Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!think.com!mintaka!ogicse!pdxgate!eecs!bairds From: bairds@eecs.cs.pdx.edu (Shawn L. Baird) Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.programmer Subject: Re: Mike Farren Tutorial. Message-ID: <2227@pdxgate.UUCP> Date: 4 Apr 91 21:28:51 GMT Article-I.D.: pdxgate.2227 References: <20198@cbmvax.commodore.com> <18ead851.ARN0f31@icoast.UUCP> <1991Apr2.002244.11549@cunixf.cc.columbia.edu> <18ec731b.ARN0f5b@icoast.UUCP> <2194@pdxgate.UUCP> <46675@ut-emx.uucp> Sender: news@pdxgate.UUCP Lines: 58 greg@ccwf.cc.utexas.edu (Greg Harp) writes: >You'd rather sell the consumer a program that wipes out the OS than one that >required the user to shut down a program or two before running, but allowed >them to return to a functioning OS after the game had ended (w/o rebooting)? You miss my point. I feel that if a program is going to multi-task peacefully on my Amiga, I don't want it to have to shut down the workbench window. The gain from this is on the order of 32k to 64k. Not a small amount of memory, but not a large one either. >Somehow I'd figure that most programs that were left running (other than >VirusX or the like) were there getting _work_ done. Killing the OS can have >catastrophic results in such a case. Most users won't think about such a >thing until they get bitten... How much work do they get down when you have to close them all? Sure, they exit cleaner. If you take over the machine correctly, they resume running when you're done. >I wonder whose sales would drop because their OS-killing program stopped some >other program that happened to be in the middle of writing to a disk. At >least if you restore the OS you have a better chance of getting through >unscathed. Restore the OS implies that we left the OS at some point. Perhaps you should have said, at least if you don't disturb the OS. Anyways, I have several programs that Disable()/Enable() the machine for _long_ periods of time. The most catastrophic problems result from the serial line. What I'd really like to see is for Commodore to write an approved way of taking over the machine. Personally, I wouldn't like to count on the user cleaning up the workbench screen. If I'm that worried about it, since they'll have to quit _all_ running applications (since if the applications aren't running on the workbench screen that means they're running on a screen elsewhere, and if I'm desperate enough to close the workbench screen then I'll need all the other screens closed too), I might as well put it on a bootable disk to ensure no running programs. Some of the tests I've made when reading raw MFM data from floppy disks has involved doing this while the OS is validating the disk. I admit I haven't tried it in the middle of a write operation, and I'll do that now that you suggested it. Also, with all this talk of sales and whatnot, these are only opinions. I do not have any marketed software, nor do I have any large planned products in the work. My interest does, however, lie in creating commercial applications and games for personal computers, especially the Amiga. >-- > Greg Harp |"How I wish, how I wish you were here. We're just two > |lost souls swimming in a fishbowl, year after year, >greg@ccwf.cc.utexas.edu|running over the same ground. What have we found? > s609@cs.utexas.edu |The same old fears. Wish you were here." - Pink Floyd --- Shawn L. Baird, bairds@eecs.ee.pdx.edu, Wraith on DikuMUD The above message is not licensed by AT&T, or at least, not yet.