Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!mcnc!gatech!uflorida!unf7!tlvx!sysop From: sysop@tlvx.UUCP (SysOp) Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.games Subject: Re: FAUG demo of Powermonger by E.A. -- long review Summary: Multitasking games Keywords: simply incredible Message-ID: <440@tlvx.UUCP> Date: 19 Dec 90 01:13:40 GMT References: <1950@unlisys.in-berlin.de> <1990Dec5.110344.6364@zorch.SF-Bay.ORG> <1990Dec12.114250@avahi.inria.fr> Organization: Temporal Vortex BBS of Jacksonville, Florida Lines: 88 In article <1990Dec12.114250@avahi.inria.fr>, colas@avahi.inria.fr (Colas Nahaboo) writes: > In article <22110@well.sf.ca.us>, farren@well.sf.ca.us (Mike Farren) writes: .. > > So what? There's also no multitasking, and no hard drive. > > Let me try another explanation for nuking the OS. I am new to the amiga world, > but multitasking on the amiga with many processes accessing the drives seems > to me an error-prone situation... By doing this I often get corrupted I/O > which I dont get by doing things sequentially. (*) > > No, I'm not saying that AmigaDos is at fault, it may be one of the 10 resident > drivers/utilities I use which is at fault, but this stresses my point: If you Why don't you try to figure out which nifty-keen program is corrupting your system? If I try something out and it guru's my machine, I stop using it and try to find something else. AmigaDOS is designed to multitask. It almost sounds like you're trying to find reasons to not multitask. Let's assume for the moment that the programs that *I* am running seem to be reliable. (Trust me. :-) Now, let me multitask! > want PowerMonger to multitask, it is because you are a power user, and thus Power user? All I want to do is play a game while my modem auto-dials some local BBS's. Sounds like something even a "normal" user might like to try. How about formatting disks? That takes more than a minute. If you had a stack of blank floppies, you could format, and pause the game occasionally and check on their progress. Power user? If you save time, well, I guess you could say that that is power. :-) I might not need to multitask all of the time. It's nice to just "do" it, almost without thinking. (Contrast this with working on a clone..... well, "shelling out" is usually good enough for me, but that's another story....) > are using tons of little taks whose interaction may lead to problems, making > you say "PM doesn't works", but the problem may be in your super-hyper-duper > screen saver... It is true that it'll be harder to find problems, but it is possible that some things can been seen in beta-testing. For instance, in the erratta sheet in Harpoon, they mention a screen that doesn't work with Dmouse (I think it was). I had problems with it in using my mouse program as well (clockdj). I'm not sure where the problem really lies, but it is easy to work around that problem. (It seems to be the "click to front" feature confuses that window in the game, but I can't say for sure.) Anyway, more to the point, if you have no problem, then you won't have to worry about it. If you do have a problem, boot off of the game's floppy, which won't have your drivers or programs. Right? Then the problem can be isolated to either your system or theirs. > > So they perhaps want to avoid having bad reputation because of other people's > fault... Or they have discovered a bug in the OS preventing safe multitasking > for their purposes. You really WANT this not to work, don't you? ;-) :-) I can see a couple of valid excuses, such as needing every scrap of CPU time (but then the program can simply "pause" multitasking, and when the game is "paused", it can reenable multitasking). Or, as someone else has mentioned, you could have need for every bit of space for 512K. I don't blame anyone for not wanting to support 2 versions, but I would suggest writing programs in a modular way such that it would be easier to link 2 programs. In many cases, I agree with those that have said that overlays could be used in areas which force things to pause anyway, such as to gather input inbetween plays. Some great arcade-type games already spend a great deal of time between levels accessing the disk drive (I assume to read in graphics and sound). I know, I know, you need your custom dos format to read those levels in faster.... ;-) > > (*) As an example: Seems to me that using two concurrent processes to read > MSDOS disks via MSH yields you corrupted buffer I/Os, but I'm not sure Well, for the sake of argument, let's say that this is true -- what does this have to do with my purpose in multitasking, such as in my example of running a terminal program in the background? Two programs can access DF0: at the same time, even (although you'll probably want to use a different disk for each purpose anyway). > > -- > Colas Nahaboo, Bull Research France -- Koala Project -- GWM X11 Window Manager > Internet: colas@mirsa.inria.fr, Phone: (33) 93.65.77.70, Fax: (33) 93 65 77 66 > INRIA Sophia, 2004, rte des Lucioles, B.P.109 - 06561 Valbonne Cedex, FRANCE -- Gary Wolfe, SYSOP of the Temporal Vortex BBS // Amiga! .uflorida!unf7!tlvx!sysop, ..unf7!tlvx!sysop@bikini.cis.ufl.edu \X/ Yeah!