Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!pacific.mps.ohio-state.edu!linac!att!pacbell.com!tandem!zorch!sega0!mykes From: mykes@sega0.SF-Bay.ORG (Mike Schwartz) Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.programmer Subject: Re: Mike Farren Tutorial. Message-ID: Date: 27 Mar 91 15:52:31 GMT References: <1991Mar24.204206.11145@starnet.uucp> <20115@cbmvax.commodore.com> Organization: Amiga makes it possible Lines: 184 In article <20115@cbmvax.commodore.com> jesup@cbmvax.commodore.com (Randell Jesup) writes: >In article <1991Mar24.204206.11145@starnet.uucp> sschaem@starnet.uucp (Stephan Schaem) writes: > >[ In a message formatted to make it darn near impossible to read... ] > >> I really hope you have time to read the following.You might find that >> game >> programer are not all ignorant people like Mike Farren want us to >> beleive! > > Mike may be many things, but I wouldn't call him ignorant. Stephan did not say that Mike is ignorant. It says "You might find that game programmers are not as ignorant as Mike Farren would lead you to believe." I don't think Mike is ignorant either, but he may have a tendancy to insult people who don't agree with him. > >> >(Mike Farren): >> >even more, I hope that game programmers will take a >> >hint or two - leave us our Amigas, please! >> >> Dont I feel a little pretention here.I dont like that, especially >> when you attack other people! especially my profesion. > > Game programming is his profession also, and he's been at it longer >(unless you're older than I think you are). > No need for a pissing contest. There are lots of kinds of games, and Mike is good at the kind he makes and Stephan is good at the kind he makes. I would venture to say that neither is good at the kind the other makes. >> -DISPLAY: Some game actually need steady frame rate. > > 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. > >> -MULTITASKING: Have you EVER monitored the system! >> Move your mouse around, moving the mouse take more than >> 20% of the >> CPU time! 1%? Why do you want to multitask if you use the >> CPU 1% on >> the other side! And puting the OS to sleep and waiking >> it UP is the closest >> you can get to it with this kind of game. > > 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. > What is the commodore approved way of doing this? Show us some code that takes over all 512K on a 512K machine and returns back to the OS! Make sure it is guaranteed to work and make sure that it doesn't need to swap to disk. > [ stuff deleted about high density formats possible on floppy ] > Things like this are why some games (particularily European) >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. > You point is quite valid. But it is not the only way to look at things. Consider that software can break for many reasons besides floppy disk driver code. If you use self modifying code, it breaks on CPUs with a pipeline or cache. If you jump directly into ROM routines with hard coded addresses, the routines might be at a different address in a different version of the ROM. A program might use the CPU for timing, which doesn't work the same for all CPUs (this can also break floppy disk drivers). The 68000 uses only 24 bits of address, so it is possible to use the upper 8 bits of addresses in RAM and in registers for flags or other data - this breaks on the 020 and 030. The things I mention will break software, whether it is written to run under the OS or when taking over the machine. Pointing at badly written software that takes over the machine is not a valid reason to discourage people from taking over the machine. It is a valid reason to encourage people to write code correctly so it works on all machines though. >> -MEMORY: Dont you think some people apreciate >> to be able to buy software >> for their 512K machine!!! I hope so. > > 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.) > Let me pull some numbers out of a hat, too. Based upon your figures, if 30% of US buyers have HD's, that makes about 60,000 machines out of a total greater than 2,000,000 worldwide. If you are lucky, a hit piece of game software will make 5% market penetration. We are talking about 3,000 potential customers. Even if NONE of these 60,000 people buy your game and you still get 5% market penetration for those that are left, you get 97,000 machines. You also caveat your estimates by saying "those who buy software", so it is even more dismal. Factor in the piracy rate and the incentive to worry about hard disks is nominal. It is a huge mistake to look at Usenet interest in hard disk installable games. People who use Usenet are typically power users. Unix does not work from floppy disk like AmigaDos does. There are also maybe a couple of hundred people (I suspect even less) who even read these newsgroups. They are far from representative of the TRUE customer base. >> -HD INSTALABLE: There is absolutly no >> barrier for that for any floppy games. >> Well only piracy. > > Then they should do it. Not enough incentive. > >> Well not everybody do simple games like >> you! >> People could ONLY take your advice >> seriously if you actually done serious >> coding and know whats involve.From what >> you write in your 4 letters >> I seen a LARGE lack of knowledge. >> Yes, Like the Bitmap Brother, the people >> at Rainbow Art, Inerprise etc etc.. >> dont know all about the stuff you are >> saying! > > 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.) > This is not just true of European developers. EA likes to port their stuff around just as much, and they are the biggest publisher/distributer in the US. I urge you to check out ST games and compare them with Amiga games. The games on the ST are quite impressive, even though the machine doesn't have all the great hardware the Amiga has. Custom hand crafted assembler language programs on the ST that take over the machine work better than 'C' programs running on the Amiga under the OS. I hate to say anything that puts down the Amiga and hypes up the ST, but I also am not stupid enough to bury my head in the sand. The bottom line is that anything the ST can do, the Amiga is capable of doing better. The fact that the Amiga doesn't do better is a result of a better approach to implementing the games on the ST. > Mike can defend himself, but you should remember he's a LONG-time >game programmer. > I prefer discussion over insults anyday. I think that Stephan is responding only to what he perceives as critical/insulting statements made by Mike. >[ After this, the message ends up with such a distorted margin it's essentially > unreadable... ] > Stephan is from France. He has been in America for 3 years. His spoken english is much better than is written english is. It may look like he is illiterate, but he is actually quite sharp. >-- >Randell Jesup, Keeper of AmigaDos, Commodore Engineering. >{uunet|rutgers}!cbmvax!jesup, jesup@cbmvax.commodore.com BIX: rjesup >Thus spake the Master Ninjei: "To program a million-line operating system >is easy, to change a man's temperament is more difficult." >(From "The Zen of Programming") ;-) -- ******************************************************** * Appendix A of the Amiga Hardware Manual tells you * * everything you need to know to take full advantage * * of the power of the Amiga. And it is only 10 pages! * ********************************************************