he uses an
>Amiga, you seem to be very ignorant in the basic opperation of it's user
>interface.
I know about the Amiga clipboard, the Mac clipboard does not require
that data be
placed in multiple formats the Mac toolbox allows for a variety of
actions on the
clipboard with the source data format. On the Amiga the apps have to do
this. BTW
I didn't say the Amiga clipboard was useless or crippled, just that the
Mac clipboard
is better. The Amiga 'clipboard' is a simple multiple cut and paste
area, The Mac
clipboard is more robust.
>Umm, the existance of a shell is actually rather important. The mac
>could use it, and MPW doesn't count, unless you like a program that acts
>like a big, blocking dialog box.
Why do I _need_ a shell??? You may need a shell on the Mac, but I
function quite well without one. Give me an example of something you do
with a shell that absolutely requires a shell. Remember, there's lots
of
excellent Mac PD/Shareware out there.
>The CPU in my Amiga spends most of its time waiting for input.
>Fortunately, when that isn't true, I don't feel it. The
>computationally-intensive stuff gets set to take up "free" cpu cycles
>that would have normally been spent doing nothing, so my system does what
>it needs to, and I don't feel the impact from it AT ALL.
Maybe I need to be a little clearer here. The Mac does the very same
thing,
waits for CPU usage when it's not 100%. If you multitask you can't go
past
100% so you do feel it. Sooner or later. For example I used a Mac as a
controller
for a Neon/Argon Laser. Timing was everything. The laser would turn
samples
into plasma and the Mac would analyse the resulting data. While the
previous
data was being analyzed the laser would fire on another sample. The
background
program did not interfere with the foreground laser task even though it
(the
background task) was a CPU hog. We were using an Amiga in the lab but,
fire
timing would sometimes be interfered with by other tasks. You may ask,
why
not use two computers? Why should we have to?
>Perhaps you're angry that the programs don't support more advanced
>clipping functions, and that's valid. But the Amiga's clipboard is MORE
>functional than the Mac's. Why? Because there's 256 of them. I've
>written a program that I'll be releasing soon that allows you to allocate
>some of those to update themseves when a file changes and reload
>themselves, others for a "backing store", a history buffer of clips.
>It'll view anything in any unit with datatypes, and support erasing,
>copying, and moving of the unit's contents.
>
>So, from first hand experience, I can honestly say that the Amiga's got
>the more advanced, and underused, of the two.
The Mac can do the same thing, if you pick up additional apps like the
additional apps you're writing. Don't forget about the Mac scrapbook
which
can hold anything you clip and does not have a 256 clip limit.
>Yup. After all, us developers just -LOVE- clinging to dead-end
>machines. And Real3D -COULDN'T- be useful, because it's not on the Mac,
>even if it's on the SGI now. And LightWave is OBVIOUSLY a Mac tool,
>because a puny little Amiga simply couldn't handle something with balls
>the size of the Video Toaster. Nope, not serious. Scala's a joke, it's
>only the best multimedia program out there, and it won't be any good
>until the port of it to OS/2 is complete, where those same features will
>OBVIOUSLY be better than the Amiga version.
There are some very good apps out there for the Amiga, but what about
Type 1 fonts, etc. BTW Commodore stock has gone from about $10.00 to
$2.50 recently (it has bounced back to $3.50 thought) and they have
posted losses ALL last year. This data is from Commodore themselves
> O.K. format a disk. Now, run MacWriteII and print something.
>What?!? You can't do it? Why not? Maybe because the mac does TASK
>SWITCHING instead of MULTITASKING! Once the disk starts formatting,
>you can't do anything else, even on a quadra (68040). It's not that
>the formatting program needs all of the cpu cycles, but because it's
>been programmed not to switch from that task. Amiga can do it without
>breaking a sweat, even on my 68010! Get a life. Get an Amiga...
So what's your point? I use speedy finder and I can format disks and
print and run other apps. What about the thread manager, it works too?
Anthony Berno
> Show me a 1/2 meg Mac or PC running 3 tasks, like
> PGP, printing, and terminal emulation, and you will
People keep harping about how wonderful platform (xxx) is because it can
do (yyy) with only (zzz) of memory. This is roughly equivalent to saying
"My car can go at 20 MPH with only a half-horsepower engine". Sure, it's
economical, but it still only goes at 20 MPH.
There is a tradeoff between memory usage, execution time, development
time, and the probability of bugs in the software. Current computers are,
by and large, under-memoried; a common "rule of thumb" is that for optimum
performance, about 50% of the cost of a computer (not including
peripherials) should be for memory.
By "boasting" about how little memory your OS uses, you are simply
revealing how outdated and under-optimized it is for current systems. I
mean, what does 4 meg of memory cost? A whole $140? Big whoop.
As always, you get what you pay for. Systems that run in 1/2 meg of memory
cannot begin to offer the services of larger OSes. And compared to the
size of data objects that most serious applications need to work with, a
megabyte is small potatoes anyway.
-Anthony
Tommy Kuei-che Hwang
> Wow... I've never heard of anyone every saying that they prefer the Amiga
> OS to the Mac... interesting.
> I have a friend who has a Video Toaster 4000 and $25,000 editing setup, and
> that thing kicks butt, but he went and bought a Quadra 800 recently because
> he likes the Mac for everything else.
I am not surprised. I doubt your friend even know a whole lot about
and AmigaOS. I say this because I have the Toaster4000 and I know that
it does not follow Commodore rules!! This is one of the few programs
(productivity that is) that is not WB compliment and the option of startup
into the Toaster directly, bypassing Workbench enviroment, is an option.
I don`t like it that way, but when they have an monopoly, what can you
expect. Also, I do not think that you know a lot of amiga users (AGA
user that is) since there are not that many in the U.S.
As I had said before, People in my dorm asked me if my C= A4000/040 is
a C=64 derivative or a Clone. I do not even answer questions of that sort.
> I didn't buy an Amiga/Toaster because they seem (IMHO) to be great at Video
> editing/animation, and games, but nothing else.
I guess you don`t really know about C= systems do you?
> I'd prefer an OS that rocks (Mac), on a *fast* computer that can do *lots*
> of things well besides dedicated tasks.
What kind of C= machines have you seen? What kind of toaster was that that
your friend had? and A2000?
>
> Looks like my dream is coming with the PowerPC Macs! Better hop off the
> bandwagon all you Intel buddies, and '030/'040 users!
I think not. I`ll wait to see the market rather than going for buying the
very first PowerPC
-TKH `94
.
Brian Patrick Lee
Brian Patrick Lee writes
> Show me a 1/2 meg Mac or PC running 3 tasks, like
> PGP, printing, and terminal emulation, and you will
> *answer my question!* Good luck!
People keep harping about how wonderful platform (xxx) is because it can
do (yyy) with only (zzz) of memory. This is roughly equivalent to saying
"My car can go at 20 MPH with only a half-horsepower engine". Sure, it's
economical, but it still only goes at 20 MPH.
Actually, I was bringing up a question of efficiency. I do now have
a two meg machine, and it *still* multitasks with lower overhead.
Of course, you can always throw more horsepower into a computer, but
that does not necessarily make the OS more efficient. For example,
you don't need an MMU or a fast CPU chip to make one platform do
true pre-emptive multitasking. Sure, all of us would like a very
big engine, and a very large passenger compartment, but for those
that don't have it yet, there's nothing wrong with choosing a car
that gets good mileage. A better analogy: "My car is ergonomically
designed, so that I can easily watch the road, the dashboard
instruments, read a map, drink my coffee, and tune the radio. And
it gets 40 MPG, and only costs $250.00!"
