Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!sdd.hp.com!elroy.jpl.nasa.gov!ames!sparkyfs.erg.sri.com!hercules!fernwood!portal!cup.portal.com!thad From: thad@cup.portal.com (Thad P Floryan) Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.tech Subject: Re: Don't fill your HD (was: format is brain dead) Message-ID: <36377@cup.portal.com> Date: 30 Nov 90 12:35:55 GMT References: <1990Nov25.093445.10710@evax.arl.utexas.edu> <1990Nov27.223354.25258@ecst.csuchico.edu> <36302@cup.portal.com> <1057@rulcvx.LeidenUniv.nl> Organization: The Portal System (TM) Lines: 297 rooijen@rulcvx.LeidenUniv.nl (A.J. van Rooijen) in <1057@rulcvx.LeidenUniv.nl> asks: >In article <36302@cup.portal.com> thad@cup.portal.com (Thad P Floryan) writes: >> CLI6> lastboot >> System last booted Sun 8-Jul-1990 14:32:15 > >What kind of software are you running capable of avoiding guru's since 8 july? ? >I should like to know that. I have a guru at least one time a day on my A500. >And I don't even have a 68020 board. > >Erwin van Breemen Fair question, deserving an answer: essentially either software I trust or software I've written myself. And I use the Amiga system(s) VERY heavily. I have one at home and two in my office (yeah, actually in MY office on MY desk) Editing: mg2a (micro-Emacs, Mike Meyers' version) Telecomm: handshake 2.12a for talking to my DEC-20s, VAXes, UNIX boxes, etc., in fact, for everything except when I need to do "online" file transfers using zmodem at which time I switch to AZCOMM 1.00 only for the time required to do the zmodem'ing, then back to Handshake. Takes but a few seconds to switch back-'n-forth. Actually, I usually "batch up" file transfer requests until I'm just about ready to go to sleep for the day, then switch to AZCOMM and enter "sz -b * ; exit" on the UNIX box(es) then click-on zmodem receive; the next morning I change back to Handshake. Been doing this for a l-o-n-g time and it works fine. Compiling: Manx (mostly) and Lattice. Also Absoft Fortran. Also several cross-assemblers I've written for use on some of my outside consulting jobs. I burn EPROMs directly off the Amiga using Handshake talking to an International Microsystems EPROM-1 box; in fact, I have 8 devices connected to a serial port switcher: several modems, a StarLAN NAU, HP plotter, C.Itoh ProWriter, and lines to serial ports on several UNIX boxes. Text processing: AmigaTeX by Tom Rokicki (and source files prepared either using mg2a on the Amiga or "imported" from elsewhere). I use this heavily for nearly all documentation, newsletters, flyers, users' group agendas, etc. Also WordPerfect for compatibility with docs I either receive from elsewhere or must send elsewhere. PC Layout and CAD: Pro-Net and Pro-Board. Aegis Draw+ PLOT: device and some misc. other Misc Utilities: Conman, PopColours, POPCLI (aka Mackie from Tom Rokicki, though I've changed its name), cp (Jeff Lydiatt's), ls (from the net), many "net" replacements for various AmigaDOS "commands" (all for which I have the source), my "info" and "avail", sweep, tar, compress, uuencode and uudecode, unshar, cal, appt, etc etc etc for about several 1000's of programs in my c:, util:, and other directories. Many of these go back to 1985 and 1986 (yep, they STILL work under the latest OS). Note that I've source for nearly ALL of them, many from "Fish Disks", since I often add customizations. I could do an "ls -lR" of the directories in my PATH, but that would be wasteful. Games: shanghai, Test Drive II (which, by the way, is "real time" and DOES return back to the CLI upon completion, leaving everything intact, showing that it IS possible to have fun, interactive games which are hard disk installable and do things "right" (even though their