Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!rutgers!cbmvax!cbmehq!babylon!rbabel From: rbabel@babylon.rmt.sub.org (Ralph Babel) Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.programmer Subject: Re: Mike Farren Tutorial. Message-ID: <07083.AA07083@babylon.rmt.sub.org> Date: 27 Mar 91 05:21:38 GMT References: <1991Mar24.204206.11145@starnet.uucp> <23835@well.sf.ca.us> Reply-To: cbmvax.commodore.com!cbmehq!babylon!rbabel (Ralph Babel) Lines: 36 In article , mykes@sega0.SF-Bay.ORG (Mike Schwartz) writes: > What is lazier, writing a custom set of floppy disk > drivers or calling trackdisk.device? What is lazier, > writing your own multitasking kernel or using Exec? What > is lazier, writing custom blitter code or calling > BlitBitMap()? The laziest thing one can do on the Amiga is to ignore the native OS. In your signature, you write: > 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! That's what I would call lazy (and ignorant, too)! The Amiga is much more than just the hardware. > What is not lazier is working around all the crap that the > OS puts in your way. But - as others have pointed out - in most cases even this can be done in a system-friendly way. If you want to deal with bitplanes directly instead of using a graphics or Intuition function, then you can do it! I'm not saying that _everything_ can be built on top of an Intuition screen, for example, but certainly a lot more than most game programmers would admit. The same is true for other protocols such as OwnBlitter(), GetUnit() or even the good old AllocMem(). In almost all cases it is possible to hit the hardware directly in a system-compatible way if you really want to. But most programmers simply do not know how to do it, so they ignore the rules completely and take over the machine. Ralph