There is a tradeoff between memory usage, execution time, development
time, and the probability of bugs in the software. Current computers are,
by and large, under-memoried; a common "rule of thumb" is that for optimum
performance, about 50% of the cost of a computer (not including
peripherials) should be for memory.
By "boasting" about how little memory your OS uses, you are simply
revealing how outdated and under-optimized it is for current systems. I
mean, what does 4 meg of memory cost? A whole $140? Big whoop.
Under-optimized? I'll take an OS optimized for efficiency, thank you.
As always, you get what you pay for. Systems that run in 1/2 meg of memory
cannot begin to offer the services of larger OSes. And compared to the
size of data objects that most serious applications need to work with, a
megabyte is small potatoes anyway.
-Anthony
For those who can afford a bigger hammer, a better handle will
*still* do a better job. When I do upgrade I will choose an
OS, I'll pick one that's efficient enough to leave me plenty of
memory after the OS is loaded. BTW, I *do* like Macs, so I'll
get an emulator that runs Mac software faster on any given
processor than a real Mac would, just for kicks.
--
--
Brian Patrick Lee <bl...@media-lab.mit.edu> <l...@tcm.org>
Finger blee for my PGP key. Stated opinions are mine.
Please don't waste bandwidth--we already have TV.
Mark Mandt
I would like to add a comment along the lines of this thread.
I recently wrote a mac program in which I added a "Nice Value" option
that is set by the user. This determines where and how often calls are
made to SystemTask() in the program which allows the OS to switch between
the various active application and give them time on the CPU. It is a
trivial thing to add in to a program and I would certainly like to see
more programs with such a feature (some already do to some extent).
If an operation is going to take 10 minutes to complete, then I don't care
if it takes 15-20 minutes provided I can have better response when doing
other work or just playing a game.
Over all though I am very happy with how the Mac does multitasking as I
usually have at least 4-8 programs running at once. Sure it would be nice
to have direct control of processes through the OS but this is not
essential. Also the situation could be improved with the current OS if
programers are requested to provide better background handling. I have
found most shareware authors to be very amenable to implimenting suggestions
that will improve their products.
Regards,
Mark Mandt
Jim Woodgett
pre-emptive verses cooperative multitasking. As a number of Mac users and
administrators have pointed out, most users either don't know the difference
or don't care. As an normal user, what I am more concerned about is memory
protection. By that I mean that if one of my apps crashes, 5 times out of 10
it takes the whole system with it. Sometimes opt-command-esc works,
sometimes it doesn't. I had the impression that pre-emptive tasking gives
you this sort of protection. If so, then I think a lot more " basic users"
would be interested.
Its a bit of a shame that this discussion hasn't been more amicable
(Amigable?). I really don't think that the fate of either computer is
dependent on the other. Both are credible alternatives to Intel-based
machines but both are essentially niche machines if you compare them to the
number of PC boxes. This is a real shame. I sincerely hope that variety
survives. As someone in the "Chicago" thread pointed out, Microsoft relies
heavily on the innovation of others. Without Macs and Amigas the personal
computer world probably be a lot less adventurous (certainly less intuitive).
Jim Woodgett Fax (416) 926 6529 Tel (416) 924 0671
jwoo...@ocicl.oci.utoronto.ca
_____________________________________________________________
Go Jays Go....World Series Champions 1992 and 1993
Alomar, Butler, Carter, Castillo, Cox, Fernandez, Guzman,
Henderson, Leiter, Molitor, Olerud, Sprague, Stewart,
Stottlemyre, Ward, White, and the rest.
David Hopper
>
>Hmm, let me download a file with ZTerm. Now I switch to MacDraw to load
>some clipart. MacDraw seems to be having a little trouble; perhaps it is
>because I only have 32megs of RAM with 20megs allocated to MacDraw.
>MacDraw quits with a "type 1" error. ZTerm tells me that the connection
>timed out during the download. Great.
Hee hee. My favorite ZTerm fuck-up is when you are downloading files,
just try to switch to the finder to dump some files into the trash to
free up some space. Whoops. Time to call the chimes of death.
This is standard fare on the Amiga, supported at the system level.
File I/O on the Macintosh, even with System 7 Pro, is 1984 technology.
'Cept even the 1985 Amiga had asynchronous preemptive file I/O.
>This seems to be the trend here. "Mac doesn't have preemptive multitasking,
>doesn't need it... etc."
Well, to the Mac's defense, every Mac/PC/Amiga user puts the blinds on
what they don't have. It's buyer's remorse. You get what you think
works best, and when you find something better, you convince yourself
that you don't need it.
>On the contrary, I love using X-Windows with the HP-VUE interface on my
>HP-9000/750. Comes with a lots of shells, preemptive multitasking, etc.
I agree. XWindows is perhaps the _single_ most powerful/customisable
windowing system out there.
>Hmm, maybe so. After all, the Amiga can multitask System 7 with AmigaDOS.
>I'd say System 7 is pretty pathetic software. B^)
Well, let's see. Right now, I'm running Intuition, System 7 Pro, *and*
X_Windows on separate 1024x768 screens on my Amiga. Posting this
message from ZTerm as we speak, with three X clients running in the
background with AmigaDOS cranking on formatting a 1.44 meg PC disk.
Sure, maybe it set me back ~$4000 to get there. But no remorse, here.
>-- Gerald
Dave Hopper |MUYOM!/// Anthro Creep | Corporate Events Technician
| __ /// . . | Microsoft Corporation
bard@jessica. | \\\/// Ia! Ia! | All opinions are my own.
Stanford.EDU | \XX/ Shub-Niggurath! | As if you couldn't tell.
Karl Thomas
some clipart. MacDraw seems to be having a little trouble; perhaps it is
because I only have 32megs of RAM with 20megs allocated to MacDraw.
MacDraw quits with a "type 1" error. ZTerm tells me that the connection
Don't use Zterm. If you want to download in the background while using a
processor intensive app, use Macintercomm Lite. I've never had a
download to slow down while using MIL. This includes playing games that
disable background tasks and other processor intensive apps
kdt
Gregory Carter
What we are really talking about is protected memory, and an OS that
uses it right.
When I see a poorly written Mac app, for instance MICROSOFT WORD,
trash my machine just because it can't find a laserwriter accept
request, it really TICKS ME OFF.
I wish I had protected memory just so that I could be sure that
all the Microsoft Apps I run are quarantined.
I would feel much better, and probably get more work done.
But, not to just pick on Microsft, Macintosh programming as I am
learning takes a hell of a lot of skill to manage memory correctly.
My second grip I suppose thats unrelated, is the use of PASCAL
conversion or C conversion, depending on your compiler OEM, that
many of the toolbox routines require to call certain functions.
God, I wish they would JUST REWRITE the Mac OS and use C calls like
everyone else does.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Greg Carter | BURP, went my 840AV as it ate a
gca...@helix.promega.com | INTEL box for lunch...
Unix Systems Administrator | My 840AV really should diet!
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Derek B Shaffer
Mac by Anthony Bug...@wimsey.co
Hi. Could you tell me where I might find this program? Is it
PD/ftp'able? Being a user of both OSes, I have been eminently
frustrated by the System 7's reluctance to do any real multitasking.
Kind of ironic that I run it as one of the Amiga OS's tasks via Emplant.
> Why do I _need_ a shell??? You may need a shell on the Mac, but I
> function quite well without one. Give me an example of something you do
> with a shell that absolutely requires a shell. Remember, there's lots
> of excellent Mac PD/Shareware out there.