other games don't)), asteriods (sic), and some 50+ other programs in my "games:" directory Misc: DPaint II, DigiView (for doing photos documenting other things, as people who saw my Hard Drive lecture at FAUG may remember), various "show" and "anim" displays, etc etc For your reference, a listing of the ASSIGNS, PATH, environmental vars, and stack size is appended; I didn't want to clutter up this part of my post. The point being: if one abides the "rules" as printed ever since the first DevCon back in May 1985 in Monterey, there is NO reason for one to be seeing gurus on one's machine unless there's an actual HARDWARE failure. If you ARE seeing gurus, then the software you're running is GARBAGE and should be tossed out and your money-back demanded. Getting on a "small" soapbox here, my biggest gripe with most so-called "commercial" software available for the Amiga is that most of it is, in general, well conceived but poorly designed and implemented. People simply do NOT design and/or code properly nor do they perform even rudimentary QA. When I see some mfrs ship "updates" nearly weekly, I wonder why they cannot get it right the first time. If the methods used to teach and practice CS were applied to, say, civil engineering or EE or to the medical profession, there probably wouldn't be anyone alive in the world today. In fact, this is a big problem I see with most CS courses as taught today: people are NOT being taught how to DESIGN software. CS classes "should" be structured along the lines of the EE, CS, etc. disciplines. Note lack of smileys above. I've been in the computer software/hardware business for about 25 years; prior to that I was doing architectural design, and also microwave receiver design for gov't applications, and I also designed and operated a microwave IC fab plant (sheesh, I was "doing" GaAs ICs, YAG and YIG, on diamond and sapphire substrates a l-o-n-g time ago), so I have much experience with QA and design "up-front." Some of that paid off for a contract I had with JPL about 20 years ago to "prove" the tenets of structured software design. It DOES work! I immediately applied the results of that JPL contract to another system I designed start-finish for real-time monitoring of light water nuclear reactors. Several hundred of those were built and are STILL being sold with my original software unchanged ... if it ain't broke, DON'T fix it; and a minor mod to that software is (was?) being used to monitor stress in the cables on the Golden Gate bridge. Then the AMPS system (Automated MicroProbe System; a computerized scanning electron microscope). Then the POINT (POlice INTelligence) system; for this I had to first design/implement a new language which, in retrospect, resembles "C" (for "C" wasn't readily available back then). These systems are 100% reliable and failsafe. Also, my company and I pioneered "structured QA" of software projects way back when no-one even considered this possible; this includes both regression and comprehensive testing. And all these techniques WORK and assure reliable (and non-GURU :-) functioning software systems. It's MY belief, and borne out by JPL and many, many others for whom I've done software, that a software project should be: 90% design up front 5% coding time 5% QA and checkout With a structured design (either flowcharts or using my DLT processor (i.e. a flowchart compiler)), the design can then be coded in whatever language one chooses. Most of my earlier programs were 100% assembler (due to machine memory constraints), but they could just as easily have been coded in, say, Fortran, BASIC, COBOL, whatever, from the same structured design and would have operated the same (albeit more slowly in some cases). And