Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Path: utzoo!mnetor!seismo!ut-sally!pyramid!amdahl!amdcad!jimb From: jimb@amdcad.UUCP (Jim Budler) Newsgroups: net.micro.mac Subject: Re: Easy of programming, Mac, Amiga Message-ID: <13032@amdcad.UUCP> Date: Tue, 16-Sep-86 14:29:59 EDT Article-I.D.: amdcad.13032 Posted: Tue Sep 16 14:29:59 1986 Date-Received: Tue, 16-Sep-86 22:01:14 EDT References: <8609152222.AA23166@cory.Berkeley.EDU> Reply-To: jimb@amdcad.UUCP (Jim Budler) Organization: AMD, Sunnyvale, California Lines: 78 In article <8609152222.AA23166@cory.Berkeley.EDU> dillon@CORY.BERKELEY.EDU (Matt Dillon) writes: +--------------- | I agree that we don't have anything like a resource editor for the | Amiga yet, but there will be one soon. Of course, since the Amiga | has a normal file-system and a completely different method of | handling menu's and such, the editor would generate C global | structures that would then be compiled rather than modify the | resource file directory ('cause there ain't to resource file). +--------------- Normal file system? Did you ever notice that in unix applications there are two 'forks' called text and data. The difference is that the address of the two 'forks' is contained in the file itself, and on the mac the addresses are in the directory. +--------------- | IBM changed from flat to hierarchical without any problems. Since | the Amiga employs run-time libraries, and there are system calls to | modify library vectors, one could easily modify whichever call he +--------------- They did? I remember a LOT of problems with commercial applications during the switchover. Some of them involving costly updates to the commercial applications. I remember having to run Lotus under DOS 1.0, and use complicated methods to move data to and from hard disks during the time it took the upgrade of Lotus to become available (I know, some of that delay time was introduced by my companies purchasing, processing purchase requests, but that's still time). +--------------- | As for the file-system, the Amiga has always had a hierarchical | directory structure. It's only slow getting directories. It's speed | lies in reading/writing/finding. (but here I believe the MAC+ has | a faster filesystem; the amiga only beats out the older MACs). +--------------- I'm glad you said something nice. +--------------- | > Disk Operating system interface - The mac's operating system takes a Pascal | > view of the world. this is not great for a C programmer, but most Mac | > compilers have a pascal keyword that handles the details. The system | > itself is pretty decent. The Amiga's operating system is written in | > BCPL. BCPL is a ancient British language that was directly responsible | > for the birth of C. The designers of C started out in BCPL and | > concluded that it was not possible to make a BCPL compiler that | > generated decent code for a byte addressable machine. | | Here you are incorrectly assuming that the entire OS is written in | BCPL. This is not true. ONLY AMIGADOS is written in BCPL. All | the other stuff (Intuition, layers, graphics, devices, the system | exec.,...) was written by Amiga in C. | | I hate pascal. +--------------- I hate pascal, too, but don't consider the difficulty converting the calls to be any more than an extra bit of knowledge. Once you know it, you know it. It takes two minutes to code the interface. +--------------- | >Conclusion - both machines have their strengths and weaknesses as | >programming machines. I would probably choose an amiga if I were going to | >write "Pong". I would certainly choose the mac if I were doing anything | >involving fonted text manipulation or object oriented graphics. Although | >the hardware of the Amiga should be faster than a Macintosh, the superior | >software of the Mac consistantly makes it easier to use, faster, and more | >powerful at the kinds of tasks that I like to do. | >--- David Phillip Oster -- "The goal of Computer Science is to | | And the hardware on the Amiga IS faster than a MAC+. The MACs software | may be superior now, but then again the MAC's been out a couple years longer | than the Amiga. Lets see what happens in another year, you may be in for | some surprises. +--------------- And by the time the Amiga catches up with Mac on software, the Mac will catch up with the Amiga on hardware, retaining a lead in software. So in another year you may be in for some surprises. -- Jim Budler Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. (408) 749-5806 Usenet: {ucbvax,decwrl,ihnp4,allegra,intelca}!amdcad!jimb Compuserve: 72415,1200 I got tired of my old signature.