Who want's to waste away on an ftp site looking for them (If you are
even on the net)? It's much *easier* if what you need comes with the
machine. Hey, isn't *ease* of use the Mac's selling point?
> There are some very good apps out there for the Amiga, but what about
> Type 1 fonts, etc.
What about them? What about outline fonts (wb2.04+, not everyone has a
postscript printer).
> BTW Commodore stock has gone from about $10.00 to
> $2.50 recently (it has bounced back to $3.50 thought) and they have
> posted losses ALL last year. This data is from Commodore themselves
Yes? We are all aware of C='s well pronounced marketing deficiency.
Using # of sales/price of stock is not a valid way of winning this
never-ending debate when you consider which company has the best
marketing in history and which one has the worst in histroy. Leave it
to apple to sell millions of vastly underpowered, way over priced b/w
computers to thousands of innocent schools and families - which they had
been doing since 1984 prior to the color classic. Fortunately, they
have improved :-)>.
-Derek Shaffer, CMU
Bruce Grubb
>O.K. format a disk. Now, run MacWriteII and print something.
>What?!? You can't do it? Why not? Maybe because the mac does TASK
>SWITCHING instead of MULTITASKING! Once the disk starts formatting,
>you can't do anything else, even on a quadra (68040). It's not that
>the formatting program needs all of the cpu cycles, but because it's
>been programmed not to switch from that task. Amiga can do it without
>breaking a sweat, even on my 68010! Get a life. Get an Amiga...
While in its early stages Thread Manager is a good bridge of the
present relic of System ~4.1 days {cooperative multitasking} and the future
{preemtive multitasking}. Also one MUST remember that the Mac started
life as a _single_ task at a time machine. 99% of programs outthere
are _unable_ to preemtive multitasking REGARDLESS of WHICH OS one uses!
{A/UX has been able to preemtive multitasking but it does ALL Mac OS
programs as a set and does NOT let them multitask.}
Also to the Amiga heads outthere: Why would we want to get a computer
whose market share in the USA {which is where addresses ending in .edu,
com, gov, and pri are _in_} is next to NONEXISTANT?!?
The software situation is a joke even compared to the now defunct NeXT
hardware. Even Computer City in El Paso has little to _no_ Amiga
software. In _Europe_ the Amiga does _very_ well BUT *this is not Europe!*
sl...@cc.usu.edu
Remember, the Amiga was first introduced in '85. The first was the
A1000 with 256k. On it ran full, smooth multitasking under a motorolla 68000.
I think that all the guy is getting at is that the Amiga operating system is
rather nice. It works well, AND is economical. So, you say that a system
should have a 486 or 68040 and 8 meg of ram just to multitask?
Now your talking about Unix (all you would need beyond that is a 200 meg
hard drive just to store the operating system).
Beyond all of this, the best multitasking operating system on the Mac,
IBM, or Amiga IS on the Amiga.
Now, let us take a look at this car parable. so, just because a car
gets great gas milage, it might be a piece of crap because the engine would be
too small to pull it up a hill? How in the *hell* does this even compare with
a computer? The idea is getting a great work load (multitasking) out of little
horsepower and memory. If a car will climb a hill, get great gas milage, and
cost very little, isn't it as good as a car that will climb a hill, eat up gas,
and cost a fortune? Hmmm... the intelligence may have just struck us.
The fact, beyond all, is that the Amiga OS is a very good system.
(It is certainly better than OS/2).
Jonathan Dinerstein
SL...@cc.usu.edu
PS -> Shall we now talk about how the Amiga OS is crap becuase it doesn't have
a neat *windows* display when it first boots up? Or maybe we should talk about
how the Amiga sucks because it doesn't have a cool pizza-style case. :)
flam
: SpiritWalker (spwa...@kaiwan.com) wrote:
: > In <35...@mindlink.bc.ca> Timothy...@mindlink.bc.ca (Timothy Notting) writes:
: > >Stop living in the past Amigas are the past with no future due to PC
: > >popularity and Macs preferability. And due to the low low cost you cannot
: > >compare!
: > >--
: > but the point is RIGHT NOW the Amiga is and always has been more advanced than
: > the Mac, partuculary in the OS portion, not to mention that a LOT of the
: > Amiga's OS can be sotred in ROM, wheras on the Mac it is largly Disk based,
: > making it slower. However, Apple has more and more updates than CBM does, but
: > on the Average Amiga is far more stable than the Mac is.
: But the Amiga desktop is *so* *ugly*! Is HAM more advanced than TrueColor?
: > --
: > -James
: --
: Dale Greer, gr...@utdallas.edu
: "If you want a vision of the future, Winston,
: imagine a boot, stamping on a human face, forever." - G. Orwell, _1984_
You havent seen MY amiga desktop. (workbench)
--
__________________________________________________________
Q. What is the least spoken phrase in the english laguage?
A. Hey isn't that the banjo player's porche?
Fear is just the effect of being too lazy to get excited!!
-Flam (makealotofnoise)
__________________________________________________________
Nuke'd
Bret Oeltjen <oel...@mermaid.micro.umn.edu> wrote:
>I was just wondering... I use Windows at work of course :(, and need to
>edit and change the files at home. I use my mac and run the same programs,
>or similar programs. Can the Amiga read, change, and save in Word Perfect,
>Quatro Pro, Excel, and Word for Windows formats? I know the HD floppy is
>still kinda rare for the Amiga, but you would need one of those too.
ASCII is a standard text format that ALL platforms can read. I
know that it lacks the formatting capabilities of regular files, but
then again, I have yet to see a 100% correct re-format of let's say
Microsoft Word for Mac to Microsoft Word for Windows (and I have
converted alot of LARGE doc files for profs!) So it's a bit more
convient, but you still have to check it. The Amiga does require a bit
more attention....
Scott - Maxwell
>> wish System 7 had real multitasking every time I use my Mac. I don't like
>> staring at the little spinning wheel in MacDraw Pro. I don't like waiting
>> around every time I insert a floppy. I don't like having a dialogue box
>> take over the whole system.
>
>Yup, uhuh, I enjoy having my requesters show up on a window in the
>background where I can't see it. You know, that important rendering
>that 'just has to get done' is on hold for 3 hours because you didn't
>flip screens/windows in time to act on the requester. Sounds like an
>Amiga feature to me.
>
know about screens don't you? I mean you do use a Mac. (Note: :-) )
>I have one example of how I think Sys 7 excels over other OS's, the
>clipboard. Point out where the Amiga or for that matter MS-DOS/Windows
>has a clipboard like System 7. I can actually clip postscript from App
>to App. Along with TIFF, Text, etc, etc. Now I'm sure you'll come up
>with some example of the Amiga doing something similar, but remember, I
>have an Amiga and there is no such feature.
>
The Amiga clipboard can do what you said above. Application programmers
haven't been quick to use it until recently. It's those same people that
program the Mac improperly (multitasking issue above).
>A computer is, after all, a tool!!!! :)
>
True, very true.
>Anthony Bugera
>Internet: abu...@wimsey.com Quadra.... The only way to
>Compu$erve: 76470,1560 Fly!
>GEnie: A.Bugera
/===============================================================\
|Scott Maxwell * I was almost cut off in traffic by |
|sco...@cup.portal.com * Lorena Bobbitt. |
|Amiga 1000, 2000, 1200 * Senate hearing finds King Missile is |
|Pet, SuperPET, Vic, 64 * responsible for Bobbitt's Detachable |
|128D, 800XL, TI, //e * Penis. *Acquit Lorena!* |
\===============================================================/
Bruce Grubb
The whole point that the Amiga advocates keep ignoring is that
software selection in the USA is a total disaster bordering on nonexistant.