many of these were NOT trivial programs; one of the largest comprised some 750,000 lines of assembly code, which I then converted to C about 5-6 years ago, enhanced further during the past 5 years, and am now porting to UNIX. And the nature of that code includes complete 4GL DBMS processing and my parsers, code gen (yep, for speed, I generate 100% machine code for all users' queries and programs), runside libraries, etc etc etc. I apply the same techniques to all software I write, and THAT's why I'm able to keep my Amigas (and other systems) up so long. I will NOT tolerate "crap" software whose every execution paths were not tested or verified ... which is also why I oftimes have to write my own stuff since I don't trust most of the commercial software out there. Software should be DESIGNED along the same techniques which are used for other engineering disciplines ... sadly, that's seldom the case in the real world. And that's why you see your GURUs and the like. :-( {end of soapbox} Hope some of this provides some insights and food for thought. I didn't mean to be so long-winded on what "could" have been a short answer to Erwin's question as to why my Amiga(s) stay up so long between reboots. I felt some of my thoughts and the issues mentioned in these regards ARE pertinent to this technical newsgroup. Thad Floryan [ thad@cup.portal.com (OR) ..!sun!portal!cup.portal.com!thad ] -------------------- begin included material -------------------- Perhaps the following may give you more insight to my systems' configs; most my Amigas are similar in these regards. And I *DO* have separately-purchased and licensed copies of the commercial software, so don't waste time even suggesting that I am running "illegal" multiple copies; many who frequented the Amiga BBS systems on which I was the SYSOP know my position on software piracy. CLI6> assign Volumes: RamDisk [Mounted] SYS6B [Mounted] SYS6A [Mounted] SYS5 [Mounted] SYS4 [Mounted] SYS2E [Mounted] SYS2D [Mounted] SYS2C [Mounted] SYS2B [Mounted] SYS2A [Mounted] SupraBoot [Mounted] Directories: C RamDisk:C GAMES SYS4:GAMES FontPath SYS2A:AmigaTeX/TeX/pk LaTeX SYS2A:AmigaTeX/TeX TeXfiles SYS2A:AmigaTeX/TeX TeX SYS2A:AmigaTeX/TeX WP SYS6A:WP VS3D SYS6A:VideoScape-3D UTIL SYS6A:UTILITIES UDICT SYS6A:Dictionaries TBasic SYS6A:True_Basic SRC SYS6A:Sources SCRIBBLE SYS6A:Scribble ProW SYS6A:ProWrite Print SYS6A:WP PCLO SYS6A:PCLO PAGE SYS6A:PageSetter OLD SYS6A:OLD NEW SYS6A:NEW MVP SYS6A:MVP-Forth MODULA2 SYS6A:Modula2 MISC SYS6A:MISC META SYS6A:Debuggers/MetaScope LINT SYS6A:LINT LIBR SYS6A:LIBRARIES Learn SYS6A:WP/learn LANG SYS6A:LANGUAGES JForth SYS6A:JForth IFF SYS6A:IFF_Tools INCL SYS6A:Include HELP SYS6A:HELP EXPL SYS6A:Debuggers/EXPLORER DV SYS6A:DigiView DRAW SYS6A:DrawPlus DOCS SYS6A:Documentation DICT SYS6A:Dictionaries DEBUG SYS6A:Debuggers DCad SYS6A:DynamiCad DBMS SYS6A:DBMS COPIERS SYS6A:COPIERS CONT SYS6A:CONTENTS COMM SYS6A:TELECOMM CC SYS6A:AZTEC BBS SYS6A:BBS AUTO SYS6A:AutoDOCS w3 RamDisk:w3 w2 RamDisk:w2 w1 RamDisk:w1 ul RamDisk:ul dl RamDisk:dl ww RamDisk:ww t RamDisk:T l SYS6A:l s SYS6A:s SYSTEM SYS6A:System DEVS SYS6A:devs FONTS SYS6A:fonts LIBS SYS6A:libs TBA SYS2C:PORTAL-MAIL-TO-BE-ANSWERED PDL SYS2C:portal JC SYS2C:BBS-JC Files.db SYS2C:Files.db DL3 SYS2E:DL3 DL2 SYS2E:DL2 DL1 SYS2E:DL1 ANIMS SYS4:ANIMS SYS SYS6A: Devices: DH61 DH60 DH50 DH40 DH24 DH23 DH22 DH21 DH20 DF2 DF1 PRT PAR SER RAW CON RAM DF0 CLI6> path show Current directory RamDisk:C SYS6A:LANGUAGES SYS6A:UTILITIES SYS6A:TELECOMM SYS6A: SYS6A:System SYS6A:AZTEC C: CLI6 set CLIB=CC:LIB/ INCLUDE=CC:INCLUDE!CC:ASM CCTEMP=RAM: TZ=PST8PDT CLI6> stack current stack size is 70000 bytes CLI6> -------------------- end of included material --------------------