Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!sun-barr!apple!motcsd!starnet!sschaem From: sschaem@starnet.uucp (Stephan Schaem) Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.programmer Subject: Re: Mike Farren Tutorial. Message-ID: <1991Mar27.012717.11541@starnet.uucp> Date: 27 Mar 91 01:27:17 GMT References: <1991Mar24.204206.11145@starnet.uucp> <20115@cbmvax.commodore.com> Distribution: comp Organization: Starnet-Public Access UNIX-Los Altos,CA 415-949-3133, login:info Lines: 154 [ In a message formatted to make it darn near impossible to read... ] Sory, my mistake... >Mike may be many things, but I wouldn't call him ignorant. I will be more precise to corect the statement.Mike dont know everything, I didn't say he knows nothing... >Game programming is his profession also, and he's been at it longer >(unless you're older than I think you are). You think right.I'm not old at all, He even done his first game before I was even born.... I'm sure you figure it out:-) (for the one that dont know it, Mike Farren make games for 22 years now ...) But I hope I know what I'm doing, and I know who I should listen in the busness! And even if Mike can programe a 65xx better than me (maybe not my friend), I think we started on the amiga at the same time... >Fine, take over the system then. You can still return gracefully >on exit (or when paused). Also, by no means do all games need a perfectly >steady frame - Lemmings doesn't have one now, for example. True, true.But I do exit gracefully on every of my programes (only OVERDRIVE dont multitask, but return gracefully at any time). >Fine, so put it to sleep if you can't live with it. Restore it on >pause or exit if possible. If there isn't enough memory to keep from >killing it, let the user know, and if he wants to continue then take >over completely. ??? You are saying the same thing has me? Since the begining... But lets argue anyway:-)... >"Data crunching" (compression) has nothing to do with it, you can >use that regardless of the disk format. I have not seen 1035K, and >I don't believe it unless you violate the timing specs for the system >and drive (as >I published in an AmigaMail article and devcon article (low-level drive >access). The basic spec is there are (with MFM) 6250 nominal bytes of data >per track. Combine that with the amiga nominal timing (2.3% fast), disk >speed 5%), and amiga timing slop (5%), and you can store 5999 to >6812 bytes per track, depending. So if you remove ALL sector headers, >etc, you can get 959840 bytes on a disk safely (though you still need some >sync marks and you really need a checksum - some recent programs haven't >bothered with that and crash on disk errors). Perhaps with GCR (which the >hardware manual says shouldn't be used with 2us mode, though people are >using it that way) you might get a bit more, though you're still subject >to those timing figures above. Sory I must have missed something. 6812*2*80=1089920.... OK. 300RMP, 4 bytes every 63.5 microsecond THATS IT! You dont need to do fancy calculation! I CANT say anything publicly, but we dont do 'illegal' tricks... We test on various drive (from 8 diferent compagnies) 4 diferent amigas (NTSC,PAL,68000 to 68030, A500,A1000,A2000 (A2630), A3000). We do ALWAY checsums and everything we read... Right now the ALL INDUSTRIE should supose you have 300RPM (speed ajusted) drive.So you designed for 300 rmp drives... I dont have acceptable margin, but the tolerances are 'wide'. If you want to talk about the subject, E-MAIL only, please... >Things like this are why some games (particularily Euroean) >don't work on all machines: some have drives that are slightly faster >spinning, or their clock rate is slightly different (crystal variation, >NTSC/PAL, genlock hooked to the system, temperature, etc, etc). Some >drives can handle certain uses of the interface beyond the speced performance >some barely handle our spec. Some can read past track 79, some can't. Sory to say that but you should have a standart drive!Now the industrie produce ONLY drive with 'internal' motor speed control and ajustment! So you have 300 RPM drive. I cant speak for them! but if our software dont load, you have a VERY bad drive! We try with LARGE speed variation and it alway pickup the data corectly. No, people to custom track sizing! messing up with MFM coding!!! Using table coding. Also you have MFM data compacting... wio 1 ratio instead of 2 to 1.... >Then again, in the US a LARGE proportion of people have 1M or more. >Perhaps 30-50% of people who actively buy software nowadays have HD's in the >US. (Numbers pulled out of a hat.) And again when you have LARGE project like use, you loose money with the US alone.Even when you target 100% of the machine!!!!! That's what happen on big AMIGA project! >Then they should do it. Well PIRACY is the key... From my part its a maybe! if more than 2 people in the ALL AMERICA want HD support, I might considered it... >Often they don't (or aren't allowed to make use of it). Many >Euro-games are written so the same code (with some conditional assembling) >runs on the ST and the Amiga. Needless to say, this encourages them to >ignore anything on the Amiga that isn't on the ST. ALso, a number of the >programmers are more used to the ST, and may not know (or care) about such >things (I've gotten personal letters (snail-mail, no less) from people like >this. The company wouldn't even pay for RKMs, let alone joining the >developer program.) Are we talking about quality amiga product? Well, when the amiga will sell more then 20,000 copies world wide for the best game of the moment they might be some consideration!? Why that NON interest in amiga in europe? its like saying, why some people do GENESIS prgram?! Also! stunning has it can be! th WORST EVER amiga developers go to DEVCON! perosnally receive the 2.0 doc from CBM president of the concerned contrie! etc etc... And only do PC port over the amiga that dont use anything amiga at ALL! and trash the OS and rewrite BAD disk function that cause return in LARGE number!.... I spoke everyday with people at OCEAN, UBI SOFT, TITUS, SILMARIL, ECLIPS, EXPONANTIA ETC... And work for one of those compagnies for some time. (AND QUIT OF COURSE:-) So you thinkknow what I'm talking about! 99% of the amiga games are developed thinking to run on a STE minimum! and written in C to go on PC! >Mike can defend himself, but you should remember he's a LONG-time >game programmer. Well I'm sure since he his older than me:-) LONG-time programer dont mean GOOD programer. (Mike not involved here, sinply the argument) Anyway at least in europe you have a choice! you can buy good and bad software:-) Stephan.