Great so one can preemtively multitask on an Amiga; trying to _find_
software to _use_ on an Amiga is more of an adventure.
In gereral the amount of software available falls into this order
most to least.
DOS
Mac
Windows
OS/2
And at the bottom is Amiga, NeXT, PS/1, and several other machines.
WHile the Amiga is much better than the Mac or IBM THERE IS NEXT TO NO
SOFTWARE TO RUN ON THE THING. The Amiga is much like an automoble in the
early years, better than other modes of transportation but the tools and
needs that made the car _useable_ were not available.
Great, so the Amiga can do many things better than and IBM and a Mac
but the amount of software for the machine is pathetic.
On side note to the happy mess MacWeek 01/17/94 that Apple may be planning
to let IBM make some of the PowerMacs. In essence some of the PowerPC macs
will be Mac-compatable IBM machines with the Apple logo on them ;-) :-P.
As much of a niche machine that the Amiga was {and is} there is NO
future here in the USA for the machine. Europe is another case
{the Amiga does well inspite of Commodore's bungling.}
Face it people, the Europian Amigas have a future; the USA Amigas are DEAD
{they just will not accept it.}
Anton Rang
>In gereral the amount of software available falls into this order
>most to least.
>
>DOS
>Mac
>Windows
>OS/2
Actually, I suspect that Windows may have edged out the Mac by now.
But there's still a lot of Mac software out there.
>Great, so the Amiga can do many things better than and IBM and a Mac
>but the amount of software for the machine is pathetic.
Sadly, Commodore never figured out how to market the machine, hence the
user base that would have driven software development never materialized.
It was a neat machine. I guess it's still a neat machine.
--
Anton Rang (ra...@gnu.ai.mit.edu)
William Fang
: Christopher Smith writes:
: >If you want to do some programming on the Mac and you don't have $$'s,
: >there is also plenty of freeware compilers out there. For the relatively
: >modest price of about $200 you can get a complete programming
: >environment.
: That works? I'd like to know what you are referring to? Care to enlighten
: me? :=)
Isn't there the old standbye GNU C++? I know there's an Amiga and
Atari ST port, so assumed the other 680x0 box would have one.
Or are we talking about pascal, E, Cobol, Modula 2, etc?
- Jim
Anthony Bugera
> And at the bottom is Amiga, NeXT, PS/1, and several other machines.
> WHile the Amiga is much better than the Mac or IBM THERE IS NEXT TO NO
> SOFTWARE TO RUN ON THE THING. The Amiga is much like an automoble in the
> early years, better than other modes of transportation but the tools and
> needs that made the car _useable_ were not available.
Much better? I don't think so. Well, maybe it depends on what your
needs are or what you call better. Can you beat any of the following
Mac titles with an Amiga title: Photoshop, Quark Xpress 3.2, Maclink,
Filemaker Pro 2.0, Word, Excel, ATM, Fractal Design Painter, or
Fontographer? Please tell me about one! I'll sell it!
> Great, so the Amiga can do many things better than and IBM and a Mac
> but the amount of software for the machine is pathetic.
The Amiga can do _some_ things better. For my uses those things don't
matter. And actually for most general uses, those things don't matter.
Note: I said general uses. You know, Mr. Joe Bloe average computer
user.
> On side note to the happy mess MacWeek 01/17/94 that Apple may be planning
> to let IBM make some of the PowerMacs. In essence some of the PowerPC macs
> will be Mac-compatable IBM machines with the Apple logo on them ;-) :-P.
> As much of a niche machine that the Amiga was {and is} there is NO
> future here in the USA for the machine. Europe is another case
> {the Amiga does well inspite of Commodore's bungling.}
> Face it people, the Europian Amigas have a future; the USA Amigas are DEAD
> {they just will not accept it.}
The European market will propably not be enough to keep Commodore
afloat. C= expects the Amiga and CD32 to be unadvertised run away
successes like the C-64. It won't happen in todays market. Worldwide
Commodore has be posting record company losses and a stock drop from
$10 to about $2.50 in less than a year is not good under any terms.
I really like (liked) the Amiga, but Commodore appears to have fumbled
the ball. Oh well, maybe I will be able to get a bunch of Amigas for
$0.10 on the dollar in about 6 months. I hope not, I wish someone would
take the Amiga where it is supposed to be, but I'm not holding my
breath.
One point to make before I go is that most software innovations on the
IBM/PC Compatable market has come from the Amiga and the Mac. Without
them other PCs would still be in the dark ages.
Brian R Turmelle
>The whole point that the Amiga advocates keep ignoring is that
>software selection in the USA is a total disaster bordering on nonexistant.
>Great so one can preemtively multitask on an Amiga; trying to _find_
>software to _use_ on an Amiga is more of an adventure.
>
And I'm on a low-budget. I'm having no problem finding software.
>Great, so the Amiga can do many things better than and IBM and a Mac
>but the amount of software for the machine is pathetic.
Ahhh, we have a summer. Where having more automatically equates to better.
Ever hear of quality vs quantity. Guess not.
>On side note to the happy mess MacWeek 01/17/94 that Apple may be planning
>to let IBM make some of the PowerMacs. In essence some of the PowerPC macs
>will be Mac-compatable IBM machines with the Apple logo on them ;-) :-P.
>As much of a niche machine that the Amiga was {and is} there is NO
>future here in the USA for the machine. Europe is another case
>{the Amiga does well inspite of Commodore's bungling.}
>Face it people, the Europian Amigas have a future; the USA Amigas are DEAD
>{they just will not accept it.}
I used to have respect for MAC. Atleast they put up some competition
with IBM and Amiga. Now MAC has thrown in the towel and is trying
to fuse with IBM. That's great for diversity. Power to the monopolies.
If you can't beat 'em, join 'em. What happened to this country of ours.
What happened to competitive development. What happened to creativity.
Do we really want all computers to be indestinguishable from another
except for your HD space and RAM capacity. Heck, why don't we just have
every single company in existance merge together so we can coexist
in peace and harmony. Shal we let the Borg assimilate us.
What a boring world this is going to be.
#flame off
Brian
J MacNish
Anthony Berno <abe...@saltwater.com> wrote:
[snip]
>By "boasting" about how little memory your OS uses, you are simply
>revealing how outdated and under-optimized it is for current systems. I
>mean, what does 4 meg of memory cost? A whole $140? Big whoop.
>
>As always, you get what you pay for. Systems that run in 1/2 meg of memory
>cannot begin to offer the services of larger OSes. And compared to the
>size of data objects that most serious applications need to work with, a
>megabyte is small potatoes anyway.
8 megabytes on this Amiga system here lets you ray trace a large picture
with some pretty hefty texture maps and altitude maps just fine. I don't
even know if OS/2 can boot without hitting the disk with 8 megabytes.
What's so bad then about having a smaller OS?
Is your point that everyone should have so much memory that the OS's size
is negligable? (That's what it sounds like). "Estimate" the system
resources consumed by OS/2 (only one instance). Pick a reasonable percentage
of total resources that you consider negligable (say 10%). Calculate how
much memory you should have then. What do you come out with? 20 megabytes?
24? 32?
