Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Path: utzoo!mnetor!seismo!lll-crg!styx!ames!ucbcad!ucbvax!jade!eris!mwm From: mwm@eris.BERKELEY.EDU (Mike (Don't have strength to leave) Meyer) Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga Subject: Re: Initial Opinion of Amiga Message-ID: <1714@jade.BERKELEY.EDU> Date: Mon, 17-Nov-86 17:07:34 EST Article-I.D.: jade.1714 Posted: Mon Nov 17 17:07:34 1986 Date-Received: Tue, 18-Nov-86 09:11:52 EST References: <939@blia.BLI.COM> Sender: usenet@jade.BERKELEY.EDU Reply-To: mwm@eris.BERKELEY.EDU (Mike (Don't have strength to leave) Meyer) Organization: Missionaria Phonibalonica Lines: 84 Let me add some heat to the fire... In article <939@blia.BLI.COM> forrest@blia.BLI.COM (Jon Forrest) writes: >Anyway, I started this project with an open mind. Now, after >about 2 weeks of experience on the Amiga I thought I'd give >an accessment of the Amiga from the point of view of an experienced >computer programmer, although one without any Amiga experience or knowledge. How experienced? I'm an "experienced programmer" (over 10 years) and systems manager (over six years), and after using the Amiga, there's not a chance in the world of me going back to CP/Moid (and MS/DOS is a bigger - and maybe better - CP/M) things again. >The first thing I noticed is that the Amiga doesn't use Control-S >and Control-Q to stop and start output to the screen. Control-S >does work but only carriage return seems to resume output. The >XON/XOFF protocol is so common that I would hope that there is some >good reason why Amiga doesn't use it. As others have said, RTFM. The Amiga supports a "clean line" discipline: if there's input waiting on the line, then no new output will appear. While not as nice as the VMS "echo-when-read" discipline, it's still a lot nicer than the typical "immediate echo" that leaves garbage on the screen. Once you've got this, C-s/C-q becomes redundant. I also find space/backspace a lot easer to hit than C-s/C-q. >The next thing that bothered my is that the Amiga is SLOOOOOOW in >performing tasks that a standard speed IBM PC can do much better. >For example, running DIR is unacceptably slow. Yet, this is a very >commonly run command. The CD command has the same problem. Dir is an unusual case - you're fighting the features in the Amiga file system that make normal cases (opening a file by name) fast, and add robustness. "List quick" will be faster than "dir" on the Amiga. Whether it's faster than dir on a PC floppy is unknown to me; the only obsolete hardware I deal with these days is our Cray. As for the cd command, it changes directory as fast as anything else I type at (i.e. - I can't see the delay between hitting return and the prompt) if you're not crossing disks. Verifying that the directory you're changing to actually exists is a nice feature, but it does take some time. >1. The lack of wild card characters is a bother. Uh, I don't know what YOU call them, but #? does what I need done 90%+ of the time. The extra power in alternation, etc. is also there if you want it. >2. I couldn't find the command for removing a directory. Delete works if it's empty. "Delete all" will trim the tree. >3. The file system is very similar to Unix and MS-DOS. Why couldn't > they use the same pathname syntax of one of these? I don't know about MS-DOS, but it's *NOT* similar to Unix. It's a forest, whereas Unix is a tree (Forests have several advantages over trees. They also have some disadvantages). Not copying the ms-dos backslash is a win; it should make programs more portable (not sure it does; I don't know if the MS-DOS compilers have hacks in them to understand '/'-seperated names). >4. The amount of time it takes to respond to Control-C seems unpredictable. > This is true even though I was running a compile which does I/O > like crazy, which on the IBM is when Control-C's can be detected. That's related to the worst problem in AmigaDOS as an OS, that programs have to exit themselves. It hurts in more (and worse) ways than the C-c problem. >When I read other people's submissions complaining about systems I know >something about I often think to myself that the person who wrote >the article was obviously suffering from a severe case of cranial-anal >inversion. But, being in the same situation is a very enlightening >experience. I won't say the obvious. I will say that you should at least have read the manual and worked with the system for a while before commenting on it.