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From: hadeishi@husc4.harvard.edu (mitsuharu hadeishi)
Newsgroups: net.micro.amiga
Subject: Re: ICON scheme, yucccchh.  yishh.. Bletch.
Message-ID: <331@husc6.HARVARD.EDU>
Date: Sun, 5-Oct-86 15:10:47 EDT
Article-I.D.: husc6.331
Posted: Sun Oct  5 15:10:47 1986
Date-Received: Tue, 7-Oct-86 19:39:04 EDT
References: <8610050713.AA13268@cory.Berkeley.EDU>
Sender: news@husc6.HARVARD.EDU
Reply-To: hadeishi@husc4.UUCP (mitsuharu hadeishi)
Organization: Harvard Science Center
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In article <8610050713.AA13268@cory.Berkeley.EDU> Matt writes:
> I don't much like the workbench's ICON scheme either.  It doesn't
>work well with the Amiga's directory structure.

	We were discussing this issue at length on the Well (a topic
started by Jim Goodnow of Manx C fame and contributed to by many
Bay Area hackers including a few of the Amiga OS designers now and then)
about the speed of directories in particular.  It was pointed out
(by me) that an important issue to consider was the appropriateness
of a filesystem/OS design to the performance of an icon based/graphic
oriented user interface.  I mean we just couldn't design in a vacuum;
some considerations should be made as to how this OS is going to be
used.  The C-A hackers were all in favor of dumping the filesystem
for a whole new filesystem while there was still time, but Commodore-
Amiga was totally against anything that would be incompatible with
1.1.  So despite a lot of intelligent and less intelligent argumentation,
the issue finally died.

	However, some of out comments were taken back to C-A by the
C-A hackers who had contributed to the discussion, and apparently the
disk sector allocation scheme was changed in 1.2 to reflect the
design of Workbench icons.  Apparently if you have a very small file
the 1.2 allocator attempts to allocate it as close to the home
directory track as possible.  Space is "reserved" for these small files
near the home track, or something of this nature.  In any case the
upshot is because of this icons are displayed MUCH faster under 1.2.
The Workbench icons seem to come up at least 2 to 3 times faster,
and if you use AddBuffers they typically come up even more rapidly.
This new system is totally compatible with 1.1 (since it is just a
change in the allocator) and yet gives a MUCH more professional
appearance to icon display for disks written under 1.2.

			-Mitsu