Xref: utzoo comp.sys.amiga.advocacy:4785 comp.sys.mac.system:7850 Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!bonnie.concordia.ca!uunet!elroy.jpl.nasa.gov!lll-winken!taco!hobbes.catt.ncsu.edu!kdarling From: kdarling@hobbes.catt.ncsu.edu (Kevin Darling) Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.advocacy,comp.sys.mac.system Subject: Re: De-macification of the Amiga (Re: The Amiga's Future) Message-ID: <1991Jun28.015423.21346@ncsu.edu> Date: 28 Jun 91 01:54:23 GMT References: <1991Jun27.041627.29718@mintaka.lcs.mit.edu> <1991Jun27.155751.28356@zardoz.eng.ohio-state.edu> <1991Jun27.161530.14821@midway.uchicago.edu> <1991Jun27.202423.7273@mintaka.lcs.mit.edu> Sender: news@ncsu.edu (USENET News System) Organization: North Carolina State University Lines: 34 rjc@geech.gnu.ai.mit.edu (Ray Cromwell) writes: > But does the Mac have "pure" applications and support for them at all? > I find this to be a major multitasking feature, as I can run > multiple copies of a 200-500k App without using extra memory. [Sidenote: Kev's Rule #2 which everyone breaks -- use common terminology for features, not funky CBM/Mac names!! Eg: use "reentrant", not "pure".] Ray: Well, yeah, I mean yeah... but it took _years_ before we started seeing very many reentrant/resident apps on the Amiga. It sure wasn't common at first! True story: about two dozen CoCo/OS9 owners trooped down to see the A1000 when it hit our town. We thought the Ami graphics were awesome, of course. We were all dying to buy one right then and there. UNTIL we tried to bring up another incarnation of the editor, and it didn't have enough room to LOAD another copy. "What!??" we all yelled, "You mean there's a 68000 in there and the bozos didn't even write reentrant code for it??!" That was enough to convince us all that the Amiga was really a C64 in disguise :-) So because of that bogosity, and the MSDOS-ish pathnames, we all left the store. No sales to us then. For that matter, it wasn't too long ago that even _suggesting_ that Amiga programmers write reentrant code, was a surefire flame topic on most nets. "Why?" they'd ask. "Who needs to run more than one copy of each program at one time?" Arrgh. In other words, Amiga history itself is awful weak to be dumping on the (was singletasking) Mac for not using reentrant code. Give the Mac a few more years of multitasking; then you can rag them :-). cheers - kev PS: if anyone's interested, Rule #1 is: don't use Amiga part numbers in discussions with other machine owners, unless you explain what they are! (example: "Well, my Amiga has an A2091".) Confuses the whole net.