>-Anthony
Jesse
Nevin Liber
Gregory R Block <gbl...@csd4.csd.uwm.edu> wrote:
>Image processing/rendering is computational in nature, it isn't
>dependent on input. In a preempting environment, you'd set this so that
>it took up "spare" CPU cycles. In a real-time environment, you might
>make sure it gets a minimum of 5-10% CPU.
I would stick this in the class of "finish it as quickly as possible".
If something else really needs the CPU, it's ok to slow this down.
These kind of jobs are the easiest to schedule.
>Downloading is I/O-bound. To avoid dangerous character loss on some
>systems, you -MAY- have to set this high.
I wouldn't really say that it is I/O bound. Rather, look at it as
requiring a certain amount of CPU time per certain amount of wall time;
with both lower and upper thresholds. A clearer example of this is
video. You have to maintain a certain minimal frame rate, or it isn't
worth doing at all. Giving it more than enough resources results in
waste (and the process might not want to give up the CPU if it doesn't
think it will get it back in time for its next action).
These kind of jobs are harder to schedule, even if you know both parameters in
advance. Asking for 1 MB/sec of data transfer is different than asking
for 100 KB / 100 msec (the second requires the CPU more often, but for
less time each time it gets it). You also have to decide what to do if you
can't give a process the resources it needs.
>Formatting is I/O bound. Set it at standard priority.
Again, this is a finish it as quickly as possible type job.
>Nisus is keyboard bound, mostly.
Here is a third classification: I don't need resources all the time,
but when I ask for them, I need them immediately and I'll give them up
when I feel I can do so.
Now, how does one design a good scheduler, especially for a preemptive
system, when all three (or more if you can think of them)
classifications of jobs are on the same system running at the same
time? Plus, a given process may migrate between classifications (or be
in more than one) at different times. Can you do this without any
cooperation from the programmer (ie, via a static or dynamic analysis
of the program)? If you need cooperation from the programmer, do you
allow the programmer to make decisions based upon the characteristics
of the machine the program is running on? All things considered, is
this really any easier than cooperative multitasking?
I don't know of any easy answers to these problems. There is some
research going on in the Unix networking arena (especially as we move
towards being able to send video over the Internet) addressing these
kinds of problems, but it is far from complete and definitive.
My feeling is preemptive multitasking is better for the finish as quick
as you can types of jobs (class 1), and cooperative multitasking is better
for the I need resources on demand (class 3) types of jobs. I need a certain
number of resources for a certain amount of time (class 2) types of
jobs right now fit better into cooperative multitasking situations, but
as we study them and learn how to schedule them, they'll probably end
up working as well under premptive systems. How do you design a system
that uses all three? I wish I knew. Then again, I've only been
looking at this problem from this particular viewpoint since Friday. :-)
People who do lots of batch-oriented (mainly class 1) types of jobs
argue that they do better under preemptive systems than cooperative
systems. The real question is: how much of the work that most people
do on personal computers consists of batch-oriented jobs (by this I
mean things like compiling, image processing, etc.)? Although this
segment is growing (as we get more powerful applications), I still
think that this isn't characteristic of the vast majority of users. And if
you have to choose which class of applications you are going to run
"smoother" at the expense of the other classes of applications (it really
is another engineering tradeoff that has to be made; one type of
multitasking isn't always better than the other), which class do you
think is most important to the most number of people? This may not be
the best system for you or me, but I know that I use computers a bit
differently than the majority, and the needs of the many outweigh the
needs of the few, or something like that. :-)
Last point: the three most popular operating systems: DOS, MacOS, and
Windows, do not have preemptive multitasking. The market has had a
choice (Amigas and Unix boxes are out there), and it hasn't felt that
preemptive multitasking is important enough to pay the money for,
especially compared with other factors.
Just some thoughts.
--
Nevin ":-)" Liber ne...@cs.arizona.edu (602) 293-2799
^^^ (520) after 3/95
Marc 'Nepomuk' Heuler
> No, those tasks don't sit idly by until you click on them. Desk
> Accessories are drivers, which get time when any application polls for
> an event.
If your application doesn't, because you instructed it to do a lengthy job?
--
Pg. 5 of DOS 6 manual: "Upgrading from OS/2 to MS-DOS 6"
// Marc 'Nepomuk' Heuler - Amiga software developer - PGP 2.x key on demand
\X/ UUCP: ma...@aargh.incubus.sub.org ZNetz: marc%aa...@incubus.zer IRC: Nepi
Marc 'Nepomuk' Heuler
> You don't know System 7, do you? Have you ever used it? Maybe I
I used it.
> should comment on what the Amiga can or cannot do, since the last time
> I used one was 1985. Let's see, you can't install Adobe fonts on
> Amigas, can you? (Maybe you can, but like you, I'm just going to
> comment on something I haven't really researched.)
There are programs to convert Adobe fonts to Amiga font format.
> System 7 multitasks. Processes switched to the background run,
> they're not suspended. What are you thinking of?
As I was using a Mac (System 7.1) it was a shame: Requesters cut me off,
for example when the RAM-Disk was full, it didn't let me delete something
out of with without canceling the copy operation. Context switches took
extremly long, for example ~2 sec to (de)activate Aldus Superpaint on my
LC-III. Some software even cut me out completly, there was no way to
multitasking anymore.
> The Mac has no standard shell -- doesn't need one.
The typical Mac-User doesn't need one, because he simply sais "You can't do
that on a Mac" to things which could be done if it only had a shell. I
definatly need a shell on the Mac, because I know what can be done with a
shell.
--
Reden mit Gravenreuth: 089-596087
Marc 'Nepomuk' Heuler
> What I meant by my original post was that although true, preemptive
> multitasking on the Mac might be nice, it is not strictly necessary for the
> vast majority of applications. Single users almost invariably perform one
> task at a time. They might want that particular task to be a different one
> at any given moment, but that is catered for by the application switching
> features of System 7 or MultiFinder.
Since I only have one mouse, I can only control one program at a time. If
I had two mice, this might be different, but I couldn't try yet. What I
can do (and I do that every day) is that I instruct programs to do
something, and then switch back to where I was before. Therefore and for
my background scripts (backup, uucp, cleanup, and similar stuff) I need
pre-emptive multitasking. I tried with a Mac, but it was impossible.
> If your users want to execute remote jobs on Amigas from SGI machines, fine.
> But if you are writing a report and you just want to flick to Illustrator to
> fine tune a graphic you are pasting into an XPress document, true multitasking
> is overkill.
True (in sense of pre-emptive) multitasking is *never* overkill. If you
once used pre-emptive multitasking, you never ever want to miss it again.
--
Ueberhaupt gelten Vorschriften nur fuer den, der sie sich gefallen laeszt.
Russ Taylor
It's MULTITASKING. Not preemptive or cooperative.
BOTH are true multitasking.
NEITHER one is multiprocessing.
Multitasking means I can download, decompress (Downline), play nethack, and
run 45-odd inits at the same time. On my Mac. So don't try to tell me
that cmt doens't let you do more than one thing at once. That particular
combination is ROUTINE for me, in fact, and it doesn't slow down the
downloading.
The basic truth to remember is that you only have so many CPU cycles to pass
around. There's no escaping this basic fact. It is also worth noting
that preemptive systems require (on the average) more cycles to deal with
affairs, that is to say higher overhead. So in fact, there are many cases
where there are good reasons to use cooperative systems.
And btw I use unix extensively, and I'm not impressed with the value of
CLIs, batch processing, or preemptive multitasking. Preemptive often means
my processes get swamped by high load (granted, on a multi-user machine the
idea of a foreground task becomes somewhat vague), something I don't have
to worry about on my Mac (the foreground task always gets enough time).
