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From: Rod.Fulk@f24.n228.z1.FidoNet.Org (Rod Fulk)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.atari.st
Subject: Re: Amiga is better then what???
Message-ID: <678091803.1@therip.FidoNet>
Date: 28 Jun 91 04:45:38 GMT
Sender: FredMail@p0.f24.n228.z1.FidoNet.Org
Lines: 63

Gem tasks can communicate between them. 
As I said before TRUE multi tasking is of limited use. Specialty programs are 
available to do most things in the back ground. There is an explosion of PD 
programs that can multi task quite well. As well as communicate and such.
I realize these are not standards at this time but its only a matter of time.
 DRL>      Workbench is just as easy to use as any most other GUIs.  Double 
 DRL> click 
 DRL> the icon & away you go...
Yes but its not as "intuitive" as the St or Macs Desktop.. If you compare the 
amiga desktop to Windows maybe it works well and is very powerful... ;-)
(CLI support is heavy in the ST.. They just didnt provide the actual interface 
to one. There are alot of powerful Cli's out there. I like to run a unix clone 
type CLI when I DO need a CLI.. But the GUI is powerful enough you do not need 
the CLI...)
 DRL> 	 As far as "pure power", I've yet to see a GUI with the pure power of
 DRL> a Unix-like command line, which is part of the Amiga OS (note that you
 DRL> don't _have_ to use this; it's just there in case you want to).
The STe and above have VERY powerful features tucked away in their desktops...
Unless your a programmer you will never see them anyhow... (Isnt this the way 
its supposed to be? ;-) )
 DRL> 	 Nearly every Amiga user I talk to uses it on a regular basis.  I'm 
 DRL> doing
 DRL> it now.  A BBS is certainly far from the only time multitasking is 
 DRL> useful.
 DRL> 	 A list of the processes currently running on my system (using Snap, one
 DRL> of those processes, to clip this text from a window & paste it here):
(list of processes deleted.) Yes but those programs you listed could be run as 
TSR's too.. The ST DOES support specialized multi tasking... YOu just can not
do full blown multi tasking. The ability to run them in a full blown 
environment makes it kinda nice but its not a necessity... (I have a few 
processes running on my ST in the background too.. But they are either desk 
accessories like my terminal program or they are TSR's such as my ram disks 
and caches... And some performance enhancers are available too as well as 
things to make my screen bigger and such...) 
 DRL> 	 How is this superior to the Amiga's 4 channel 8 bit stereo sound?  (8 
 DRL> bit
 DRL> on all 4 channels, not just 2 of them).  There's even software 
 DRL> (Octaplayer?)
 DRL> that supposedly pushes out 8 voices.  Of course, unlike the ST, the 
 DRL> Amiga's
 DRL> sound is driven by yet another coprocessor, so it takes almost 0 CPU 
 DRL> time to
 DRL> play a musical score or a digitized sound (as a background process in 
 DRL> your
Ahh but your wrong.. IN a standard ST even the chip is a coprocessor. NO cpu 
time is taken to do most non-digital sounds. It is a synthisizer chip and you 
load it and it goes.. In the New STE you have 5 seperate voices... These can
be seperated into 3 different speakers. Unlike the Amigas dual purpose 
channels (Which can do either digital or synthisized sound) Each of the STe's 
channels are specialized. Depending on your usage of the STe you can get alot 
of sound out of it... (It wouldnot be difficult to get 4 and possibly 6 
channels on an STe in the digital channels   the same way as the amiga does.. 
These could be played off the stereo channels while the monitor or another 
speaker plays a totally synthisized accompliment. CPU overhead? Just load up 
the memory and plug the proper pointers with the addresses... (Its called DMA 
sound... ;-) Same as the amigas..)
As to the Disk drives... The ST uses a coprocessor too that doesnt take up 
much of the CPU time. It also is a DMA device.... (Same as the amiga... Same 
problem getting the HD drives to work too. Although the ST world has more then 
conquored this problem...)


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