Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!uwm.edu!psuvax1!rutgers!cbmvax!jesup From: jesup@cbmvax.commodore.com (Randell Jesup) Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.programmer Subject: Re: Mike Farren Tutorial. Message-ID: <20198@cbmvax.commodore.com> Date: 29 Mar 91 09:43:43 GMT References: <20115@cbmvax.commodore.com> <1991Mar27.012717.11541@starnet.uucp> <1998@aldebaran.cs.nps.navy.mil> <1991Mar27.175514.25590@cunixf.cc.columbia.edu> Reply-To: jesup@cbmvax.commodore.com (Randell Jesup) Organization: Commodore, West Chester, PA Lines: 53 In article mykes@amiga0.SF-Bay.ORG (Mike Schwartz) writes: >I have been lobbying Commodore to solve the problem. The problem is not with >the developers, but with the OS. What I suggest CBM does is to provide entry >points in Exec for software that takes over the machine to access both the >floppy drives and the hard disks. It is easy enough for them to do for 2.0 >before it goes to ROM. > >The problem with hard disk support is that it REQUIRES the OS. Since all hard >disk controllers have ROM on them, the controllers could easily provide the software >routines needed to directly access the hard disk. Commodore should provide routines >in Exec that allow AmigaDos access to the hard disk through this mechanism. "easily"???? Their drivers depend HEAVILY on the system being fully up and available. For example, an A590 with SCSI and IDE(xt) drives has 3 tasks running, passing messages back and forth. Rewriting that to not use exec would require taking one of our (few, and VERY busy) programmers and having him devote 3-6 months to it (plus QA time, etc). You think every 3rd-party is going to spend that sort of money? ($20-50,000, depending on overhead, programmer experience, how long it takes.) And we haven't even discussed filesystems. being able to read/write the disk doesn't help, you need to read/write files on the disk. This means we'd have to rewrite the filesystem to work in this funny mode. This might be completed in 3-6 months (assuming we had a spare programmer (the current FS programmer is busy with another long-term project), but would require a LOT of QA time, and would require 15-25K of rom. We're tight enough that we fight for 1K. > Single >tasking computers can do it, so can the Amiga. There is no need for Exec or AmigaDOS >to be running to read the data from the drives. If Commodore provides this support, >we will all see more HD Installable games, especially those that take over the machine. Said single-tasking computers either don't have an OS, only a program loader (MSDOS), so it's already done, or they only support one filesystem and one drive interface (Mac) - and do people really take over the Mac and then access the harddrives? I assume the ST is similar to one or both of those. Just because you ask for it doesn't mean it feasible, practical or sensible. The amiga does have an OS, and as the line changes over the coming years, using the OS will help insulate you from hardware changes. It is not a game machine - if it was, there'd be no rom, no disk drive (cartridge), and maybe no keyboard. It's a computer that happens to also be able to run really good games. We won't cripple our future and hamstring our OS just for games that take over the machine. -- 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") ;-)