Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!bonnie.concordia.ca!uunet!van-bc!rsoft!mindlink!a218
From: Charlie_Gibbs@mindlink.bc.ca (Charlie Gibbs)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.emulations
Subject: Re: MS-DOS emulator for CDTV?
Message-ID: <6064@mindlink.bc.ca>
Date: 29 May 91 21:12:40 GMT
Organization: MIND LINK! - British Columbia, Canada
Lines: 82

In article <1991May29.231913.25175@news.iastate.edu>
taab5@isuvax.iastate.edu (Marc Barrett) writes:

>   In short, I call into serious question Commodore's commitment to the
>Janus software.  There is so much potential with this software that
>has to date been totally ignored by Commodore.

(Can I do it?  Huh?  Please?)

OK, I'm going to say this slowly.


        There  is  no  software  problem.


It's a hardware problem.  MS-DOS provides such pitiful support of
the serial port that nobody uses it.  Every terminal program I know
of goes directly to the hardware.  A bridge board that could handle
this would have to emulate chip addresses and bit patterns before
Janus could even begin to work with it.  This means hardware, unless
you like working at 300 bps.

     If you don't know how serial port access works on IBM clones,
you probably don't realize that video access works exactly the same
way.  The bridge board manages to emulate hardware for two different
video interfaces (MDA and CGA), and Janus manages to talk to it well
enough that the 99% of IBM programs that hit the video chips directly
(even games!) can work.  Hell, there probably isn't enough memory
bandwidth left to emulate the serial ports too.

     My guess is that those good folks at Commodore, whose commitment
(and by implication competence) you seem so willing to question, had
spent so much time and effort making bridgeboard/Janus (hardware AND
software) work that even if they weren't taking a well-deserved rest
they still have to go and devote a bit of time to other things - like
the A3000, or the Display Enhancer, or the multi-serial board, or the
Ethernet board, or Unix.

     If you're so concerned about serial ports on the bridge board
(and not just looking for another excuse to flame Commodore as I
suspect) get yourself a multi-I/O board and drop it into a bridge
board slot.  One parallel and two serial ports, cheap like borscht.

     In case you're wondering, here are a few credentials.  This is
my hardware set-up:

A2500/20
40MB hard drive
880K 3 1/2-inch floppy drive
flickerFixer with multi-scanning monitor
Roland KX-P1124 printer
A2286 bridge board
720K 3 1/2-inch floppy drive
1.2-megabyte 5 1/4-inch floppy drive
30MB hard card (in a bridge board slot)
Multi-I/O board (in a bridge board slot)

I didn't get this system to whine about it.  I got it to develop
and support a commercial MS-DOS-based telephone management system.
Among other things, the proceeds from the 600 systems we have in
the field enabled me to buy my wife a 2500/30 with HP LaserJet IIP
for desktop publishing (heck, we gotta get a prettier manual out
somehow :-), not to mention the down payment on our current house.

     The bridge board works.  It works well.  I have a complete AT
tucked inside my Amiga, and it beats the hell out of cluttering my
desk with a brain-dead box.  When I want to work on some programs,
I awrite them over the the Amiga side and use CygnusEd and other
sophisticated tools (concurrently!) which give me a big performance
advantage over anything MS-DOS could offer.  I can compile a program
on the bridge board while working on the next one on the Amiga side.
It's a great environment for serious development work.

     If I have anything to whine about, it's MS-DOS itself (I can
tell you plenty of horror stories about that brain-dead operating
system) and not the great job Commodore did getting it to run in an
Amiga at all.  If you really want an IBM PC, go get yourself a cheap
clone.  Then maybe you can snivel at the people on comp.sys.ibm.pc,
and leave us alone.

Charlie_Gibbs@mindlink.bc.ca
MS-DOS: I hate it, but I use it - twice a day.