And I've wished for a GUI on my unix account a lot more often than I've
wished for a CLI on my Mac.
I think I'm going to shoot the next person who spouts off about 'true'
multitasking, or at least beat him to death with a dictionary.
Oh, one final note for the guy claiming that Macs do task switching:
unix often does task switching. I can't background tin (it wants immediate
attention), due to crappy programming. So I can't index news while I work
on something else. That's what task switching is -- you can only do one thing
at a time, but you can have several processes (with all the background ones
dead) going at one time. That's useless. On the Mac, background processes
get attention. That's multitasking.
Rafael Kobylinski
: Oh, one final note for the guy claiming that Macs do task switching:
: unix often does task switching. I can't background tin (it wants immediate
: attention), due to crappy programming. So I can't index news while I work
: on something else. That's what task switching is -- you can only do one thing
sorry, but you can index news in the background. Read the manpage!
Thank you.
Otherwise you can always open a shell in X, then run tin in it, and
let the shell somewhere on the screen running "in the background".
You have to face it. Co-operative multitasking is only a compromise, and
preemptive multitasking has really advantages.
--
Rafael Kobylinski
Technische Universitaet Muenchen
koby...@Informatik.TU-Muenchen.DE
Jani Miettinen
: > I use a Quadra 800 at work every day. I used to be stuck with a 950. I
: > wish System 7 had real multitasking every time I use my Mac. I don't like
: > staring at the little spinning wheel in MacDraw Pro. I don't like waiting
: > around every time I insert a floppy. I don't like having a dialogue box
: > take over the whole system.
: Yup, uhuh, I enjoy having my requesters show up on a window in the
: background where I can't see it. You know, that important rendering
: that 'just has to get done' is on hold for 3 hours because you didn't
: flip screens/windows in time to act on the requester. Sounds like an
: Amiga feature to me.
Requesters will pop on top of all windows and they will also bring the screen
where they are in to front most...if user wants the system behave like that way
: > ...deleted text...
: > Hmm, let me download a file with ZTerm. Now I switch to MacDraw to load
: > some clipart. MacDraw seems to be having a little trouble; perhaps it is
: > because I only have 32megs of RAM with 20megs allocated to MacDraw.
: > MacDraw quits with a "type 1" error. ZTerm tells me that the connection
: > timed out during the download. Great.
: Yes this can happen on the Mac. Seems the responsibility for having
: programs task properly is in the hands of the programmers. Hmmmm....
: can you say 'programmer'? Funny but I use the lastest version of
: MacTCP, MacPPP, CD Remote, Word, Datebook Pro, Touchbase Pro, and
: Internews all at the same time with NO PROBLEMS! Get some real software
: that you _pay_ for stop complaining about the shareware stuff.
ALL software should work just fine with MULTITASKING.
: > >The Mac has no standard shell -- doesn't need one.
: >
: > This seems to be the trend here. "Mac doesn't have preemptive multitasking
: > doesn't need it... etc."
: My house is bigger than yours, my dog is better than yours, etc, etc...
: make some points here, use some examples, I can get rhetoric anywhere.
I don't understand what is so much better on non-pre-emptive multitasking...
every OS is or is going to use pre-emptive multitasking (including Chigago)
I think you are not able to uppgrade your system much longer if you don't like
using pre-emptive Operating Systems.
: > On the contrary, I love using X-Windows with the HP-VUE interface on my
: > HP-9000/750. Comes with a lots of shells, preemptive multitasking, etc.
: Let's keep this arguement in the realm of the affordable shall we?
Chigago, Win NT, Amiga OS, SCO Unix, Linux, Pink, ...just name it, they all
use pre-emptive multitasking, and so WILL Mac OS (in far future)
: > Hmm, maybe so. After all, the Amiga can multitask System 7 with AmigaDOS.
: > I'd say System 7 is pretty pathetic software. B^)
: Oh give me a break! Grab a brain! Do you think the CPU in your Amiga
: just sits around waiting for more tasks so it can 'run' faster. I
: think.... NOT.
Nope, but think it this way: Render one image which rendering time is 24 hrs
on Mac and then download some stuff for 4 hrs = 28 hrs on Mac. On pre-emptive
systems rendering time might (for example) become 10% longer on that 4hrs
downloading (which is happening simultaneously of course) time...so overall
time would be: 24hrs+4*0.1= 24hrs 24 min
Which one is better: 28 or 24.4 hrs?????
: I have one example of how I think Sys 7 excels over other OS's, the
: clipboard. Point out where the Amiga or for that matter MS-DOS/Windows
: has a clipboard like System 7. I can actually clip postscript from App
: to App. Along with TIFF, Text, etc, etc. Now I'm sure you'll come up
: with some example of the Amiga doing something similar, but remember, I
: have an Amiga and there is no such feature.
Check the OS3.x on Amiga. There is clipboards....but ofcourse not so many
program does support them :(
: A computer is, after all, a tool!!!! :)
Sure, and the better the tool is->faster you get the job done.
(rendering, rendering, rendering...:)
-Jani
Andrew Francke
> conversion or C conversion, depending on your compiler OEM, that
many
> of the toolbox routines require to call certain functions.
>
> God, I wish they would JUST REWRITE the Mac OS and use C calls like
> everyone else does.
You mean like Microsoft, of course :)
Actually, it's really not a big deal to do "pascal" conversion since
the prototypes take care of this for you. It's really only when
writing callbacks that this is ever visible.
Steve Baumgarten
Check the OS3.x on Amiga. There is clipboards....but ofcourse not so many
program does support them :(
I think this is, for most people, the salient point. The Mac may not
multitask as well as the Amiga, but things like this work now and have
been working for the past 10 years. Why is clipboard support still an
open issue on the Amiga? Might this user interface deficiency -- one
of far too many at this late date -- have something to do with its
lack of popularity?
You may now return to your rendering jobs, already in progress...
--
Steve Baumgarten | "New York... when civilization falls apart,
PANIX, New York, NY | remember, we were way ahead of you."
|
Email: s...@panix.com | - David Letterman
Dariusz Bolski
:In article <dbolskiC...@netcom.com> dbo...@netcom.com (Dariusz Bolski) writes:
:>In article <tfk3wm=@quantum.qnx.com> da...@quantum.qnx.com (Dan Hildebrand) writes:
:>>In article <1994Jan10....@bradford.ac.uk>,
:>>DAG GILLIES <D.A.G....@bradford.ac.uk> wrote:
:>>>
:>>>The thing noone seems to metion is why, exactly, you need preemptive
:>>>multitasking on a single user machine. All you really need to be able to do
:>>>is run several applications simultaneously, and the Macintosh collaborative
:>>>system works just fine.
:>>
:>>In limited, human-interaction-only environments this may be so, but it
:>>sets limitations for application areas the machine can be easily used in.
:>
:>Right. My users execute remote jobs on Amiga from SGI machines not thinking if
:>there is some other user doing something else on it or not.
:>As the remote execution is ofthen a part of job scripts running on UNIX
:>there is often no way to provide human assistance/interatcion to them.
:>Today, one of animators/programmers has asked me if I could set up a similar
:>solution for the macintosh. My answer was "no". Might be Dag Gillies would
:>care to explain why I was wrong if I was.
:>
:>>Dan Hildebrand email: da...@qnx.com
:>
:What I meant by my original post was that although true, preemptive
:multitasking on the Mac might be nice, it is not strictly necessary for the
:vast majority of applications.
the issue).
