Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga
Path: utzoo!utgpu!watserv1!maytag!csg.uwaterloo.ca!giguere
From: giguere@csg.uwaterloo.ca (Eric Giguere)
Subject: Re: Windows for Amiga?? Maybe!!
Message-ID: <1990Nov22.061440.2759@maytag.waterloo.edu>
Sender: daemon@maytag.waterloo.edu (Admin)
Organization: University of Waterloo
Date: Thu, 22 Nov 90 06:14:40 GMT
Lines: 34

In article <90325.214939JKT100@psuvm.psu.edu> JKT100@psuvm.psu.edu (JKT) writes:
>Clarification:  Windows need not LOOK like MS-DOS windows.  You could
>have the same calls as MS-DOS windows, but the machine-specific routines
>would open Mac-looking windows on Mac and WorkBench-looking windows on
>Amiga.  Therefore, Windows need not sacrifice the "Look and Feel" of
>any platform it is ported to.

Ah, but then why call it "Windows"?  That would only confuse people, who
would expect it to look the same.  What you're talking about is writing
the Windows API (application program interface) for the Amiga.  Unfortunately,
it's still not as simple as writing an "windows.lib".  If you want to be 
truly Windows-compatible (i.e., take your Windows source code and compile
it on the Amiga) you'll have to do more than just map the Windows GUI calls.
Windows includes a lot of operating-system functionality, plus DOS stuff,
plus dynamic link libraries, plus... anyhow, you get the idea.  It's NOT
a small system, and hence not a trivial task.  If all you end up are Windows
programs that look like Amiga programs but are in fact ten times the size
and ten times as slow, what have you gained?  Portability is good, but
so is efficiency.  What price do you pay for portability?

In terms of flexibility, I think the Amiga is one of the better systems
on the market today.  It has a fast, efficient OS and a fairly reasonable
GUI, especially now with gadtools and appshell for development.  Its
multitasking works.  We've got ARexx as a standard for IPC and as a general
purpose macro language.  And you don't need 4 megs and 20 megs of hard
drive space to take advantage of these features!

Not that the Amiga isn't without its problems.  But it is a nice system
from a hacking point of view.  User-wise things need work -- kind of the
opposite to Windows, I think.

--
Eric Giguere                                       giguere@csg.UWaterloo.CA
           Quoth the raven: "Eat my shorts!" --- Poe & Groening