Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!wuarchive!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!sol.ctr.columbia.edu!emory!gatech!usenet.ins.cwru.edu!ncoast!davewt From: davewt@NCoast.ORG (David Wright) Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.programmer Subject: Re: Lemmings - a tutorial Part V (last) Message-ID: <1991Apr2.040033.11859@NCoast.ORG> Date: 2 Apr 91 04:00:33 GMT References: <23837@well.sf.ca.us> Organization: North Coast Public Access Un*x (ncoast) Lines: 126 In article mykes@sega0.SF-Bay.ORG (Mike Schwartz) writes: > >You explicitly said they should have cut out levels that were parts of >their other products. Yes he did, if they were unneccessary. And I personally consider "Intros" that take up almost all of the first disk (Like in Fiendish Freddy) a total waste of my money. I paid for a disk and the code on it that I will MAYBE watch once, if at all. >when you compare it with Unix. Game developers treat the Amiga like it >is a PC by using the OS. You can't take over a PC, because you need the >BIOS to interface to a variety of hardware configurations. The multitasking Oh PLEASE. It is SOP to take over PC's all the time. I don't think you know thing one about PC programming. The BIOS is *NOT* the OS, or even PART of the OS. It is a set of ROM functions that ALL PC compatible computers contain, as well as a set of known entry points. And yes they DO indeed take over the whole machine, and yes they DO have to write a special version for EACH of the video displays they support. If you think they just write one version, you are sadly mistaken (or they have been lazy and chosen to support only one video mode, such as EGA or VGA (of course, you probobly consider this good, after all, why produce something that the majority of the people (more than 60% of all PC's have copper, audio, etc. Most of the PC people I have seen that move over to >the Amiga struggle with volumes and volumes of poorly illustrated RKM >manuals and typically don't make games that I rate very high. Well they are ex-PC programmers, aren't they? Do you really expect them to know anything about how to do decent graphics and sound? :-) > >The Amiga operating system is not a high performance video game operating >system. BOBs are slower than what I use. Intuition takes 30% of the CPU >time when you just move the mouse around (check out a CPU performance >monitor on a 68000 machine while moving the mouse). Layers are totally >unnecessary and way too slow. Exec tasks require a minimum of 2K of stack >each, while any game I ever do needs only 512 bytes of stack for 80 tasks >under my own kernel. So what. You can disable the OS while your game is running, and reenable it when you are done. If you can't do this, you aren't anywhere near as good a programmer as you think. At least you could argue that you don't have the room in a 512k machine to do this (I'll let the other Mike take on THAT point). >The ROM Kernel routines have many many bugs in them that you end up >programming your way around. It is not lazy to want to avoid the Really? Which are they? >programming your way around. It is not lazy to want to avoid the >hassle. It is just more cost effective to make the best games the I think most people would consider doing anything "to avoid hassle" of doing something in a C= reccomended and system friendly way to be lazy. >The only thing that the OS gets for you is the ability to use hard >disks. If commodore were smart, they would make ROM routines >accessable for video games to access the hard disk when the OS is not >running. This is really what the machine needs. Really? and be stuck in the cruddy position of PC's, in which there are a limited number of drive types supported by the BIOS? The HD driver is part of the HD controller, which you are free to choose any ST-506, ESDI, IDE, SCSI, etc. drive. How do they know how any manufacturer will create the drive controller? >manipulate the data. IFF format, for example, is fine for a source file >format, but wastes disk space in a product. Plus, it is too easy for people to steal and use in other programs. I won't argue with you there. Don't forget the "I" in IFF stands for interchange. If you don't want to do that, IFF is not for you. >Most people who program the Amiga don't have the ability (or gumption) >to write in assembler language. These are the people who I would >call lazy. Most people who program the Amiga don't have the ability Gee, I would call them intelligent. Why write in a language which in many cases produces only marginaly better code, is harder to maintain, is much less portable, takes longer to develop in, and is far easier to produce bugs. >call lazy. Most people who program the Amiga don't have the ability >to write their own native operating systems that outperform the ROM >Kernel, so for them the OS is the only choice. In my case, I write This is just silly. This is like saying that most americans don't have the ability to speak a foreign language, so English is the only choice. 1) Just because people DON'T do something doesn't mean they can't 2) English is spoken (or at least understood, to some degree) by more people in more countries than any other language aside from chinese. English is *THE* international language of navigation (aero and naval), and is generally understood in technical fields. Same for C. More people know C than know assembly, so your code will be more easily modified by others if it is written in C instead of some vernacular of AL. 3) I would be just as justified to call all AL programmers "lazy" or "not as good as C programmers" because they must not be able to understand higher-level computer science, as they only use low-level programming methods that any 4th grader could learn. Would that be correct? >assembler language because I can. I take over the machine because >I can. People actually pay for what I program, so in order to give >them the best I can do, I go the extra mile. It is ridiculous to >say that someone who goes to the extra effort that assembler language >programming takes is lazy. But you give them "that extra mile" at significant cost in other areas, which could ALSO be done in AL, if you spent the time to do so. >Have you ever taken over the Amiga? I bet if you did, you'd change >your tune. I on the other hand have done things both ways (using the >OS and taking over), and the power you gain by taking over more than >offsets the capability to multitask your game with other programs. >Open your mind and give it a try, then we can really have a productive >disagreement. Oh please, you obviously don't consider multi-tasking to be a very usefull feature, and could care less if your program will run the same on all platforms, or makes use of any expanded features available. There is NO reason that Shaddow of the Beast could not: 1) Be HD-installable 2) Allow you to "pause" the game and work with something else and then come back to the game. 3) Allow you to exit without rebooting. True, doing so would possibly prevent it from working on a 512k machine. But that is a different argument than the "I NEED to take over the machine to get the speed" whimper. >******************************************************** >* 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! * >******************************************************** If you only want to write something that can be easily explained in 10 pages. Dave