:If your users want to execute remote jobs on Amigas from SGI machines, fine.
:But if you are writing a report and you just want to flick to Illustrator to
:fine tune a graphic you are pasting into an XPress document, true multitasking
:is overkill.
In here you are probably accidentally right, mainly because most of these
applications are written with single tasking OS in mind from the user interface
perspective. Thus not much could be gained from a preemptivness other than a
smoother interface with them. Have these above mentioned apps been written
with preemptive OS in mind - your statement would not always hold. Read below.
: Single users almost invariably perform one
:task at a time. They might want that particular task to be a different one
:at any given moment,
That is possibly true for the mac users because they don't have a choice.
My users "variably" perform between 0 (none :) to about 5 tasks at a time (with
some of them performing migt be 20 might be more - the real power users). I
learn about these extremely heavily using system users when they come to
me saying the the process table got full. Some of the users have many of
the commands already aliased to background execution (with ampersand) so they
don't wait for it to be done. I am monitoring my systems closely to find out
how else I could tune them or even prevent them from simply dying when these
users are in the hurry. Since output value of my monitor programs would not
say much I will quote the number from uptime which reports for most of
the time value of between .6 and 4.5 (about 80% of the time) and sometimes
goes up as high as 9.*. To say the truth, Indigo rarely survives the
last number (above 9). To summarize - Unix (and AmigaOS either) do support
writing programs which can be easily executed (also pushed into or pulled from)
in the background, thus users (once they get used to that) use this capability
quite extensively. As far as I can observe - most of them don't want to wait
for the command to finish and tend to start the next task (except of those few
folks who actually like to have a small break :-). Tasks to be executed might
take anywhere from seconds to hours or even days. I do not agree that any
user would want to wait two days before approaching the next task.
You gave me example of task which you think would justify the way macos does
task management. Let me give you example of just one type of situations which
happenes here every couple of days which counters your justification:
Pulling the input data off the 5GB exabyte tape, image processing them,
and pushing them out to another 5GB tape - with the intermittent access
to 6GB storage area. This is not only computationally
intensive job but also at most of the time there are at least four SCSI
devices accessed at most of the time. Even with that load - people still can
work on the machine interactively. Can you say that this kind of work would
be possible on a mac? I say no. I follow the powerpc mac development closely
but I say - these machines are of a very limited use for production needs as
long as there is this wordprocessorOS mentality embedded in them.
Not that I buy Amigas for production. I don't need more. One serves the needs
of all of the folks well enough for the jobs it is doing...
: but that is catered for by the application switching
:features of System 7 or MultiFinder.
:
:
:It is only a matter of time before System 7 (or 8?) becomes truly multitasking.
Good. I am waiting for that day since Lisa time.
:David A. G. Gillies (D.A.G....@bradford.ac.uk)
Regards,
Dariusz Bolski
Systems Manager & and Graphics Researcher/Programmer :: XAOS, San Francisco
de...@xaos.com
James Skee
Neither have I; unfortunatly, MICL is the _only_ Mac program that does
semi-real pre-emptive multitasking.
--
James
| The Panther Moderns BBS - Macintosh & Limited Amiga Support |
| Over ONE GIGABYTE of FILES ONLINE |
| (310) 698-7921 v.32bis/v.42bis - FidoNet 1:102/486 |
Gregory R Block
: I would stick this in the class of "finish it as quickly as possible".
: If something else really needs the CPU, it's ok to slow this down.
: These kind of jobs are the easiest to schedule.
Yup. Tracing is a "spare cycle" thing.
: Now, how does one design a good scheduler, especially for a preemptive
: system, when all three (or more if you can think of them)
: classifications of jobs are on the same system running at the same
: time? Plus, a given process may migrate between classifications (or be
: in more than one) at different times. Can you do this without any
: cooperation from the programmer (ie, via a static or dynamic analysis
: of the program)? If you need cooperation from the programmer, do you
: allow the programmer to make decisions based upon the characteristics
: of the machine the program is running on? All things considered, is
: this really any easier than cooperative multitasking?
Damn straight, it is. A) any user can assign priorities. B) The
programmer can assign priorities. To do co-op for a cpu-bound task,
you've got to do dynamic analysis to determine when to give up the CPU,
and to hope that you do it often enough. Guess how many DON'T do this on
the Mac. On the other hand, anything that deals with the user needs to
be able to get the CPU away from it.
Is it easy? No. Is it easier than co-op? YES.
: as you can types of jobs (class 1), and cooperative multitasking is better
: for the I need resources on demand (class 3) types of jobs. I need a certain
I disagree completely. Resources on demand are handled quite easily. If
I set my program to PRI 10, -NOTHING- else can steal the CPU away from it
when it needs it, except for something at a -HIGHER- priority. If it
needs the CPU, it will have it immediately.
This isn't like a lot of UN*X schedulers, where every task is guaranteed
some amount of time.
: number of resources for a certain amount of time (class 2) types of
: jobs right now fit better into cooperative multitasking situations, but
I disagree again. All one needs is the ability to place %CPU bounds on
it, and that can -ALSO- exist within a preemptive environment.
: up working as well under premptive systems. How do you design a system
: that uses all three? I wish I knew. Then again, I've only been
: looking at this problem from this particular viewpoint since Friday. :-)
PS on the Amiga added the extension to the scheduling system that allowed
%CPU bounds. With those two, I can think of no good reason to have
non-preemptive multitasking; both user and programmer have control over
task priorities, and both the user and the programmer can do what they
need.
Hopefully, %CPU bounds will be added to the Amiga scheduler. The
foundation has been laid, we just need the extensions.
: Last point: the three most popular operating systems: DOS, MacOS, and
: Windows, do not have preemptive multitasking. The market has had a
: choice (Amigas and Unix boxes are out there), and it hasn't felt that
: preemptive multitasking is important enough to pay the money for,
: especially compared with other factors.
Wrong. The three most popular operating systems you JUST listed are
-LEGACY- systems. MacOS, DOS, and DOS/WINDOWS are all saddled by their
years of baggage. Name me a -NEW- OS being released, one without the
legacy saddle, that isn't going to have preemptive. Name me an old one,
besides DOS, which isn't planning on incorporating preemptive scheduling.
Don't write it off so glibly, Apple, Microsoft, and IBM didn't.
Greg
--
(: (: (: (: Have you overdosed on smileys today? Why NOT!?! :) :) :) :)
(: "Anyone who sees (assuming it is day) the Newtons LCD only :)
(: remembers forking out $900 for something which thinks he's :)
(: ordering chinese food when he signs his name." -Mike Noreen :)
(: (: (: (: (: (: (: (: (: (: (: (: :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) Wubba :)
Maxwell A Daymon
: Check the OS3.x on Amiga. There is clipboards....but ofcourse not so many
: program does support them :(
: I think this is, for most people, the salient point. The Mac may not
: multitask as well as the Amiga, but things like this work now and have
: been working for the past 10 years. Why is clipboard support still an
: open issue on the Amiga? Might this user interface deficiency -- one
: of far too many at this late date -- have something to do with its
: lack of popularity?
I expect the clipboard system to become much more refined as datatypes
come out. Part of the problem is that programs don't "know" what they're
getting. Some programs can handle 24-bit images, some can't. With
datatypes, this is not a problem because you merely have to let the
datatype do the talking. In my experience, there is much more going on
with types of files on the Amiga. Not nearly as rigid as the Macintosh.
