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From: higgin@cbmvax.cbm.UUCP (Paul Higginbottom)
Newsgroups: net.micro.atari16
Subject: Re: GNU_EMACS and uEMACS
Message-ID: <791@cbmvax.cbmvax.cbm.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 26-Sep-86 09:39:35 EDT
Article-I.D.: cbmvax.791
Posted: Fri Sep 26 09:39:35 1986
Date-Received: Tue, 30-Sep-86 20:33:03 EDT
References: <109200001@ccvaxa>
Reply-To: higgin@cbmvax.UUCP (Paul Higginbottom)
Organization: Commodore Technology, West Chester, PA
Lines: 44

In article <109200001@ccvaxa> preece@ccvaxa.UUCP writes:
>People should realize that some of the nicest features of GNUemacs
>are things that would be lost in a port to the ST: compiling from
>inside an edit session, shell windows, and filtering regions
>through commands are obviously not going to work without
>Unix multitasking.  It's still a nice editor, and without those
>features it might be small enough to fit...
>
>-- 
>scott preece
>gould/csd - urbana
>uucp:	ihnp4!uiucdcs!ccvaxa!preece
>arpa:	preece@gswd-vms

I couldn't resist replying to this one.  The ST computers are GREAT machines
but they need a multi-tasking O/S SOOOOO badly.  The features mentioned
above would port fine to the Amiga.  My uEmacs on the Amiga can spawn off
shells, execute a make or a cc while I'm still editing, etc.  That saves
me TONS of time (forget it if you're using floppies - i.e., doing mulitple
floppy operations, but with a hard disk... it's usable).

The trouble is... if Atari chose UNIX (which I highly doubt they will)
they'll have support nightmares, and the reason I highly doubt they will
is that UNIX is HUGE.  Sure you MIGHT get a kernel and a few bits and
pieces to run on a 1040ST, but all the utilities?  I remember laughing
when I played with an ATT7300 (UNIX box) which had 4% available disk
space upon powering up for the FIRST time!  What use is that?

PLEASE don't construe this message as another "this machine [AMIGA] is
better than that machine [ST]", my point was that multi-tasking is
incredibly useful, not only for developing, but for application users
too, e.g: boot the word processor, then boot the spreadsheet as well!
With inter-process communication, you can have real time integration.

So what are the options for the ST?  I read about O/S-9 - sounds good,
but is it reliable, efficient, etc?  Anyone know what Atari's plans
might be?  I mean TOS/GEM/etc doesn't cut the mustard right now I don't
think.  Fixed limits on accessed directories!?!!?  Fixed #'s accessories
and/or windows?  Geeez... guess they use fixed arrays inside.  Can you
say "lists"?

	Paul.

Disclaimer: I do not work for anyone, and my opinions are my own.