Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!ut-emx!ccwf.cc.utexas.edu From: awessels@ccwf.cc.utexas.edu (Allen Wessels) Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.advocacy Subject: Re: How do we change the scheduler? (Was Re: Multitasking at home...) Message-ID: <42792@ut-emx.uucp> Date: 19 Jan 91 19:48:12 GMT References: <42609@ut-emx.uucp> <1991Jan18.050529.13101@zorch.SF-Bay.ORG> <42731@ut-emx.uucp> <1991Jan19.035418.15192@zorch.SF-Bay.ORG> Sender: news@ut-emx.uucp Reply-To: awessels@ccwf.cc.utexas.edu (Allen Wessels) Organization: The University of Texas at Austin Lines: 65 In article <1991Jan19.035418.15192@zorch.SF-Bay.ORG> mykes@zorch.SF-Bay.ORG (Mike Schwartz) writes: >Do Desk Accessories take up RAM or not? You can fit 200 desk accessories in >memory at the same time? (Just a question ...). Also, programs that reside As I understand them, desk accessaries reside primarily on disk with a pointer to the code on disk. The desk accessory is invoked via a menu. >entirely on disk require NO cpu time either. I could also point out that >the standard Amiga is 7.14 MHz and is slower than your 8MHz machine. However, >the copper and blitter give it an effective rate of about 10MHz while the >Mac has wait states that reduce it's 8MHz to effectively about 5, but even >as it may be, the 7.14 MHz machine has more than passable performance all >the time. First, the "passable" performance I was talking about was on a 2.5 meg Mac Plus running 50-60 INITs with 2-3 applications under MultiFinder. Among those INITs were a network mail server, a peer to peer file server, online spelling checker, and a bunch of other stuff. Every machine I've ever used had some sort of performance limits, and I like to see how far I can push it before I have to "dumb it down". I find it hard to believe that you can't load the Amiga up in the same way. (Rhetorical, I KNOW it could be done.) >Unfortunately, there will be 80Million CLI based PC machines by 1992, and >ALL those people seem to be able to deal with the CLI. The Amiga is a WRONG. Most of those people know how to type "123", "dir a:", and "copy a:filename.ext b:", but ALL 80 million do NOT know how to use a CLI. Add to that the fact that, on average, they run fewer programs on their CLI-only machine than the comparable GUI user does. >natural machine for all those people familiar with MS-DOS because the CLI >environment is similar enough on the Amiga and because you can run more than Uh, the CLI on the Amiga may be similar to DOS AFTER you have mastered the Amiga CLI, but when a friend of mine started setting up his 500 we had a LOT of problems trying to use our DOS experience. >one at a time. I would like to think, however, that the Amiga provides a >little more than the PC does in the way of user interface (WIMP), and a lot >more in terms of standard configuration (copper, blitter, 4096 colors, mouse, >multitasking, (and a list that goes on and on and on and on... ). With 16 Mhz 286s with 256 color VGA and Windows machines running around $1500, some of those advantages are starting to blur. >We both agree that the Mac would be nicer if you could do more in less >memory. We also both agree that the Mac has a superior user interface, >even if it requires significant effort to program and is near impossible >to port from. I'm no "real" programmer, but I've written BASIC programs for both the IBM and the Mac. The Mac programs are a little more difficult to work with because you have to add the interface, but if I can do it, I suspect any programmer whose techniques haven't petrified can learn to adapt. I set up one of the BASIC utilities I wrote to background and it took no extra code. This may be a result of how the BASIC compiler handles the code, but it can be done, and easily. (Of course, I STILL don't know why it executes faster in the background than in the foreground.) Porting is just a matter of what your development enviroment supports. If you had one that shared a common library of calls with the mac end, you could port just fine. Ask Microsoft how they do it.