The Mac emulators (EMPLANT, A-Max IV) are already implementing
cross-platform clipboard support. I believe one of them already has it.
Because the Macintosh is so rigid, you don't need to concern yourself
with issues such as filetypes. Apple defines that for you and you don't
have to think. On the Amiga, the "standards" have changed and adapted
with needs, and datatypes will make integrating that all possible.
--
Zsolt Szabo
>So Amigas with Video Toasters are fairly good, but tell me in what way they
>surpass Avid's MediaSuite Pro, or Radius VideoVision, or LivePicture?
Hmm. Maybe you should ask Steven Spielberg or all those other producers
that have been using Toasters over Macs and SGIs for quite a while now.
Anthony Bugera
robo...@jhunix.hcf.jhu.edu (Zsolt Szabo) writes:
> Hmm. Maybe you should ask Steven Spielberg or all those other producers
> that have been using Toasters over Macs and SGIs for quite a while now.
I think you should check again. They are using Toasters _with_ (as in
side by side) Macs and SGIs. I have a friend that went straight from
Univ. of BC Comp. Sci. to work in Spielbergs studios. Whatever does the
job.... they run out and buy. Wish I could do that. :)
Gerald G. Washington
>Great so one can preemtively multitask on an Amiga; trying to _find_
>software to _use_ on an Amiga is more of an adventure.
Yes, I suppose that is true for someone who does not know how to
open a magazine.
>Face it people, the Europian Amigas have a future; the USA Amigas are DEAD
>{they just will not accept it.}
Now, to bring you back to reality, I'll point out that they are the
same Amigas. They run the same software.
-- Gerald
Martin Hull
>In article <2hd401...@jhunix.hcf.jhu.edu>, robo...@jhunix.hcf.jhu.edu
>(Zsolt Szabo) wrote:
>
>> Hmm. Maybe you should ask Steven Spielberg or all those other producers
>> that have been using Toasters over Macs and SGIs for quite a while now.
>
>didn't see any toasters. What about Terminator 2 ? Mostly done on SGIs and
>a little bit on Macs.
>
I had heard that the original wire-frame animations for the dinos was
done on Toasters. The real thing of course was done on SGI's.
I thought the only part Macs had in JP was as a prop; the fat software guy used one
to develop the security stuff, etc. No wonder his secutity was a disaster.....
>--
>Mike Wright
>Support Engineer, Central Computer Unit. Ph (44) 071 269 3618
---
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Martin Hull
Belfast Engineering Centre
Gerald G. Washington
>I was just wondering... I use Windows at work of course :(, and need to
>edit and change the files at home. I use my mac and run the same programs,
>or similar programs. Can the Amiga read, change, and save in Word Perfect,
>Quatro Pro, Excel, and Word for Windows formats? I know the HD floppy is
>still kinda rare for the Amiga, but you would need one of those too.
Sure, that's no problem. Just get an Emplant or Amax IV board. Another
alternative is a Bridgeboard. After all, why should "Word for Windows"
be re-invented for the Amiga, when the Amiga can already run it.
-- Gerald
Gerald G. Washington
>t93...@mail.vitech.fi (Jani Miettinen) writes:
>
> Check the OS3.x on Amiga. There is clipboards....but ofcourse not so many
> program does support them :(
>
>I think this is, for most people, the salient point. The Mac may not
>multitask as well as the Amiga, but things like this work now and have
>been working for the past 10 years. Why is clipboard support still an
>open issue on the Amiga? Might this user interface deficiency -- one
>of far too many at this late date -- have something to do with its
>lack of popularity?
Of course, this works both ways. The Amiga has a very complete and
well-integrated scripting language which the Mac lacks. I'm sure
ARexx is much too sophisticated for the average Mac user B^), for
the average computer user to be honest, but its power is still
there for those in the know. Of course, the Mac has an excellent
networking feature. I was just using File Sharing to transfer
files between two Q800s. Of course, the Amiga can use this feature
with Emplant...
>You may now return to your rendering jobs, already in progress...
Heh, no need. I'll just let them run preemptively in the background.
-- Gerald
Gerald G. Washington
>
>Also to the Amiga heads outthere: Why would we want to get a computer
>whose market share in the USA {which is where addresses ending in .edu,
>com, gov, and pri are _in_} is next to NONEXISTANT?!?
More to the point, why should I care about the Amiga's US market
share? As with the other home appliances I buy, television and
VCR and stereo, I really don't care if everyone else is using
it. Getting software is as easy as using a telephone. Still,
the Amiga does seem to be getting quite a bit of attention from
disgruntled Mac and clone users who claim they couldn't care less
about the computer.
>The software situation is a joke even compared to the now defunct NeXT
>hardware. Even Computer City in El Paso has little to _no_ Amiga
>software. In _Europe_ the Amiga does _very_ well BUT *this is not Europe!*
Hint: European Amiga software does not cease to function when it
crosses the Atlantic.
-- Gerald
Eric van Wessel
>In article <2hd401...@jhunix.hcf.jhu.edu>, robo...@jhunix.hcf.jhu.edu
>(Zsolt Szabo) wrote:
>
>> Hmm. Maybe you should ask Steven Spielberg or all those other producers
>> that have been using Toasters over Macs and SGIs for quite a while now.
>
>Have you seen Jurassic park ? There were a few SGIs and Macs there, but I
>didn't see any toasters. What about Terminator 2 ? Mostly done on SGIs and
^^^
>a little bit on Macs.
>
What you see is not always what you get.
Eric.
Mark Stuart
> In article <2hd401...@jhunix.hcf.jhu.edu>, robo...@jhunix.hcf.jhu.edu
> (Zsolt Szabo) wrote:
>
> > that have been using Toasters over Macs and SGIs for quite a while now.
>
> didn't see any toasters. What about Terminator 2 ? Mostly done on SGIs and
>
> Mike Wright
> Support Engineer, Central Computer Unit. Ph (44) 071 269 3618
I think you'll find he's referring to Spielbergs Seaquest DSV - they using
something like 40 (?) Toasters in their rendering farm.
Also, take a look at Babylon 5.
BTW, T2's graphics were interesting, but, hardly amazing. Likewise
Jurassic parks graphics were good for general viewers, but several of my
customers can pick big holes in it (even pointing out frames which may
have been Toaster renderings).
Evan Torrie
>Of course, this works both ways. The Amiga has a very complete and
>well-integrated scripting language which the Mac lacks.
Anyone for AppleScript?
--
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Evan Torrie. Stanford University, Class of 199? tor...@cs.stanford.edu
Embrace rationalism, reject superstition. Blasphemy is a victimless crime.
Lynda Botez
Learn C on the Macintosh - by Dave Mark.
It comes with a mini compiler called THIN C (a rather brief implementation of
Think C).
If you can get through this book unscathed; there's a special coupon in
the back of it that will let you buy THINK C (by Symantec) for $129 (a
pretty good deal).
THINK C is probably the best environment to work in as a beginner. It
has a nice user interface and debugger. Its reasonably priced for what
you get.
Personally, though, I would advise that you look for a course in either
C or Pascal at a local university. Programming on the mac is HARD; and
requires the stamina and dedication of a monk to do it on your own. A professor proding you along really improves your chances of success.
Jaime R. Lopez Vazquez
|> ger...@seas.gwu.edu (Gerald G. Washington) writes:
|>
|> >Of course, this works both ways. The Amiga has a very complete and
|> >well-integrated scripting language which the Mac lacks.
|>
|> Anyone for AppleScript?
AppleScript isn't as supported as AREXX on the Amiga.